I’ve seen him manipulate Winter Reckoning. I’ve tracked Red Cap, protecting client after client as they work their raids. I know exactly how hard it would be—virtually impossible—to scrub every connection of MaskedMarauder.
But if he planned this all along?
Notthisexactly. He couldn’t know Kate’s identity when they started running together. There was no way to predict Kate and I would marry.
But Tarasov could have kept his Red Cap life private from the very beginning, banking that it would pay off somehow. He wouldn’t need to scrub his record. He just had to keep from building one in the first place.
“And in case you think you can eliminate the threat by—” He clears his throat, a sound far too delicate for a bear like him. “Eliminating me…” He continues. “Please be aware that my obshchak has instructions to make my CyberGhost records public in the event of my untimely demise.”
His obshchak. I’ve done enough work for bratva families to know that’s a position halfway between treasurer and fixer.
Tarasov shrugs. “I will release those documents myself, if you do not access the Canton Crew system.”
“It could takeweeksto break in there,” I lie.
Tarasov is too professional to note that I’ve conceded my basic argument. “One week,” he says. “That is how long you have.”
“You say yourself?—”
“One. Week.” He cuts me off. “Or your cunt of a wife starts explaining her online games to the FBI.”
3
KATE
“One week,” Cole says. He’s accepting the terms of the deal. He’ll work for the feckin’ bratva. He’ll betray clients—Da and the Canton Crew—losing everything so Mask won’t hand me over to the feds.
Hot shame twists my belly. I built the Red Cap Raiders. I found Mask online. I let him join my team. And now I know that every raid we took financed my archenemy, the Tarasov bratva. How much of the Raiders’ take has been used directly against my clan?
Having won Cole’s agreement, Tarasov pauses in the doorway. “Welcome to the game, Wolf,” he says with a vicious smile. The gobshite whistles as he strides down the hall to the still-open front door. His voice sounds very far away when he calls back, “Ready to sell your soul for a fortune made of light?”
He giggles as he slams the door closed behind him.
Cole staggers to the fireplace and jams his shoulder against the underside of the mantel. In less than a minute, the front door flies open, crashing against the wall behind it. Lars Nilsson swings into the hallway like a one-man tactical assault team, bulletproof vest strapped across his chest, automatic rifle braced and ready.
“Dammit, Nilsson,” Cole snaps. “You’re supposed to wait for reinforcements.”
Nilsson sights down his rifle. “When and where did you go on your favorite school field trip?” he asks. The words make no sense, but Nilsson’s voice is hard, focused like a laser.
Cole sighs, but he says, “Second grade. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing. And no. No one is lurking anywhere else in the house.”
Nilsson lowers his weapon.
“You remember security-question protocol, but you don’t remember to wait for back-up?” Cole asks.
“Sir,” Nilsson says, like a soldier being dressed down by a general.
“Get us out of these things,” Cole orders, turning enough to display his plastic ziptie.
It only takes a moment for Nilsson to retrieve sturdy shears from the kitchen. Cole is freed first, then me, Megan last of all. She’s still rubbing her wrists when Cole whirls on her. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
I’ve never heard that tone in his voice before. When Cole orders me to do things in his dungeon, he sounds icy, his heart completely frozen. When we fought in his office, when I discovered he’d been hiding his ownership of Winter Reckoning, he boiled over with rage.
But now, speaking to Megan, his voice is loaded with something far more complicated. Disgust. Loathing. Disappointment and scorn and despair.
Pure hatred.
“Cocoa P?—”
