Chapter 5 Alison
ALISON
One week later
I pulled up outside the casino, opened the door.
..and let out a kind of oof as all the cool, air-conditioned air escaped and city air as thick and hot as soup rushed in.
The city was sweltering in a brutal Chicago summer, every bit of concrete scorching, every metal door handle hot enough to burn.
Even now, in the late afternoon, it was barely any cooler.
I hurried over to Caroline’s car and leaned in as she lowered her window. “Anything?”
She shook her head mournfully and showed me her notes.
She’d been following Gennadiy all day, but he’d stuck to his usual haunts.
I cursed under my breath. I’d been running this operation for two weeks now, and we had nothing actionable.
“Thanks,” I told Caroline. “Good work. Go on, get out of here.”
She smiled gratefully and drove off to pick her kids up from daycare.
I ran back to my car, shut myself inside, and cranked the air conditioning up to max.
.. but like all of the vehicles from the FBI pool, it was built for utility, not luxury, and the blowers barely worked.
I flapped my blouse against my skin and scowled at the casino’s smoked glass doors.
I’d taken the first shift, from six a.m. until noon, and after working in the office for a few hours, I was back on until midnight tonight.
Or, more likely, I’d wind up staying on until the morning, afraid that we’d miss something if I dared to catch a few hours' sleep.
The problem was, surveillance takes a lot of manpower, and our little team didn’t have it.
Normally, we’d have two or three people on each shift, but that was impossible with only four of us.
Worse, Hadderwell and Fitch refused to work overtime, and Caroline’s kids meant she couldn’t work late either.
So most of the time it was just me, sitting outside Gennadiy’s mansion in an FBI car or following him through traffic on my bike.
I watched him even when I was meant to be off duty.
I was determined to bring him down...and it wasn’t like I had anything better to do with my evenings.
The casino’s doors swung open, and Gennadiy emerged, scowly and gorgeous, moving fast towards his car.
He might be an evil, uncaring son of a bitch, but I had to admit he worked his ass off.
He was always up and out of his mansion by seven, and he barely stopped all day, racing around town to visit the family’s various illegal enterprises.
He never made it home until the early hours. The man was a machine.
Gennadiy spotted me. His dark brows lowered, and he gave me one of his million-watt glares, his gray eyes like lasers.
I glared right back, loathing him...and trying not to think about how his new suit really showed off the V-shape of his upper body, or how soft his coal-black hair looked today.
Then he climbed into his car, and I started my engine, ready to follow.
Watching him had become my entire life: Caroline joked that I spent more time with him than with a husband.
When you’re around someone that much, you start to notice things.
Like the fact that he favored his left leg when he walked.
And that when he climbed into his BMW, he stroked the roof affectionately with that big, tattooed hand.
And that sometimes, when he glared, and that tidal wave of hate slammed into me.
..it felt like there was something else, a current going in the opposite direction, trying to tug me closer even as the main wave pushed me away…
I scowled. Don’t be stupid. Why would he want me?
When I wasn’t watching him, I was working with Caroline to map his network of illegal operations and front companies. A few days ago, we’d finally gathered enough to convince a judge to authorize a phone tap. The first time I listened to one of Gennadiy’s calls, I was full of hope.
But the calls I’d intercepted so far were worthless: the casino manager telling him about a new consignment of poker chips, the dry cleaners telling him his suit was ready.
Gennadiy was too smart: he probably had burner phones we didn’t know about, and he only used his regular phone for unimportant stuff.
Gennadiy drove off, and I tailed him to a bar called Worship, which the brothers had taken from a bunch of Armenians earlier that year.
I followed him in and sat in the corner sipping a ridiculously expensive alcohol-free beer, but it was useless: the Aristovs disappeared into a VIP area upstairs, and I wasn’t getting in there without a warrant. Goddammit!
When he finally left the bar, it was nearly midnight, and I was exhausted. I followed him back to the mansion and set up in my usual location outside. Weird...wasn’t that streetlight broken before?
I reclined my seat as far as it would go. I didn’t dare sleep, but I could at least get comfortable...or as comfortable as it’s possible to be, in a car with only tepid bottled water and a stale takeout sandwich.
Suddenly, the laptop on the seat next to me bleeped. Gennadiy was making a call! I grabbed my earbuds, hope rising. It was the middle of the night; no way this was the dry cleaners.
A voice. Russian-accented, female, and... excited. “Are you almost here?”
A long-suffering sigh from Gennadiy. “I have to cancel, Avelina. I’m sorry.”
“Gennadiy! Nooo!” She drew out the ‘o’ into a moan, and I grimaced. I could picture her, lower lip pouting. In my mind, she had long blonde hair and catwalk-model looks. I hated her already. It was something about his name in her mouth.
“You know how it is,” he said tiredly. “A problem with work.”
“There’s always a problem with work.”
I winced. I’d had this exact conversation with boyfriends in the past, when I had to work late at the FBI. They just didn’t understand that—
“It’s important,” Gennadiy told Avelina. I nodded in agreement.
Avelina’s voice became sulky and sing-song, like a spoiled princess. “Sometimes, I think you just don’t care about me.”
There was a scraping sound, and I realized Gennadiy was running his hand over his stubble. “Avelina, you went into this with your eyes open. I told you, no getting involved. Just sex.”
I blinked. Was that really how he ran his life? It sounded so...stark. And lonely.
There was a rustle of covers and a wump, as if Avelina was lying in bed and had melodramatically flopped onto her back. “Fine. Tomorrow night, then. But...Gennadiy?”
“Yes?”
“Tell me what you’ll do to me.”
I could almost hear the smile spread across Gennadiy’s face. “That depends. Have you been a good girl, Avelina? Or a bad one?”
The faint creak of the bed as Avelina shifted her weight. “A very, very bad one,” she whispered.
“Then I’m going to have to bend you over your kitchen table again,” Gennadiy told her. “Pull your dress up over your hips. Rip away your panties.”
I felt my face heating. I should stop listening. Clearly, this wasn’t about work. But my hand wouldn’t move to the Disconnect button.
“Then I’ll push your legs wide apart.” Gennadiy’s Russian accent made each word a silvery weight that sank through my mind and plunged straight to my groin. “Shove my face between your thighs.”
I glared at the laptop. I hate him, I thought determinedly. I’m going to destroy the bastard.
But…
There was something different about the rage he sparked in me.
I’m used to my anger, it’s a poisonous black ooze that wells up from deep inside me, filling me, crushing my lungs until I can’t breathe, squeezing my brain until I can’t think, until I have to find some way to release it.
But with Gennadiy, it was like the dark liquid heated as the pressure built.
The more I saw of him, the more I heard his accent, the hotter the anger got, boiling towards a flashpoint where it would just explode.
“I’ll pin you to the table,” said Gennadiy. “And press my tongue right up inside you. I’ll tongue-fuck you to the very edge. But I won’t let you come. Not until you’re a thrashing, moaning mess. Not until you beg me to let you.”
Avelina’s breathing had gone trembly. So had mine.
“And then I’ll push two fingers into you and feel you squeeze them as you come,” said Gennadiy.
I could see his thickly perfect, tattooed fingers in my mind. I shifted my ass on the seat. I was practically lying down, it was dark—well, darkish—and no one was around. One hand wandered down to my thigh. Then I snatched it back. No! Jesus, what’s wrong with me?
“What will you do then?” said Avelina, asking the question I couldn’t.
“Pick you up,” said Gennadiy. “Carry you through to the bedroom.”
I’d experienced his arms wrapped around me, the press of his pecs against my back. I could imagine exactly what it would feel like to be carried like that.
“I’ll throw you on the bed,” Gennadiy told us. “Pull your dress down and suck a breast into my mouth.”
My hand started to wander downwards again.
Then a movement in my peripheral vision caught my eye.
The drapes were open in one of the mansion’s upstairs windows, and a hulking, suited figure had walked into view, a phone pressed to his ear.
I froze, staring. I could see his mouth move as his words filled my ear.
“I’ll rake my teeth along your nipple, feeling it harden against my lips.
And my hand will be on your throat, pinning you to the bed.
” The figure turned, and my heart jumped into my throat.
He was staring out at the street, staring at me!
“I’ll spread your legs wide,” said Gennadiy in that silvery Russian accent. “And let my cock just kiss the lips of your pussy. That way, I can feel you getting wetter and wetter as I lick your breasts. I’ll watch you grind your hips and arch your back. Trying to get me inside you. Needing me.”