Chapter 46
VIGO
I stared at the computer screen, my eyes practically crossed. I’d been on my computer all morning, Cassie and Jagger set up next to me on the patio table outside, cups of coffee gone cold, their laptops open.
“Did you know Owen Shaw was seen on Dimitri Kaprolov’s yacht in Greece?” I asked them.
Owen Shaw was a tech bro — a nerd from MIT who’d become a billionaire when he’d sold his software company to a tech giant.
“I saw that,” Cassie said, her eyes glued to her own computer.
We’d spent the first day home sleeping and regrouping, trying to conquer our jet lag. I was still a little groggy, but Hawk had left the house early that morning and Cassie had hopped out of bed and grabbed her laptop like a woman on a mission.
I’d felt like a dick letting her sift through the terabytes of information on Dimitri Kaprolov alone, so I’d grabbed my computer and we’d set up shop on the patio, combing the internet for everything we could find about Kaprolov and his known associates.
Jagger had joined us less than twenty minutes later.
“Did you know Kaprolov had dinner with Roman Vale at Cannes last year?” he said.
Cassie looked up. “Really?”
“Not surprised,” I said. “He always seemed like a smarmy asshole.”
Roman Vale was an A-List celebrity with the kind of dignified good looks I could only hope to achieve in my fifties. Maybe I should have been surprised that he was palling around with Kaprolov, but after just a couple of hours researching the Russian oligarch, nothing surprised me anymore.
The guy wasn’t just hanging with old pot-bellied Russians.
He was connected.
Really connected.
In just a couple of hours we’d logged not just tech bros and celebrities but titans of business, Saudi princes, and politicians from every continent in the world.
“It’s a long way from scary asshole to sex trafficker,” Jagger said.
“We don’t know they’re all sex traffickers,” Cassie said. “We’re just trying to establish high-profile connections to Dimitri so we can dig deeper. Some of these people may have no idea what he’s involved in.”
I leaned back in my chair. “You know what they say, two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”
Cassie trained her eyes — blue today — on me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I rested my foot on the table and tipped my chair back until I was teetering on the two back legs. “Just that Anna made it seem like a lot of people were involved in Imperium Fratrum. You really think no one’s talked?”
“I agree,” Jagger said, without looking up from his laptop. “People overlook bad shit all the time when it means confronting that the people they like are assholes or criminals.”
“You think some of these people know and just… accept it?” Cassie asked.
She didn’t get it because it was something she’d never do, which only made me love her more because she was one of the truly good people I knew and I’d realized a long time ago that truly good people weren’t a dime a dozen.
And yeah, I loved Cassie. It had crept up on me, but I couldn’t deny it when just the thought of losing her made me want to tear the world apart.
I just hadn’t told her yet because somehow I love you didn’t seem very romantic when you were trying to bring down a notorious sex trafficking ring.
Some separation between the two would be nice.
“I know they do,” I said. “Most people aren’t strong enough to have their internal biases confronted. It’s easier to just pretend things are the way you think they are or the way you want them to be.”
“Anyone who knows about this shit and hasn’t gone to the authorities is complicit,” Jagger said, finally tearing his eyes away from his computer. “They’re no better than the fuckers actually committing the crimes.”
“Agreed.” I heard the door close from the front of the house and turned toward the patio doors, open to the kitchen, just in time to see Hawk stride outside with his phone in his hand.
His expression was grim and I knew right away something was fucked.
“What’s wrong?” Cassie said, beating me to the question.
“You haven’t seen the news,” Hawk said.
“What news?” she asked.
“Neo sent me a text with a link to a breaking news update.” Hawk handed Cassie his phone. “Out of London.”
I righted my chair so that all four legs were back on solid ground. “Anna?”
Hawk nodded. “She’s dead.”
Cassie’s face went white. “This can’t… it can’t.”
She stood so fast her chair tipped back onto the patio.
“I’m sorry,” Hawk said. “I wanted to tell you before you heard it from someone else. I got back as fast as I could.”
Cassie’s back was to us and it took me a minute to realize her shoulders were shaking. When she turned around, her cheeks were treated with tears.
“We did this. This is our fault.”
Jagger stood. “Bullshit. The only people responsible for this is the people who did it.”
Cassie shook her head. “She told us.”
You may as well come in. The damage is done.
“It was too late by then.” I thought about the man Hawk and I had chased through the woods, the cigarette butt Hawk had found on the ground. “Even she knew it.”
Cassie went still. “What do you mean?”
Hawk closed his eyes with a sigh, like he knew what was coming.
“Someone was outside,” I said. “That’s why Hawk and I left. We tried to run him down but he got away in the woods.”
Cassie’s eyes widened as she looked from me to Hawk. “You knew she was in danger? You knew and didn’t say anything?”
“There was no point.” Hawk had turned on his FBI voice, but there was no way to tell him that was a bad idea here. “We’d already been made.”
“No point?” Cassie’s voice rose and broke on a sob. “No point? We could have gotten her out of there!” she shouted. “We could have gotten her someplace safe.”
“Do you really think Anna would have gone?” Hawk asked her. “Did she look like a woman who was ready to leave on a dime? Spend the rest of her life on the run?”
Hawk had a point. Anna had the air of someone who — for better or worse — was settled in for the long haul.
The damage is already done.
Now I understood why she’d sounded resigned. SHe’d known they would come for her.
“That wasn’t for you to decide!” Cassie said. “You should have told me! You should have told her!”
“Come on, Cassie. She knew!” Hawk roared. I’d never seen him so agitated, his face red, shoulders tight. “Fucking think about it! She knew!”
Did you find what you were looking for…? I’m sure it will reappear when we least expect it.
“No…” Cassie shook her head.
“Cass…” Jagger said, reaching for her.
“No!” Cassie held up her hands to keep him — to keep us — away. “No. We did this. This is our fault.” She glared at Hawk. “You should have told me.”
Then she turned her gaze on me and the anguish — the accusation — in her eyes almost broke me.
“You should have told me.”
None of us tried to stop her when she ran from the room.