Chapter Two
I stood behind my desk, facing the floor-to-ceiling window in my office that overlooked the city below. My fingers closed around the glass of whiskey as I took a sip, finding peace in solitude.
I’d just recently taken care of a sticky situation that threatened the safety of our organization. A man named Percy Brown was selling vital Bratva information to a rival gang. I found no pleasure in watching him draw his breath.
However, in my line of work, betrayal was unforgivable, and loyalty was non-negotiable. He knew the rules, yet he chose to double-cross the same organization he’d been in business with for decades.
Ending his life was necessary, and I’d do it again and again until these assholes learned not to shit where they ate. My lieutenant, Yuri, was secretly fishing out other moles amongst us—partners and soldiers alike.
The goal was to purge the brotherhood of traitors who, for their own personal benefits, were willing to sell us out to our enemies. We’d find them and make public examples out of them so the others would learn to tread with caution.
However, as far as I was concerned, that was a done deal. The issue on the ground was the girl who’d witnessed us taking care of Percy Brown. I didn’t get a proper look at her, but I caught a glimpse of her face before she fled in fear.
She moved so fast that by the time the men I sent after her reached the corridor, she was already halfway down the stairs. Eventually, she left the building at lightning speed—the kind that made you wonder whether she was a trained spy or someone desperate to get away from the scene of a crime.
Whatever the case, that speed of hers piqued my interest. Now she had my attention. She had my full attention. I’d asked Yuri to review the security cameras and find her for me. He wasn’t to engage yet. For now, I only needed all the information I could get about her.
I lifted the glass to my lips and took another sip, my eyes fixed across the window.
The door behind me opened, and Yuri walked inside. I didn’t need to turn around to know it was him.
“Boss,” he called softly.
I glanced over my shoulder but said nothing.
“I have the files you asked for.” He set them on my mahogany table. “This is everything on the girl.”
I drained the remaining whiskey down my throat and turned around, my gaze meeting his face.
“Her name is Aria Bennett,” he said.
“Who’s she working for?”
“Nobody,” he answered. “She’s not a spy and doesn’t even belong in our world.”
I sat in my chair, slowly flipping through the pages of her file. According to what I was reading, she was a journalism student with no criminal record. A photograph of her slipped out from under the file and settled in front of me.
The second my eyes fell on the image, my breath hitched. The photographer had captured every detail of her face, down to the faint freckles on her nose. Her eyes were a striking blue—light and tinged with curiosity.
Her hair fell in loose, messy waves over her shoulders, with a few strands framing her oval face. She wore a faint grin that made her eyes crinkle at the corners.
The shot was perfect, capturing the true essence of her beauty.
I should focus on who she was and the mess she’d gotten herself into. But I couldn’t stop staring at the photo in my hand.
“When was this taken?” I asked without raising my head to look at him.
“Not sure,” he answered. “It was pulled off her social media.”
A pause.
“I’ve sent the CCTV footage to your system,” he added. “The girl was seen going through the financial records of Meridian Solutions.”
I squinted my eyes. “Why?”
He paused. “I’m not entirely sure.”
“Is she a staff member in the industry?”
“No,” he said. “She came in with a visitor’s badge.”
I met his gaze. “Who’d she come to visit?”
“A staff member named Frank Donovan.”
“What’s her relationship with him?”
“They’re mutuals on all social media platforms,” he answered. “I had our IT team pull up screenshots of their conversations over the last couple of months. It’s all in the file I sent to your computer.”
I leaned back in my chair without a word.
“Based on what I found, she’d contacted him to help her get access to Meridian Solutions for her research assignment on financial corruption.”
I raised my brows. “Financial corruption.”
“That’s what she told him in their conversation,” he said. “I did a little digging, and her story checks out.” A pause. “She wasn’t lying.”
“Why Meridian Solutions?”
“That’s a question only she can answer.”
I glanced back at her photograph.
The curious blond wasn’t a spy; she was just a regular girl who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She saw something she wasn’t supposed to see. The punishment for that was severe.
“Who did she call right after she left the site?” I asked him. “Did she go to the police?”
“She didn’t,” he answered. “I have men watching her as we speak, and so far, nothing out of the ordinary has happened.” A pause. “She’s afraid, and I believe she knows better than to go to the cops.”
It wouldn’t matter if she did anyway. We owned more than a quarter of the police in the city of Chicago.
“What do you want me to do with her?”
I thought for a second. “Keep a close eye on her. Monitor her every move, but don’t engage.”
“What about the guy, Frank Donovan?”
I thought for a second, trying to figure out what to do with him. By now, it was obvious already that these two delinquents had no idea what they were mixed up in.
“Watch him too.”
He gave a curt nod, then turned around and began heading out.
“And Yuri…”
He stopped in his tracks, glancing back at me.
“Remember to keep me updated every hour.”
“Yes, Boss.”
With that, he left my office and closed the door behind him.
I picked up her photograph again and continued staring at it for no justifiable reason. I knew I should set it down and focus on more important stuff. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.
The thought of her was a welcome distraction I didn’t realize I needed.