Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Kyle, please. Let me explain.” She took a step toward him but stopped. The look on his face more than broke her heart. His eyes emanated a gut-wrenching mix of pain and shock. Then his mouth fell open, and she could practically see his emotions as they morphed from anger…to betrayal.
“Tell me they’re wrong.” He swung his arm in the direction of his boss. “Tell me this is a mistake. Tell me you’re not Yuri’s accountant.”
Her heart thudded so hard she thought it would slip out from between her ribs and splatter onto the floor. “I—I can’t.”
He shoved a hand through his hair, shaking his head as he walked to her. “I don’t understand. How could you have kept this from me? Why did you keep it from me?”
The absolute anguish in his eyes tore at her soul. “I wanted to tell you, I really did, but the time was never right.” Not that there ever could be a right time, just a better time than now. After he’d already found out. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Everyone has a choice.” His lips compressed as he towered over her. “I told everyone—my boss, headquarters—that you had nothing to do with Yuri’s illegal activity. Because I believed it.” He jabbed a finger into his chest.
“I didn’t want to do it,” she pleaded. “Why can’t you believe that?
How can you not understand?” Disbelief coursed through her veins.
“You, of all people, know the power Yuri wielded over me. I was powerless against him. You know what I got when I asked him why he wanted me to keep a ledger for him? A black eye.” That day, she’d gotten off easy.
Kyle shut his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was a man of the law. Even though it wasn’t her fault, he would never forgive her. Hopelessness threatened to squeeze the air from her lungs. Now she, too, felt betrayed.
“I never wanted to be any part of Yuri’s crimes. You know me. Why can’t you believe that? All I did was keep a ledger.”
“This isn’t just about the ledger. You’re the missing link in a criminal investigation I’ve been working on for over a decade.
” He paused to take a deep breath, as if he could barely contain his absolute disappointment in her.
“This is about money laundering, engaging in monetary transactions involving criminally derived property, possession of ransom money.” Again he paused, and she swore there was a glimmer of remorse and fear in his eyes.
“It’s about conspiracy to commit kidnapping and murder. ”
“What? I didn’t kidnap anyone, and I certainly didn’t murder anyone.
” She looked into the eyes of the man who’d made love to her not twenty minutes ago, and who’d shared the most painful parts of his past. He’d wanted her to know everything about him, and she’d stupidly dared to hope the reason was that he’d wanted to start a life with her.
But the warm, gentle, kind man she knew was gone.
In his place stood the cold, hard, unfeeling federal agent.
Breathing became difficult, as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. This could not be happening. “This is all Yuri’s doing. I didn’t know about any of it.”
“No, but Yuri and Nikolai Lebedev did. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t the one to pull the trigger. You hid the proceeds of those crimes.”
“Oh my God.” She clutched the back of the sofa. Not from shock, but so she didn’t fall flat on her face. “I had no idea where the money came from. I swear it.”
Kyle’s voice softened, but his banked anger remained. “Do you still have the ledger?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I hid it near my apartment. I’ll give it to you.”
His boss rested a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “We can’t risk anything she says being thrown out.” Slowly, almost regrettably, Kyle nodded. “Deke can do it.”
Deke strode to her and pulled a card from his pocket.
“Victoria Kelly, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you can’t afford an attorney, one can be appointed for you by the court. Do you understand these rights?”
Victoria swallowed, numbness racing up her spine. She couldn’t believe this was what her life had come down to—being read her constitutional rights like she was a criminal. Like Yuri. “Yes.”
“Are you willing to speak with us without an attorney present?” Jack asked, having joined them.
Kyle’s brothers had rallied around him, but she had no one. Sure, she could get a court appointed attorney, but that wouldn’t be the same as having the support of someone who loved her.
“Are you willing to speak to us without an attorney present?” Jack repeated, surprisingly gently.
She nodded. “Yes.”
Kyle crossed his arms, his jaw clenching repeatedly as he watched silently.
Deke pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, then unfolded it and handed it to her, along with a pen. “This is a waiver-of-rights form. If you sign it now, you can change your mind and rescind the waiver at any point during questioning.”
“Wait!” Kyle yanked the form from her hand. “She needs an attorney.”
“I don’t need an attorney.” She snatched back the form.
“Victoria, don’t do this.” The skin between Kyle’s eyes etched into a deep furrow. “Talk to an attorney first. Please.”
“Now you care what happens to me?” She shook her head. “You can’t have it both ways. And I don’t need an attorney. I did what I had to in order to survive. You may not understand that, but I’ll take my chances with a judge and a jury.”
Ignoring the intensifying look of frustration on Kyle’s face, she rounded the sofa, then sat down and signed the waiver form.
One by one, she locked eyes with the four men.
“Now, can we get this over with?” She hadn’t had a backbone then, but she wasn’t about to lose the one she’d grown since leaving Yuri.
Kyle’s boss and Jack sat beside her. Deke and Kyle took the two wingback chairs on the other side of the coffee table.
It was almost as if they’d choreographed the whole thing.
Either that, or Kyle couldn’t stomach being near her.
At that thought, her heart twisted so viciously she could feel the blood dripping out.
As much as it hurt, erecting an emotional wall between them was the only way she’d get through this. If that were even possible.
Deke pulled out a digital recorder and turned it on. He recited the date, time, the names of everyone present, and the person being interviewed—her. Although with four FBI agents, there was no doubting this was far more than an interview.
It was an interrogation.
“First and foremost,” Mike Morrison said, “where did Yuri have you hide the money?”
“In two bank safe deposit boxes,” she answered honestly, holding onto a few other facts. For the moment, at least. Eventually, she’d have to tell them everything, but there were justifiable reasons for doing that later. “Yuri didn’t want the money hidden in the house.”
“Because he was worried it would either be robbed by rival groups,” Kyle said, “or searched by the FBI. It’s the Bratva way.”
Morrison handed her a small pad and a pen. “Write down the name and address of the bank.”
She wrote down the address for a bank in Chicago—the one where Yuri’s money used to be.
“We subpoenaed every bank in Chicago for Yuri’s accounts,” Kyle said in an emotionless tone. “What name was the account in?”
“Mine,” she answered. “He said not to use his name.”
Kyle’s chest expanded on a deep breath. “Then it’s my fault, Mike. I vouched for her. I told you she was innocent.” His hard gaze swung back to her. “Of everything.”
He was shouldering the blame for this, and it was her fault. He really had to stop blaming himself for the actions of others.
“Actually,” Mike said, “I ran her name anyway, so it’s not your fault we missed this account.”
Kyle’s eyes narrowed. “So, what name is it under?”
“Yuri told me to set them up under my maiden name. After we were married, I was going to get a new driver’s license in my married name, but Yuri told me not to.” He’d also warned her that if she touched a dime of his money, he’d snap her neck like a pretzel.
“That’s why we never found it.” Kyle’s jaw clenched more. “Clever.”
“Did Yuri ever go with you to take out any of the money?” Jack asked.
“No.” She shook her head.
“How much money was in the boxes?” Morrison asked.
She noted that he’d said was, as if he assumed she’d spent it. In a way she had but not in the way he was figuring on. “Just over five million dollars.” She squeezed her eyes shut, steeling herself for the eventual questions to come and dreading having to answer them.
“Yuri and Nikolai Lebedev are suspected in the kidnappings of at least seven Russian citizens the FBI is aware of,” Morrison said.
“In each case, their families paid the ransom money in unmarked cash, but the victims never returned home, and their bodies were never discovered. The ransom money totaled over ten million dollars. Half that amount was seized from Nikolai Lebedev’s accounts.
The remainder we assumed was in Yuri’s possession. ”
Bile rose in her throat, forcing her to cover her mouth with her hand. She’d known Yuri’s money hadn’t come from anything good, but kidnapping and murder? She blew out quick, short breaths to keep from vomiting.
“You haven’t touched any of that money,” Kyle said. “Right?” The worried look in his eyes told her he wouldn’t like her answer. Despite his anger at discovering she was Yuri’s accountant, he actually seemed to be advocating for her. Somewhat, anyway.
But he shouldn’t be.
“Um.” Unable to meet the intensity of his stare, she looked at the waiver form she’d signed that was still sitting on the coffee table. Maybe she should take his suggestion after all to get an attorney.
“Ah, hell.” He massaged his forehead so aggressively it must really ache, and she understood why. “How much is left?”