Chapter 2
COLE
Kate answers before I do. “Go to hell, you motherfucking gobshite!”
I want to believe that’s a good sign. She’s recovered enough to understand what Pyotr Tarasov is demanding.
Or maybe she’s still stunned, still saying whatever she’s thinking, without appropriate fear of the murderous cocksucker who got the drop on us.
There’s a panic button wired into the fireplace mantel across the room—one tap and the DC police, my private security firm, and my well-armed chief of staff will be on their way.
There’s a 44 magnum in my office, a double-barrel shotgun in the coat closet, and a Glock in my nightstand upstairs.
There’s a panic room down the hall, across from my office, with concrete walls, independent air filtration, food, and water to last four people for a month, along with a small armory’s worth of firepower.
And none of it matters, because I’m sitting on my ass with my hands cuffed behind my back, praying my wife isn’t actually concussed and hoping I can keep from strangling my sister.
Because all of this is Megan’s fault.
She was raised by the same carnivore I was. She knows every con in the book. All her life, Megan has swindled men bigger than she is, richer than she is, and a hell of a lot more powerful than she is. She understands risk and reward because she was born into the game.
Along the way, she’s earned her share of bruises and broken bones. She’s served some time—a few months here, a year there—but she’s smart and she’s tough and she knows when to walk away from a grift that’s going bad.
But she didn’t walk away from Tarasov. She brought Tarasov to my fucking front door. She put Kate at risk. And for that, I’m cutting her out of my life forever.
Just as soon as I get us away from this crazy bratva motherfucker.
“The Canton Crew?” I ask, carefully sounding as confused as if he lapsed into Russian when he made his demand.
“Nice try.” He laughs as he juts his chin toward Kate. “You knew that tight little cunt was Crew when you married her.”
I sigh. With language like that, now I have to kill Tarasov.
But before I take Tarasov’s life, I’m taking his money. And his reputation. And his pride. Before I execute the bastard, he’ll know I’m the one who took him down, and he will know precisely why.
Because I mastered the exact same cons my sister learned from our mother. And I have more discipline than both those women combined. Plus, I know things Pyotr Tarasov doesn’t know.
For starters, I know exactly how the asshole writes code.
I’ve watched him hone his skills inside the confines of my Winter Reckoning game.
I’ve read his so-called private chats with all the Red Cap Raiders.
I’ll admit his code is good, but he starts to make mistakes after he’s been working for ten, eleven, twelve hours straight.
And there’s something else I know that Pyotr Tarasov doesn’t.
I don’t need to hack into any Canton Crew computers.
I already have the keys. The front door, back door, and every potential access point in between—they’re all under my control.
In fact, just three days ago, I updated the Crew’s entire system with a virtually unhackable firewall.
That was the reason I married Kate Lynch last month—because her Irish mob father wouldn’t do business with a man who wasn’t family. I’m the only person in the world who can give Barry Lynch the security he requires.
Of course, I don’t advertise my client list because I don’t want gun-toting morons showing up at my front gate, demanding back-door access to the systems I’ve designed.
I smother my instinct to glance at Kate. She knows about the work I’ve done for her father. She knows I can just turn a key and leave the door wide open for Tarasov and anyone else to swoop in on the Baltimore mob.
I won’t do that, of course. Even though I’m handcuffed in my own living room, sitting next to my restrained wife, cursing my soul-dead sister as Pyotr Tarasov holds a gun with the casual familiarity that most men reserve for coffee cups.
Handing over access to the Canton Crew would seriously cramp my future client development initiatives. So I say to Tarasov, “You’re a hacker. Break into the Crew yourself.”
He frowns. “I did. Six weeks ago, those files were open like a public bus terminal. But something changed last week. And now I cannot get back in.”
I’m the something. But I’m not about to let Tarasov know that. Just like I’m not telling him I run Winter Reckoning, that I’ve watched him for years.
Instead, I point out the obvious. “Even if I wanted to help you, I can’t. Barry Lynch would kill me the instant he found out I let you in.”
That’s almost true. Lynch wouldn’t kill me the instant he learned I was a traitor.
He’d take his time and make it hurt. A lot.
Kate’s father isn’t some Hollywood ideal of an enlightened mobster, deeply conflicted over the duality of good and evil in the complex morality of the modern world.
He’s a cold-blooded snake who kills for fun.
Tarasov puffs air from his lips. “That gives you incentive to cover your tracks.”
“Even if Lynch doesn’t kill me, my wife will.”
Tarasov snorts, before he realizes I’m serious.
If I let the bratva into the Crew’s system, Kate wouldn’t hesitate to poison my morning protein shake.
She’s a wild creature, willing to fight tooth and nail long past the time any reasonable woman would admit defeat.
Her family spent decades trying to break her spirit.
They’ve told her for years that she’s broken, she’s bad.
They’ve chosen to bless her sweet, mild sister with every single expression of their familial love.
But Kate is still a Lynch. She refused to take my name when we married. She bleeds emerald-green for the Canton Crew, exactly the way her grandmother taught her. She’ll always be loyal to her family.
Tarasov shakes his head, but he keeps his voice mild. “So now I know who wears the pants in your little family. Let me guess? She promises to peg you twice a year, on your birthday and at Christmas?”
I’ll take him downstairs to my dungeon. I’ll truss him like a fucking Christmas turkey. I’ll ream every hole in his body—starting with dildos and ending with my electric cattle prod. I’ll make him call me Master.
For now, though, Tarasov levels his gun at me. This close, I can see it’s a Makarov. Eight rounds. Nothing fancy. It doesn’t have to be.
“Enough,” he says. “I am bored. You will agree to hack into the Canton Crew computers.”
I pull myself upright from the couch. It only takes one stride to close the distance between us. Tarasov has a couple of inches on me in height, and probably forty pounds, but I’m guessing most of that is fat.
It doesn’t matter. I’m not fighting him. Instead, I lean into the muzzle of his gun, centering the barrel on my heart.
“No,” I say.
He’s already tipped his hand. He can’t shoot me. If he pulls the trigger, he’ll lose my skills as a hacker. And by going to so much trouble to force my compliance, he’s admitted he can’t access the Crew’s network on his own.
A muscle works in his jaw, tugging his thin lips out of alignment. His pupils dilate and contract with his heartbeat. Tiny beads of sweat slick his temples.
“Yes,” he finally says. “Because if you do not get me access to the Canton Crew, then I will share a certain file on my computer with the authorities. The Federal Bureau of Investigation will be very interested to learn what the Red Cap Raiders have been up to. Especially what CyberGhost has done. She will face years in prison. She will be banned from the Internet for life.”
“You’d be cutting off your own dick, handing over records like that.”
“Me?” Tarasov asks, his lips twisting into a parody of a smile. “I assure you, I have no connection with Red Cap. Nothing that can be found on any computer anywhere.”
I’ve seen him manipulate Winter Reckoning. I’ve tracked Red Cap, protecting client after client as they work their raids. I know exactly how hard it would be—virtually impossible—to scrub every connection of MaskedMarauder.
But if he planned this all along?
Not this exactly. He couldn’t know Kate’s identity when they started running together. There was no way to predict Kate and I would marry.
But Tarasov could have kept his Red Cap life private from the very beginning, banking that it would pay off somehow. He wouldn’t need to scrub his record. He just had to keep from building one in the first place.
“And in case you think you can eliminate the threat by—” He clears his throat, a sound far too delicate for a bear like him. “Eliminating me…” He continues. “Please be aware that my obshchak has instructions to make my CyberGhost records public in the event of my untimely demise.”
His obshchak. I’ve done enough work for bratva families to know that’s a position halfway between treasurer and fixer.
Tarasov shrugs. “I will release those documents myself, if you do not access the Canton Crew system.”
“It could take weeks to break in there,” I lie.
Tarasov is too professional to note that I’ve conceded my basic argument. “One week,” he says. “That is how long you have.”
“You say yourself—”
“One. Week.” He cuts me off. “Or your cunt of a wife starts explaining her online games to the FBI.”