“How’d you find me?”
Solis coughs, spitting blood onto the wood. “Harold Fitzgerald. He gave us your info.” He hisses out a wet, rattling breath. “Then he got himself killed.”
I release Solis and step back. Harold is dead. I don’t know what to think about that.
He straightens up, rubbing his shoulder and wincing. He doesn’t seem angry. If anything, he looks grimly satisfied, like my reaction confirmed something he suspected about me. The beagle continues sitting placidly on the sidewalk, completely unbothered by the whole production.
“Explain,” I bark. “Before I decide I don’t give a fuck about that badge and I break your arm for sport.”
“Alright, alright. Easy, man. Look, Harold came to us trying to cut a deal.” He pitches his voice low as his eyes rove around from side to side. “He was offering up documents and testimony in exchange for witness protection. Said he had all kinds of shit that would hold up in court. Enough to put Aleksei Izotov away for decades.”
My stomach drops as I see where this is headed. “But…?”
“But before we could finalize the arrangement, Harold turned up dead.” Solis’s jaw tightens. “His maid found him in his office with two bullets in the back of his skull. Tongue cut out and stuffed in his jacket pocket. According to the coroner, it did not happen in that order.”
I shudder at the thought of what Aleksei must’ve done to Harold before putting him out of his misery. Classic Bratva message.This is what happens to rats.
“I’m gonna reach into my jacket, alright?” he warns me. I nod and, slowly, Solis fishes into a pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. He unfolds it to reveal a picture of a table stacked high with documents, flash drives, stacks of photographs, and more. In the upper corner of the image, I see a familiar leather briefcase.
The same one Harold was holding in the parking garage.
Fuck me. It might be real after all.
“We got a warrant and recovered Harold’s documents from a personal bank vault before Aleksei’s people could get to them.” He stuffs the paper back out of sight. “What wedon’thave is a living witness who can tie it all to Aleksei directly. Harold was supposed to be that witness. Now, Harold is a corpse in the CookCounty morgue, and the case is falling apart.” Solis’s eyes bore into mine. “… Unless you step up.”
A rush of unidentifiable emotion roars through me. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Actually, I knowexactlywhat I’m asking.” His voice drops. “I’ve worked Organized Crime cases for twenty-five years, Mr. Hale. And I’ve been focused on the Izotov Bratva for most of that time. You don’t know me, butIknowyou. I know what you did for your brother. I know about the bodies. I know you’re not innocent by any stretch of the fucking imagination.” He pauses. “But I also know you’re the only person left alive who can put Aleksei behind bars.”
The beagle yawns. A few houses down, a lawn mower rumbles to life. I think of Eliana crouching beneath the roses and my teeth clench.
“The FBI is prepared to offer immunity,” Solis continues as he eyes me carefully. “Full witness protection for you and everyone you care about. We’ll look past the bodies; we can pin all those on Aleksei anyway. All you have to do is testify.”
“Why the fuck should I trust you?” I growl. “My brother owns everyone in Chicago. How do I know you’re not just another name on his payroll?”
Solis’s jaw hardens. Genuine anger flickers across his face. Then he sighs and the fury passes. “Let me tell you a story. When I was new to the Chicago bureau, just getting the lay of the land, I was partnered with a guy named Owen Moore. Good agent.Greatfuckin’ agent, man. Back then, your brother wasn’t quite what he is now. We knew him as a young guy, ambitious guy, but not the head honcho. Owen had him dead to rights, though. Alekseihad gotten a little sloppy, doing business around coke shipments with a couple other local gangs, trying to play them off each other, a whole bunch of bullshit like that. The details aren’t important—what matters is that Owen was gonna get him.”
The fury flares up again in Solis’s eyes. Anguish flits around at the edges of it. I know that mix of feelings, all too fucking well. “Then one morning, a couple days before the indictments were gonna land, Owen’s wife found him in their garage, hanging from the rafters with a note pinned to his chest that said,I’m sorry. They ruled it a suicide, if you can fuckin’ believe that. Bada-bing, bada-boom, case closed. Except IknewOwen. I knew that man better than I knew my own brother.” Solis’s hands ball into fists at his sides. “He had a six-year-old daughter. He was coaching T-ball that spring, for Christ’s sake. He wasn’t suicidal. He wasmurdered, and Aleksei made it look like something else so nobody would ask questions.”
The beagle whines softly, sensing its handler’s distress.
I don’t make a peep.
“Owen’s widow still lives in Naperville,” Solis says. “His daughter just turned twenty-one. She doesn’t remember her daddy. Not really. But I do. And I remember the man who took him.” Finally, the agent looks up at me. “The point of all this is to make it clear to you: No, Mr. Hale, I’m not on your brother’s fucking payroll.”
He shakes his head and glances around again before he pulls a card from his pocket and presses it into my hand. “I’ve arranged a meeting, at that address. In two days, you meet us there. I’ll have a federal prosecutor with me, just to prove this is all on the up and up. You show up, we talk terms, we keep all your loved ones safe.”
“And if I don’t?”
He shrugs. “Then I wish you luck. You’ll need it.”
I pocket the card and watch Solis bend to retrieve the beagle’s leash. Neither one of them looks at me. It’s like I’ve ceased to exist in their eyes.
“One more thing,” I call out before he can take a step away.
Solis pauses, half-turned.
“Does Aleksei know I’m alive?”
