In short, the situation does not look good.
The judge rattles off the remainder of the formalities, then opens the floor for the plaintiff’s attorney to make his opening statement. The young lawyer stands up next to Nicole, and I see her eyes watching him carefully. There is something in her expression that seems off, but I can’t put my finger on it.
“Thank you, your honor,” the attorney said. “My client and I are here to bring justice to Misha Chaykovsky, the alleged de facto leader of an elaborate and organized Russian crime syndicate in the city of Las Vegas, informally known as the bratva.”
I have to hold back a smile. It sounds dramatic when he puts it like that. I should have lawyers introduce me more often.
“We believe Mr. Chaykovsky to have carried out a number of illegal operations for profit in the city and throughout the state of Nevada, both by proxy and in person. The arresting officer, Nicole Burns, conducted an undercover operation for several months to gather the evidence that we intend to present today. The charges against Mr. Chaykovsky today include racketeering, drug trafficking, and tax evasion. Should the case against Mr. Chaykovsky be allowed to proceed, the LVPD has reason to believe the charges of murder in the first degree, grand larceny, arson, and carrying out a number of notorious and unsolved contract killings within the city.”
I lean back in my chair, presenting myself as relaxed as possible. A lot of that statement was pure bravado. Nicole might get me on trafficking, but racketeering will be hard to prove, and all the rest is just smoke. But the opening statement is not yet finished.
“Officer Burns,” he says with a gesture to her, “got acquainted closely with Mr. Chaykovsky in her time undercover and will act as the sole witness today. Mr. Chaykovsky has close ties to his associates in Moscow, and given his resources and connections, we believe he is a significant flight risk, and the prosecution requests no bail.”
When the prosecuting attorney finished, my attorney stands up to present my opening statement, a much briefer rebuttal.
“Your honor,” she starts, “my client is a successful businessman in Las Vegas and a boon to the local economy. He is a job creator and a shrewd negotiator, as the witnesses I have gathered will attest. The charges leveled at him by Officer Burns are founded on evidence that I will demonstrate is not admissible in court because of a number of procedural violations she committed on the job.”
Nicole glances my way, and I know she’s wondering if I told my attorney that we had sex. I crack her the faintest ghost of a smile just to make her nervous, and she looks away from me.
In truth, I didn’t tell the attorney that. I am not completely sure why I didn’t. Part of me thinks it would just be useless baggage to drag out that she could easily twist into a prostitution charge. I know that’s not all of it, though.
Still, it’s nice to see her squirm as payback for arresting me.
My attorney names a few other technicalities that would hopefully throw out the case, but I know that I had been caught red-handed. All Nicole has to do is tell them how things went down, and it would be all the judge needed to hear.
They were right to consider me a flight risk, because I’d be on a plane to Moscow first thing in the morning if I was granted bail.
A few minutes and formalities later, Nicole is walking up to the witness stand. We lock eyes for a few moments as she went, and those eyes of hers were unreadable.
It is such a strange, stark difference from the gleaming eyes I saw when my cock entered her in my penthouse. She was able to bring up so much desire and promise in a single glance, but now, she is able to keep her true intentions completely masked.
She is a damn fine actress, or a very complicated person, and I’m starting to think she may be a little of both. I couldn’t have asked for a more worthy enemy, at least.
“State your full name for the court, please,” the judge asks her once she is on the stand.
“Nicole Burns,” she replies.
“Do you swear that the evidence you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god?”
“Yes,” she answers, never breaking eye contact with the judge.
“Officer Burns,” the judge begins in a less formal voice as he reviews some papers in front of him, “your attorney says you were the arresting officer at Mr. Chaykovsky’s establishment. Is that correct?”
“Yes, your honor,” she says. There’s such a tense silence in the court under her words that we could have heard a pin drop.
“Please explain the nature of your undercover work.”
“I spent three months working as a dancer at various clubs on the Strip under the stage name Misty,” she says. “In that time, I got to know a number of Mr. Chaykovsky’s associates, as well as him himself, briefly. My purpose was to get evidence to convict him on the suspicion that he orchestrated and carried out the crimes he’s being charged with. I arrested him just before a police search of the establishment when I believed I had enough evidence to bring to the court.”
“And what evidence did you find?” the judge asks.
Nicole’s eyes want to go to me. I notice the faintest twitch of her face. The silence is so thick I could cut it with a finger before the next words come out of her mouth.
“We found nothing, your honor.”
The words dropped like an anvil in the court. Nicole’s attorney’s face goes white. My attorney’s jaw drops. There’s a murmuring among the crowd, and the people start whispering to each other in agitation.
I’m as still as a statue, but I’m more shocked than anyone else in the room.
“Your statement appears to be controversial, Officer Burns,” the judge says, leaning forward. “Do you care to explain yourself?”
“The search of Mr. Chaykovsky’s establishment turned up no evidence against him,” she repeats. Her expression is completely blank.
She’s lying under oath, and she’s the only one who can get away with it.
“Officer Burns,” her attorney says, standing up quickly, “I should remind you that you have a number of items on the police’s inventory from the investigation-”
“These items do not exist,” she says firmly, “and you will not find them at the police station. This was a mistake on my part, and I accept responsibility for it.”
My attorney looks to me with an alarmed yet meaningful expression. She’s worked with mobsters before. She can tell when a witness has been blackmailed.
I simply look back at her with mild surprise, as if this is all just a convenient coincidence. I’m as good at hiding my emotions as Nicole is, and now is more important than ever for that.
“Just to be perfectly clear,” the judge says with an annoyed sigh, “are you, Nicole Burns, saying under oath that you no longer have evidence to present in the case against Misha Chaykovsky, as you came to this hearing to present?”
“That is what I am saying, your honor,” she affirms. Her attorney runs his hands through his hair and flips his folder closed, sitting back down, defeated.
“Is there a reason I should not hold you in contempt of court for wasting our time, Officer Burns?” the judge asks sternly.
“This is new information to me,” she says, “and that is all I can say at this time.”
The judge looks to the prosecuting attorney, who simply gives a resigned shrug back, and the judge nods.
“Very well. Misha Chaykovsky, with the apparent lack of evidence, I have no choice but to hereby clear you of all charges. You will be processed and released in twenty-four hours. The city of Las Vegas apologizes for this miscarriage of justice.”
The judge’s gavel bangs, and just like that, I am a free man.
I allow myself a smile, and I shake hands with my attorney, whose look of relief tells me just how close we came to disaster.
I stand up as the bailiff comes to escort me back to transportation to the detention center, but before I walk out of the courtroom, I look over to Nicole.
The anger in her eyes is venomous. Off the stand, she doesn’t need to hold anything back. She and everyone else in the courtroom knows what just happened, but nobody feels it as sharply as Nicole. She doesn’t have to make any signals at me to get her message across.
She wants her sister freed, and she wants it to happen now.
I give her a wink in reply.
That only twists the dagger, but the way I see it, we’re even now, the two of us. If Nicole thinks I’m a man who can be taken so easily, she’s mistaken.
I march back to the van that will take me back to the detention center, but that look I saw on Nicole’s face stays with me. I know this won’t be the last I see of her, and I have a feeling our meeting is going to happen sooner rather than later.
But for now, I can enjoy the taste of freedom finally within my grasp. I have just twenty-four hours to settle my affairs in the detention center. And of course, I do not plan to forget my allies who helped me behind bars. I’ll pull all the strings I have to in order to make it know that their service is appreciated.
Misha Chaykovsky rewards his loyal soldiers.
And in the coming days, I have a feeling that I’m going to need each and every loyal soul. I may have avoided prison and survived everything it can throw at me, but I still have the threats from the outside to worry about.
It’s a long road ahead of me.
And if Nicole wants to be a player in it all so badly, I am going to make that happen.
This time, it will be on my terms.
Nicole
If someone had told me a week ago that I would be committing career suicide yesterday, I would have laughed in their face. Maybe even slapped them across the face. Being a cop has been my dream ever since I was a little girl, idolizing my father in his uniform, shaking hands with people, breaking up fights, settling disputes, keeping our little hometown safe from the big, scary world outside.
A week ago, I would have told you that nothing, and I mean nothing, could ever come between me and my dreams.
But that was before my sister went missing. That was before I met a man named Misha Chaykovsky, the Russian gangster who has been transformed in my mind from a high-stakes criminal to the only man in the world who might be able to help me find my sister.
Screw my undercover mission at the strip club; this, right here, right now, is my most important case ever.
And that is why, on this gloriously sunny Saturday morning, I am pacing back and forth in the waiting room of the detention center, listening to the clank of metal bars, the shouting and swearing of inmates. I can smell the musty scent of unwashed male bodies, men bustling around, shoving each other, building alliances and breaking trusts.
It’s a damn jungle in there, and I’m hanging around just several yards away, behind the security line, safe but still too close for comfort. Truth be told, I really hate visiting jails and prisons. That should go without saying, but in the police department, I have several colleagues who have admitted they kind of look forward to it. They like getting to come here and see the fruits of their labor, the ‘bad guys’ behind bars while the ‘good guys’ walk free.
But it doesn’t feel like that to me, not really. All I feel is awkward and uncomfortable. Totally out of place. And I look around at the faces of the men in here and some of them look too familiar. I’m reminded that they’re all just people, living out the consequences of, in a lot of cases, merely bad judgement.
Well, that, and the fact that I get whistled at and jeered at every time I come here. Because I am one of the very few women who ever passes through these doors, and the touch-starved men in here will take whatever they can get, even if it’s just a modestly-dressed cop with her hair in a messy ponytail and not a stitch of makeup on her face.
Today, I don’t care all too much about appearances.
In fact, I don’t really care at all.
I have been way too distracted by the mystery surrounding Sam’s disappearance to take much time for a shower. I’m clean, but I haven’t ironed my clothes or put much thought into an outfit. Yesterday, in court, was the first time I’ve worn a nice outfit in days. And that was purely because it’s court, and I am in fact still a police officer, so I have to dress for the occasion.
Even if I was destroying my career.
But today? I’m just wearing a random wrinkled blouse from the pile on my chair in my bedroom paired with a pencil skirt that might just be a little too short after it shrunk in the wash slightly. I pulled on a pair of nylons and some black heels to finish the outfit, then ran out of the house and rushed all the way here to the jail for my date with the prisoner.
I am here to collect Misha Chaykovsky. He is being released very soon, any minute, in fact. And I expect to be the first person he sees. He may have lucked out of his sentence for now, but I am not about to let him squirm away from me yet, not when he might just be the only chance I have at finding Samantha.
He’s coming with me, whether he likes it or not. Of course, things here at the detention center move about as quickly as molasses, so I’m getting a little impatient. I have been here for over an hour, waiting for the guards to bring Misha out so I can snatch him.
I storm over to the front desk, which is sheltered by a thick pane of impenetrable Plexiglas, and knock on the little window. The crotchety older woman at the computer looks up at me through horn-rimmed glasses with a sour look on her face. Reluctantly, she slides the window open.
“Yes?” she grunts grumpily.
“Sorry, but how much longer is this going to take?” I ask, leaning on the counter with one elbow while I squint down the hall. She heaves a dramatic sigh.
“I don’t know how to answer that question. I’m just the front desk secretary, ma’am,” she replies, shrugging. I fix her with a solemn glare.
“It’s Officer, not ma’am,” I correct quickly. “Look, I’m on kind of a tight schedule here. Is there any way we could, I don’t know, expedite this process a little bit?”
She blinks slowly at me.
“Expedite the process of releasing a high-risk criminal from a state detention center, you mean?” she says pointedly.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying desperately to stay calm.
“Yes. Okay. I see your point. This kind of thing can’t be rushed. I understand. It’s just that—”
“Oh, here they come,” she interrupts, jerking a thumb back down the hall.
“Really?” I pipe up, my heart racing as I jump away to look down the hallway. As soon as I’m away from the counter, the front desk lady slams the window shut and turns away. I look over, stunned into silence. There’s no one coming down the hall.
“She tricked me,” I murmur in awe. “Wow.”
For half a second I consider banging on the window to yell at her, but I think better of it. After all, that woman has no control over what goes on inside the jail. It’s not like she can speed things along any better than I could. So I force myself to go take a seat, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the hallway. I can still hear the jeers and shouts of inmates inside, and I can’t help but wonder if any of the voices I’m hearing belong to Misha.
It’s another good thirty minutes or so before the door opens and three figures come striding up the hallway. I jump to my feet, my stomach twisting into knots. Is it him?
I rush over to see that is, in fact, two of the biggest, burliest guards the jail has to offer, leading Misha Chaykovsky out toward the waiting room. Finally.
Seeing Misha’s face makes my heart skip a beat, which is very annoying, considering how angry I am with him. I’m downright pissed off. But his face lights up at the sight of me, which makes butterflies flit around in my stomach.
Get a grip, I warn myself. You’re Officer Nicole Burns, not Misty. Not anymore.
“Officer Burns,” greets the same guard who helped me days ago when I came to interview Misha. “What are you doing here? How’s it going?”
&
nbsp; “Oh, it’s good. I’m good. How are you?” I ask awkwardly, dragging my eyes away from Misha to give the guard a polite smile.
“Can’t complain,” he replies jovially. “You here to pick up this fellow?”
“Yes, sir,” I answer tersely, looking back at Misha. The Mafioso looks rather amused to see me, like I’m the last person he expected to meet out here on release day. But I know that’s definitely just a cover. He knows exactly why I’m here, even if he’s trying to play coy right now.
“Well, Mr. Chaykovsky, it’s been a real pleasure. Hope you enjoyed your stay at Club Med. Come back and see us soon,” jokes the guard. Misha and I both look at him quizzically.
He shrugs and chuckles. “Just a little jailhouse humor. Anyways, have a good one.”
He heads back down the hallway, leaving the other guard to roll his eyes and shake his head, sighing. The guard gets out a key and frees Misha’s wrists and ankles, watching him carefully as though the Mafioso might suddenly start swinging punches or something. But Misha just stands there stoically, staring at me with those piercing blue eyes. Something about his unbroken gaze makes me feel so vulnerable. Exposed. Like he can cut right through the bullshit and see the truth underneath it all. Like he can peer right into my soul.
I swallow hard, hoping he can’t hear my heart pounding away in my chest.
“Come with me,” I tell him, snapping my fingers. He raises one heavy dark brow at the gesture, but I can’t tell if he’s amused, offended, or possibly both.
“Let us know if he gives you any trouble,” says the guard, watching Misha with suspicious eyes. “Have a good day, Miss.”
“It’s Officer,” I correct him, but give him a patient smile anyway. “And same to you.”
Then I turn back to Misha and start marching out of the jail with the Mafioso trailing after me, striding along at a slow, casual pace. It really seems like nothing ruffles his feathers. He’s cool and calm no matter what.
Vegas Boss: A Mafia Hitman Romance Page 9