“Did you know what was happening?” I tried to ask gently, to keep any note of accusation out of my voice.
Judgement wouldn’t do us any good here.
“Not at first,” she said. “It was just… money. Money flying from Russia to London to America, sometimes the other way, sometimes to other places. But then…”
Her voice trialed off and she focused on the fire, burning lower in the grate, her eyes clouded with the past.
“Then?” I prompted.
“Then I realized my friends in America — friends like your mother — were talking about missing girls, and it was always right around the time I’d been tasked with funneling money from Russia to America. To Aventine.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I talked to your mother of course. She was already digging in Blackwell Falls, along with your father, collecting what your mother calledevidence.So I started smuggling documents from the bank — transaction records showing the transfers from Russia to Aventine — and sending them to your parents.”
“Did you get caught?” I asked.
“Believe it or not, I’ve never been sure.”
“You’re alive,” Hawk said.
“Indeed, but I’ve never been sure if that was luck or the power of my family. I made it easy for them, ran away in the night, changed my name, went as far underground as I could.” For the first time, a smile teased her lips. “This was before privacy was a relic, back when it was still possible — barely — to go into hiding if one was very very careful.”
“And you were very very careful,” I said.
“I was. I had some family money, plus the money I’d earned from the Bratva, which was no insignificant. I purchased this house with cash under another name and I’ve been here ever since. Alone.”
“You knew what was going on,” Jagger said softly. “Or you suspected. Cassie’s parents were exposed, in danger. You didn’t think you should come forward to help?”
“Jagger…” I didn’t want him to make Anna feel bad.
She’d lost enough.
“No, no…” Anna waved away my protests. “He’s right. I could have gone to the authorities, told them what I knew.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
“Because I knew the Bratva, knew they were powerful enough to silence me before I’d even left the police station. And I also knew they weren’t alone.”
“What do you mean they weren’t alone?”
“Imperium Fratrum,” she said softly.
“Imperium…”
“Fratrum,” she repeated. “Empire of the Brothers.”
“What the fuck is Empire of the Brothers?” Vigo asked.
He was spinning a fire poker as casually as a baton, the pointed end coming perilously close to knocking books and knickknacks off Anna’s shelves.
I glared and he stopped spinning.
“It’s the organization responsible for your missing girls,” Anna said. “And it goes far beyond the bratva, far beyond Russia. I was lucky to get out when I did.”
“Yeah well, Cassie’s parents weren’t so lucky,” Hawk said, his voice cold.
“Hawk!” I was horrified.
