57
ALISON
We dressed,and I walked downstairs hand-in-hand with Gennadiy on legs that were still a little shaky. Outside, the sky was concrete-gray, and a heavy rain was hissing down.
By now, I knew to head for the dining room. The entire Aristov family was there, looking grim. “All three banks we bank with have frozen our assets,” Radimir told us, “Aristov Incorporated, our personal accounts, the cash in safety deposit boxes...everything. With the casino shut down, we have lost access to all our money. We can’t buy product, we can’t pay our men...Blyat’!” He looked at me helplessly. “The Italians, the Armenians, even the cartels, we can fight. But not this.”
I nodded. The entire system was being turned against them, and it would crush everything he and his brothers had built.
“This is Grushin,” said Gennadiy. “He must have ordered them to do it.”
“Three different banks?” asked Radimir. “He’d have to bribe someone senior at all three of them.”
Mikhail shook his head as he petted one of his dogs. “I’ve met some of those people. They make millions in bonuses every year; they aren’t interested in bribes.”
“Blackmail, then?” I asked.
“They can’tallhave deep, dark sex secrets!” said Bronwyn.
For the next three hours, we tried to figure it out. Mikhail helped with what he knew about Grushin’s old techniques from back in Moscow, and the others shared their knowledge about the Bratva and other organized crime in Chicago. They were doing their best to help, but I was the cop, and they were looking to me to figure this thing out. And I couldn’t. I paced up and down in front of the web of information I’d assembled, but none of it made sense.
The chef brought in a pot of coffee, and Bronwyn put a box of fancy-looking pastries on the table to keep us going. “Figured we needed a treat, with everything that’s going on,” she told me. “These are from this little bakery in New York, try one.”
I picked one up, but I was too deep in the problem to eat. How had Grushin managed to order around the heads of three different banks? “It’s not bribes. It’s not blackmail.” I brought the pastry closer. It had delicate, flaky pastry crusted with caramelized nuts. “Damn, these smell good.”
Bronwyn was already munching on one. “Konstantin’s girlfriend introduced me to them,” she mumbled, mouth full. “I’m turning into that bakery’s best customer.”
I looked up and stared at her as a light went on in my head. “What if we’ve been looking at this all wrong?” I asked. “What if all these people he has influence over are his customers?” I leaned over the table. “What if they’re buying something...bad.So bad, they can’t ever risk it getting out. And they know that if Grushin goes down,theycould go down.”
“So what’s he selling?” I thought back to the people on the submarine. “Maybe itissex trafficking.”
The Aristov men all scowled in disgust, which made me like them even more. “But Grushin is making millions per transaction,” said Gennadiy sadly. “People just aren’t worth that much.”
“And, the sort of people we’re talking about areold,”said Mikhail. “The head of the gaming board is nearly eighty. If he bought himself a beautiful young Russian woman, his heart would pop.”
Bronwyn coughed, and we all looked at her, thinking she was politely trying to get our attention. But then she put her hands to her throat, and then to her chest.
Radimir was at her side in a heartbeat. “Krasavitsa?Are you choking?”
Bronwyn was rapidly turning pale. Sweat was breaking out on her forehead. “Does she have allergies?” I asked.
Radimir caught his wife as she slumped sideways in her chair. “Bronwyn?!” He listened. “She’s barely breathing!” He turned to Valentin. “Get the car!”
Gennadiy knocked the pastry out of my hands. And it slowly dawned on me that Bronwyn had been poisoned.
58
GENNADIY
We all piledinto Radimir’s Mercedes, and Valentin sped us to the nearest ER, running every light, the tires fighting for grip on the soaking streets. Radimir sat in the back seat with Bronwyn in his arms, begging her in Russian to hold on.
At the hospital, the staff got Bronwyn onto a gurney and barreled her through the waiting area. Radimir ran alongside her, muttering to her in Russian even though she couldn’t hear him and squeezing her hand, while the rest of us chased along behind.
“Is she pregnant?” a nurse asked him. He was so distraught, he didn’t even hear her. “Sir! Is there any possibility your wife could be pregnant?”
“No,” Radimir told her. “We were just about to start trying for a baby, but she needed to talk to her doctor first. She’s on medication for rheumatoid arthritis.”
We reached the curtained-off treatment area, and doctors started trying to thread a tube down Bronwyn’s throat to help her breathe. “I need you all to wait in the waiting area!” the lead doctor told us. “Let us work!”
