ALISON
Back at the mansion,the Aristovs and I gathered in the dining room again. I looked at Gennadiy, worried. He’d been silent, driving home. I’d asked a few times if he wanted to talk about Yakov, but he’d shaken his head.
“We don’t have to do this right now,” I whispered. “You just lost a friend.”
Gennadiy frowned and glanced around the table. “We learn to...compartmentalize,” he told me. The men all nodded. Bronwyn and I stared at each other, open-mouthed.
“Grushin must be watching us,” said Gennadiy. “He must have tailed us from here, figured out we were going to the docks, and sent someone ahead of us.”
“I didn’t see anyone following us,” I mumbled. I thought hard for a moment. “Shit!”Everyone looked at me. “It’s the FBI,” I groaned. “We put GPS trackers on your cars months ago.” I looked at Gennadiy. “That’s how I always knew where to find you. It’s how I knew where the money drop was, even when you thought you’d shaken off your tail.” I sighed. “And thanks to Grushin’s mole in the FBI, if they know where we are, he does too.”
Radimir slammed his fist on the table, making everyone jump. “ChertovskiFBI!” He glared at me.
Next to me, Gennadiy started to rise in his seat. I grabbed his shoulder. The last thing I wanted was the two of them fighting. “I’m sorry,” I told Radimir solemnly. “I should have thought of it sooner.”Then maybe Yakov would still be alive,I added silently, my stomach twisting in guilt.
Radimir sighed and shook his head. “I’msorry,” he said. “It’s been...a long day.” But I could tell he still didn’t fully trust me.
Gennadiy slowly sat back down. “I’ll reach out to Yakov’s woman in Seattle and…let her know. And I’ll make sure she and her daughter are looked after.” The others nodded in agreement. Gennadiy’s face was a mask of pain: he’d lost his best friend, the casino had been shut down, and Grushin was gunning for him and his family. He hadn’t slept in two days, and it was nearly one in the morning. The poor man was broken.
Now that I was still and safe, what happened in Yakov’s office was starting to sink in. When Gennadiy pushed in front of me, he’d been ready todiefor me, without thought, without question.
Something that had been out on the periphery, ever since the strip club, slid into place in my soul and engaged, filling me with a fierce, warm glow. My breath trembled. I felt protected. I hadn’t realized it, but I’d been searching for that feeling ever since the foster home, ever since my parents died.
I felt myself frown, determined.My manwas hurting. And I was going to do whatever it took to help him.
“Putting it all together,” said Bronwyn, “what do we know?” She counted off points on her fingers. “Grushin faked his own death and came to the US. He set up some sort of business here in Chicago, something that’s making millions every week. He’s smuggling something in from Russia to Canada and then across Lake Michigan to Chicago, using the information he blackmailed out of Yakov to avoid the Coast Guard patrols.”
“But we don’t know what he’s smuggling,” said Radimir. “It can’tbe drugs, not unless he’s bringing them in by the ton, and we would have noticed that, street prices would have plummeted.”
“Guns?” asked Valentin.
“Still wouldn’t make that sort of money,” said Gennadiy. “Not unless it’s top-secret military stuff. We know it’s somethingbad.Something the public will demand is stopped if we expose it.”
“We only know when one shipment is coming in,” said Bronwyn. “Midnight, tomorrow night. That’s our only chance to find out what’s going on. And we’ve got no idea where the boat’s delivering to. There are, what, twenty, thirty miles of shoreline? How do we find it?”
I could feel the worry from all of them. Grushin was threatening their entire empire, as well as their lives. And the more they worried, the more pressure it piled on Gennadiy. At the heart of all this was whatever illegal operation Grushin was running on the Aristov’s territory, and that meant, however much the other Aristovs helped, Gennadiy felt this whole thing was his responsibility. It was too much pressure for one person, especially when he was grieving.
I looked around the room. The Aristovs were all silent, despondent. Out of their depth. Mysteries weren’t their world.
They were mine.
I stood up. Five heads turned towards me. “I know how to find it,” I told them. “We’ll stop Grushin the same way I was going to stop you. Police work.” Then I looked at Gennadiy. “I’ll start first thing. But right now...it’s time to sleep.”
The words didn’t sound right, coming out of my mouth.Me?Put something off untiltomorrow?
But for the first time, there was something more important than solving the mystery. I had someone to take care of.
I took Gennadiy’s hand and stepped back from the table. He stared at me, then looked at his family, then back to me. His eyes flared with frustration. “You sleep. I need to work.”
He turned away from me, and my stomach lurched.Am I doing the wrong thing?I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of hisPakhan.But then I saw Bronwyn giving me a big, approving nod, and I tugged his hand. “No. Gennadiy Aristov, you need tosleep.”
He turned to me again, and this time his eyes went wide in shock, and just a bit of arrogant horror.How dare she?He glared, just like he had so many times when we were enemies...and I glared right back at him.
He softened...and melted. Just like I’d seen Radimir do with Bronwyn. He rose from the table and allowed me to tow him out of the room.
“What are you…where are wegoing?”he muttered in the hallway, cranky and confused and resigned, all at the same time.
“To the kitchen,” I told him, and marched in there. I opened the pantry and rooted around for the bottle I’d seen in there, keeping hold of him with my other hand to make sure he didn’t escape. “Okay! Now upstairs!”
