24. Lev
“You look like you haven’t slept,” Feliks says, walking into my study.
It’s early afternoon, and I’m running on adrenaline and caffeine. My fourth cup of coffee sits half-finished in front of me.
“I got a couple of hours.” It’s a lie. I got nothing but a night spent tossing and turning in my bed while sleep eluded me. “Any update from your men posted outside her motel room?”
He holds up the folder in his hand, and by his expression, I know it’s not going to be good news.
“You need to see these,” he says, placing the file on my desk.
“What are they?”
“Seems your shadow has been making contact with Brooke more times than you thought.”
I let out a rough breath.
My shadow.Of course, he’s involved in this somehow.
I open the file. The first series of security camera photos are of Brooke and Agent Michaels talking at the hospital. The second series of photos are of the two of them again, clearly on a different day, and it looks like they’re at the hospital again. But Michaels has his arm around Brooke, and it looks like she’s burying her face into his shoulder.
They appear very cozy.
My hands curl into fists on the desk. I squeeze them so tight my fingernails pinch into my skin, and my knuckles glow white.
She’s in his fucking arms.
“What the fuck is this?” I growl.
“It’s what it looks like, Lev. Brooke was meeting with Agent Michaels at the hospital.”
Inside me, the possessive monster wakes up and roars.
Feliks looks empathetic. “I don’t want to say it—”
“Then don’t,” I snarl, hating the thought that Brooke might’ve betrayed me to Michaels, feeding him information about me and the bratva.
“I don’t like it any more than you do. I love Brooke. But look at the photos, Lev. Is it such a stretch to think that she exchanged information so he would help her escape?”
“She stowed away in the back of a food truck and had her friend pay for a motel room. If Michaels was helping her, then he’s doing a shit job.” I look at the photos, hating the churning in my gut.
“There’s more.”
My eyes dart from the photo to Feliks. “What?”
He sorts through the photos until he finds a set taken this morning. It’s of Brooke and Agent Michaels talking in a diner.
My gut twists painfully.
Feliks removes a letter from his suit pocket. “And this also came through this late this morning.”
It’s a notification of a denied parole application. I’m about to ask what it has to do with any of this when I see the name on the application. Todd Bastik. The man who was put away for Brooke’s parents’ deaths. He was eligible for parole. But today, the board denied it.
And now Brooke is missing.
“Reach out to our contact in the justice department. Ask him what swayed the parole board’s decision to deny that fucker his freedom.”
“I already did. Apparently, a certain FBI agent wormed his way into their ears. Well, according to talk around the water cooler.”
I feel Feliks hesitate.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I demand.
“Our contact also confirmed someone is definitely talking to the FBI. Someone in our circle. I’m sorry, Cousin, but it can only be her.”
“More water cooler gossip?”
“Perhaps, but sometimes it’s the most reliable source.” He sighs, not enjoying this. “All roads seem to be pointing to Brooke being the FBI’s informant.”
His words might as well be a punch to my face.
Every muscle in my body tightens with the pain of her disloyalty.
“If someone is talking, why haven’t I heard about it earlier?” I growl.
“Because it only just happened.”
“It might not be her. I already suspected we have a rat.”
“Not a rat talking to the feds. A rat talking to Vlad. This is different. Besides, Brooke met with him today. Our contact said this new witness has only come on board recently. He doesn’t have access to exact details, like dates and names. Only that it’s recent. You don’t believe in coincidences, and neither do I.”
He’s right. I don’t. Where there is smoke, there is usually fucking fire.
A heavy weight lodges itself deep in my chest.
“Can this contact probe deeper? Find out a name?”
“He said the details for this case are shrouded in extra security. You know how much Michaels wants to take you down. He’s not leaving anything to chance. He’s made it so only certain levels of security clearance can gain access to the information.”
“What about that other contact you had? The woman you used to date. Doesn’t she have high clearance in the FBI?”
“Olivia?” He looks sheepish. “She’s currently unavailable.”
Meaning his dick has somehow burned that bridge.
I sit back in my chair, my shoulders tight with tension. “It might not have been Brooke. I want to start looking for a rat in the bratva.”
Feliks frowns. “You know how much I like Brooke. I don’t want it to be her. But even you can’t deny that those photos and Todd Bastik’s parole denial make her look guilty.”
“Perhaps, but we need to be vigilant and not get tunnel vision with this.”
“I agree, and I hope I’m wrong about her. But we also can’t afford to let your feelings to get in the way of this.”
I glower at him. It sounds awfully like he is questioning my judgement. If it was anyone else but him I would wipe his face off his head with my bare hands.
I grit my teeth. “I don’t let any emotion cloud my judgement.”
“No but you’ve ever had feelings for someone like you do with Brooke.”
“She’s carrying my child.”
“And that’s the extent of your feelings for her?”
“No, it wasn’t.” I look at the photos and Todd Bastik’s denied parole notification and I feel the betrayal right down to my bones. “But it is now.”
I feel a beast wake up inside of me. One born to protect me from putting blind faith in someone because I’ve contracted some kind of feelings for them.
And right now its reminding me exactly why Brooke would do this.
I stormed into her life and relentlessly pursued her.
I broke into her apartment and pointed a gun at the man she had once loved enough to marry.
I ripped her from her safe life—the one where she didn’t have to worry about car bombs and assassination attempts— and forced her to live with me in my world.
All because of one fateful day when I caught a glimpse of her and decided I wanted her.
All because of one moment that gave birth to some sick obsession inside me that needed to make her mine.
Since then, she’s been a pawn in my fantasy. I’ve taken her freedom from her and backed her into so many corners she got confused enough to fall into bed with me again and again.
And in my bed, I pulled her further away from the light and deeper into the darkness, where she sank deeper and deeper with me.
Now, Agent Michaels has pulled her away just far enough for her to see the light again, where she can have her old life back. One that includes her friends and a world that doesn’t cause her the same pain as mine does.
So the question isn’t why she would do this.
It’s why the fuck wouldn’t she?