I glance down at his academy graduation photo again. He looks markedly different, but it’s him. He’s athletic and tall enough to stand out in a crowd. More like someone who could run five miles flat on a moment’s notice. Lean strength. Shaggy blonde hair matching the stubble on his jaw. Eyes gleaming with obvious intelligence.
Kyle is coming out of a brick building on the West Side. Nondescript, the sort of place CPD uses for clandestine meetings. He pauses at the steps, slips out a cigarette, and lights it. He winces as he smokes, as if it’s the first cigarette he’s ever had.
Strange. Or not. If he’s working undercover, smoking’s a good way to fit in, especially with how straight-and-narrow the typical cop is these days.
“You want to tail him?” Andrei asks.
“Yes. But very carefully. No doubt he’s trained to look out for tails.”
Kyle slips into a late-model sedan, the sort that would never attract attention, and pulls into traffic. We follow. Andrei tails with the practiced skill of someone who’s done this in Moscow, in Prague, in Chicago. It’s a different dance, but the rhythm is the same.
Kyle moves through traffic with restraint. Doesn’t speed, doesn’t run red lights. Doesn’t give anyone a single reason to notice him.
He’s good, which makes him dangerous.
We track him for twenty minutes. He stops at a nearby coffee shop, goes inside, stays five minutes, then leaves. A quick meet? Habit? No way to know.
“Keep going?”
“Keep going.”
We follow him into a residential neighborhood. Small houses, middle-class. Part of me wants to break the tail before he notices, if he hasn’t already. But I say nothing. I want to knowwho I’m dealing with. I want to know if it’s just a coincidence that Amalie ended up in a job with me when she has a brother in CPD Intelligence.
Kyle pulls into a driveway and parks. Andrei eases into an open spot down the block, nestled among other cars. I watch as Kyle gets out, walks around to a side gate, and unlocks it. He then goes inside and out of sight.
I watch the house as if it might confess something if I stare hard enough.
“You want to call it off?” Andrei asks.
“I’ll tell you when I want to call it off. So far, he doesn’t know we’re here.”
“You sure?”
“He would be acting differently if he did. He’s cautious, but unaware of our presence.”
I keep my eyes on the house, but my mind returns to the other piece of the puzzle taking shape—Max Russo.
I don’t need a file on him to know what sort of man he is. No doubt he sees me as both a venue for professional advancement and a way to get to Amalie. First, he approaches me, then he approaches her.He’s looking at all possible angles, trying to figure out which is the softest entry point.
I sniffed ambition on him the second he approached me, a Bratva leader, in broad daylight. He’s got balls, I’ll give him that. And that’s to say nothing of him cornering Amalie the way he did. What would he have said to her if I hadn’t shown up? Would he have tried to turn her against me?
Time ticks by. I want to linger, to watch Kyle, to see if I can find out any more information. But I’m playing a dangerous game. If a member of CPD Intelligence spots me tailing him, that’d give him reason to turn the attention of the division on me.
That’s the last thing I need.
“Let’s go.”
Andrei pulls onto the street. I keep my eyes on the house just in case Kyle emerges. He doesn’t.
We’re soon headed toward downtown. My phone vibrates. I take it out and see another text from Doran. This time, a picture of Sasha and Amalie at the big table in the art room, painting something together. Their heads are down, their hands close to each other.
It’s calm. Domestic.
My chest tightens with emotion that surprises me.
I slip my phone back into my pocket and turn my attention to the road.
Garin, Russo, and perhaps Kyle Denning—three potential obstacles that stand in the way of getting this IPO off the ground. So many moving parts, so many ways it could all go wrong.
