Chapter 25
Lev
Varvara has shut down. She is spiralling fast. I can tell from how she has practically stopped breathing and hasn’t moved a single muscle in the last few seconds. Her trauma response is kicking in.
“I’ll make this quick, Detective Inspector. I don’t have any storage units in Canary Wharf, nor have I set any on fire. So I’ll see you out.”
“Who said you set fire to one?” Mercer replies with a tight smile. His attitude is suddenly hanging by a thread. “I didn’t accuse you of arson, Mr Voronov.”
“You didn’t need to, and I saved you the time of dancing around why you’re really here.”
His gaze darts to Varvara. I slide my gaze over her and see that she is staring at his hand, hanging loosely at his side.
He moves it back into his pocket, but something about it has sparked Varvara’s fear response.
I step into Mercer’s space, forcing him to retreat.
He tries to maintain his smug mask, but the cracks are widening.
I don’t care about his badge or his imaginary arson investigation.
I care about the way Varvara has turned into a statue. Her eyes stay on his pocket.
“The interview is over, Detective Inspector,” I say. My voice is a low, dangerous rasp. “Get out before I call my team of lawyers to sue you into bankruptcy for defamation.”
Something moves through Mercer’s expression, a calculation, a reassessment, his gaze cutting between us.
He thinks he’s the hunter. He doesn’t realise he’s walked into a slaughterhouse.
He pulls a business card from his pocket and drops it on the mahogany desk.
I don’t look at it. I keep my focus on the man who is clearly more than what Baron thinks he is.
“We’ll be in touch, Mr Voronov,” he says. His voice has lost its edge. He glances at Varvara one last time before he turns and stalks out of the office.
The second the door clicks shut, I cross over to Varvara. She hasn’t moved. Her skin is pale, and her green eyes are fixed on the space where Mercer had stood.
“Varvara,” I say. I don’t touch her. Not yet. I need her to come back to me. “Talk to me. What did you see?”
She swallows hard, the movement jerky. She looks up at me. The terror is sharp. “The bird,” she whispers, stabbing her hand with the index finger. “The swallow on his hand. I didn’t see it at the station two years ago. But I saw it in the alley.”
Rage explodes in my chest. “The man who attacked you?”
She nods, a single, sharp motion. “He was the one who grabbed me, Lev. The detective who took my report is the man who attacked me.”
The world stops, just for a second. Everything I thought I knew about the Mercer case flips on its head.
He isn’t just a too-clean officer digging into Voronov assets.
He’s a dirty predator who used his position to hunt the woman currently shaking in front of me.
Probably others as well. The rage is a cold, sharp blade through my gut.
“I’ll kill him.” The vow is a promise to the universe.
I don’t give a fuck about the Pakhan’s plans or the delicate politics of our territory.
Mercer signed his death warrant the second he laid a hand on her.
He didn’t dismiss her report because of laziness or incompetence; he did it to erase his own tracks.
I pull Varvara closer, my hand resting flat against her spine. She feels fragile, a contrast to the fierce woman who let me mark her earlier. I want to go after him now. I want to cut that tattoo from his skin with my blade.
“You have just blown a cover-up wide open, Varvara,” I state, needing to get her to think, to come out from under the suffocating blanket of fear. “You are not the only one he has done this to. I’d bet my last penny that he has been doing this for years. You say he didn’t rape you?”
She flinches at my words but shakes her head. “No.”
“Could he have? He ripped your shirt, he groped you, and then you said he ran off. Why? Why did he move on?”
“What are you trying to do?” she whispers.
“I’m trying to see if he is a serial rapist so I can nail his dick to a wall before I skin him alive.”
Her bottom lip trembles.
I try a gentler approach. “I know this is difficult. But you were not the first, nor the last. Men like him don’t randomly decide to mug a woman on her way home for her tips and her phone.”
She lets out a choked sob.
“Why did he run off, Var? There must’ve been something that spooked him.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Sirens, maybe. I remember hearing sirens, but this is London. It’s not uncommon.”
“No, but enough to make him move on if they were close enough.”
“Are you saying I was lucky?”
“Maybe. Maybe you were.”
“Jesus,” she mutters, shoving me away and pushing her hands into her hair. “Fucking hell, Lev! How did I get so unlucky that my world collides with yours not once but fucking twice?”
“Unlucky?” I snort. “And here I thought you were happy to be here now.”
She gives me a look that could kill an oak tree. “You know what I mean.”
I go to her again and place my hands on her upper arms. “I do know. And I don’t have an answer to that. Or maybe I do. The Bratva run most things in this city. You will have undoubtedly bumped up against this world more times than you can count. You just never knew about it.”
“Until now.”
I look over at the bank of monitors. “Someone else knew,” I mutter.
“What?” she asks with a frown.
“Someone else knew,” I say louder. “There has been a pattern of blackmail on Mercer. He has been paying to keep something quiet. The fact that he is looking into the family business now probably aligns with that. It could be part of the blackmail.”
The bastard isn’t just digging into our books to be a hero.
He’s being squeezed. Someone knows about his late-night prowls, and they’re using him as a blunt instrument against my family.
I look at the door where he vanished. Mercer thinks he can walk into my home and intimidate me while one of the women he hunted stands five feet away. The sheer audacity makes my blood boil.
Varvara’s breath is still shallow. I pull her into my space, my hand steady on her waist. Mercer just handed me the leverage I need to bury him, but I need to find out who knows about his extracurricular activities first.
“Go back upstairs and rest,” I say to her. “We still have Popov to deal with later.”
“Could they be connected?” she asks.
“No, I don’t think so. That is too big a coincidence.
They are separate issues, with you as a central anchor point.
” I guide Varvara to the door. I need her away from the monitors and the memory of that prick’s face.
My skin feels too tight for my muscles. Every instinct I possess tells me to gun Mercer down before he reaches the main gates, but I have to play the long game.
“Go,” I say, my voice hard. “Pyotr will bring you something to drink. Tea, this time.”
She looks at me, her green eyes still clouded with the shock of recognition. “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”
“Eventually. But first, I’m going to find out who holds his leash.”
She doesn’t argue. She turns and walks out, her gait stiff. I wait until I hear her footsteps fade on the stairs before I slam my fist into the wall beside the door. The plaster cracks. I don’t feel a thing.
I return to the desk and pull up Mercer’s file again. Picking up my phone, I search for a contact I know can dig a little deeper.
I hit dial on one of my cousins’ numbers and wait.
It rings twice, and he answers. “Lev. What’s up?”
“Voran,” I say. “I need you to do a Mariana dive on a Met DI. Squeaky clean on the surface and a deep dive. He is good. A predator using his status to not pursue the cases that are reported.”
“Seriously?” Voran blows out a breath. “What a dick.”
“You have no idea. He is also looking into Voronov assets as part of a so-called routine crackdown.”
“Name?”
“Nathaniel Mercer.”
“Oh, that prick,” he snorts. “I hate the sight of him.”
“You’ve dealt with him?” I frown into the phone.
“He came after the Baranovs last year. I’ll take it he has moved on from us now.”
“So it would appear.”
“I have already done a deep dive on this arsehole as well, but you want me to go Mariana deep, I’m game. Anything to get him off the Bratva’s backs.”
“All for one,” I murmur. “You are the only one I know who has the capability to drag this fucker’s dirty dealings into the light.”
“I’ll do my best.” Voran hangs up, and I sit back in my chair, hating that I let this monster near Varvara, but at the same time knowing that if I hadn’t, this would never have come to light.
Mercer is too good at covering his tracks, but I know he isn’t just going around mugging women for kicks.
He has a sick sense of entitlement and a God complex because he can shape the outcome.
He has definitely gone further. Varvara was lucky.
I’d even be willing to bet he has killed, getting off on the thrill of being able to get away with it.
The irony that he would fit right in with the Bratva is not lost on me, and if he hadn’t hurt Varvara, I wouldn’t give a shit.
But that was his mistake. He targeted the wrong woman, even though I hadn’t known her at the time, it makes no difference.
He is a dead man.