by Shandi Boyes
I take the stairs to the first level, mindful of Grayson’s disclosure on Alex rigging common areas with hidden surveillance cameras, jog to my car parked on the corner, then slip into the driver’s seat. When the engine fires to life, my mind drifts to fonder times. The Hellcat Mr. Gregg and I were rebuilding was a rust bucket when we started, but her engine always purred like a pussy cat. Although its purr was nothing on the one Melody made when my head was between her legs.
A lot of people assume deaf people can’t moan or laugh. They’re dead wrong. Our time between the sheets was when Melody was the most vocal. The only indication she had on how loud she was being was when her moans rumbled in her chest, so I did everything in my power to ensure she didn’t have a moment to register the heartiness of her moans.
I shake my head when I catch sight of my arrogant grin in the rearview mirror. Anyone would swear she’s under me now with how hard I’m smiling. It’s the first time I’ve recalled us sleeping together without wondering who else has experienced her seductive moans, so I guess a little cockiness is okay.
After throwing the gearshift into first gear, I ask Siri to dial Grayson’s private number. He answers a few seconds later, breathless and sounding sweaty. The fact he doesn’t greet me by name reveals he’s in a place he can’t talk freely, much less his comment about me finally returning his call. We only spoke an hour ago when he once again tried to convince me I had no legal reason to disclose my one-night hook-up with Olivia to Alex. He went quiet when I asked about her resurrection from the dead. Even he’s at a loss on what to do about that tidbit of information.
Recalling the reason for my call, I get back to the task at hand. “Albert Sokolov just landed in Ravenshoe.”
“I’m aware. Your quote just came through,” Grayson responds, still gasping. “I heard you’re not local. How’s Hopeton this time of the year? ”
Hearing the words he can’t speak, my tires lock up when I slam on the brakes. When I complete an illegal U-turn, horns honk, and the smell of burning rubber lingers in the air. “What’s at Hopeton for him?”
“That’s what I’m hoping you’ll work out. It’s a new fitting, so there’s no reason for the sudden leak.”
“Do you think it has anything to do with your placement?” He’s undercover at the Bobrov camp. Kirill arrived stateside approximately four weeks ago. He can’t enter US soil legally, so his method of transport was more modest than the private jets his competitors use, although I doubt he lived in shambles the past few weeks. “It seems suspicious the Popovs commenced sniffing around old Bobrov stomping grounds within weeks of Kirill’s return to the States. Are they aware of his return?”
A door slides open before birds chirping in the distance overtakes a group of men talking in Russian. “I doubt that’s the case. I tightened the connections. It didn’t fix the leak. There’s something more occurring here than a loose valve. If you can find out what that is, I might have a chance to stop wading through shitty waters every time I use the bathroom.”
I’m not surprised about his underhanded comment that he’s the shit-kicker of Bobrov’s crew. He’s blond-haired, blue-eyed, and has the worst Russian accent I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s just his size, arrogant face, and cocky attitude that convinces criminals he’s one of them. He also has no trouble pushing the boundaries undercover agents must use to prove they’re far from law-abiding. Drugs, prostitution, dismemberment of body parts, you name it, Grayson has dabbled in it at one stage during his career. He took any steps necessary to get him closer to the man he’s been chasing for almost a decade, and those steps walked him right into Kirill’s crew.
“I’ll pass on any information I find out.”
He murmurs out an agreement before our lines go dead. It was a mere second after a female voice sang out a string of text more lyrical than the bluebirds in the distance. They hint more to Grayson’s location than the cryptic messages he’s sent me the past two weeks.
22
Brandon
With traffic light and my foot heavy, I make it to Hopeton with ten minutes shaved off the usual commute time. I realize I’m not the only one with a lead foot when I spot Alex’s old sedan parked a few spots down from Westminster Family Planning Clinic. Even if I didn’t know his history with the location, the fact he took his car instead of the Navigator the Bureau assigned to him when he became supervisor of my division reveals he isn’t on the job.
I slot my BMW into a parking spot three spaces back from Alex’s car when he suddenly shoots out of the glass door of the clinic. My intuition could be leading me astray, but considering the bank of buildings across from the clinic are the first you stumble on when you enter Hopeton, I’m willing to give my intuition a little bit of leeway. Furthermore, Hopeton only has one entry and exit point, so this is the ideal place for me to commence my stakeout.
A wish to have an ability to plead to Melody over the phone smacks into me when Alex yanks his cell phone out of his pocket. I’ve spilled my guts electronically many times the past almost seven years. All but two were deleted before I hit send. The first one was the email Melody never acknowledged. The second was a text message I sent after reading the transcript from Agent Russell’s interview with her. Even believing I’m no longer the boy she once knew, she defended me. That deserved some type of acknowledgment. Did she reply to that text? Yeah, she did. It was a simple ‘you’re welcome,’ but it was better than the response I was anticipating.
I can’t hear much of the message Alex leaves on Regan’s voicemail, but his facial expression exposes how awkward he feels. For the first time since I’ve known him, his features aren’t hardened with aggression. He almost seems remorseful, but before I can work out why he’d ever feel regret, a group of men entering a restaurant on my left captures my attention. The fact they enter the restaurant from the servers’ entrance while wearing suits that cost more than I make per month exposes they’re not Hopeton locals, much less the fact mobsters never travel anywhere without their favorite whores. The brunette in the skintight fluorescent pink dress being ushered in by a man with biceps bigger than my head is the equivalent of a neon sign. Her outfit screams, ‘The mob is in town. Come get ‘em if you dare.’
Never one to back down when dared, I slip out of my driver’s seat. It occurs at the same time Alex glances up from his phone. Since his eyes are directed to the front of the restaurant, I make it across the double highway without him spotting me. My speed is so quick, my arm darts into the minute gap between the rapidly closing door left behind from the gang’s entrance.
With my gun high, and my steps soundless, I quickly make my way down a corridor lined with tins of soups and other condiments I can’t read since the labels are in Chinese. When I reach the end of the corridor, I’m confronted with a dead end. Since the sound of cutlery projects from my left, I head right. The scent of liquor and cigars grows the further I silently tiptoe down the isolated corridor. My cover is almost blown when a swinging door suddenly shoots open, but thankfully, not being the biggest guy in the room works to my advantage again today. By plastering my back to the wall, the waiter carrying a stack of dirty dishes on a black tray fails to notice me hiding behind the door.
I dash past the door, taking advantage of the gap of its swing. This restaurant won’t be rated as a top server any time soon. The roof is stained with soot from the number of cigars its patrons smoke while waiting for below-par food. Think of an old western movie with dirt for floors and unbathed patrons. Now jump that image into the 21st century, and you’ll have an idea of what I’m seeing.
I scan the area when a deep voice says, “Serve it to him raw. That will shut him up on it being overcooked.”
Just before the owner of the voice bursts into the corridor, I pop out the lock of the manager’s office at the end. There’s nothing fancy about this office. A desk coated in papers that appear legitimate and a cracked leather chair take up most of the space, but it is the flooring I’m paying the most attention to.
The desk was recently moved. The heavy indents in the carpet reveal this fact.
After failing to find any slits in the carpet that may indicate an in-floor safe, I raise my eyes to the ceiling. It’s a relatively clean drop ceiling that a normal agent wouldn’t look at twice. It’s a pity for whoever dragged over the desk so it sits directly below the steel beam running down the middle of the room that I’m nothing close to ordinary.
With my eyes locked on the tiniest thread peeking out from one of the ceiling’s panels, I screw a suppressor onto the barrel of my gun before adding an accessory every man about to crawl into a dark void loves. The dark material represents the fibers usually found in ski gear—more particularly, ski masks—revealing it’s smart of me to weapon up.
I toe off my shoes before climbing onto the desk. My sock-covered feet slip on the highly varnished material, but they keep my approach silent to anyone who may be listening for it. After opening up the panel enough to check the coast is clear, I tuck my pistol into the back of my trousers before chin-lifting myself into the void. Upper-body strength was always a favorite workout of Mr. Gregg’s, and days like today, I’m thankful for his dedication.
Once I’m through the tight opening, I scan the area. With nothing but blackness behind me, I head toward a sprinkling of light. If my bearings are correct, I’m moving toward the main hub of the restaurant.
A hum of chatter fills my ears a second before an Italian-rich voice says, “You need to change your aftershave. I could smell that shit long before you crawled through the vent.”
When I flick on the torch mounted to my gun, Dimitri shelters his eyes with his hand. He’s lying on his stomach, his shoulder a mere inch from a high caliber assault weapon. From my angle, I don’t have the best vantage point to take in his target when he peers down the scope like a real-life sniper, but with the accents in the restaurant mainly featuring Russians, I reach a quick conclusion.
“You know I’m well within my right to shoot you, right?”
He makes a pfft noise. “If you wanted to shoot me, you would have done it the instant I turned my back to you.” Even in the darkness of this hidey-hole, I can see the pegs of his teeth. “That’s how most agents operate, isn’t it?”
I take a moment to deliberate before housing my gun into the holster on my hip. If Dimitri was planning to kill Albert, he’d already be dead. The fact he’s alive reveals Dimitri is here for the same reasons as me. He wants intel.
“Who’s he meeting with?” I cringe through the cobwebs coating my suit jacket when I join Dimitri lying on a timber beam rats have made their home. “An old Russian sanction was here a few years back, but there’s been no rumblings from their barracks in almost a decade.”
“He’s not meeting with a fellow Russian.” Dimitri slants his head to the side before nudging his head to the scope of his weapon, permitting me to take in an unhindered view of proceedings.
“What the fuck?” I mumble to myself when my adjustment of the scope has me stumbling onto someone I never anticipated. Isaac Holt is being investigated because of suspected ties with the Mafia syndicates, but this is a plot twist I never saw coming. Is he aware he’s commencing trade with the entity responsible for attempting to sell Isabelle into a sex trafficking ring when she was only a child?
If Tobias hadn’t mortgaged his house to buy her, Isabelle’s childhood would have been more damaging than being raised by a man with an inability to express himself. She most likely would have been dead before she reached double digits. No matter how well Isaac tries to brush off his business dealings with the Popovs, his actions today will negatively impact Isabelle. This will hurt her.
My throat becomes scratchy when I use Dimitri’s generosity to survey the area. A bird’s-eye-view of the space wouldn’t increase my Yelp rating, but it does make me aware I’m not the only agent going rogue today. Alex is sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of amber-colored liquid. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as all good agents are taught, but I know he isn’t drinking. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol in years.
After inching back from the scope, I dig a handkerchief out of my pocket so I can scrub my fingerprints off a gun I’m sure the Bureau would love to log into evidence before angling my head toward Dimitri. “Unless you want to be stuck up here all night, or better yet, detained in a holding cell, I suggest you leave now. This place is about to be raided.”
I’ve only worked with Alex on and off for a year, but I’ve known Grayson a lot longer than that. The Rogers all operate the same way—take down the foreigner before the native. Isaac will leave this restaurant believing his meeting with an underworld associate went unnoticed. Albert won’t be so lucky.
A hint of smugness smacks into me when Dimitri immediately commences dismantling his customized M-4. I thought it would have taken more than my word to convince him to leave. Usually, some type of exchange of information occurs before he listens to anything a government official has to say. Not even Tobias had a knack for getting him to follow command when needed.
I discover the reason behind his eagerness when the zipper of his large black duffle bag is quickly chased by him handing me a single sheet of paper. “With the government eager to do some digging on my businesses, I commenced some of my own. Do you know who she’s related to?”
When my eyes drop down to the paper he handed me, my throat works hard to swallow. He has a photograph of Isabelle. It isn’t old and faded like the ones Tobias had of her in her file. This one was recently taken. How do I know this? Harlow is smiling in the background, most likely laughing at Isabelle’s screwed-up nose from the bakery assistant cutting a generous serving of the pumpkin pie in front of her. Isabelle hates pumpkin.
“Ah… so you do know who she is,” Dimitri says when my silence speaks volume. “If she is what this is about…” he nudges his head to the bullet hole in the wall he was using to line up his target, “… we’re going to have issues. This isn’t Russian territory—”
“She has nothing to do with this. I don’t even know if Isaac is aware who her father is.” My back molars crunch when I snap my mouth shut, pissed I unwillingly shared information I hadn’t meant to give.
Dimitri laughs at my mortified expression. It isn’t a pleasant we’re-buddies laugh. It’s as cold and vindictive as the man he was raised to be.
He slaps my shoulder harder than needed to ensure he gets his point across when he says, “Bring me everything you have in five days. If I find it satisfactory, I’ll share some hard truths with you.”
“And if it isn’t?”
His evil grin says it all.
We won’t be on the same team anymore.
We’ll be enemies—mortal ones.
I wonder if his opinion would change if I disclosed his sister is alive. I could test the waters now, but sometimes the best secrets are revealed one tidbit at a time.
23
Brandon
As suspected, Alex called in a tip to the authorities before Albert and his crew could re-board their private jet in Ravenshoe. In some ways, I was shocked he didn’t arrest Albert himself, but in others, I’m not. For personal reasons, he wants Isaac no matter what the cost. He’d even go as far as handing over a high-up Russian cartel member to a local detective just for the chance of snagging his man.
Unbeknown to Isabelle, he’s been working on an arrest warrant for Isaac the past four hours. It will depend on the judge whether his request is granted. His evidence is shady at best. Isaac did dine with a known Russian cartel member, but that isn’t illegal. If having bad friends was a crime, all of Madden’s would have been locked up years ago.
After I finished my report on the Greggs’ murder, I put a little bit of focus into Hugo’s concealed files—the real Hugo. Even with a majority of the court transcripts redacted to the point of being useless, for the first time in my life, I’m siding with the defense.
I don’t know how any judge accepted Hugo’s guilty verdict. The victim stated multiple times that he w
asn’t one of her attackers. A forensic scientist proved the finger-width bruises on Gemma’s thighs were sustainably smaller than Hugo’s fingers, and one of them even testified that the angle of the scratch wounds in Hugo’s arm couldn’t have been done during the assault. Still, the judge accepted Hugo’s guilty plea, had him dishonorably discharged from the military, and exonerated Madden and three other defendants.
One was convicted of rape within twelve months of the judge’s decision. Another committed suicide. According to Madden, that doesn’t prove guilt. When I brought it up during a very one-sided conversation a few weeks ago, he used Joey’s death as evidence. Not just for his fellow marine who killed himself, but on how people who appear stable can flip their personalities at a flick of a switch.
When I told him that isn’t normal, he replied, “The only difference between psychotic and iconic is how they got what they wanted.”
Nothing he said made any sense, but that’s not unusual. He’s had our father whispering in his ear the past seven years. That’s enough to turn anyone insane.
I stop glancing at my clenched hands when Alex asks, “Is that the woman from the report you uploaded weeks ago?”
After joining him near the large tinted glass wall that stretches the entire length of HQ, I peer down at Megan Shroud. Talking about psychopaths, she’s an A-grade lunatic. I lift my chin before giving Alex a brief rundown on Megan. He knows most of it from my report, so I keep my update brief.
“How long has she been sleeping in her car?”
I twist my lips. “She hasn’t the past few weeks. She usually leaves not long after lock-up and is back bright and early the following morning….” My words trail off when, in the corner of my eye, I spot Detective Carter leading Albert into the conference room of HQ. Their slow track is being shadowed by Agent Russell. Seeing local law enforcement cooperating with Internal Affairs of the FBI isn’t just shocking, it has my stomach twisted up in knots, but before I can ask Alex what the fuck he’s playing at, I’m startled to within an inch of my life.