by Mary Stone
Born in the USSR during the early 1980s, Alek had been orphaned at a young age. He’d never said as much, but the tattoos on his hands told me more than I knew he ever would. Every piece of artwork on Alek’s skin told a story.
On the back of his left hand, the letters SLON were an acronym that roughly translated to “from my early years, nothing but misery.” Another tattoo around his middle finger was a symbol associated with orphans—a reminder to trust no one.
A reminder that he was alone.
Fabric rustled as Alek crossed both arms over his broad chest. “Detective Smith. You said you have news for me?”
I nodded. “Based on that look, you’ve already got an idea what it is.”
He shrugged. “Humor me.”
“The man your guy Sergei killed last night.” I had to pause to keep my voice from becoming a guttural growl. “Misha Pelevin. He wasn’t Misha.”
Alek’s posture stiffened, and I felt the tension radiate from him as he waited for me to continue.
“He was an undercover federal agent. Jesus, you weren’t supposed to kill him!” There it was, I thought. There was all the stress and rage that had festered beneath my otherwise calm exterior all damn day.
With a sigh, Alek’s gray eyes shifted to the nearby harbor. “I know. Sergei got…how do you say? Carried off?”
“Carried away,” I said through clenched teeth. “Yeah, he did. Look, this isn’t the Baltimore PD we’re dealing with anymore, all right? This isn’t the police department with a budget stretched thinner than a piece of cheap toilet paper. This is the federal government! What did Misha know?”
Alek shook his head. “Not much. He had only been around for a few days. You know as much about him as I do. He was asking about Eric Dalton, about what Eric Dalton owed us.”
I narrowed my eyes. Alek might have been several inches taller than me and built like a brick shithouse, but I’d been in the Baltimore police department for almost my entire adult life.
I’d held my own against guys his size before, and if he gave me a reason, I’d do it again.
“And what did Eric Dalton owe you?” My words were deathly calm.
Until now, I’d kept my nose out of whatever in the hell the Russians had cooked up with Eric Dalton’s help. I helped the Russians find routes to pump drugs into the city, and I gave their dealers and suppliers a heads-up when the department was planning a raid.
But until now, I hadn’t fucked with their real business.
Rubbing his eyes with one hand, Alek let out another sigh. “A rat.”
“He was going to help you find a rat? A traitor, not a literal rodent, right?”
Alek’s mouth was a hard line. “Traitor, yes. There is a RICO case, and the traitor is a witness. There are many of my people in prison right now because of this case. If the witness lives, they will stay in prison.”
“What does that have to do with Eric Dalton?”
In the split-second of hesitation before Alek spoke, all I could hear was the rush of my pulse. My hands were clammy, and I was freezing and suffocating all at the same time.
It didn’t matter what Alek’s answer was.
Whatever in the hell the Russians wanted with Eric Dalton had the potential to spell disaster. Alek didn’t need to tell me as much.
I could feel it in the damn air, in the salty ocean breeze.
Shadows moved along Alek’s unshaven face as he clenched his jaw. “Eric Dalton’s son is FBI. He can get us to their witness.”
Should’ve just asked Misha, I thought bitterly. “What’s his son’s name? And how much longer will it take for him to get you to this witness?”
“His son is Noah Dalton. Eric has two days left.” The malevolent glint in Alek’s eyes told me I was getting dangerously close to a guarded secret.
I didn’t care.
Eric Dalton might not have been my problem before Misha was killed, but he was damn sure my problem now.
“What happens in two days?”
When Alek didn’t respond right away, I couldn’t help the derisive chuckle that slipped from my lips.
I locked my eyes on Alek’s before I forged ahead. “Misha, or I guess I should say Agent Hansford, wanted to know about your deal with Eric Dalton. Now, if you want me to help you and Sergei stay out of this shitstorm, you’d better tell me what I’m up against, you follow me?”
Alek blew out a long breath as he ran a hand through his dark hair. “We have his daughter and her husband. Husband has been dead for two days, but Eric doesn’t know. If he doesn’t get us the witness, his daughter dies.”
“How is Eric planning to pull this off? Is he just going to ask his son for a favor?” I kept my tone calm. Nothing good would come from a shouting match with a Russian mafia enforcer.
After what I could only assume was an internal debate, the anger slipped away from Alek’s visage. “He and his son are not close. He said he would…convince him.”
“What do you do if he can’t ‘convince him?’” This had begun to feel like an interrogation.
“We go to his son ourselves.”
I almost laughed in his face. “Your backup plan is to kidnap a federal agent and make him tell you where your rat is?”
“Do you have a better plan?” The rage hadn’t returned to Alek’s eyes, but there was a different type of indignation on his face. The type that bordered on desperate.
I ground my teeth together and shook my head. “No. But you need to think really, really hard before you go through with this. You’re talking about going directly after a federal agent.”
A hint of self-satisfaction edged its way onto Alek’s face. “Let me worry about that, Detective Smith.”
I almost rolled my eyes. If I didn’t have such a long-standing rapport with Alek, I suspected he would have punched me in the throat by now. “Why the hell didn’t you come to me with this first?”
He shrugged. “Lawyer said that this witness is federal, not state. Baltimore cops can’t access federal witnesses.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
“Fair enough. I’ll find out what I can on my end. I’ve got a contact in the bureau. I’ll see if he can give me an update on their investigation.” Agent Tim Gibbs hadn’t gotten his hands dirty like me, but he had a tendency to be helpful.
In the last few years, I’d learned how to use Tim’s penchant for helpfulness to my advantage. Now, thanks to Sergei, I’d have to dust off the old machinations.
Though I knew the easiest option to avoid being implicated in Agent Hansford’s death was to eliminate the loose end—Sergei—I also knew better than to bring up the idea to someone as loyal to the Russian syndicate as Alek. There was a good chance the enforcer would shoot me just for the suggestion.
“Stay away from Noah Dalton.” I tried to keep the threatening edge out of my voice. Just because I was confident in my ability to hold my own in a brawl with Alek didn’t mean I wanted to poke the beast. “We’re already dealing with the murder of one federal agent. We don’t need to add another body to the count.”
Alek lifted his chin. “We’ll do what we need to do, Detective.”
I didn’t bother to offer another rebuttal. There was no point.
If Alek and his people got the bright idea to go after Noah Dalton, I’d be sure to have my go-bag ready for a last-minute flight to Panama.
At this point, I was in far too deep to make an argument in favor of sparing a law enforcement official’s life.
The Russians paid me handsomely for the information I provided. But the risk was about to outweigh the reward.
Eric Dalton had damn well better pull through.
Agent Black’s words had echoed relentlessly through Eric Dalton’s head for the entire day.
A federal agent was dead. A wife had been widowed, and a child had been left without a father.
None of this was supposed to happen. Noah was supposed to give the Russians their witness. That was all. That was supposed to be the end of Eric’s i
nvolvement with the Russian mob.
But now, a man was dead.
A federal agent was dead.
There was no coming back from the murder of an officer of the law. Even if Noah personally hand delivered the witness to the Russians, the stain of the other agent’s death would never come clean. That man’s ghost would follow Eric for the rest of his life.
And then…then there was Jon.
If what the Russians said was true, Jon had been shot in the stomach five days ago, and if Eric was honest with himself, he knew Jon was dead. He didn’t want to believe it, but it was the only possible outcome.
But in spite of the conclusion he’d drawn, his blood still froze in his veins when he saw the screen of his secret phone come to life. He’d been holding it in his hands…hoping…waiting…dreading.
With a fervent glance around the master bedroom, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He kept the open doorway in his periphery as he slunk to the bathroom.
Flicking a switch to turn on the overhead vent fan, he finally flipped open the prepaid phone.
“Hello?” The word was no more than a hoarse whisper.
“Hello, Eric.” The Russian accent and the bass of the man’s voice was familiar. He called himself Alek, but that was all Eric knew about the Russian. On any of the previous occasions Eric had spoken to him, his tone had been deathly calm. Tonight, there was an unmistakable air of petulance that simmered beneath that composed veneer.
Alek was on edge.
Eric had only seen the man once in person, but intimidating wasn’t an adequate enough term for the rough-looking Russian gangster. Alek lived and breathed the criminal underworld, and Eric didn’t want to know what in the hell might have riled him.
Before he could devote any more contemplation to the oddity, Alek continued. “This is just a reminder. You have two days, Eric. Two days before your daughter dies just like your son-in-law. You remember how he died, don’t you?”
All Eric could do was swallow the bile that had risen in his throat. Alek’s bleak statement blasted all his rationalizations about Jon’s wellbeing, and hope vanished into a cloud of nothingness.
Jon was dead.
Alek took his silence as a cue to continue. “He did well. He lasted almost twenty-four hours. I haven’t seen many people last that long. How long do you think Natalie will last? It’s been a few days since she had a meal, and she’s probably dehydrated. I don’t think she’d last as long as her husband.”
He wanted to shout, to scream. To berate the son of a bitch until his throat was raw.
If they were in the same room, he would have lunged for the prick’s throat. He would have been rebuffed, likely killed, but he would have tried.
Instead, all he could do was fight to keep himself from throwing up.
“Two days.” The Russian’s voice was clipped and impatient. “Two days and she dies just like her husband.”
With a light click, the line went dead.
If Eric didn’t know better, he would think that Alek was running out of time too.
Perhaps the thought should have been a source of comfort. Perhaps Eric should have taken solace in the fact that Alek might have been fighting for his life. Perhaps the knowledge should have served as a twisted sort of revenge. It should have, but Alek and Eric’s fates were now intertwined.
If Alek was cornered, he was that much more unpredictable.
Eric didn’t want to find out what happened when Alek’s time ran out.
20
After all that had happened in the past day, Winter didn’t understand how she was still awake at almost ten at night. She’d been up since close to five, and she’d only managed a few hours of sleep the night before. Though she might have drifted off at a couple points, each time she was snapped back to consciousness before sleep could fully take hold.
She had tried to force her thoughts back to the case, but the effort was for naught.
No matter the direction she tried to steer her contemplation, she wound up back in the same place.
She wound up in the driver’s side of her Civic with Noah in the passenger seat. He turned his head to meet her gaze, the faint glimmer of contentedness in his green eyes as his lips curved into a slight smile. A smile that made her knees weak and her face flush.
For so long, she’d pushed aside the feelings that his smile had evoked, but now, she wanted to revel in them.
She wanted to, but now she was almost certain that Noah didn’t want the same. Even if he still harbored those same feelings for her, she had kept something important from him, and she did it in a way that brought back unpleasant memories. Memories that were a reminder that she wasn’t trustworthy, and that he shouldn’t trust his heart in her hands.
What’s more, she had involved Autumn—their mutual friend. She’d put Autumn in the line of fire, and although her intent had been good, she could almost hear Autumn’s take on good intentions.
The road to hell is paved with them.
Winter wondered if that had been the woman’s senior quote in her high school yearbook.
With a groan, she flopped onto her stomach and buried her face in a pillow. She had come clean with Noah, but she didn’t feel the relief that was supposed to accompany such honesty.
All she felt now was more anxiety.
So far, he still hadn’t even mentioned the kiss. He hadn’t asked her about her motive, hadn’t even cracked an offhand joke to steer their discussion to the topic.
Then again, she hadn’t either. Maybe he was respecting her boundaries. And now, she’d be lucky if he ever confided in her again.
Grasping the plush comforter with one hand, Winter groaned as she flung the blankets to the side. The crisp air left a trail of goose bumps on the exposed skin of her legs.
When she flicked on the table lamp beside the bed, her eyes were drawn to a couple shooters she’d bought when they stopped at a gas station earlier.
She thought a stiff drink would relax her racing mind and tense muscles so she could sleep, but she’d been so disheartened by the strained conversation with Noah that she hadn’t bothered to test the theory before she crawled into bed.
The feeling of relief hadn’t washed over her yet because she hadn’t sat down to have a real conversation about her motive for keeping the information about the email to herself. If she did that, she was sure he would understand her point of view. It didn’t mean she was in the right—she could accept that she’d screwed up. But Noah wasn’t unreasonable. He’d understand.
He had to understand.
She took a deep breath to steady her nerves as she brushed both hands down the front of her loose-fitting t-shirt. Before she could give the idea a second thought, she snatched one of the little bottles off the television stand and twisted off the cap.
Ever since her college years, Winter tended to rotate through her preferred liquor. She didn’t drink to excess more than any average person, and compared to most law enforcement agents, she didn’t drink much at all.
Whether her drinking habits would change over the course of her career, she had yet to see.
Working for the bureau was a stressful job if it was done right, and a preferred method to alleviate stress among her colleagues was to crack open a bottle of booze. Hell, Aiden’s kitchen was just as well stocked as an average bar, and Autumn had worked as a bartender for four years.
Winter clenched her jaw, disgusted with herself.
There she went again—she was stalling by thinking about liquor. Before her thoughts could wander down another winding path, she brought the bottle of Southern Comfort to her lips and tilted back her head.
As the liquor burned its way down her throat, she realized she didn’t have a chaser.
“Son of a bitch,” she grated out as all the air left her lungs.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she swallowed in vain against the pervasive sting. She held the position as the seconds ticked away, and gradually, the burn receded to a comforting warmth.
Blinking away the blur in her vision, she glanced to the second shooter, to the empty bottle in her hand, and then back. Though she could have used the liquid courage, she didn’t want to subject herself to another shot of Southern Comfort with no chaser. She wasn’t a seasoned drinker.
After another steadying breath, she nodded to the empty room and started for the door. Her head felt lighter, and some of the tension had slipped away from her body. She paused in front of a floor-length mirror to smooth her disheveled hair and wipe away the smudged liner beneath her eyes.
Running shorts, an old t-shirt, and flip-flops. Could Noah really expect any more from her at ten at night?
Why do you even care? She frowned as the question entered her mind. Why did she care? She was headed to his room to apologize, not do a striptease.
She caught herself before her brain latched onto the subject of her appearance in a subconscious effort to sidetrack her yet again. After one last glance to the disheveled bed, she pulled open the heavy door and stepped out into the hall.
But as she stood in front of his room, she realized she hadn’t even planned out what she wanted to say.
You don’t need a plan, dammit.
Blowing out a breath, she rapped her knuckles against the wooden door and waited.
And waited.
Great. He’d fallen asleep, and she’d suffered through a shot of straight Southern Comfort for absolutely nothing.
She should have sent him a damn text message.
Before she could heave a sigh and turn around, the door swung inward with a light creak. Noah squinted against the light from the hall and ran a hand through his messy hair.
For what felt like the first time, she allowed herself to fully take stock of his appearance. She’d always thought he was handsome, but there was now another level to the attraction. The shadows played along his toned forearms all the way up to the sleeve of his shirt. A day’s worth of stubble darkened his cheeks, but rather than messy, he looked rugged and mysterious. Dangerous, like he’d spent the day hunting down a demon or a werewolf.