14. VORTEX
FOURTEEN
vortex
Pippa
Ijuggle a bakery box filled with extra cookies from my office as I key the code into the warehouse door.
I’m hoping the extra sugar can help Jules, Luna, and me finalize this Malin op after an exhausting week.
Working with a team has its benefits, but coordinating every moving piece has been more work than normal.
“Pippa, what’s in the box?” Luna asks eagerly. Excitement floods her expression at the promise of sugar. I hand her the box and head to our kitchen for plates and napkins. I ask my sisters what they want to drink before joining them at the table.
“Ironically, Senator Cramden received all kinds of condolences in the form of baked goods and flowers today for the loss of his dear friend, Senator Max McCarter.”
That makes us chuckle. It took longer than a week for McCarter’s heart to fail. Yesterday I was freaking out that maybe my concoction wasn’t going to work, but we finally got word he had a heart attack. What should have taken one to two weeks, took closer to three. But it is done.
His wife looked relieved as she made the rounds to the news outlets, clearly preferring to play the role of grieving widow rather than disgraced wife of a pedophile.
I wonder how she’s going to feel when she learns this weekend her husband’s estate is worth a fraction of what she expects.
Not only was her husband purchasing and abusing young girls, but it will also look like he was being blackmailed and had to squander his fortune to stay out of jail.
In reality, Luna funneled his assets to our estate—that’s what we always do when we take these assholes down. We’re female modern-day Robin Hoods—stealing predatory men’s money and using it to destroy the legacy of them and their buddies. It’s poetic, really.
“FBI got the autopsy report today,” Luna reports between bites. “Coroner signed off on heart failure as the cause of death. No one is looking any deeper.”
“We got word that they will hold the service Monday afternoon. I almost feel bad they will wake up that day to learn Victor Malin is also dead,” I say sarcastically.
“On that note,” Jules starts, “Enzo and Eva got the bug on Jonathan Vale’s home office during their meeting with him earlier today. All went according to plan, and we should all have access to the data feeds by now.”
Luna confirms. “I’ll sort through the data tonight.”
“Good.” Jules flips open her notebook. “Enzo’s crew conducted two days of surveillance on Victor Malin’s property and set up cameras.
Security runs a six-hour rotation. One guard at the gate, two roaming inside the property line.
Eva’s tapped into the city cams on the street, too, so we have full perimeter coverage. ”
“I took a look at the standard security protocol for secret service directors and Malin definitely has more than the average number of guards at the house,” I add, “which may support our theory that he’ll have the intel we are looking for inside the house.”
“Let’s hope so,” Jules says. “We haven’t been able to find any paper trail on the women from Maribel. If anyone kept records, it would have been Victor.”
We all nod. The weight of the mission—and hope for its success—settles in.
The three of us haven’t spoken about our longer-term goal in a long time.
We know we have to take these predators out, since no one in power seems inclined to hold them accountable, or to, god forbid, stop the trafficking of children.
And we must find Sophie and end her miserable existence.
But that doesn’t mean vengeance is our only motivation.
We hope one day we can track down one or more of our mothers. Our understanding is that Jared got some of his victims pregnant in the ‘90s when he first moved to the island. For whatever reason, he didn’t have the girls terminate their pregnancies, which was the standard by the time we grew up.
Knowing dear old Dad, his ego couldn’t fathom the idea that anything carrying his blood could be unworthy.
Sophie hated everything about his decisions to let the girls have their babies.
She despised us and our existence, but Dad kept her around.
I’m confident she made sure any future victims were on birth control or she made them get abortions behind his back.
We don’t know what happened to our mothers. Young women and girls came and went through the island all the time. Did the girls who birthed us do the same? Are they somewhere in the world wondering what the hell happened to us after Jared was killed? Or did Sophie have them killed?
The latter is my hunch. I’ve always assumed Konstantin did her bidding. Jules and I asked Jared once where our moms were and he got so angry it terrified us. Jared wasn’t winning a Father of the Year award by any means, but he was very rarely cruel to us.
That was Sophie’s job. She’d strike when Dad couldn’t see or wasn’t around.
Jared didn’t hate us, but he did not love us. He loved no one but himself.
He must have thought we could be valuable one day, because he made sure we knew the importance of finding all the skeletons buried in someone’s closet.
He taught us the most powerful person in the room isn’t the one with the most money, rather the one who could bury their opponents in blackmail and secrets.
From a very young age, he taught us the art of taking down those in power.
We learned a great deal from him, and even more on our own these past ten years in DC. But we have never been able to find a way to track down the girls who gave us life. Deep down, I know we each need that closure before we can put Maribel Island behind us.
My focus shifts to Luna. “What’s going on with your Bel-Air case?”
She closes her eyes for a beat, long enough that I know the answer isn’t simple. “The bureau formed a special task force to investigate DeShawn Crown.”
I blink. “The rapper? What is he called again? GoldT?”
“Yes—the rapper and mogul himself. The Bel-Air parties have been at his properties. The theory is that the private guest lists, the secure location, the weird invite-only ‘charity events’ he’s running—they think his record label is a front for trafficking.
The scope got big enough they moved Stone off as lead and brought in an outside expert.
I caught wind that someone upstairs made a link to Maribel Island and Jared Whiteman. ”
I feel a cold twist in my stomach. “Sometimes I hate when our hunches are right.”
“It gets worse.” Luna’s voice softens, but not in a comforting way. “The new head of the task force is Jax Novak.”
Oh shit. Luna and I turn to Jules.
“He’s in DC,” she says slowly, testing the words, not believing them.
“Yes,” Luna replies. “He’s leading the investigation from here, but traveling to LA and New York, too. I’ll be reporting all my findings to him directly.”
“Why Jax?” I ask.
“After heading up anti-trafficking for Interpol, he went freelance for all the major agencies. He’s considered a leading expert on—” Jules realizes we are both looking at her as we learn she has been keeping tabs on Jax. That’s new information.
“Have you seen him since Russia?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
Luna leans forward slightly. “There is one more thing.”
We both shoot her a look. “He asked me to pull info on all the private security firms with client lists that overlap with attendees of these parties. The assumption is they may have intel we’ll need on the buyers and bidders. Redline was on the list.”
Jules nods slowly. “Thanks. I appreciate the heads-up.”
I take a deep breath, once again feeling like we are standing at the center of converging storms. Everything is crashing against the shore at the same time, from all directions.
Jules fell hard for Jax during her CIA missions in Russia and Ukraine.
He was her Interpol liaison, and they ran anti-trafficking ops for over a year together.
He was a man fighting the same demons and they had a whirlwind romance.
She thought when her assignment ended, they’d find a way to make it work.
They didn’t. As it turned out, he was married. He claims they had been separated for years, but it was a fucking mess. She returned from her missions completely destroyed.
I pat Jules’s arm and Luna gives her a hand squeeze, but it’s clear she doesn’t want to talk about it.
“If you find out he’s headed to Redline to see Jules, see if you can join, Luna,” I suggest.
“I will,” she agrees. “While we are on the topic of Maribel, I tried again to get eyes or ears on Junior, but no luck.”
“It didn’t seem imperative to know what he’s been up to when we thought he was simply hiding from the Lucianos, but if these parties really do tap into Sophie’s or Jared’s networks, or the Volkov money trail, it opens a lot of questions about what Junior has been up to since his dad died,” I say, vocalizing what we’re all thinking.
I look to Luna to see if she’ll share anything she’s thinking or feeling. We were all friends with Junior back at Maribel. He was our only friend, the only other kid our age who was ever around.
He and Luna shared a special bond. They were inseparable.
I know she’s tried to get a handle on his comings and goings for a long time. She doesn’t take the opportunity to open up, though. She’s played her feelings about Junior close to the vest for years.
She was upset when we decided not to wait for the Volkovs to retrieve us from Maribel.
She was too young to understand why we needed to flee.
She trusted us as her big sisters, but she’d also trusted Junior and his father her entire life.
She’d trusted our dad, too, but she came to learn she was wrong about all of them.
I think she’s had a hard time letting go of the version of Junior she remembers.
“Okay, my turn.” Time to lighten the mood. “Hudson asked me to go to his apartment for a meet up tomorrow night. Him and Enzo. They want to ‘address the tension,’ whatever that means.”
“You should go.” Luna wiggles her eyebrows.
Surprisingly, Jules agrees. “Honestly, yeah. You’ll all keep spinning if you don’t.”
I point my finger at them. “First, I don’t like being tag teamed.”
“You sure about that?” Jules teases.
They both chuckle—traitors.
“Second, I really didn’t think you two would be so quick to throw me to the wolves. Shouldn’t we be keeping our distance from these men? Aren’t we assuming this alliance isn’t going to work out?” Ugh. I take a breath, ready to change the subject.
“It’s nice having more people to work with,” Jules says suddenly. “Enzo and his team are…solid. And Luna, I’m sure having another hacker to partner with is making it easier, right?”
I know Jules is right, but I hate hearing it out loud.
Luna doesn’t respond right away, but then she lifts her chin. “I guess it’s my turn to confess, then. Eva asked me out. Like, on a date.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask.
Jules laughs under her breath. “Actually, that tracks.”
Luna’s smile seems calm and satisfied. “It does.”
“I need so much more information,” I say.
“I like her.”
“She’s great,” I agree. “I like her, too. And I mean, I’m sure her runway-model looks don’t hurt.”
Luna blushes.
Jules smiles.
“Pippa, I understand what you’re saying about Hudson and Enzo—it’s messy, but I’m not sure I want to ignore how I’m feeling about Eva, and I don’t think you should ignore your feelings, either.”
“I get that.” I really do. I take a deep breath.
Our little triangle goes quiet. Not tense, just full. Heavy with concern and secrets and anticipation of whatever comes next.
I raise my glass. “To…bad decisions.” We laugh as we clink our cups together.
The three of us get back to work, locking in the plan for the Malin op. Jules will lead the ground operation with Hudson and Enzo’s men. Luna and Eva will be back at the mansion running comms and tech. I will be in the van with Luca keeping an eye on the exterior.
Once Jules and Hudson administer the syringe I’m working on, they’ll join Enzo in Malin’s office to breach the systems and extract files with support from Luna and Eva.
We need Malin to die right away, which is different from the previous drugs I’ve concocted.
It needs to look like he died in his sleep.
Fortunately for me, you can take the guy out of Russia, but you can’t take the Russia out of the guy.
It seems he still drinks vodka like water.
We decided on cardiac arrest, which will come as no surprise when they run his bloodwork and find that his liver is hanging by a thread.
The plan is solid.
For a moment, inside this warehouse full of screens and shadows, it feels like hope.