by Leroux, Lucy
“He’s late.” Rivera was backing Ethan up tonight. They’d decided on it a few days ago.
If this was sort of a Russian double-cross, they decided Jason’s face would be too familiar. The other agent was hunkered down at the bar, warming a stool while they waited.
Jason was out in the van with Jimenez, waiting in case the meeting turned into a shit show.
Ethan kept his voice to a low murmur. “He’ll show,” he said into his earpiece. He better. Ethan had broken the speed limit to get here on time.
“Bet you’re wishing he doesn’t so you can get back to your hot tamale.”
Only a faint narrowing of Ethan’s eyes betrayed his surprise. Otherwise, he didn’t move a hair in reaction. He kept sipping his overpriced beer, pretending to enjoy the mangled music. Well, pretending to at least tolerate it with a benign expression.
“I’m Hispanic, too, so I can say that,” Rivera argued. “But if you call her that, she should dump your ass.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Who told you about Juliet?”
“I thought it was Julie?”
Fuck. “Juliet is my pet name for Julie. It’s more romantic.”
The sound of Rivera gagging filtered over his earpiece.
“Now that you’re back on the dating scene, you should consider trying romance. Girls prefer it.”
“I thought dating was all about Tinder these days.”
So, it was like that. Well, whether Rivera found someone after his divorce wasn’t Ethan’s concern. He only appreciated that the agent wasn’t constantly bitching and moaning anymore.
Now if they could just keep random girls from hitting on the guy, maybe he’d be an effective backup.
Ethan sighed as a second hipster babe sat next to Rivera and tried to chat him up. At least the music had improved. The strangled sax had been replaced with a guitar. And the tune wasn’t half-bad. It sounded vaguely Eastern.
No. I’m wrong. It’s Russian.
“Well, fuck me.”
Viktor was the musician. The burly tattooed man towered over everyone in the bar. On the stage, the small spotlight seemed to minimize the worst of the effects, magically transmuting the Russian gangster into another oversized hipster with a guitar.
He heard Rivera snicker, but Ethan guessed he was covering. There was no way the other man wasn’t as surprised as he was.
Damn. The giant was rather good. Ethan marveled as Viktor strummed the guitar. In his hands, it looked like a toy. He also wondered how he’d gotten through the song without breaking a string.
The song wound down, and Viktor inclined his head the barest fraction in lieu of a bow. He walked off the stage, breaking the spell that he belonged there.
People scooted their chairs out of the way as he moved to the rear of the bar. Viktor settled into the vacant chair at the adjoining table, facing away from him.
“Not bad,” he said, twisting slightly. As far as anyone else could tell, he was simply another patron complimenting the last performer. “Where did you learn to play ‘Katyusha’ like that?”
“Around.” Viktor’s kept his gaze on the stage, even though it was empty now. None of the other amateurs wanted to follow him.
After a beat, the man continued. “How do you know Russian so well? You are American, aren’t you?”
Ethan shook his head the barest fraction. “My father was career army. We lived in Georgia for a while. Most people spoke Russian as a second language then. Now they speak English.”
“You are better at languages than your counterparts,” Viktor said, almost conversationally. There was a trace of his homeland in his speech, but if Ethan didn’t know better, he might have pegged Viktor as an American.
“How do you know that?” Ethan had done his homework on the Russian, although there hadn’t been much to find. But how did Viktor know about Ethan?”
His question was answered quickly. “I heard you speak it in the crowd after the incident at the Harvard Labs —with McLachlan’s wife.”
“You were there?” Ethan highly doubted that. There was no way Viktor would have gone unnoticed in that crowd.
“I was in a car, some distance away. But we had ears there.”
Well, that was disturbing, but it explained why Ethan had been chosen over his partner Jason.
Jason was closer to the MacLachlans through his wife Maggie. But the only second language Jason spoke was French, and very badly.
“Why did you pick this place?”
The big man shrugged. “It was far from home.”
“No one knows I do this from time to time,” Viktor continued, his eyes flicking to Ethan’s face. “I’m not watched as much as the others. They don’t think I have a brain or ears.”
Ethan nodded. It was easy to dismiss Viktor based on his size and obvious strength. He looked like a brute, so his crew treated him like one.
“When did you find out about the girls?”
Another shrug. “Such things…happen. Knowledge of them spills over.”
If that were true, there had been more ships with other cargoes. This sort of shit wasn’t new for the Komarov crew.
“So, what changed?” Something must have happened for Viktor to turn away from the Komarov.
Russian crews were like family. They demanded loyalty. Dissenters and traitors were punished harshly…or put down.
There was a long silence. “They gave me one.”
Ethan blinked. “What?”
“They gave me one of the girls fresh off the boat. As a reward.” Viktor rubbed his fingers together. “They forgot.”
Ethan wanted to look into the man’s eyes, but he forced himself to applaud lightly as a girl in her early twenties tentatively climbed on the stage with her guitar. He waited until she started playing before asking.
“What did they forget?”
This time, the silence was so long he thought Viktor wasn’t going to answer. “My mother came to this country that way. On a boat. And then a brothel. I was born there.”
Damn. “Is the girl okay? Your…gift?”
Viktor sighed, a strange sound coming from such a big body. “She thought she didn’t please me, and she admitted as much to the keeper who delivered her. It was a mistake. They tried to replace her. I got her back in time. She cleans my house now. But when they found out that was all she was doing, they gave me a second, more experienced girl from one of the brothels.”
Crap. “I see. Should I assume your help will be restricted to disrupting the Komarov’s involvement in the slave trade?”
“Yes…probably.”
Ethan raised a brow. Viktor couldn’t see his expression, but he acted as if he could. “I’ve come into new information recently. It’s made me reevaluate my position in the organization—specifically what I want it to be.”
Okay. Ethan didn’t know how to answer that. He decided not to. “What happened to the second girl they gave you?”
“She got bored. Decided to return to her brothel. For her, it beat cleaning.”
“All right. So, what can we do for you?”
“I thought you could shut down the house, arrest the brothel keeper.”
Interesting.
Unless Ethan was wrong, he would bet anything the local PD already knew about the brothel. He didn’t like it, but graft and vice were a fact of life in any big city. So many places flew under the radar, operating with the city’s blessing.
Well, fuck the status quo. “Where is this brothel?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” Ethan grimaced as Luna batted her long, thick lashes.
She held up her hand, reaching for him. “Play?” she asked hopefully.
“I wish I could kid.” He squatted beside her. “I know I promised to take you to the park, but the Angel called while Mama was giving you a bath. He wants the new raid planned yesterday, so I have to go into the office for a while.”
Her little nose wrinkled. She grabbed his thumb, wrapping h
er tiny fingers around it.
Aww. Why didn’t she just shoot him? It would hurt less.
“Yeah, I know, Little Moon.” He sighed. “But he’s the boss. I promise we’ll all go if I get back while there’s still light out.”
“Cake,” Luna shouted in response, rubbing her teething ring against his mouth.
“Aw, thank you, sweetie,” he said, pretending to chew. He kissed her goodbye, lingering to take a sniff of her clean baby scent before putting her back down to play.
“You know she doesn’t understand you yet, right?” Juliet asked with a laugh, walking him to the door.
Ethan was indignant. “She’s learning fast. I never heard her say ‘cake’ before.”
“It’s this week’s new word. Last week, it was cookie. I think most of her vocabulary is food related. Junk food specifically—and I think I know why.” Juliet cocked her hip, nudging him with it.
Ethan managed to maintain a straight face, recalling an incident with some chocolate-covered Oreos and a new floor rug that had to be thrown out. “But she was so cute, sticking out her lower lip and begging with tears in her eyes.”
“Those are crocodile tears. Don’t fall for it. Stick to fruit for snacks, please.”
He swore to do better, secretly aware he’d cave the moment Luna batted her thick baby eyelashes.
There will be other lazy Saturdays, he promised himself later when he was knee-deep in blueprints.
“So, when is this raid supposed to happen?” Jason asked with a yawn. He spread out the plans for the brothel and the neighboring buildings in Mattapan.
Ethan didn’t like coming in on the weekend any more than his partner did, but he was hiding it better. He glanced at his watch. I should be at home.
“Earth to Ethan. Paging Ethan.”
He raised his head. “What?”
Jason frowned. “I asked when you wanted to do this,” he said, gesturing to the blueprints.
“Oh yeah, that. I was thinking mid-week when the foot traffic inside is likely to be lowest. The fewer customers, the better.”
“Shouldn’t we be aiming for peak business hours? I want to bust as many Johns as we can.”
“I considered that, but we’re going in to help the women. It’s Viktor’s priority, so it should be ours. Plus, there’s too much of a chance that some of the Johns will be part of the Komarov crew. From what Viktor said, any could be packing. The more guns…”
“The higher the chance of gunfire,” Jason finished. “Okay, yeah, I get it. Although, in my opinion, nailing some of the Komarovs would be a bonus.”
Ethan grunted. “Charging them with prostitution is penny-ante stuff. It would slide off their back like water off a duck’s bill.”
“I don’t like that. Makes them seem like cute little birds instead of cold-blooded slavers and murderers.”
“You think ducks are cute?” Ethan wrinkled his nose.
“Don’t you?”
Ethan laughed. “Not a fan, unless they’re roasted and served in orange sauce. Outside of that, not so much.”
“Don’t knock ducks. It’s geese that are the fuckers. Those things can double as guard dogs. They bite, too.”
Ethan cocked his head. “Do I want to know how you know all this?”
“Hey, I’m an uncle now,” Jason pointed out. “My nephew is into baby ducks and bunny rabbits. Mags and I took him to the petting zoo last week. That kind of thing softens you up.”
“I think you came pre-softened.” Ethan snorted.
“Laugh it up while you can. You’re an acting dad now. Or are you going to tell me having Luna around doesn’t affect you?”
Ethan pursed his lips. “Actually, I want to finish early so Juliet and I can take Luna to the park.”
Jason smirked. “So…are you going to make things official?”
His partner started humming the “Wedding March,” making Ethan pause with his hand halfway to his coffee mug. “Juliet and I have been together for less than two months.”
“I knew I wanted to marry Maggie in less than one, or have you forgotten?”
“No. I remember exactly how desperate you were.”
Ethan ducked the pen that came flying. He leaned back in his chair. “And for now, I’m just going to enjoy having two gorgeous girls waiting for me.”
“Ugh, gross.”
“Yeah, I heard it, too,” Ethan conceded. “But it’s not like I have much of a choice but to wait. Until I know more about this Alvaro guy, I can’t plan a future, can I?”
Jason grimaced. “Because Juliet is living under an assumed name?”
Ethan nodded. “Luna, too.”
“Really?” His partner winced. “I should have guessed that, but I didn’t think about it. Poor little thing.”
Ethan wanted to correct him. In some ways, Luna was extremely fortunate. She’d certainly lucked out in her aunt. Juliet would do anything for her.
And, someday, she’ll do anything for our kids. All right, so maybe he was planning a future. He just hadn’t figured out how to pull it off.
A thought occurred to him. “Hey, you added known associates to that passport alert for Alvaro, right?”
Keeping tabs on the asshole wouldn’t do them much good if Alvaro sent someone else over the border in search of Juliet.
Jason’s eyes narrowed. “Err, well, the guy is too well-connected to cover everyone who works with him. We’d be guessing who his closest confidantes are in any case. We don’t know enough about him. Unless Julie can narrow down who her ex’s BFFs are.”
Ethan thought about it. “I don’t think she knows. He kept her completely in the dark about his double life. She told me he didn’t socialize much outside of work and political events. He spent most of his time networking, rubbing elbows with the city’s movers and shakers.” He sighed. “We’ll have to settle for monitoring Alvaro only.”
Jason tossed him another set of plans. “All right, let’s get back to our actual work so you don’t disappoint your little moon.”
“Yeah.” Ethan agreed, pulling his chair closer to the table.
Talking about Alvaro made him edgy. He redoubled his efforts, determined to get home as fast as he could.
A few hours later, he headed home, satisfied. He’d somehow managed to condense eight hours of work into four. Still patting himself on the back, he pulled into his apartment buildings parking lot right as Juliet ran out of the building.
Alarmed, he parked and turned off the engine as fast as he could. He was out of the car in a flash.
“What’s wrong?” He pulled her into his arms. Something had scared her. He could see it on her face.
“I don’t know.” Juliet turned her head in jerky motions, scanning the lot with a wild look in her eye. “Did you see another car?”
“No, why?”
She put a hand over her heart. “The electricians were here this morning.”
“Were they not supposed to be?”
“No, they were scheduled,” she said, her tone shifting from frightened to embarrassed. “But I could have sworn I saw one take a picture of me.”
His scowl was immediate. “Are you sure?”
“I think so.” However, doubt crept into her expression. “I wasn’t looking directly at him. I was talking to their supervisor in the hallway. He was in one of the rooms down the hall, but he stepped out for a second and I heard a click.”
“But you didn’t see him take the picture?”
“By the time I looked up, he was back in the room.” She grimaced. “Ethan, Luna was with me. I was holding her at the time. I took her upstairs and came back down to get a better look at the man, but the crew was leaving. Both of us must have just missed seeing their van.”
“Oh.” Mentally, he added ‘fuck’. He had assumed Luna was asleep.
A random taking sneaky pictures of a hot woman wasn’t all that strange. Creepy—yes. Uncommon? No. But the fact she had been holding Luna in her arms at the time set off warning bells in his mind.
Really fucking loud ones.
He plastered on a smile. “I’m sure it was nothing.”
“Are you certain?”
“You are a beautiful woman,” he said, pointing out the obvious. “It probably wasn’t more than that. I sure as hell don’t like it, though.”
He put his hand on the nape of her neck to guide her inside the building. “I think I’ll call the electrical contractor to talk to him about it.”
“I hope I’m not overreacting. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
“Better safe than sorry.” They took the elevator back up, eager to get back to Luna. She was in her playpen, her mouth a mess of chocolate.
“Excuse me… who scolded me about cookies earlier today?” he asked with a grin.
Blushing, Juliet went to wet a paper towel. She wiped Luna’s mouth as she apologized. “I know. But I needed a way to keep her in the playpen while I went downstairs.”
He kept his benign expression while Juliet got busy fussing over Luna and preparing dinner.
It crossed his mind that against all expectations, he had ended up with a very traditional woman.
Juliet had gone to the best schools in Mexico and Europe. She’d traveled the world, and she’d even spent a semester at Harvard in an exchange program. That was why she had chosen to come to Boston. She was familiar with the city, but she hadn’t lived here long. Juliet believed Alvaro would search in Miami or Los Angeles before he would look for her here.
And yet, despite her years of education, she made dinner for him every night. She hadn’t even known how to cook a year ago. Julie had grown up with maids to pick up after her and chefs to make her meals. She had taught herself for Luna’s sake. And Ethan was reaping the benefits.
It hadn’t occurred to him to feel bad about it until now.
If tragedy hadn’t befallen her, she wouldn’t be fixing their meals. She’d be off at a mixer, still studying for her law degree at the Sorbonne, or on some other exclusive institution.
I should offer to make dinner instead. It was the least he could do.
But then Ethan sniffed the air. Well, I’ll make dinner on a night when she hasn’t already started a parmesan cream sauce. Juliet served it over linguini with scallops. It was a simple meal, but he loved it.