24. Rurik
RURIK
The photograph disappears from Artur’s phone screen, but the image burns in my mind. The blonde woman standing beside Aleksander Volkov, her hand resting lightly on his arm like she belongs there. The honey-colored hair falling straight down her back. The delicate build and careful poise.
Emma didn’t react the way I expected. No tears. No desperate demands. Instead, she leaned closer to the phone, her gray-green eyes sharp and focused as she studied every detail of the blurry image. Her breathing stayed controlled, her hands steady against the table’s edge.
She’s not reacting like a captive anymore. She’s thinking like an investigator.
The shift is subtle but unmistakable. I’ve watched her move through different versions of herself since we brought her here.
The furious prisoner. The reluctant participant.
The woman who came apart in our bed. But this is something else entirely.
This is Special Agent Emma Moore, and she’s locked onto a target.
“We need to move this to the study,” I say quietly, already standing. “If we’re going to confirm this is Krystal, we need everything we have on Volkov and the auction network in one place.”
Eduard nods and begins gathering the files spread across the dining table. Artur pockets his phone, his dark eyes tracking Emma as she pushes away from the table. She’s already moving toward the hallway, her boots clicking against marble floors with purpose.
The study is exactly as we left it earlier. The old ledger sits open on the massive desk, our fathers’ handwriting visible across yellowed pages. Financial records are stacked beside it, thick folders containing years of intelligence we’ve collected on rival organizations.
Emma stops in the doorway, her gaze sweeping across the room. For a moment, I think she’s going to comment on the controlled chaos. Instead, she moves directly to the desk and begins sorting through the documents with practiced efficiency.
“Show me everything you have on the auction,” she says, not looking up. “Dates, locations, and known organizers. I need to cross-reference it with what the Bureau collected.”
Artur raises an eyebrow but doesn’t argue. He pulls a laptop from the side table and opens encrypted files containing intercepted communications between Baltic traffickers. Eduard moves to the map wall, his fingers tracing routes we know Volkov uses for moving assets across borders.
I settle into the chair behind the desk and watch Emma work. She’s methodical, sorting documents into categories I don’t immediately understand. Her hands move quickly, flipping through pages and setting aside anything that mentions Baltic connections or American assets.
“The FBI tracked the auction through financial transactions,” she says, still focused on the papers. “Shell companies that repeatedly surfaced in trafficking investigations. Most of them were registered in Eastern Europe, but the money always flowed back to accounts in the United States.”
“Which accounts?” I ask.
She finally looks up, her eyes meeting mine. “That’s classified.”
“You’re officially dead,” Artur points out from across the room. “Pretty sure classified doesn’t apply anymore.”
Her jaw tightens, but after a moment she nods. “Three primary accounts. All registered to different holding companies, but the beneficial owners were impossible to trace. The Bureau suspected they were fronts for organized crime, but we never had enough evidence to freeze them.”
Eduard moves closer to the desk, his gray eyes thoughtful. “Do you remember the company names?”
Emma closes her eyes, her brow furrowing slightly as she recalls. “Baltic Logistics was one. Meridian Holdings was another. The third was something with ‘International’ in the name, but I can’t remember exactly.”
“Apex International,” I say quietly.
Her eyes snap open. “How do you know that?”
“Because we’ve done business with all three.” I pull one of the financial folders closer and flip it open to a page marked with our own transactions. “Not directly. But our shipping networks intersect with theirs at multiple points.”
The implications settle over the room like a weight.
If the same companies connected to Krystal’s disappearance are also tied to our operations, it means the auction network runs deeper than any of us realized.
It means we’ve been operating adjacent to the same system that destroyed Emma’s life without fully understanding the scope.
“Fuck,” Artur mutters, leaning against the wall. “We need to map this out completely. Every connection, transaction, and every time our routes crossed theirs.”
For the next several hours, we work. Emma explains how the FBI approached the investigation, which financial patterns they flagged, and which shell companies repeatedly surfaced in their analysis.
Her knowledge fills gaps in our intelligence, while our criminal contacts provide information the Bureau never accessed.
She starts noticing patterns we missed. The way certain shipments always moved through the same ports. How specific holding companies only activated during particular months. The timing of transactions that coincided with known auction events.
At some point, the dynamic shifts. Emma stops standing across the table like an opponent and instead leans beside me while reviewing notes Eduard translated from the ledger earlier.
Her shoulder brushes mine as she reaches for a document, and I catch the clean scent of her soap with a bit of floral accent.
My hand finds the small of her back, resting there as I point to a passage in the ledger. She doesn’t pull away. Instead, she leans closer, her breast pressing against my arm as she reads.
The awareness between us thickens. Eduard notices first, his gaze flicking between Emma and me before settling on her ass in those fitted jeans. Artur sets down the laptop and moves closer, his dark eyes heated as he watches her bend over the desk to examine a map.
“Emma,” I say quietly.
She straightens and turns, her gray-green eyes meeting mine. The sharp focus from earlier has softened into something else. Something that makes my cock harden against my zipper.
“We should take a break,” Eduard suggests, his voice rougher than usual.
Emma’s breathing quickens. She knows exactly what kind of break he means. For a moment, I think she’ll refuse and pull back into that guarded space she retreats to when things get too intense.
Instead, she reaches for the hem of her sweater and pulls it over her head.
The black lace bra underneath makes my mouth go dry. Her breasts are full and perfect, the peaks of her nipples visible through the delicate fabric. I stand and move around the desk, closing the distance between us.
My hand slides into her hair, tilting her head back as I claim her mouth. She kisses me back with the same intensity she brings to everything, her tongue meeting mine as her fingers work the buttons of my shirt.
Eduard moves behind her, his hands finding her waist as he pulls her back against his chest. His mouth finds her neck, and she gasps into my kiss. Artur joins us, his hands sliding up her thighs to the button of her jeans.
We strip her slowly, savoring every inch of skin revealed. When she’s finally naked between us, I lift her onto the desk, scattering papers across the floor. She doesn’t protest. She just spreads her thighs and pulls me closer.
I push inside her with one hard thrust and she cries out, her nails digging into my shoulders. Eduard’s hand finds her breast while Artur’s fingers work her clit, and within minutes she’s coming apart, her inner muscles clenching around my cock as she screams my name.
I follow her over the edge, my release hitting hard enough to make my vision blur.
When I pull out, Eduard takes my place immediately, flipping her so that her upper body is on the desk, her legs spread as she stands on shaky limbs.
He enters her from behind, his movements slow and deep.
The new angle makes her moan, her hands bracing against the desk as he drives into her with deep, powerful strokes.
Artur moves to her head, getting on his knees on top of the desk, then guides his cock to her mouth.
She takes him eagerly, her lips stretching around his thickness as Eduard fucks her harder.
The sight of her like this, caught between them and loving every second, makes my spent cock twitch with renewed interest.
When they both finish, we collapse together on the leather couch near the window. Emma curls against my side, her breathing still uneven, her skin flushed and damp. Eduard stretches out on her other side while Artur claims the chair across from us.
For several minutes, no one speaks. Then Emma sits up slowly, reaching for her clothes.
“We should get back to work,” she says quietly.
No one argues. We dress in silence and return to the desk, calmer but still focused on the investigation. The documents we scattered during sex are gathered and reorganized. The maps are smoothed flat. The ledger is reopened to the page we were studying before everything shifted.
I pull out my encrypted phone and begin sending messages to several intelligence contacts.
If someone inside the Bureau sold Emma out, there will be evidence somewhere in the access records.
Digital trails are nearly impossible to erase completely, especially when someone is moving fast and under pressure.
The responses come back slowly over the next hour. Most of my contacts need time to dig through secure servers and bypass FBI firewalls. But one message arrives faster than expected, the notification vibrating against the desk.
I open it and read quickly, my jaw tightening with each line.
“What is it?” Eduard asks, noticing my expression.
I turn the phone so they can all see the screen. “The login used to access Emma’s undercover credentials was recorded at 2:17 a.m. the night before the sting operation.”
Emma leans closer, her eyes scanning the message. “Whose account?”
I meet her gaze, watching the exact moment understanding hits.
“Special Agent Marcus Cole.”