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 turned and stared at me, looking shocked...and then impressed. “You really are an FBI agent. Yes, that is true. But it’s a story he’ll have to tell you.” Mikhail waggled a dripping finger in the air. “And he won’t want to.”
I nodded silently. Gennadiy could be stubborn.
But so could I.
42
ALISON
The next morning, as soon as the banks opened, I marched into the manager’s office and flashed my badge. “I need to see the transactions on this account,” I told him, showing him the number of the account that had paid the assassin. “Right now.”
Normally, I would have filled out some forms, connected to a database, and dug into the accounts without ever leaving my desk. But using official channels would light up big red flashing alerts that I was suspended and my access had been revoked. I was hoping the old-fashioned approach would work: I’d even stopped at a store and bought a new pant suit so I looked more like an FBI agent again.
I was in luck: the manager’s eyes went wide with fear when he saw my badge, and he couldn’t cooperate fast enough. He even brought me a cup of coffee while I looked through Grushin’s transactions. My badge might scare men away, but it has its uses.
My good mood evaporated when I started looking through the transactions. I had to check twice, thinking I’d miscounted the zeroes. The bank account was supposedly for a private medical clinic on the edge of town—obviously a front for whatever Grushin was actually doing. He was using it to launder money, dumping in funds and claiming they came from patients. But it was the amount of money that shocked me. There were two to three deposits every week, each between two and five million dollars. Grushin was bringing in about half a billion dollars a year. What the hell is he doing? I wished Caroline was there to bounce ideas off.
I arrived back at the mansion mid-morning and found Gennadiy just coming out of the shower. He’d been at the casino all night and had just come home to change his clothes. I sat on the four-poster bed, watching him dress, while I told him what I’d found out. “He’s making hundreds of millions, and it looks like he’s been here for at least a year. What’s he selling? And how did we not notice it at the FBI? And why does he want so much money, anyway? Mikhail said it’s power he really craves.”
Gennadiy shook his head as he pulled on a forest-green shirt. “I don’t know. It’s…” He rubbed at his eyes. “Troubling.”
I was trying to think, but it was hard not to be distracted. Shafts of warm sunlight from between the drapes lit up patches of his smooth, caramel skin and slid over the hills and valleys of his abs. I watched longingly, as his body slowly disappeared under the shirt, like watching a stripper in reverse. He fastened his cuffs, then moved on to the buttons. But he was operating on no sleep and had three buttons done before he realized the first one was in the wrong hole. “Blyat’!” he muttered.
I walked over and stood in front of him, dwarfed by his big body. I gently pushed his hands aside and started redoing the buttons for him. “You need to rest,” I told him.
“I’ll rest when all this is done.”
Hmm. That sounded a lot like something I’d say. I’d never seen a workaholic from the outside. I finished the buttons and then laid my palms on his chest in a way I hoped was comforting. He scowled down at me suspiciously, and I swallowed: I felt like a mouse, trying to calm a grumpy bull. But I was determined to help him. “You...work a lot,” I said gently. “Harder and harder. Building the business, destroying your enemies. I think...you’ve got this anger inside you, and it drives you.” I looked down at my ruined leg, thinking of my parents, my missing childhood. “I know what that’s like. But with you...it feels like the anger isn’t fading, it’s getting worse.”
Gennadiy cocked a brow. So?
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to make him mad. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, but I wouldn’t get anywhere if I got him riled up. “What is it?” I asked, so quietly it was almost a whisper. “Where does it come from? Maybe I can help.”
He grimaced and started to say something: to snap at me, maybe. But he bit it back. Then again, and again, he bit it back. He took a deep breath and then took my cheeks in his hands and looked down at me. My heart lifted: he was trying so hard to make this work. “Thank you,” he said. “I know...I know that you mean well. But it isn’t something I can talk about.”