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)
It was getting harder and harder to hate him. And without the hate, there was nothing to hold back the attraction that had been there from the start. Now, every time I saw him, it was like my whole body woke and came to breathless attention, as if the time in between was just a waste. And then it would start: my eyes darting everywhere, racing over his suit, his shirt, sneaking looks at the triangle of tattooed, tan flesh at his shirt collar. I’d catch his scent and have to dig my fingernails into my palms because I was imagining sliding my hands around his waist, feeling the hard, warm ridges of his abs through the soft cotton of his shirt.
Then he’d speak, and I’d have to force myself to focus on what he was saying because each low growl resonated right to my core, each word a little bomb that exploded there and sent liquid silver racing straight down to my groin. And it was more than just lust. Whenever I was close to him, my right cheek—always my right cheek—would prickle with the memory of how his pec had felt when he’d hugged me against his chest at the graveyard. I’d been bawling my eyes out, but the warmth of him, the solid wall of him, protecting me, had been the best thing I’d ever felt.
I put my head in my hands. “What are you doing, Brooks?” I muttered. Was I really so lonely and fucked up that I was starting to feel things for a gangster?
Yes. Yes, I just might be.
I screwed my eyes closed and gave a silent scream of frustration, then sat up straight in my chair. Focus! I’d printed out a photo of Viktor Grushin, my Russian counterpart, and stuck it beside my monitor, for moments like these. He wouldn’t let himself get...distracted like this. He would have had Gennadiy locked in a cell by now. God, I wish you were alive.
Maybe it was because I wanted to shut out the thought of my blind date, but I brought up Viktor’s file and idly flicked through it, wondering how he’d died. Heart attack. He’d only been in his early sixties but he’d been a smoker, so that made sense…
Then I saw something that made me lean forward in my chair.
I’d been looking at the scan of the autopsy report, which was in Russian. My computer was helpfully translating the text into English, overlaying it on the Cyrillic. But there was one line right at the bottom that stood out because it wasn’t translated. It was just a filename, a string of numbers and letters. And part of it was the date and time the autopsy report had been created.
The date was two weeks before Viktor’s death.
I sat there staring at it. Maybe the date was wrong on the pathologist’s computer?
Or maybe this was someone else’s autopsy report, and they’d copied it and changed the details to Viktor’s, but not noticed the date code at the bottom.
What if Viktor had faked his death? I turned the idea over in my mind. This was a guy who’d put some of the most notorious criminals in Russia behind bars. A national hero...but someone every gang wanted dead. The man couldn’t just retire and go fishing; he’d be dead in a week...unless everyone thought he was already dead.
I started typing in searches, digging deeper and deeper. The FBI is hooked into a lot of databases around the world, and I knew exactly what I was looking for: a man of Viktor’s age, with Viktor’s face, but with a different name. And eventually, I got a match.
I sat back in my chair. “Holy shit,” I said aloud.
Viktor Grushin was living under a new name, pretending to be a Polish national. And he was regularly flying between Russia and New York, LA...and most recently, Chicago. He’s alive. And he was right here in my city. I tried to download a copy of his file, but hit a server error, so I settled for snapping a photo of my screen with my phone. Could I contact him? Maybe ask for his help? He was retired and probably wouldn’t take kindly to someone blowing his cover, but maybe if I pleaded…
My eyes fell on the post it note on my monitor: Edgar, 8pm. The clock on my computer said 7:51pm.
Shit! I was going to be late! And I couldn’t just not show up and leave the poor guy sitting there. I looked down at my suit. There was no time to go home and change. Well, at least I skip the agonizing about what to wear.
When I showed up at the restaurant in my biker leathers, the staff thought I was a delivery driver and tried to give me a takeout bag. I found the bathroom and scrambled out of my leathers and into my suit, then looked despairingly at myself in the mirror. I put on some lipstick, then unbuttoned a button on my blouse. That’ll have to do.