Chapter Seventeen
Krish slipped into one of the empty bedrooms in the suite and closed the door behind him. The bed was neatly made, and there
was no luggage in the room, so he hoped it was unused.
Sunil had gone to another room to handle some business. Naveen had left as well, right after the women had, presumably to
be with his daughter. If it was his kid, Krish knew he wouldn’t be able to function unless she was in his arms at all times.
Ananya was very cute. He’d felt a pang of wistfulness for a moment when he’d looked at her, perhaps for a picture-perfect
family like Naveen and Mira seemed to have. But then it had dissipated rather quickly. The mental load of worrying about a
child was bad enough on a day-to-day basis, let alone in a crisis like now. He didn’t envy Ananya’s parents. He barely knew
her and felt a great responsibility.
Sejal had been surprised that he’d encouraged her to go without him. But Krish had spotted the yearning in Mira’s eyes. The
woman badly wanted to be alone with her sister.
Plus, Krish needed some time alone as well. Since his asinine plan had blown up, he had to come up with a new one.
Krish perched on the edge of the bed. The room was quiet, so well soundproofed that he could barely hear the city outside.
He’d gotten used to having Sejal as a constant companion. Too used to her.
His mom might be right, that he was too soft for this life, but he’d rather be soft than cynical. He liked Sejal. Every new puzzle piece made him like her more. Especially the fact that she’d taken a literal fortune and used it
to make her surrogate father’s golden years more comfortable. She wasn’t who he’d assumed she was.
You’re still lying to her.
Yes. He’d been relieved when she hadn’t perpetuated his lie to her family. There was only so much mess that he could clean
up. When she came back, he’d tell her that he wasn’t really an FBI agent, and come clean about his brother. She’d probably
hate him, but it wasn’t fair for her to go into this fight against Alexei without the whole picture of who was helping her.
Krish pulled his phone out of his pocket. His mother had been texting him since they’d been at the strip club, and each buzz
had been like a nagging mosquito bite.
Why are you stopping in Vegas for so long? Are you at an EXOTIC DANCING place??
What are you up to?
Should I come there?
I’m packing the car.
He rubbed the back of his neck and hit reply.
We’re stopping for unrelated reasons. Please don’t come here. I can handle myself. I told you, I have everything under control.
He did not, in fact, have anything under control regarding Cobra, but she only knew about Alexei, and they definitely had
a vague outline of a plan there.
He hit send and then typed another message.
If you keep freaking out, I’m going to immediately disable the tracker you put on me.
That was an empty threat, because he assumed there were multiple trackers and a big one was probably the car they needed.
Taking help from his mom was like signing a contract without fully reading the terms, but desperate times.
I see my failure in his face every time I look at him. Those words had wiggled into his brain. He wondered if he’d ever forget his mom had uttered them. He wondered if she’d ever
forget she uttered them.
Fine, she messaged back, and he could hear her frustration even though she’d typed the word.
I know you said you didn’t want to talk about this, but Peter called. He wishes to speak with you. He says it’s urgent, and wouldn’t tell me what he needs. Call him back.
Krish leaned his elbows on his knees and stared at that message. What urgent thing could Avi’s old partner have to say to
him that he couldn’t say to their mom? Their last meeting, in Krish’s home, when he’d learned about Avi being gone, had not
ended well. Hearing the man talking about Avi like his guilt was a done deal when his brother hadn’t even been charged and
given due process yet had been . . . rough. Krish had cut him off and kicked him out.
He could have found Avi.
Unlikely. He wouldn’t be so cryptic about it if he had.
Okay. I’ll call. I love you.
No response to that, but his mother wasn’t effusive about saying “I love you,” and she probably knew that he wouldn’t believe
her if she promised not to worry.
Krish pulled his wallet out of his pocket and found the card he’d tucked in there. He had to brace himself before he punched
the number in. It was picked up on the second ring. “Agent Schmidt.”
“Peter. It’s Krish, Avi’s brother. I understand you wish to speak with me.” His tone was stiff, but he couldn’t help it. This
man had been Avi’s friend, basically his brother’s family. How had he been able to turn on him?
The same way your mom was able to turn on him.
Peter’s tone changed from brusque to sympathetic. “Krish. Hi. Thanks for getting back to me.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Have you heard from Avi?”
“I haven’t, no.”
“And where are you right now?”
Krish turned to stare out the window at the glittering skyline. “At home.”
Peter paused. “I know you’re not at home, Krish.”
“Are you following me, Peter?”
“Light surveillance. We were hoping Avi would contact you. Where are you?”
Krish clenched his jaw. He should have expected this, but it was galling nonetheless that the government had eyes on him.
“If you have surveillance on me, then you should know.”
“We do not, actually, know.”
Okay, okay, okay. He’d given the fucking FBI the slip. Inadvertent or not, that was pretty cool. Who’s not cut out for this now? “I told you, Avi hasn’t contacted me. It doesn’t matter where I am. Was that all?”
“Why did you go to Avi’s house, Krish? You left rather suddenly and went back east.”
Ah. Of course they’d had the house under watch. “I wanted to see if I could find any clues there as to where my brother was.”
“Did you?”
What to tell him? Consider everyone a Cobra operative. But surely he could test the waters with Peter. This had been his brother’s best friend. “I found a letter.”
“Oh?” There was rustling on Peter’s end of the call, like he was grabbing a pen. “What did it say?”
“Avi claimed that he was framed, that he was investigating Cobra. And that, if anything happened to him, it was Cobra that
did it.”
Peter’s tone sharpened. “You still have that letter, Krish? We’d love to see it.”
“I left it at Avi’s house,” Krish lied.
“Okay. No worries. We can get it. Anything he wrote before he disappeared, it might help. We’re trying to stay ahead of this
before it leaks. Our superiors aren’t eager to deal with the press.”
“Do you think it’s possible? What he wrote in that letter? Because that would mean that Cobra could have kidnapped or hurt
him. That he didn’t run.”
Peter hesitated. “It also sounds like something he would have written a beloved brother if he was guilty and didn’t want his
memory to be tarnished forever.”
Krish cocked his head. “You think my brother would rather I believe he was dead by foul play than running from the law?”
“In one scenario, he’s a hero. In the other one, he’s a coward. If he was never going to see you again, I could imagine him
thinking one scenario was better than the other.”
No. No. Krish couldn’t believe that.
But then again . . . who had Avi always looked to for approval? Their mother, yes, but then his eyes had always sought Krish
out next. “My mom said you showed her some evidence of Avi’s guilt. What was it?” What could turn a mother against her son?
“I told her the investigation had conclusively linked a number of expensive gifts from one of Cobra’s known associates, an
attorney, to Avi. A Ferrari, cash, the addition on his home, at least three vacations, to Paris, Sydney, and Milan. Before
that, the Bureau had already noticed a pattern of Avi accessing databases he didn’t need for any active cases. He took an
unusual interest in Rushali’s arrest, even tracking witnesses and potential witnesses. He also came into a pretty big sum
of money the day before he disappeared. He emptied all his accounts.”
Believe that Avi did what he was accused of and ran off.
Impossible.
The part of Krish that was ride-or-die for his brother lurched to attention, spitting out counterarguments faster than he
could catalog them. Avi had always driven nice cars, even before he’d joined the FBI. Avi was probably accessing those files
for a good reason. Cobra must have framed him to get him off their trail. There was no way his brother could go to the dark
side.
Krish bit the inside of his cheek. That was a lot of evidence, though.
Was this how the subtle slide to acceptance started? Had his mother experienced this wild seesaw of thoughts and beliefs before
finally swallowing that her younger son was guilty of betraying his oath to protect? That Avi was someone who had, as she’d
noted, probably gotten people killed?
If Krish gave up right now, he didn’t have to plot anymore. He could focus on the crisis at hand, bid his guilty on-the-run
brother adieu, and then take that vacation to a tropical beach.
He hated that he was thinking like this. The fact that Sejal was involved left an even nastier taste in his mouth, like he
was betraying Avi for a woman.
Thinking critically and questioning things is not—
Wait a minute. Speaking of vacations. “Did you say there was a trip to Paris?”
“What?”
“You said that you linked the money from Cobra to vacations Avi took, including one to Paris.”
“Yes. Three years ago. June.”
Krish’s brain raced, cataloging. “And someone found a direct, definitive deposit of cash for that?”
“Yes. I did, actually.”
The Bureau will not help you. Don’t trust any of them.
“I see. That’s pretty damning evidence all right.”
“This isn’t easy for me, either, Krish. I loved your brother, too. It’s taken me a hell of a lot of time to believe the things
I heard about him.”
Bullshit. And Krish knew that was bullshit, because Cobra hadn’t funded that trip. Krish had. He knew that, because though they’d traveled
separately, they’d met up once they were there.
It had been Avi’s birthday present. A lavish one, but Krish had just gotten a raise and a promotion, and it wasn’t like he
was spending the money anywhere else. He’d wanted to treat his little brother to a vacation that he couldn’t otherwise afford.
They hadn’t spent as much time as Krish would have liked together during that trip, but that was because they had vastly different
ideas on what a vacation consisted of. Avi had lounged around the hotel and drank hot chocolates in cafés while Krish had
spent his days milling around every museum and bookstore he could find.
One thing was clear, though: if there was a paper trail of Cobra paying for that trip to Paris as a bribe for services rendered,
it was most definitely fabricated.
“Krish?”
He licked his lips. This was a small discrepancy, but he’d take any errors he could find. “I should, uh, get going.”
“Okay. Are you going to tell me where you are?”
Abso-fucking-lutely not. “No. I don’t think I am.”
Peter paused. “We can find you, Krishna.”
Krish almost laughed. They’d probably already tried to track this phone, but there was no way in hell his mother had given
him anything that could be easily traced. “You can try.”
He hung up. Where this confidence had come from, he wasn’t sure, but he liked it.
Avi was at least? partially innocent. Now what was he going to do about it?
He hauled himself off the bed. He needed to take a walk. To clear his head. He probably didn’t have much time before Sejal
returned.
He left the room and found the living room blessedly empty. Krish was in no mood to make small talk. The ice bucket was overturned
on the wet bar, so he grabbed it and walked out.
He found the ice machine in an alcove near the elevators. He placed the bucket under the spout and pushed the button.
A thick piece of fabric dropped over his head, blinding him. Something strong and narrow was yanked against his windpipe.
Krish didn’t think, not really. The summer he’d been twelve, his mother had cleared out the living room and had him and Avi
practice getting out of holds.
Attempted strangulation from behind? Please. This was literal child’s play for his family.
He shoved his hands up, under the cord, and leaned back, trying to use his head to knock out his assailant. The person was
shorter than him, but just as strong. The rope bit into Krish’s hand as he tried to prevent it from putting pressure against
his windpipe.
His fingers, wet from the ice, slipped on the rope, and it pressed tighter against his throat. He gasped, his air momentarily cutting off, and a voice whispered in his ear. It was low and raspy, unidentifiable as man or woman. “Stay away from Sejal, or I’ll make your brother pay.”
The person behind him gave a grunt when Krish kicked his leg backward, into what he hoped was the guy’s crotch but seemed
to be more like his thigh. Over the sound of Krish’s own heart in his ears and the still-running ice machine came the high-pitched
squeals of laughing children.
God, it was one thing to be choked out. It was another for children to find such a gruesome scene. “Kids,” he gasped out.
The rope loosened. Krish dropped to his knees, coughing. It took him a second to catch his breath, but as soon as he did,
he ripped the fabric off his head. He held it up in front of him.
A standard-issue hotel pillowcase. The alcove was empty, and when he scrambled to his feet and peered outside, the hallway
was, too.
I’ll make your brother pay.
Krish fisted the pillowcase and leaned against the wall, his other hand on his throat, still breathing rough. A bubble of
elation filled his chest. Yeah, he’d just been almost strangled, and he’d never been a glass-half-full person, but there was
a definite bright side here.
If Avi could be threatened, that meant Avi was alive. And unless it had been an empty threat, at least one person might know
where he was.