After failing to find any slits in the carpet that may indicate an in-floor safe, I raise my eyes to the ceiling. It’s a relatively clean drop ceiling that a normal agent wouldn’t look at twice. It’s a pity for whoever dragged over the desk so it sits directly below the steel beam running down the middle of the room that I’m nothing close to ordinary.
With my eyes locked on the tiniest thread peeking out from one of the ceiling’s panels, I screw a suppressor onto the barrel of my gun before adding an accessory every man about to crawl into a dark void loves. The dark material represents the fibers usually found in ski gear—more particularly, ski masks—revealing it’s smart of me to weapon up.
I toe off my shoes before climbing onto the desk. My sock-covered feet slip on the highly varnished material, but they keep my approach silent to anyone who may be listening for it. After opening up the panel enough to check the coast is clear, I tuck my pistol into the back of my trousers before chin-lifting myself into the void. Upper-body strength was always a favorite workout of Mr. Gregg’s, and days like today, I’m thankful for his dedication.
Once I’m through the tight opening, I scan the area. With nothing but blackness behind me, I head toward a sprinkling of light. If my bearings are correct, I’m moving toward the main hub of the restaurant.
A hum of chatter fills my ears a second before an Italian-rich voice says, “You need to change your aftershave. I could smell that shit long before you crawled through the vent.”
When I flick on the torch mounted to my gun, Dimitri shelters his eyes with his hand. He’s lying on his stomach, his shoulder a mere inch from a high caliber assault weapon. From my angle, I don’t have the best vantage point to take in his target when he peers down the scope like a real-life sniper, but with the accents in the restaurant mainly featuring Russians, I reach a quick conclusion.
“You know I’m well within my right to shoot you, right?”
He makes a pfft noise. “If you wanted to shoot me, you would have done it the instant I turned my back to you.” Even in the darkness of this hidey-hole, I can see the pegs of his teeth. “That’s how most agents operate, isn’t it?”
I take a moment to deliberate before housing my gun into the holster on my hip. If Dimitri was planning to kill Albert, he’d already be dead. The fact he’s alive reveals Dimitri is here for the same reasons as me. He wants intel.
“Who’s he meeting with?” I cringe through the cobwebs coating my suit jacket when I join Dimitri lying on a timber beam rats have made their home. “An old Russian sanction was here a few years back, but there’s been no rumblings from their barracks in almost a decade.”
“He’s not meeting with a fellow Russian.” Dimitri slants his head to the side before nudging his head to the scope of his weapon, permitting me to take in an unhindered view of proceedings.
“What the fuck?” I mumble to myself when my adjustment of the scope has me stumbling onto someone I never anticipated. Isaac Holt is being investigated because of suspected ties with the Mafia syndicates, but this is a plot twist I never saw coming. Is he aware he’s commencing trade with the entity responsible for attempting to sell Isabelle into a sex trafficking ring when she was only a child?
If Tobias hadn’t mortgaged his house to buy her, Isabelle’s childhood would have been more damaging than being raised by a man with an inability to express himself. She most likely would have been dead before she reached double digits. No matter how well Isaac tries to brush off his business dealings with the Popovs, his actions today will negatively impact Isabelle. This will hurt her.
My throat becomes scratchy when I use Dimitri’s generosity to survey the area. A bird’s-eye-view of the space wouldn’t increase my Yelp rating, but it does make me aware I’m not the only agent going rogue today. Alex is sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of amber-colored liquid. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as all good agents are taught, but I know he isn’t drinking. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol in years.
After inching back from the scope, I dig a handkerchief out of my pocket so I can scrub my fingerprints off a gun I’m sure the Bureau would love to log into evidence before angling my head toward Dimitri. “Unless you want to be stuck up here all night, or better yet, detained in a holding cell, I suggest you leave now. This place is about to be raided.”
I’ve only worked with Alex on and off for a year, but I’ve known Grayson a lot longer than that. The Rogers all operate the same way—take down the foreigner before the native. Isaac will leave this restaurant believing his meeting with an underworld associate went unnoticed. Albert won’t be so lucky.
A hint of smugness smacks into me when Dimitri immediately commences dismantling his customized M-4. I thought it would have taken more than my word to convince him to leave. Usually, some type of exchange of information occurs before he listens to anything a government official has to say. Not even Tobias had a knack for getting him to follow command when needed.
I discover the reason behind his eagerness when the zipper of his large black duffle bag is quickly chased by him handing me a single sheet of paper. “With the government eager to do some digging on my businesses, I commenced some of my own. Do you know who she’s related to?”
When my eyes drop down to the paper he handed me, my throat works hard to swallow. He has a photograph of Isabelle. It isn’t old and faded like the ones Tobias had of her in her file. This one was recently taken. How do I know this? Harlow is smiling in the background, most likely laughing at Isabelle’s screwed-up nose from the bakery assistant cutting a generous serving of the pumpkin pie in front of her. Isabelle hates pumpkin.
“Ah… so you do know who she is,” Dimitri says when my silence speaks volume. “If she is what this is about…” he nudges his head to the bullet hole in the wall he was using to line up his target, “… we’re going to have issues. This isn’t Russian territory—”
“She has nothing to do with this. I don’t even know if Isaac is aware who her father is.” My back molars crunch when I snap my mouth shut, pissed I unwillingly shared information I hadn’t meant to give.
Dimitri laughs at my mortified expression. It isn’t a pleasant we’re-buddies laugh. It’s as cold and vindictive as the man he was raised to be.
He slaps my shoulder harder than needed to ensure he gets his point across when he says, “Bring me everything you have in five days. If I find it satisfactory, I’ll share some hard truths with you.”
“And if it isn’t?”
His evil grin says it all.
We won’t be on the same team anymore.
We’ll be enemies—mortal ones.
I wonder if his opinion would change if I disclosed his sister is alive. I could test the waters now, but sometimes the best secrets are revealed one tidbit at a time.
23
BRANDON
