Then the door opens before I reach it.
A striking man steps out. Gray wool coat. Black tie. Sleek gray suit. Espresso-brown hair, short on the sides, longer on top, perfectly tamed. Intelligent brown eyes behind black-framed glasses.
“Ms. Anderson,” he says. “Finally, we meet.”
“Who are you, and why have you been following me?” Adrenaline spikes and my pulse riots.
He smiles, draws a black wallet from inside his jacket, and flips it open. “Special Agent Tristan Clarke, FBI, Criminal Investigative Division, at your service. We need to talk. Time is of the essence, and your life is in danger. Will you come with me?”
Indecision wobbles inside me. Something pinches my gut. I glance back at the looming mansion—my prison—and think about the enigmatic man who is my husband in name.
Why am I waffling? Why do I feelloyalto Elias? He’s a criminal.
Remember the vault. The people he killed. The gun he pressed against your head.
I’m losing my mind.
Drawing a quick breath, I slide into the backseat. “Don’t make me regret this, Special Agent.”
Chapter 27: A GAME OF CHESS
The crack of hisjawbone shattering vibrates inside the small cell of a nondescript warehouse at the edge of Saints Hollow. I sit in a dark corner, ankle to my knee, watching Niko deliver another sharp right hook to the handler’s face.
I tsk. That one was weak. Bad angle. I could’ve done better.
“I swear I know nothing!” the man sputters, sweat dripping down his forehead.
Niko—the number two enforcer under the deranged Bakim of the Albanian mob—arches a dark brow at me.
I press my lips together. “I don’t buy it. Do you?”
Niko cracks a small smile and drags the man up by his collar. “Tell us who gave you the USB.”
The Berishas think the encrypted messages, which stopped their “shipments,” came from a USB drive.
A drive I planted, courtesy of Aleksei.
“An inside job.” He grins. “Nothing freaks these people out more than a mole.”
“I swear it’s not me. You’ve got the wrong guy!”
“Only you knew about the shipments from Estonia and Croatia. It’s strange, isn’t it? The moment you disappeared was when all the shit went down?”
He lands another hard punch into the man’s stomach.
A wet plop. A rancid smell.
Shit, the bastard vomited.
I twirl my gloved finger in the air and tell Niko, “I don’t know about you, but this is going nowhere, and I have an appointment to get to. Speed it up.”
Niko grunts and excuses himself to go outside, no doubt to bring in some power tools.
As the door slams shut, the man—Akim, I think; these assholes are all the same—stares at me, blood pooling at the corner of his lips.
“M-Mr. Kent, believe me! I didn’t send the virus. I had an emergency at home. When I came back, they told me the servers were hacked. Please! Tell them it wasn’t me.”
I sigh. I almost feel sorry for the bastard since he’s our fall guy.
