Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
A few weeks later, at the end of the operation’s first month, assistant director Halifax breezed into our office. “How’s it going?” he asked.
“Great!” I beamed and waved at the wall of photos pinned to the wall, at the tree diagram of front companies and illegal enterprises we’d drawn. “We’re closing in.”
“Outstanding, Brooks.” Halifax headed for the door. “Glad to hear it.”
The instant the door closed, I let out a groan and slumped forward, resting my head on my keyboard. The truth was, we weren’t any closer to bringing Gennadiy down. Some of it was a lack of resources. Caroline worked her ass off and was really great at tracking down information and making connections. But Hadderwell had to be asked three times to do anything, and Fitch was surly, obstructive, and spent most of his time staring at my ass.
The main problem, though, was that Gennadiy was just too smart. We had plenty of information, but no smoking gun that would let us arrest him. Most criminals are actually pretty stupid. A few are clever and organized. But Gennadiy was exceptional. He worked his ass off, and he never let his guard down.
Caroline patted my shoulder. “We’ll get him.”
“I have no idea how,” I mumbled into my keyboard. “He’s just so...focused.”
“Reminds me of someone,” said Caroline. What’s that supposed to mean? “Look, you mind if I head out?”
I checked the time. It was after six, and unlike me, she had a family and a life. “Shit! Sorry, Caroline. Go, get out of here.”
She squeezed my shoulder, grabbed her purse, and headed out, leaving me as the last person in the office. I got up and paced, too stressed to sit still. What the hell am I going to do? Maybe Halifax had been right. Maybe Gennadiy was impossible to take down. If I failed, if three months went by and I still hadn’t got him, I could kiss my career goodbye. But, worse, Gennadiy would get away. He’d keep getting more violent, keep building his empire, keep crushing the little people under his feet.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a computer monitor and stopped. The little people. Like my parents.
I looked quickly away, eyes roving across the tree diagram of Gennadiy’s businesses. As I stood there wracking my brain for a way to bring Gennadiy down, I felt myself slowly rise up on my toes...and then sink back down. It’s an old habit left over from dancing, and it helps me think, but it looks dumb, so I only let myself do it when there’s no one around. I rose up...sank down. Gennadiy’s empire was vast and it connected to others too: Konstantin Gulyev, Luka Malakov...sometimes, the Russian Mafia felt like an infinite, sprawling beast…
I frowned. Russian Mafia. I’d never thought about that part. Before they came to the US, the Bratva had operated in Russia. How had the Russian cops fought them?
I ran back to my computer and started typing, first looking on the internet, then connecting to the State Department and sifting through their files. I went down a rabbit hole, and when I emerged three hours later, I had my answer. The Russian government had tried everything for years. Nothing worked. And then one man changed everything. His name was Viktor Grushin.
I found a photo of him, a tall man in his late fifties with silver hair and a short, pointed beard: good looking, in an older man kind of way. He wasn’t a cop, he was former GRU, Russian Military Intelligence. A frickin’ spy. Almost all of his file was classified, but he’d had a busy career, from the Middle East to Africa. And when the government brought him in to break the Bratva, he’d done it. He was like the Russian Elliot Ness, the one guy who’d been able to beat the gangs. I scanned quickly through his file, leaning forward in my chair. Was he still around? Could I get in contact with him, ask for advice?
Damnit. He’d died a few years ago. But he beat the Bratva. It was possible.
As I closed the file, the exhaustion suddenly hit me. It was after eleven, and my day had started at six that morning. I stumbled downstairs and changed into my motorcycle gear, and a few moments later, I was scything through the streets on my bike.
Normally, I love riding. When you’re driving a car, you move in staccato, ninety-degree movements: pull out, overtake, pull in. On a bike, you chain together a series of long, sweeping arcs, blasting past the traffic like it’s standing still. There’s no feeling like it in the world, and it’s the only thing that lets me vent the toxic anger that builds up inside me.
Except...in the last few weeks, even riding hadn’t been working. Being around Gennadiy fed my anger, and the more he made me mad, the more I obsessed about him. He was like the loose tooth my tongue couldn’t stop jiggling. Even now, as I wove between cars on the Clark Street bridge, he was on my mind. I could see the wind ruffling his black hair, feel the kiss of his Russian accent against my ear. There were plenty of Bratva bosses. Why did this one rile me so much? Because he was arrogant? Because he’d destroyed part of my childhood and my mom’s legacy? Or something else?