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“I’m not planning on getting abducted again.”
“I’m sure you weren’t planning on it the first or second or third time either.”
That was a low blow, but unfortunately, one I couldn’t deflect. And Dasha had been responsible for freeing me from my captors in the third incident, so while she had the personality of a cheese grater and a knack for making me feel like an amoeba, I still owed her a debt of thanks. She’d also flushed Kaylin out of the building today, even if I disagreed with her methods.
I sucked in a calming breath. “So after you got into the building, you set off the fire alarm?”
“Precisely.”
“With an actual fire?”
“Only a small one.”
“You could have burned the whole freaking building down.”
“Unlikely. I only dropped a lit cigarette into a metal trash can. The flames were reasonably well-contained. If you think about it, I actually did the residents a favour.”
“Oh? How do you figure that?”
“That building was constructed by the Mob, yes? And they’re notorious for low-balling their contractors, which means the crews tend to cut corners. I figured the sprinkler system only had a fifty-fifty chance of working, and it didn’t. Better for the residents to find out now than in a more serious fire.”
“Don’t sprinkler systems need to be inspected?”
“Yes, theoretically, but a contractor has the option to self-certify.” Bertie tried a few more steps, his nails clicking on the marble. “Don’t you have a report to write? I need to return the dog before it shits on the floor.”
Yes, I had a report to write, plus I needed to review the pictures I’d taken and the footage from the backup lapel camera I’d been wearing. At least I had good news for Nico. We’d found Kaylin and she was alive, even if the unbearable sadness in her eyes haunted me. The case was solved, and it was out of my hands now.
17
NICO
She was alive.
Kaylin was alive.
Nico had been plagued with doubts about Hallie Chastain at first—she was young, inexperienced—but he should have realised that a woman like Emmy Black wouldn’t have hired her unless she was competent. Lesson learned.
Kaylin was alive, but she was living in a gilded prison. Nico clicked through the photos Hallie had taken, and then played the video again. Again. Again. This wasn’t the girl he’d known in Moscow, or the woman he’d met in New York. The light had gone from her eyes.
“It sounds as if the emergency services are on the way, so I’m sure they’ll soon have everything under control,” Hallie told her on screen.
“Right. That’s good, I guess.”
Nico played the clip over and over. What did that mean? That’s good, I guess. The normal reaction would have been relief that the fire department was on the way, not ambivalence. Kaylin wanted the building to burn down? Logic said he should walk away and leave her to her new life, but his conscience wouldn’t let him.
His conscience.
Some said he didn’t have one, and a decade ago, he’d believed they were right. But Nico had changed in the years since he left Russia. It turned out his father hadn’t been quite as successful as he’d hoped in beating the morals out of a son who’d disappointed him in so many ways.
Which left Nico with a problem.
On the surface, Kaylin had everything. A husband, a child, even a dog. A luxurious lifestyle and the singing career she’d always wanted. So why did she look so unhappy? Yes, there was the small matter of an outstanding arrest warrant, but surely a man like Cesare Cavallaro had the resources to take care of that? Why hadn’t he?
Nico thought he knew the answer.
Feared he knew the answer.
If there was one thing he knew well, it was mafia bosses. His father had been a pakhan in the Bratva, his godfather was currently one, and most of the kids he’d been friends with growing up were still involved in organised crime in some form or another. It was the oligarch way. Oh, sure, they dressed their transgressions up with a veneer of respectability, but they were all crooks. Shady businessmen working hand in hand with shadier politicians to keep their grip on power in a country where the gap between rich and poor was a chasm few could leap.
