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)
“I checked the security cameras at the club. Gennadiy’s car pulls up a few minutes before nine.” His voice was shaking. I’d never seen him so angry. “But he leaves without going in.”
Fuck. I tried to make my voice sound innocent. “Sir, I—”
“Save it, Brooks!” He yelled, loud enough to make the window shake. “I know what you did, I just can’t prove it!”
I was very glad I hadn’t used my own phone.
“I can’t fire you, but I can throw you off the case. I’ll take over the team for the final few weeks.” He lifted a thick file from his desk and almost threw it at me. “Go back to looking into the Cantellis.” He shoved a second, equally thick file at me. “And the O'Donnells.”
My stomach dropped. “Sir—”
“Don’t push me, Brooks! Be glad you still have a job!”
I turned and slunk out of his office, my eyes prickling. How had everything gotten so messed up?
17
GENNADIY
I heard her before I saw her. The snarl of her bike’s engine, rising and falling as she dodged through traffic, had become her theme song in my mind. At first, my shoulders had tensed in anger every time I heard it coming up behind me. Now, it made something in my chest wake and lift.
She came into view, leaning into the corners as she wove through the early morning traffic. She was so graceful when she rode: more than once, I’d nearly driven into another car because I was too busy watching her flex and bend and grip the bike between her thighs in my rear-view mirror.
I was watching her from the top of a small rise in Lincoln Park. In a few hours, the grass would be full of kids and picnicking families, but at seven in the morning, we had the place all to ourselves. It was a bright, clear day, and we had an uninterrupted view out over the sparkling blue of Lake Michigan.
She braked to a stop beside my BMW, pulled off her helmet, and marched into the park. She stopped about six feet from me, watchful and cautious. Is she scared of me? Or scared of what might happen?
I took a second to just look at her, staring into those flashing blue eyes. But then the breeze started playing with loose strands of her fine black hair, and it turned into more than a second…
I tore my eyes away. Something was happening to me. It had started back in the strip club, when I’d seen her in danger and felt this need to protect her. Then I’d seen her in the graveyard, broken and vulnerable, with no one in the world to turn to, and I’d suddenly understood how lonely she was. Maybe because it felt so familiar.
And then she’d risked her job to save my life.
Maybe it hadn’t started in the strip club. Maybe it had started back when she was following me all over town, and I’d realized how smart and tenacious she was. When I realized I finally had a worthy opponent.
Or maybe it started right back in the casino, when I’d snarled at her, and she’d lifted her chin and defied me. All I knew was, there was a part of me that had been dark, silent, and cold for years, and she made it spin to warm, colorful life.
I had no idea what the fuck I was going to do about it. After the graveyard, I’d had to apologize to Radimir and persuade him that killing Alison would bring too much heat down on us. He wasn’t happy about leaving her alive. He’d completely lose it if he knew we were meeting like this.
“You got my message, then?” I asked, my voice carefully gruff.
Alison snorted—somehow, when she did it, it was milyy, cute—and looked away. Could she feel it too?
“An anonymous tip to the FBI hotline,” she said. “Giant yellow duck sighted at these coordinates.”
I smirked. I’d been proud of that. But then my smile faded. “I haven’t seen you in a week.”
She went over to the railing and leaned on it. “I’m off the case. Someone else will be tailing you, now.”
I looked around. We were alone. “Clearly, they’re not as good as you.”
“Clearly.”
She turned and looked out across the lake. I joined her at the railing and did the same: this close to her, I didn’t dare look at her, or I might do something stupid. “I may be able to get you back on the case.”
I felt her look at me. “What?! How? No: why. Why first?”
“Because it’s my fault you’re off it.”
“But you hate me. This is exactly what you wanted, you’re rid of me.”
You hate me. It was right there, dangling in the air. I could say something…
Instead, I sucked in my breath and turned to her. “I want to beat you,” I told her. “I’m going to beat you. But not like this.”