Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Katya
Some serious shit’s gone down in the month since my office encounter with Dimitri. Izzy’s ex found her and tried to kidnap Drew, but grabbed Ian instead. The Four Families took care of the situation… so I had to falsify some documents to solve that little issue. Also, Alana’s building blew up. We’re all convinced everything is somehow connected to The Deviant and retaliation. The more I dig, the messier this all gets.
I turn off my computer screen when I smell Marshall’s cologne. He hovers over my shoulder and sniffs my hair. “Katie, the task force found a new lead. It’s in Canada.”
I sigh. “Is it the freight that came in at the Vancouver port yesterday?”
Marshall peers at his notes. “Yes.”
“It’s a dead end. There wasn’t Majesty on the boat, just a bunch of edible glitter, which has no right to exist.”
He drops a file on my desk. “Go to Canada and do your own recon.”
My head tilts and the frown spreads across my lips “No. It’s a dead end. It’s a better use of our time if we start looking into The Spider, because he’s actually moving Majesty into the country and going as far as branding his dealers.”
Marshall’s eyebrow twitches. “He’s branding them?”
I show him the tattoo I found on three different dealers’ bodies. “They were sampling the merch. It took three attempts, but they figured out the lethal dosage. Spoiler: it’s not very much and easy to fuck up.” I push the pictures around. “Honestly, this is the shittiest business plan I’ve ever seen. It’s too easy to overdose, the shit burns crazy hot and is super flammable, and the profitability for this thing is terrible since there’s no systematic way of keeping track of inventory.”
Marshall sighs. “I still need you to go to Vancouver.”
“Absolutely not. If you make me go, I’m transferring to a different group in the task force.”
“Sounds like a perfect solution. You get to travel, and when you come home, I don’t have to work with you on my team. Win-win.” He shrugs. “Maybe you’ll do better under Declan. He had a bunch of his team members die too. You two can trauma bond.”
Fucking asshole.
After a six hour flight stuck next to a man who smelled like onions, my time in Vancouver is exactly what I expected. I meet up with law enforcement and search the docks, view surveillance footage, and read through local police records. Dead end after dead end.
Red tape means one step forward, ten steps back, and nothing is getting done. My boyfriend is doing more damage to The Deviant than American agencies with millions of dollars and thousands of man hours. And I’m giving up my time and energy for what? For a goal that’s moving further out of reach while a broken system tries to fix it with duct tape and spit.
Maybe moving through unconventional means is the only way to get anything done.
Back at the airport, I send Dimitri a picture of the Majesty logo The Spider uses. Only one more use of this burner. My heart sinks. Nothing in my life is straightforward, nothing is easy. Just once, I would like to do something and see the immediate effects of those actions.
I land and return to the office to find a new assignment waiting for me. At least Marshall made good on his word. There’s an email from my new lead, Declan, who’s worked for DEA for years. He was on the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), but now he’s in charge of my little task force. He has years of experience, and, unlike Marshall, he’s not waving his dick around constantly.
When he extends an invitation for lunch, I can’t refuse. Do we meet in some posh restaurant to charge it to the Govie’s tab? Nope, we meet at a Potbelly.
“I’m getting a milkshake, you want one too?” he asks before we get in line. It’s winter and forty degrees, but the fact that he’s willing to brave the cold for a sugar rush endears him to me faster than if he handed me a basket of puppies. And he smells like… I don’t know, nostalgia. I can’t place it, but maybe the burnt ends of the over-toasted sandwiches are confusing my nose.
“Sure.” I instantly regret my answer as a gust of wind rattles the building. But at least it comes with a cookie.
Once we get our food, we sit at a tiny table by the bathroom—because this table isn’t next to the window.
“So you and Marshall… how did that work out?”
“Well, I’m working for you now, so that tells you everything you need to know.”
Declan’s hair is graying, and the lines around his eyes speak more about his experience than his resume. “He’s an asshole, never liked him. No fucking field work either, all behind a desk for his twenty years.” He points his milkshake at me. “Not like us.”
I nod. There were lots of reasons I didn’t like Marshall—his casual misogyny, his holier-than-thou attitude, and his cologne. But I didn’t realize he had never been in the field.
“I’ve been trying to get you on my team for a minute now.”
“Really?” The swell of pride bursts inside of me.
He takes a sip of milkshake. “Hell yeah. You’ve got great instincts. How else would you have gotten out of Russia the way you did?” He dips his head, realizing what he said. “I lost my whole team to a cartel raid, against the Sotelo family. It was like they were waiting for us. But how?” He presses his stomach. “Took some lead right here, almost didn’t make it.”
I know how he feels. “It’s the survivor’s guilt that keeps me up at night.” I take a sip of my milkshake and my insides freeze. “It’s like I need to keep punishing myself for living.”
He nods. “Probably why you kept working for Marshall.”
I laugh. “Karmic justice.” We both eat for a few minutes without saying anything.
“Do you replay that night in your head over and over again? Looking at it from a million different angles, perspectives,” he asks as he watches over my shoulder toward the door.
I scoff. “All the time.” Except when I’m with Dimitri.
He leans forward and whispers, “And do you come to the same conclusion every time?”
Nodding, I admit the same circle pattern always emerges. “Things can’t be trusted.”
He touches his nose.
My late night conspiracy theories are right, and my years of sacrifice, worth it!
“You ever heard of the Four Families?” he asks, and it takes every ounce of my self-control to keep my face neutral.
“Yeah, different criminal organizations linked together through a shared allyship,” I say while taking another bite of my sandwich. Crumbles explode everywhere. Stupid crunchy sandwiches.
Declan smirks and nods. “They aren’t alone. There are other groups who have the same alliances.” He leans in closer. “And The Deviant runs one of them.”
Shit. I almost choke on my ham and cheese. “And the Four Families are on his shit list because they won’t play nice and flood the streets with Majesty.”
Declan nods. “Their nobility could be the end of their line.”
My brain starts swirling, making rapid connections. “It can’t just be The Deviant that links the other crime families. He would need a team or an associate or something.”
“There’s one name that keeps coming up in all my investigations of the cartel, and it’s closely linked to The Deviant. The Spider.”
My stomach drops and I gasp until reality sneaks itself in. “Let’s face it, The Spider is a pretty common name amongst criminals… were they taking a shower and had an unwanted eight-legged visitor and that’s the fucking scariest thing they can think of?”
Declan laughs and points at me. “What if that fucker jumps on your naked body? That is a completely reasonable fear.”
“Fair.” I laugh into my milkshake that’s now more milk than ice cream. “Good point. But I’m looking at The Spider too. Probably not the same guy, but he is moving Majesty.”
We’re both quiet for a few minutes, and from what I can tell about Declan, he’s probably trying to forge the same connections I am. Is it a coincidence? Or is there something here we’re both missing?
Declan sucks down the last of his milkshake. “Hmm, my Spider has connections to the Sotelo cartel and the Smirnov family.”
Smirnov. My stomach twists and I want to scream. “I want to find him.”
Declan raises an eyebrow at me. “Then let’s do it. I’ve got one year left until I retire and I want The Spider behind bars.”
Or dead and buried.