11. Tamara #2
“What happened? I was in the office.” I crane my neck to get a better view of the crime scene around the guy in front of me so that my companion only gets my profile.
“Gunshots. I didn’t see it, but two men are dead.”
I nod once and slip away into the crowd; stationary, Andrej will find me, and the guy didn’t see anything, so he’s of no further use to me.
I sidle close to a younger guy in faded denims and tight T-shirt exposing bulging biceps. “Did you see what happened?” I feel his eyes raking me from head to toe, but I don’t look at him.
“I heard the first gunshot at the same time the warehouse went bang. The explosion was a distraction if you ask me.”
I decide that I will ask him. “Was it the Russians?”
He hesitates, still eyeing me up. “You a reporter?”
“No.” I face him and keep my expression neutral as I spread my empty hands wide. “My sister works here, and I don’t know where she is.”
“Shit. Sorry.” He wrinkles his nose. “Two guys went down. Have you checked the ambulances? A bunch of folks got caught in the crossfire.”
“Not yet, but I will, thank you.” I go to walk away and then pretend to remember one last question. “Have you seen Imelda?” It’s the first name that pops into my head from fuck knows where. “The woman with white-blonde hair.”
“She was here earlier.” He turns and gestures towards the dock entrance, and I blend in with the crowd while he looks away.
I knew it. She was at the harbor the day I spotted the men with the serpent tattoos.
She was here when I got dragged into the shipping container, and she was here again today when shit goes down and people get killed.
There’s no such thing as coincidences. She could be working for the Petrovs, but my gut is telling me that she’s one of the good guys, and I’m still hoping that she might have information on Ivana.
I find Andrej talking to a couple of cops, smiling like they’re his buddies and they just happened to bump into each other on a regular night out. He hasn’t spotted me yet, or if he has, he’s doing a great job of pretending he hasn’t.
Then I notice the police on board one of the ships moored up at the dock. I reverse out of the crowd and hide behind a truck where I have an unobstructed view of the vessel.
It isn’t the same ship that reminded me of the one that brought me and Ivana to the States, but I recognize the hammer and sickle tattoo on a muscly arm, and adrenaline starts to pump around my body.
I scan the workers on board for a glimpse of serpent ink, but don’t find any.
The cops are searching for something though.
Or somebody. I count at least five on deck, opening storage chests and shifting equipment about, and guess that there must be more down below.
Did someone tip them off? Did their arrival prompt the gunfire and the warehouse explosion as a distraction? Or did someone else blow up the building to create as much chaos as possible?
I scan the dock for a glimpse of white-blonde hair and find Andrej skirting the crowd and heading my way. I look behind me for an escape route because I’m not done asking questions yet, and spot Finn and the sandy-haired man from the meeting coming at me from the opposite direction.
Fuck! I don’t want to speak to him, but neither can I risk Andrej seeing us together. If he questions my loyalty to Leonid, the seeds of doubt will be planted, and both will start to wonder if Ivana defected to the Petrovs, when I know that she would never do that.
So, I pivot back to Andrej and turn my back on the man I gave my virginity to, sealing my chest and shutting him out. And I pretend that it doesn’t hurt when what I really want to do is curl up into a ball and cry until there are no tears left.
“I’m ready to leave.” I continue past Andrej and keep walking. “Ivana isn’t here.”
I don’t glance behind me, but I can feel Finn’s eyes burning into me anyway.
Andrej matches my pace. “What did you find out?”
“Two men were shot dead when the warehouse exploded. The cops are searching the ship directly behind us. I don’t know what they’re looking for, but I think the blonde woman does.
I also think she’s somehow responsible for what happened tonight, and we need to find her before the Petrovs get to her first.”
Andrej doesn’t speak until we’re in the car and he has started the engine. “Do you think you might be hung up on the wrong person?”
My gaze whips around to meet his, and I realize that he is talking about the woman and not Finn. “Do you know who she is?”
“No, but—”
“All the resources at your disposal, and she has managed to fly under your radar, free me from a shipping container, and shut down a complete area of the Port of Chicago tonight. Do you think you should find out?”
Andrej’s mouth stretches into a wide smile. “Damn, you’re on fire when you’re angry.”
I avert my eyes. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes. I will find out who she is and why she’s so invested in the Petrov operation.”
“Thank you.”
I sit back in the passenger seat and keep my eyes fixed straight ahead.
I can’t think about the look on Finn’s face when I turned around and walked in the opposite direction, the way his smile dropped, and his brows knitted in confusion.
Did he think he’d won my affection because he made me come a few times?
Maybe it was time that someone popped his over-inflated ego, so why does my chest feel as though it is caving in when I try to breathe?
“There’s no guarantee that she will know where Ivana is,” Andrej adds softly.
“There’s no guarantee that she won’t.”
He indicates and joins the route out of the port. “I don’t want you to be disappointed, is all I’m saying. If you’re right about your mystery woman, then my guess is that she’s been too focused on the Petrovs’ trafficking operation to pay attention to your sister.”
Their trafficking operation…
The Irish boss raised the subject at the meeting, but I was too distracted by the heat raging through my body with Finn in the same room to pay attention.
“…Leonid didn’t want me to tell you.” Andrej is still talking.
“But you have a right to know what we’re up against. We’ve managed to control illegal trafficking in and out of the city until now, but they’ve found a way to the port authority’s heart and are somehow dragging us down with them at the same time. ”
Maybe I should care more that Leonid and Andrej are being linked to the Petrovs’ operation, but his words are sinking slowly, and with them comes the realization that my sister knew about this.
“Did Ivana know?”
His gaze flicks back and forth between me and the road. “Does it make a difference if she—”
“Did Leonid tell her about the trafficking?” I can barely hear my own voice over my thudding heartbeat as I cut him off.
“I don’t know. Perhaps. I wasn’t there.”
He did tell her, and I can imagine exactly how the conversation panned out.
Leonid: “The Petrovs are expanding their interest in human trafficking to Chicago. On my watch. Because the chances of getting called out by the port authorities are slimmer here than in NYC.”
Ivana: “Don’t tell my sister, Leonid. You know how triggering it will be for her.”
Leonid: “She’ll have to know eventually.”
Ivana: “Not if I have anything to do with it.”
Now, I’m more certain than ever that my sister has taken matters into her own hands to prove that she’s still an enforcer. My pulse races when I think that she might even have been involved in tonight’s incident. And I won’t stop until I prove it and bring her home.
The only thing I’m still uncertain about though, but it’s a bridge I will have to cross later, is the Irish mob’s part in all this.