“I’m landing on zeroes, Zahra. Can’t access any live footage from beyond the elevators, so we won’t have eyes on you in there,”Upper said.
Good.
“That’s not good but you’ll be in our ears so everything should still pan out the same,”Dog said.
“Find him, charm him, get the info about the manor, and get out,”Milk said.
I looked up at the camera in the elevator to show I understood.
We’d clocked that the painting was here in Mexico, but we needed an in that wouldn’t result in innocents being caught in the crossfire, or word getting out that something suspicious was happening in the manor. I knew the news had calmed down after the school bus disaster, and the heist going live. Everyone knew who Arturo Garza was, so I suspected it was just a matter of time before people started to put two andtwo together, hence why the man who bought the manor had found it necessary to hide his name for his own safety.
The quest just got a lot deadlier, and to play a deadly game, one needed the help of deadly people. And now that we didn’t have the backing of the Marino empire, we were completely on our own.
Street didn’t know it, but I was fully responsible for them now, and I’d be damned ten times over if I let them get stuck in the crossfire of this whole shit.
The elevator stopped and the doors slid apart.
As expected, someone was there to usher me to where I’d be meeting the man whose help I needed.
Yaroslav Yegorov.
A very popular Russian transporter—smuggler—of anything. Drugs, contraband, and, most times, important people. He was also privy to high-level-clearance information, which was exactly what I wanted from him.
Street, in all their goodness, thought I was going to meet someone named Enrique Daniels, a man involved in underground real estate dealings, but it was for their safety that I hid the truth. They didn’t need to be messing with someone like Yaroslav. At least not when they knew absolutely nothing about my past.
The second we turned a corner of the hallway, approaching the door at the end, I turned off my comm, knowing they’d probably be freaking out, so I pulled out my phone and shot Upper a quick text.
Me:
Very armed inside. Can’t risk them finding the comm, plan still the same. Will give signal if things don’t go well.
I slipped my phone into my pocket without waiting for a response, schooling my features into a frown as the man who’dbeen escorting me pushed open the door and gestured for me to walk in.
I stepped into the cold office, the door shutting behind me.
My gaze was fixed on the bald man standing by the window, a familiar tatted face turning to regard me as a smile broke out on his lips, eyes shining in surprise. “My, my, my…” he said, his accent as thick as I remembered it. He stepped closer to me. “So is true then… you really are the one who requested an audience…”
I deepened my frown. “Why would you believe otherwise?”
“Why, because…” He walked behind the desk to take his seat, gesturing for me to do the same. “I know you never do business in person, you see… unless is important.”
I took the seat opposite him. “You hear correctly. I need some information I think you ha—”
“Straight to the point?” he asked, relaxing in his seat. “That’s not fair. I hear you disappeared from Sicily… If my source is right, this is the first time anyone has seen you in what, six years? Seven?”
I locked my jaw. “I don’t see how that concerns you, Yaroslav.”
“No?”
“No.”
He sighed, raising his hand in surrender. “You don’t want to chat.”
“Exactly.”
“Fine.” He blew out a breath. “Tell me how you found me. I only arrived in Mexico three days ago.”
I got comfortable, smiling. “You know I have my own sources, Yaroslav. I might have left Sicily, but the city did not leave me.”
