Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Dante
Reino enters my study but stops short when he spots Tatiana. “Excuse me. I didn’t realize you were busy.”
Tatiana pulls away from my embrace and hooks her hair behind her ear. “I, um, was just leaving.”
He throws a thumb over his shoulder. “I can come back later.”
Not meeting my eyes, Tatiana rushes across the floor. “I have to check on Noah. I left him alone in the playroom.”
“Sorry.” Reino shoots me an apologetic look. “This is urgent.”
My gaze lingers on my wife as she hurriedly leaves the room.
When she asked me why we were separated, I could’ve told her the truth.
I could’ve come clean. But the time isn’t right.
With everything she’s going through, I’m not going to dump our fuck-ton of bad history on her all at once.
It’s better that she comes to terms with the past slowly.
It won’t be productive for her mental healing if she has to start hating me so soon again.
“We found something,” Reino says under his breath as he closes the door. “I just emailed you.” He approaches my desk with brisk strides. “You’ll want to see it.”
I take a seat and open my laptop. An encrypted message waits in my inbox. When I click on the link, a wanted person notice opens with a photo of Tatiana under her false ID number and name.
Fuck.
I scan over the information. She’s wanted for questioning regarding an explosion that took place at a bank.
“Check this out.” Reino takes his phone from his pocket and swipes over the screen. “Our informant also sent this.”
He shows me a security video recording of Tatiana doing an eye scan at the entrance of a building. She’s wearing the clothes in which I found her in the store. Two men in suits flank her.
Every muscle in my body pulls taut, my fighting instinct kicking in as if a shot of adrenaline has been injected straight into my veins.
The feed cuts to where she enters the building and crosses the lobby. I see red at the scene that plays out in front of me. The biggest of the two men has his meaty hand locked around her arm. He’s a fucking dead man. Both of those men are.
The second man follows them to the open reception area.
The men keep their faces turned away from the cameras, but Tatiana isn’t so careful.
She’s glancing around her like someone who’s impatient, appearing calm on the outside, but I can tell she’s nervous by the way she keeps on trying to tuck her hair behind her ear when it’s tied into a bun.
A banker approaches them with a few papers that they sign, and then he leads them to the vault.
Reino straightens. “That’s where the feed ends.”
Son of a bitch.
I saw the news coverage of the explosion. The target was Prosperity Bank, situated a few blocks from where I found Tatiana. The media made it out to have been a bank robbery gone wrong, hence I didn’t think much about it.
Not for a single moment did I consider that Tatiana could’ve been involved in that explosion. Plus, there was nothing about her being wanted for questioning on the news, which is strange, to say the least.
Yet the facts align. The homemade bomb went off in the bank’s vault minutes before Tatiana called Emily from the clothing store.
Anger pulses in my temples. “Why are we only learning about this now?”
“The police report is being kept top secret. Our snitch had a hard time getting his hands on it. I attached it to the email I sent you. Mrs. Morici signed forms under the name of Ms. Delacy, giving her fiancé and bodyguard access to her safe deposit box.”
I grind my teeth. “What about those two motherfuckers? Have you IDed them?”
“That part was easy.” Reino pulls up two autopsy photos on his phone. “It’s not a pretty sight. Both were killed in the explosion.”
Pity. I was looking forward to hacking them to pieces.
From a private album on his phone, he accesses two mugshots of the fuckers before they got their brains blown out. “They were carrying false IDs.”
The man who posed as the fiancé had a word in Cyrillic script tattooed on his neck.
I clench my hands into fists on the desk. “Bratva?”
“Mercenaries. They weren’t tied to any organizations.”
“Why isn’t there anything about them or Tatiana in the news?”
“That information hasn’t been made public yet. The ATF wants to keep it under wraps until they have a solid lead on any affiliations the victims might’ve been associated with.”
“That’s not their modus operandi.” Unless… “ICE is involved.”
“Correct.” Reino widens his stance and hooks a thumb in his belt. “They suspect the victims were involved in some of the Russian drug operations under DEA investigation. The drug case has top priority because the organizations involved are also linked to illegal arms smuggling.”
“They don’t want to spook the Russians’ cronies before they’ve dug out all the information they can. They’re hoping they’ll get evidence that could lead to an arrest.”
“Correct, again. As they’re not sure how Tatiana fits into everything, they prefer to play it safe.” He adds with caution, “They would’ve traced Noah’s birth certificate to her false name.”
“I’m not worried about that. I got our hacker to change the records soon after I found her.”
“Good thinking.”
“The bomb?”
“Standard stuff. Any amateur could’ve built it. It was left in a safe box with a trip wire connected to the lid.”
I ponder that. “So setting it off was simple. It only required opening the box.”
His voice drops. “The box was rented in Ms. Delacy’s name.
The bank manager told the police investigator she only rented that one box.
” He watches me solemnly. “Why would she let them open a boobytrapped safe box if she were present? What were they doing there with Mrs. Morici? Are you thinking what I’m thinking? ”
There can only be one reason why Tatiana would’ve been in the vault of a bank.
My reply is clipped. “Yes.”
As for the bomb, it could’ve been something she planned for exactly such a scenario. But risking her life? She could’ve gotten herself killed, damn it. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil.
Reino narrows his eyes. “I’ll put my cock on a block if those mercenaries weren’t connected to Mrs. Morici’s disappearance.”
I agree. That means one of two things. Either Tatiana ran and they grabbed her off the streets while she was hiding from me, or Kent is lying. It would’ve been impossible for him to miss the act if someone had dragged her from the car.
“What do you want me to do?” Reino asks with the deadly calm I’ve come to associate with him.
“Keep a close watch on Kent, but don’t let him catch on that we’re surveying him. This stays between us.”
“Understood. What about the clothes Mrs. Morici was wearing?”
“Emily made a list of the stores that stock the brand, but the clothes could’ve been ordered online or bought for cash.” I hesitate. “The necklace?”
I bet that was what those fuckers were after.
His lips thin. “There’s no mention of it in any of the reports. According to the bank manager’s police statement, the other boxes are intact. Nothing is missing from the vault.”
Not that I expected anything. If such a notoriously famous piece of jewelry had turned up, it would definitely have made the news. That’s not something any law enforcement department can keep quiet.
Drumming my fingers on the desk, I consider the situation. “How resourceful is our snitch?”
“Very.”
“I need an unclaimed body from the morgue.”
He raises a brow. “A UID?”
“Make sure the body fits Tatiana’s height and weight.”
“I’ll see what he can find. What’s the plan?”
“It’s time to make Ms. Delacy disappear.
For good.” I log into the encryption app I use for communicating with my hacker.
“I’ll tell our cyber spy to switch the biometrics, dental records, and any identifiable photos of the deceased person you’re going to find for me with those that are on file for Stacia Delacy. ”
“You want him to hack into police, government, and bank records and switch everything?”
“That’s right.”
He whistles. “That’s going to cost a pretty penny. That kind of shit requires top-level clearance.”
My hands fly over the keyboard as I type my orders. “I don’t care how much it costs.”
“And when I find a body?”
“I’ll arrange an accident.”
“An autopsy will reveal the time of death.”
“That’s why we need a fresh one.”
“I assume you don’t want anyone to be able to identify the body.” He crosses his arms. “Fire?”
“The electrical wiring in some of the old buildings is hazardous.”
“Got it.”
I hit the send button to transmit my instructions, informing my hacker to ensure he can breach all the necessary firewalls and to remain on standby. “Has anyone claimed the bodies of those two bastards?”
“No one.”
As I thought. No criminal with a reasonably decent IQ will be foolish enough to establish a connection between himself and those men.
“I gave Tatiana a phone.” I meet Reino’s gaze. “I want her to be able to get hold of me if anything happens.”
“Is that wise?”
“Until her memory returns, I won’t risk anything. And even when it does, she knows how dangerous it is out there, especially after what happened. She knows she’s best protected here.”
“What about Jazz?”
“Is everything we discussed in place?”
“Yes.” His tone is cautious. “She’s not going to like it.”
“Not if she doesn’t know. This will be good for her.”
“I agree.” He exhales. “As long as the truth never comes out.”
“Then you better make sure it doesn’t.”
“You can count on that.”
As soon as Reino is gone, I call my forensics guy.
He tells me he’s still running tests on the clothes and refuses to give me anything until he’s certain of his facts, even when I threaten his life, which is the reason I work with him.
The man is pedantic, but he’s thorough. He never makes mistakes.
Steepling my fingers, I consider the loose ends.
Some of the bank employees saw Tatiana’s face.
Even if we destroy the security video footage and switch identities, witnesses can still describe her.
There may be sketches, which my hacker will take care of.
He’ll swap them with sketches of the dead person I’m hoping Reino will find soon.
As long as nothing has gone public, we can deal with the problem quickly and quietly.
Our snitch will have to pull all the police interviews in order to make a list of the people who can identify Tatiana. Sadly, they’ll have to disappear. The question is how to do it without raising suspicion. If a handful of bank employees vanish at the same time, it’ll look strange.
Typing the name of the bank into an incognito search engine, I familiarize myself with the prestigious private financial institution.
Their social media content is well curated.
Impressive. The latest post shows a photo of the bank’s foreign investment division posing on the lawn of an exclusive golf course.
The hashtag reads teambuilding. The caption states that the event was arranged by their public relations agency, a top-notch firm in the city.
A quick search of said agency produces some useful information.
The management team is young but dynamic.
They cater for smaller, boutique-style businesses.
Judging by the social media profile of the woman in charge of the bank’s account, she rubs shoulders with the rich and famous, people with private planes and multi-million dollar-yachts.
After the explosion, the bank employees must be tense.
It sounds like the perfect time for another team building session.
A sunset sailing cruise on the Hudson can be very relaxing.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to sell the idea to the PR account manager.
An anonymous suggestion from a bank staff member should be enough.
After all, when it comes to event organization, the account manager likes to think outside the box.
It says so right there in her bio on the company’s website.
Plenty of companies rent out boats for a day. She’d no doubt reach out to one of her contacts. In that kind of business, one hand washes the other. And like fires, boats are hazardous. They can sink. Everyone knows how easily accidents happen.
The loss of so many lives will be tragic. It’s unfortunate. Yet it can’t be helped. When it comes to Tatiana, there’s nothing I won’t do to keep her safe.