Page 41 of Cruel Lies

"I love you, too, cousin," Navi says. "How was your morning? Mine's been just a delight. I found out the world's least loyal accountant has been keeping a go-bag in his car like he's auditioning for a Jason Bourne movie."

My grip tightens on the phone. "So you were right about Pyotr," I say with a grimace.

"Unfortunately." Navi exhales. "For what it's worth, I didn't want to be right about this."

Three weeks ago—the day Todd came into my office, funnily enough—Navi called me with a suspicion: that our best money launderer, Pyotr Vasiliev, was getting itchy feet and preparing to make a run out of the country, with a fuck-ton of the Bratva's money stuffed into his suitcases. I'd hoped he was being paranoid, but paranoia is what keeps us alive in this business.

And as with most things, his gut turned out to guide us right.

"Where?" I ask, knowing already that Navi will have nailed Pyotr to the fucking floor until I get a chance to speak to him.

"Warehouse three, off the BQE." He clears his throat and spits. "He's asking for you. Won't talk to anyone else."

"Of course he won't." I shrug on my coat and refasten the clasp of my watch as I stride to the door. "He's been with us longer than you've been alive. He started washing money for my father when you were still eating crayons."

"Who, me?" Navi asks. "Nah, I was a marker sniffer. They made you all woozy. Felt nice."

"Explains a lot," I mutter. "Tell Pyotr I'm coming. And tell him I'm fuckingpissed."

I think about the past as I drive across the bridge.

For years, the firm was enough. The Akov Firm bills hours that were never worked to clients who don't exist and takes payment in cash. Through a hundred sneaky channels, we rinse dirty money into crisp, clean bills. The government is welcome to examine our books anytime they please. They can audit until they're blue in the face and they won't find anything wrong.

Because I'm very fucking good at what I do.

Then I got greedy. Or ambitious, if that's a more fitting word. Take your pick.

And nothing suits an ambitious man better than firepower.

Moving guns is the best business on planet Earth. It prints money, almost literally. But the trouble with making money that fast is that the river runs higher than the channel can carry.

The firm can't wash it all. I've known this for months. So, ever since I saw the writing on the wall, I've been quietly building the next thing—a web of shells and front businesses and a new structure that can absorb the flood without relying on one geriatric Russian man with an abacus and a heart condition.

But I guess I didn't move fast enough.

Because that geriatric Russian just tried to leave me high and dry.

I find them in the back office, a glassed-in box that overlooks the warehouse floor. The floor is empty tonight, which is how I want it. It's better if there are no witnesses. Two of my men stand by the door, faces blank, hands folded. Navi leans against a filing cabinet with his arms crossed. For once, he isn't smiling.

And in the chair—not one of my torture chairs, just an ordinary office chair on squeaking wheels—sits Pyotr Vasiliev.

He looks smaller than he did the last time I saw him. They always do, in these rooms. His coat is buttoned wrong. There's a tremor in his liver-spotted hands that he can't quite hide, and his eyes, when they find mine, are wet and rimmed red, so frightened that I almost feel pity.

I kill that instinct quickly.

"Pyotr," I begin.

"Ronan!" He lurches toward me. "Ronan, please. Let me explain. Let me?—"

"Navi tells me you've packed a bag."

He recoils. "It's not—it was not what it looks like. I was going to?—"

I hold up a hand to stop him. "You've worked for my family for more than two decades. So you know I'm not stupid. You think I don't know what it looks like when someone tries to run?"

He gasps wordlessly and the tremors increase.

I pull a chair over and sit so we're level, so he doesn't have to look up at me. I don't want this to feel like the gallows even though we both know what it is.