When I wasn’t watching him, I was working with Caroline to map his network of illegal operations and front companies. A few days ago, we’d finally gathered enough to convince a judge to authorize a phone tap. The first time I listened to one of Gennadiy’s calls, I was full of hope.
But the calls I’d intercepted so far were worthless: the casino manager telling him about a new consignment of poker chips, the dry cleaners telling him his suit was ready. Gennadiy was too smart: he probably had burner phones we didn’t know about, and he only used his regular phone for unimportant stuff.
Gennadiy drove off, and I tailed him to a bar called Worship, which the brothers had taken from a bunch of Armenians earlier that year. I followed him in and sat in the corner sipping a ridiculously expensive alcohol-free beer, but it was useless: the Aristovs disappeared into a VIP area upstairs, and I wasn’t getting in there without a warrant.Goddammit!
When he finally left the bar, it was nearly midnight, and I was exhausted. I followed him back to the mansion and set up in my usual location outside.Weird...wasn’t that streetlight broken before?
I reclined my seat as far as it would go. I didn’t dare sleep, but I could at least get comfortable...or as comfortable as it’s possible to be, in a car with only tepid bottled water and a stale takeout sandwich.
Suddenly, the laptop on the seat next to me bleeped. Gennadiy was making a call! I grabbed my earbuds, hope rising. It was the middle of the night; no waythiswas the dry cleaners.
A voice. Russian-accented, female, and... excited. “Are you almost here?”
A long-suffering sigh from Gennadiy. “I have to cancel, Avelina. I’m sorry.”
“Gennadiy!Nooo!” She drew out the ‘o’ into a moan, and I grimaced. I could picture her, lower lip pouting. In my mind, she had long blonde hair and catwalk-model looks. I hated her already. It was something about his name in her mouth.
“You know how it is,” he said tiredly. “A problem with work.”
“There’salwaysa problem with work.”
I winced. I’d had this exact conversation with boyfriends in the past, when I had to work late at the FBI. They just didn’t understand that?—
“It’s important,” Gennadiy told Avelina. I nodded in agreement.
Avelina’s voice became sulky and sing-song, like a spoiled princess. “Sometimes, I think you just don’t care about me.”
There was a scraping sound, and I realized Gennadiy was running his hand over his stubble. “Avelina, you went into this with your eyes open. I told you, no getting involved. Just sex.”
I blinked. Was that really how he ran his life? It sounded so...stark. And lonely.
There was a rustle of covers and awump, as if Avelina was lying in bed and had melodramatically flopped onto her back. “Fine. Tomorrow night, then. But...Gennadiy?”
“Yes?”
“Tell me what you’ll do to me.”
I could almost hear the smile spread across Gennadiy’s face. “That depends. Have you been a good girl, Avelina? Or a bad one?”
The faint creak of the bed as Avelina shifted her weight. “A very, very bad one,” she whispered.
“Then I’m going to have to bend you over your kitchen table again,” Gennadiy told her. “Pull your dress up over your hips. Rip away your panties.”
I felt my face heating.I should stop listening.Clearly, this wasn’t about work. But my hand wouldn’t move to theDisconnectbutton.
“Then I’ll push your legs wide apart.” Gennadiy’s Russian accent made each word a silvery weight that sank through my mind and plunged straight to my groin. “Shove my face between your thighs.”
I glared at the laptop.I hate him,I thought determinedly.I’m going to destroy the bastard.
But…
There was something different about the rage he sparked in me. I’m used to my anger, it’s a poisonous black ooze that wells up from deep inside me, filling me, crushing my lungs until I can’t breathe,squeezing my brain until I can’t think, until I have to find some way to release it. But with Gennadiy, it was like the dark liquid heated as the pressure built. The more I saw of him, the more I heard his accent, the hotter the anger got, boiling towards a flashpoint where it would just explode.
“I’ll pin you to the table,” said Gennadiy. “And press my tongue right up inside you. I’ll tongue-fuck you to the very edge. But I won’t let you come. Not until you’re a thrashing, moaning mess. Not until you beg me to let you.”
Avelina’s breathing had gone trembly. So had mine.
“And then I’ll push two fingers into you and feel you squeeze them as you come,” said Gennadiy.
