Chapter 15 Blood Pressure
Blood Pressure
The Forger:
Fee would be impressed by the scope of what I've built around her, if she weren't so busy living inside it.
Killing people is easy, really. Point, shoot, dispose. Any idiot with steady hands can end a life. The art form lies in creating narratives, constructing entire worlds, weaving realities so convincing that brilliant minds accept them without question.
That's the puzzle worth solving. Fee would understand that. She appreciates elegant solutions to impossible problems. The methodical approach she took to Morrison's files... She thinks like I do.
Fee's altered me, forced me to recalculate the endgame. But seven years of preparation don't evaporate because of unexpected interests. Anton's death remains essential.
I study the screen showing Morrison's financial records, the same files she dissected. Watching her work through my digital traps proved more arousing than any sexual encounter I've ever had.
The way her brain processes information, compartmentalizes emotion from logic, maintains laser focus despite chaos surrounding her...makes my cock hard.
Women bore me. Pretty faces attached to warm holes, useful for physical relief but intellectually barren. They giggle, they pretend, they perform. They are a temporary distraction, nothing more.
Not Fiona Quinn.
She makes my pulse race without touching me. It makes me recalculate variables I thought fixed. Makes me consider possibilities I'd dismissed as strategically irrelevant.
She has my whole and undivided interest. My complete attention in ways no one has ever managed before.
She analyzes instead of performing. While other women dissipate energy through emotional reactions, Fee directs every ounce of her considerable intellect toward dismantling the puzzle before her.
Her work through Morrison's files demonstrated that beautifully, no handwringing, no theatrical displays of stress, just methodical brilliance cutting through layers of obfuscation like a scalpel through flesh.
That tenacity. That dedication. That fucking gorgeous brain.
She's a combination of intelligence, persistence, and ethical flexibility that creates true brilliance.
I've been close enough to smell her perfume lingering in the air she's just moved through. It's sweet and subtle like blackberry, citrus, and chocolate, an exquisite merlot scent that's burned into my brain.
Getting that close required months of meticulous groundwork. Building identities from scratch, establishing credible backstories, and creating intersecting social circles that give me legitimate reasons to exist in her sphere.
The years in Europe, perfecting my language acquisition and cultural absorption, opened doors here that force would have destroyed.
I've moved through her digital spaces, her physical world, and her family's professional networks—buying time to get to the next step and building proximity without detection.
The ultimate test of showcasing all my multicultural and multidisciplinary skills.
Worth every second.
The knock on my office door interrupts my review of Moira Carlucci's medical records.
Seven months pregnant with a large baby. Her blood pressure has been rising steadily over the last few weeks.
And there's Lorenzo's fortress in Providence that has forty armed guards rotating shifts every eight hours. All security has been upgraded recently. Anton's work, obviously. Anton's paranoia extends to everyone Fee cares about.
I study the thermal imaging overlay showing guard positions throughout Lorenzo's mansion. The new motion sensors cover blind spots the previous system missed. Pressure plates under carpets near vulnerable access points. Reinforced door frames with biometric scanners.
Professional, thorough, expensive.
Completely irrelevant.
Every security system has vulnerabilities. The more complex the system, the more entry points exist for someone who understands the architecture.
Lorenzo's fortress relies on technology I'm very familiar with. My organization hacked this system while working on a Milanese hit.
The knock sounds again. More insistent.
"Come in."
The door opens. Aleh files in, wearing the tailored suit I insist upon. Corporate armor.
Nothing about him screams former Bratva muscle left to rot in a prison by his boss after a botched extraction. He eliminated the target, but was left to face interrogation.
His left hand curls at an unnatural angle, the legacy of methodical bone breaking. His teeth were painfully extracted in exchange for the information he refused to give.
He never gave up a single name, affiliation, or operational detail that could compromise the network.
Just endured. Bled. Broke. Healed wrong. And stayed silent.
Until I purchased his release through carefully constructed diplomatic channels, falsified documents, and strategic bribes placed with surgical precision.
Loyalty under torture is rare. Worth more than gold in my line of work.
"Sir, how can I be of service?"
Aleh's voice carries the gravel of damaged vocal cords, a permanent rasp from screaming through interrogations he refused to break under. The sound satisfies me every time I hear it. Proof that loyalty exists, that men can endure beyond what most consider possible.
"The Armenians." I close the thermal imaging file on Lorenzo's mansion and switch to a new window. "They need final confirmation on the extraction."
"Timeline?"
"Forty-eight hours maximum." I pull up the operational framework I've spent months constructing. "Fee will be in Providence with her sister. Lorenzo's security is formidable, but we have been inside similar installations before."
"The fortress complex in Yerevan," Aleh confirms. "Same architectural vulnerabilities."
"Exactly," I continue, opening another file. Hartley's complete life and financial history spread across the screen. "The shipment needs to be compromised at precisely the right moment."
Aleh steps closer, studying the documents with the tactical precision I've come to rely on. "You want the Quinns and Basovs focused on the weapons."
"While I extract Fee and set the trap for Anton." I zoom in on the customs documentation Hartley provided to the Quinns. "Anton will follow Fee anywhere. His obsession makes him predictable."
The opposite of strategic thinking. Love transforms competent operators into emotional liabilities.
"Fee remains untouched." I close Hartley's files and open the extraction blueprint instead. "She's the bait, not the objective. Anton dies. Fee comes with me after."
Understanding dawns in Aleh's eyes. The elegance of the misdirection.
"Yes, Boss."
He leaves without additional questions. That's why he's still breathing. The others I purchased from various hellholes learned quickly that curiosity shortens lifespan. Aleh understood from day one.
I close the laptop, stand, and move to the window overlooking the city.
Volgograd waits. The organization I built from nothing, but Vadim's blood money and my particular skill set. Seven years of consolidating power, eliminating rivals, and establishing dominance across Eastern Europe's underworld.
The Volgograd name carries respect earned through demonstrated competence and strategic brutality—fear cultivated through calculated examples.
I can't let this obsession pull me away permanently. I now have someone to share the throne I carved from the corpses of other men.
Fee would thrive with me; I'll ensure she does. Her intelligence is wasted here, confined to competitions and university courses that teach her nothing she hasn't already mastered. She deserves challenges worthy of her capabilities.
She deserves a partner who appreciates what she is.
Anton sees her as something precious to protect. Delicate. Fragile. Something requiring his constant guardianship.
Insulting.
Fee's a weapon. Sharp, dangerous, devastatingly effective when properly deployed. She shouldn't be hidden behind security protocols and bodyguards.
She should be unleashed.
I'll show her what she's truly capable of. What we're capable of together.
First, Anton dies. Then I collect what's mine.
Fee's involvement simply sweetens the victory.
I see my reflection in the darkened window. The professional mask stares back, precisely calibrated.
Pregnancies can come with complications, complications I will handle to lure Fee out while Anton is falling into my trap.