36. Mac
36
Mac
I can’t believe I’m considering this.
“Yeah, he’s not take-a-couple-of-bribes-a-year rich. And he’s definitely not public-servant rich.”
Dimitri whistles as Wes shares his screen. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Could it be generational? Inheritance?” I ask.
Wes shrugs. “I looked back a few generations, and his family has money, but that only accounts for maybe 10% of this. It’s hard to know for sure, but this might actually have been the family business—his father, who was also briefly the mayor here, received irregular, large lump sums that he started funneling offshore in the 90’s.”
I blow out a breath and lace my fingers behind my head as I lean back in my chair. “So, Mayor Anderson is probably in on the weapons scheme. That explains why Rossi wouldn’t go to the cops. If he works for or with Anderson, he wouldn’t want to go running to him to clean up every mess, not when it makes him look incompetent and he’s got his own contacts.”
Wes nods and stands as he drains the rest of his energy drink. “And if he is in on it, this just got a lot more fucking complicated. We can’t just assassinate a public official. It draws media attention. Higher authorities of law, like the FBI… that sort of thing.”
Dimitri sighs. “ Here you cannot.”
Wes and I exchange a look. Dimitri is so tight-lipped about his past, I collect the factoids like breadcrumbs and I know Wes does, too.
“What the bloody hell is going on in Russia?” Wes asks as he goes to the built-ins on the wall of the study and opens one of the bottom cabinets, revealing a safe and a mini fridge .
“A blanket of snow hides many sins.”
I snort and Wes straightens, new drink in hand. “That was fucking poetry, mate.”
Dimitri hmmphs.
“When did you get a mini fridge?” I ask.
Wes cracks the drink and takes a sip, finishing with a little ahh . “Day before yesterday. I’m all about peak efficiency.”
“I know you’ve got short legs, but it’s only like 40 steps to the kitchen. What’s that, like, half a mile for you—”
“Can we get back to the job?” Dimitri mutters some colorful Russian insults under his breath— penis from the mountains . That’s new. “The money alone is not proof, but it is strong evidence. We need something more concrete that ties Anderson to the sale, or to this business with Rossi.”
“That’s going to be tricky. All those weeks of research and his name never even came up once. If he’s in this, he’s well-hidden,” Wes points out.
Dimitri scratches his chin, the noise rasping against his stubble even through the call. “I have an idea, but James will not like it.”
“I already don’t, just from that lead in.”
Dimitri lifts a brow, and goes on, “Our problem is that we do not know for sure the mayor’s involvement and, if he is involved, we do not know what he knows.”
“That about sums it up,” Wes acknowledges.
“If we kill Rossi, and it actually has been the mayor’s operation this whole time, we lose. Even though Rossi is the job. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Wes says.
I’m done with the buildup. “Quit edging us and tell us your idea.”
“We should use the cop. Eleanor could—”
“No.”
At Dimitri’s sigh, Wes nudges me, “Unless you’ve got one locked and loaded, let’s hear his idea out.”
“I’m not putting the woman I love in danger,” I say.
“I am not suggesting this is what we do,” Dimitri snaps. “Well, not really.”
“The woman you love?” Wes says slyly .
“Yes, it was obvious he loves her. Focus! It is like being a goat herder sometimes,” Dimitri mutters. “This cop came to Eleanor to ask for information about me weeks ago. Now they think that we are connected because Rossi saw us together at the restaurant. So, she can offer this cop information about me to get a meeting, then we can use him to determine how involved the mayor is. And you can be there, you can ensure no harm comes to her.”
I grind my jaw. I hate the thought of Eleanor being anywhere near that dirty cop. Or Rossi. Or the Mayor. Or any of this.
“Think about it. Rossi is in hiding. All his men are dead, other than Owen Johnson, who is in the coma—”
“A coma,” Wes pipes in.
“That is what I said. The mayor’s part in this has eluded us so far, so he is likely not directly involved by design. This officer is the last connection we know of between them and a good opportunity for us. Perhaps the last we will get.”
“I don’t want her involved,” I say, rubbing my eyes.
“Eleanor is involved, my friend. She has been for many weeks now.”
“But if she does this, we can’t know how McCloskey will react or what he’ll do. What if he goes right to Rossi, or tries to arrest her for some bullshit charges? She’ll be in danger.”
Wes catches my eye. “So, we do what we do best—we make our plan, we control the variables. His hands are tied, too, he won’t arrest her for the same reason Rossi never reported Dimitri to the police. It’s really not a bad idea, Mac.”
I sigh. There are ways we could protect her—mic her up, be in her ear and coach her on what to say, be there in person. The cop hasn’t seen my face, or Wesley’s… “I can’t believe I’m considering this.”
“You are considering it because you are a reasonable man and you know we are very good at what we do,” Dimitri says, not bothering to hide his satisfaction. “You know we take precautions so no one on the team gets hurt—this would now include Eleanor.”
Truthfully, I did know that. He’s come a long way from thinking of her as collateral damage. “Okay, but we let her decide if she wants to help.”
“A given,” Wes says. Dimitri rolls his eyes, but nods .
“And if we do this, we finish it—one fell swoop. It needs to be soon, and we’ll need a trap, or something foolproof so there’s no time for it to escalate.”
“I agree,” Dimitri says.
Wes leans forward in his chair. “Then we don’t have time to do anything clever with costumes or—”
“Costumes?” Dimitri repeats, appalled.
“Disguises,” Wes amends with a little laugh. “The easiest way to know they’re working together for sure would be just to get them together, and let them dig their own grave.”
Dimitri shakes his head and leans forward, like he’s checking something out the window of his car. “It will be difficult to draw Rossi out. He is very… comfortable. He only goes outside for the mail—everything is delivered and he works from the house office, taking calls in his underpants.”
I consider that. “So… we need to rattle him?”
“It would not hurt. He is safe in this house, he believes, but I think our original assessment is correct and he would react if provoked. Especially if he thought it was me, and he thought he could be close to catching me.”
I stand, “One second. I think I know what we can use.”
I head to the kitchen, listening to Wes and Dimitri lapse into work-adjacent conversation that isn’t more planning they’d need to catch me up on. I head to the freezer to grab the paper bag I tucked in the back of an empty drawer, and toss it on the table in front of Wes when I get back to the office.
“We’ll send him this. Taunt him.”
Wesley unrolls the bag, glances inside and calmly rolls the bag back up, just a bit more green around the gills. “Bloody hell,” he murmurs to himself, making a face.
“What is it?” Dimitri wants to know.
“You might have warned me!” Wes snaps at me, heated. It’s interesting to see; he’s normally so unflappable.
“What is it?” Dimitri repeats, louder.
“Fucking eyeballs,” Wes growls, wiping his hand on his pants, then grimacing when he realizes that if there was something on his hand, now it’s on his pants.
“Whose?” Dimitri presses, pure curiosity .
“Rossi’s fixer, from the steam room—the one who pretended to be a detective.”
“Why do you even have them?” Wes prompts, still sounding miffed.
I shrug. “He saw her in a towel.”
Dimitri smiles his approval, likely both at the bloody-yet-fitting nature of the vengeance and the idea to gift them to our favorite weapons smuggler. “This could work.”
Wes opens a drawer of his desk and grabs a container of wet wipes. “Troglodytes,” he mutters, giving his hands and then the desk in front of him a thorough scrub as I remove the bag with a laugh.
“So, we need Rossi to think Dimitri is within his grasp and we need the mayor to have a reason to seek Rossi out.” Wes starts tapping his fingers against the glass, a deep-in-thought gesture. He grimaces. “Honestly, Dimitri would be the best for that—he could play them off each other and we’d know how involved the mayor is by whether or not he recognizes him.”
“I cannot be in two places at once,” Dimitri observes.
But Wes’s eyes have narrowed and he’s staring at my jaw. “You know, you both have a bruise in almost the same exact spot…” he points to his jaw, like we needed a reminder of where.
Dimitri and I look at each other. His is a bit more advanced in healing, more of a brown than my fresh purple one. But I can see where Wes is coming from. When using distinguishing facial features to describe someone, people hardly ever think to comment on what color the bruise was, just the existence of it and its location.
And while Dimitri and I aren’t exactly twins, we do have roughly similar builds that I could pad out with a thick jacket, and a hat pulled down over our eyes would hide most of his largest scar that I don’t share…
“I think I have an idea…”