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)
Mikhail looked right at me and spoke slowly and carefully, so I didn’t miss a word. “Viktor Grushin,” he said, “did take down the gangs, but not by becoming a cop. He did it by becoming worse than any of them. He became a predator who preyed on criminals.” He waved his hand at me. “You FBI, you think that the Bratva is as bad as it gets. Viktor Grushin is as bad as it gets. He had no code, no honor. He didn’t care about collateral damage. He gunned down entire restaurants, just to eliminate one person. He would snatch the children of gang leaders from their schools, and of course, the teachers would let him, because he was with the police. Then he would call the parent and break the child’s fingers over the phone until the gang leader came out of hiding, at which point Grushin would kill him and move on to the next. I once—”
Mikhail broke off, his shoulders slumping. He gestured, and Gennadiy poured him another vodka, but Mikhail didn’t drink this one. He just turned the glass around and around in his hands, staring at it. “I once had a friend named Prokopy Ivakin,” he said quietly. “His wife, Katya...before she was with him, she and I—” He fell silent again, and Gennadiy and I looked at each other: he looked as shocked as me.
“One night,” Mikhail continued, “Grushin and his men came for Prokopy. They interrogated him, trying to get all his contacts. He wouldn’t talk so...Grushin took Katya and…”—Mikhail’s voice became savage—“he raped her, in front of her husband. He didn’t stop, even when Prokopy talked. And afterwards, he shot them both.” As he knocked back the vodka, I thought I glimpsed tears in his eyes. My chest ached for him. Oh, Mikhail… And at the same time, I was cringing at how I’d hero-worshipped Grushin.
“I didn’t know any of this,” muttered Radimir, sounding sickened. “I heard talk of him but not...the details.”
“The three of you had already left for America, thank God,” Mikhail told him. “Grushin is one of the reasons I followed you.” He sighed and continued. “What the government didn’t realize was that a man like Grushin wasn’t going to take down the gangs for a paltry government salary. He’d been close to Crown Princes and dictators for too long; he wanted to be rich...but even more, he wanted power. The whole time he was crushing the gangs, he was stealing their money, taking over their operations. He didn’t create his own gang: that would have been noticed. He operated like a parasite, using blackmail to control people high up in the remaining gangs, and no one ever knew who the traitors were until it was too late.” Mikhail pinned me with a look. “Viktor Grushin is the one man the Bratva fear, the one man we hate more than the cops.”
Everyone sat in stunned silence for a moment. “What happened to him?” asked Gennadiy.
Mikhail sighed. “He amassed so much money and power, and kompromat on important people, that the government got scared. Rumor was, they were going to have him killed. When I heard he’d died of a heart attack, I thought that’s what had happened.”
“But he wasn’t dead at all,” I whispered, stunned. “He must have known the government was coming for him, so he faked his death. Got a new identity and came here.”
Mikhail nodded. “And if he’s in this city, and he has people in the FBI, then he’s building a new network, right here in Chicago.”
“He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s alive,” said Bronwyn. “His mole at the FBI probably keeps watch on his file. When they saw you digging into him, they alerted Grushin, and he tried to take you out.”
“And he tried to frame me to get me out of the way,” said Gennadiy. “Because he doesn’t want the Aristovs interfering in whatever he’s doing in Chicago. He’s out there, somewhere, getting stronger every day. Soon he’ll be too strong to stop.” He looked meaningfully at Radimir. “We’d never even have known Grushin was in the city, if not for her.”
Radimir leaned forward. “We helped you,” he told me. “Now it seems you can help us. Whatever Grushin’s doing, it’s a threat to us. We need to find out what he’s up to and stop him. Then maybe we can clear your name, too.”
I realized Valentin was looking at me, too. All of them were. I swallowed… and nodded slowly. It felt like I was stepping through a mirror, into a backwards world: I’d run to Gennadiy, a cop who needed a criminal for protection. Now the criminals had a mystery to solve...and they needed a cop to solve it.
I thought hard. Then, “If we can find the assassin Grushin sent to kill me, maybe we can get him to lead us to Grushin,” I looked at Mikhail. “You told me Grushin doesn’t have a gang of his own, so who did he send to kill me in my apartment?”