21. Ilya
Ilya
Marcus pulls the door shut behind him, glancing out into the corridor before he joins me at his desk. Even if he’s worked with me for years, a cop in his position doesn’t want to be seen entertaining a visit from a man like me.
"Sorry," he mutters as he sinks down into his seat.
I lift a hand, dismissing his concern. "No need to apologize. I know what you’re risking, having me here."
He cocks an eyebrow, reaching for the coffee on his desk.
He smells of cigarettes and looks as though he hasn’t slept in several days, but that’s to be expected.
Marcus is an old-school cop, the kind who takes every case with deadly seriousness and will work through the night to make sure he brings the perp to justice.
Which means that he has little contact with anyone outside of the force—no friends, no family—rendering him the perfect candidate to be my inside man in his world.
He has fed me information when I have needed it for more than a decade now.
At first, he took hefty bribes to make it happen, but these days he practically counts me as a friend.
I might get a few hard looks arriving at the station, but at the end of the day, I am a citizen just like anyone else in this city, and I have a right to meet with the people who are meant to be keeping our streets safe.
Even if I am the one they are so often keeping them safe from.
But today, it’s not about the potential targeting of one of my businesses or a particularly forthright prosecutor looking to make a name for themselves going through my old financial accounts.
No, this is about Petar. Specifically, how the hell he seems to have made himself so welcome in my house these last few days.
Marcus reached out to me earlier this morning to update me on Petar’s case. It seems he has managed to make bail. Though he was meant to stick around and wait for the upcoming court date, he has taken off. Which leaves me with one hell of an issue.
"So, what do you know about Petar’s case?
” I ask Marcus, raising my eyebrows pointedly.
I don’t have time to fuck around here, not after the threat made against Rose’s life.
Hers and the baby’s, for that matter. I have been turning the language used in the note over and over in my head, the way it talked about her unborn child as though they were nothing more than an irritation, something standing in the way of an end goal.
Even the thought of it is enough to get my hackles rising, and I have to steady myself in my seat.
"God knows how he made bail," Marcus sighs. "It was major money we’re talking here. He must have put something away, probably figured that he would be caught eventually and would need a contingency plan for him and his little girlfriend when he did."
"And he’s out now?”
He nods. "Gone," he replies. "He was meant to stick around in the city till his first hearing, but he went straight to the bus station, caught a ride out of state. Haven’t seen him since. We’re been in touch with precincts in a few places, got them looking out for him so he’s not going to get far, but there’s no way to confirm exactly where he got to. "
"Did he take the fiancée with him?”
He nods again. "Seems that way," he replies. "Can’t imagine they’re going to go through with the marriage they had planned--not on the books, at least. But he took her as well. Probably didn’t want her to talk and knew she would be a liability if he left her behind."
I smirk mirthlessly. Hardly the most romantic thing in the world, but I would have expected no different from that bastard nephew of mine.
But the thing is, if he was out of state when the note was left, who broke into the house to leave it there?
Had he worked with someone to deposit it on Rose’s bed?
Someone sneaking around under the cover of darkness, spending time there under my nose, making sure that they weren’t busted or exposed...
It doesn’t make any sense to me. I had assumed Petar was doing all of this himself, some desperate attempt to punish Rose and me for whatever betrayal he decided we had committed against him. But now it sounds like he is somewhere else entirely. And if it wasn’t him...
Then there’s someone else I need to shake out of my home. Someone who has been working against me for longer than I would care to think.
"Any information comes through on where he is, I want to hear about it," I tell Marcus, keeping my voice as steady as I can.
No matter how long we have known each other, I am not going to forget that the man sitting before me is a cop, and I refuse to show an inch of weakness, give him any reason to think there might be a crack in my facade.
He nods. "Trust me, we’re as interested in getting our hands on him as you are," he mutters, shaking his head. "Should never have given him bail in the first place. If it had been up to me—"
I rise to my feet. I don’t need to hear his griping about the way his people handled this case. No, I need to get the hell out of here. Back home, to the very place that has caused me all this trouble in the first place.
"Thanks for your time," I tell him, and before he can say another word, I head for the door. A creeping sense of dread nags at the back of my mind, and I do my best to put it aside. I can’t act on emotion right now, not if I want to stay in control, but there’s part of me that is too furious to do anything but think about the betrayal that must be taking place right under my nose, in the house that I’m planning to make a home for my first child.
Someone is working with Petar. They must be.
And if not, even if they are somehow doing this on their own terms, then they are working against me.
Out to hurt me and the woman I claimed in front of all of my men.
That bastard, whoever he is, he doesn’t know what kind of hell he’s in for the moment I get my hands on him.
As I climb back into the car and tear off from the precinct, closing the distance between myself and my home as fast as the engine will allow, something else forces itself into my mind.
Something I hardly know how to make sense of.
My mind drifts to what Rose said to me yesterday about Sergei, what he told her about the nursery and what happens to women in her position when things didn’t go to plan.
I don’t want to believe that the man I have placed so much trust in over the years, the man who helped me build my business from the ground up, would turn against me like that.
Sergei. For so long, he’s been the one I turned to when I needed advice, the one I have trusted the most, the one who has helped me protect my businesses from the threats that might have been levied against them by my enemies. But now...
Now, something else is happening, something I can’t ignore. Rose’s instincts, his actions, the strange way all of this has come together… something is missing, and I need another piece to make it all fit before I start pointing fingers.
Because if Sergei has turned against me, then I need to be ready to handle him in any way I can. And if I know one thing about Sergei, he’s not going to let anything go easily.
I flex my hands on the wheel and set my eyes on the road ahead. Whatever happens next, I have to be ready to protect Rose and our child.
And I will do anything in my power to never let them slip through my fingers.