blue eyes focused intently on me. Had he just said I was smart and attractive, then followed it up with a diss on Ryker that doubled as a compliment for me?
“Ryker uses people,” Parker said, a trace of bitterness in his voice. “I’d once thought nothing could come between us. I was wrong. Don’t let him use you, Sage. That’s all I’m saying.”
Knowing how Ryker was indeed using me to spy on Parker and our new clients, it wasn’t as if I could defend him. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask about Natalie, but I kept silent. The fact that Parker was even telling me this much about Ryker and their past was a huge deal. If I pushed, he’d probably clam up again.
“It must have been hard,” I said, “losing a friend that you were so close to.”
Parker’s gaze was steady and I wondered if I’d crossed that line again, but he answered.
“It was,” he said. “You don’t forget it, and I don’t know if you ever really get over it. You just…move on.” He tipped up his glass, emptying the rest of the martini in one swallow. I took that as my cue to change the subject.
“Who exactly are we meeting tonight?” I asked. The information Sylvia had sent me for these customers had been vague, which was unusual. They’d only wanted to communicate directly with Parker rather than me, which had been a bit insulting, honestly. But they were new clients with a lot of money, so I’d kept my mouth shut and let Parker handle it.
As I’d known he would, Parker had the information memorized. “Viktor Rowan is the man we’ll be meeting,” he said. “He has an interesting history. Used to be Russian FSB before he was promoted to the head of the Central Bank of Russia.”
“FSB?” I asked.
“Russia’s foreign security service,” Parker clarified. “They’ve been around for a while, but absorbed a lot of former KGB as well as the functions they performed.”
I swallowed. None of that sounded good.
“So if he works for their national bank, then why are we meeting with him?” I asked.
“He didn’t stay there,” he explained. “He went to work for Bank ZNT a few years ago. A lot of banks in Russia aren’t privately owned but partially owned by the government. Bank ZNT is the largest of those. It bought a handful of smaller, private banks last year. Rowan wants to place over three billion dollars of shares on the market by next month, and that’s only ten percent of the bank’s equity.”
The waiter returned with our food and we stopped talking for a moment as we began eating.
Wow. Three billion dollars. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around that kind of money.
“It seems kind of strange,” I said, after a few minutes—the lobster pot pie was really good and I didn’t even want to think about how many calories I was consuming. “Why would someone who worked in foreign intelligence go into banking, of all things?”
“Russia’s economy can be dicey and difficult to navigate,” Parker said, slicing another bite of his steak. “The government keeps a tight grip on the banks and currency rate and are always watching to see who’s buying up shares of which banks. Rowan has a degree in Economics and is worth over a hundred million dollars. I imagine he serves several functions for them in his role as head of ZNT.”
“So the guy who…talked to me Friday,” I said, “he works for ZNT?” He’d done more than talk to me, but I didn’t want to dwell on that.
“Probably.”
I thought about what Ryker had told me. “So, are you sure these guys are on the up-and-up?” I asked. “That they’re not criminals or…mobsters or something?”
“The Russian mafia is a big part of their economy over there,” Parker said. “They extort protection money from a lot of businesses and the government looks the other way. Getting involved with any Russian bank is a risk.”
“Then why do it?”
He looked at me like I was a ditz. “The money, of course. These guys want to raise three billion dollars by selling shares of their bank; that’s three hundred million in commission for us, twenty percent of which will be mine.”
I looked back down at my pot pie, pushing bits around with my fork. That was a lot of money.
“Why are they coming to Chicago for this kind of deal?” I asked. “Wouldn’t they go to a big firm in New York or something?”
“Are