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 wasn’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