Page 42 of The Masked King

Now that Brian is on their radar, they’ll apply pressure in all the right places until there’s no longer a way out for him. Until he’s so embedded in whatever is going on behind the scenes that they’ll keep bumping him up the slippery slope while removing his footholds along the way.

I don’t know him, he could be another Fish with mistresses all around the world and a string of assassinations under his belt, but that’s not what I feel in my gut about him.

He’s better than that.

And I have to stop it from happening.

Back at Kate’s apartment, I stand under the shower with my eyes closed until the walls start to close in on me with tiredness. Then I wrap myself up in a fluffy robe, climb into bed and sleep for six hours straight.

I wake feeling sluggish but determined.

The DI set a preliminary timescale of six weeks when I initially took the job at JADED, but I’m worried I don’t have that long.

I make scrambled eggs with pepper and a heap of butter and eat them from the bowl sitting on the couch with my laptop open.

All I have so far is the voice I heard through the grate in the dressing room, and the car that picked up three men in suits outside the club. The voice can wait. My subconscious needs to sit with it for a while and eventually it will attach it to a name and a face that I can pass onto the DI. The car is something I can actively start tracking down.

I didn’t get a full number from the license plate, but I did get a couple of zeroes and what appeared to be a flag. I begin with the obvious after hearing nothing but Slavic accents since I took on this role and type Russian license plates into the search engine.

“Ha!” I allow myself a brief congratulatory pat on the back when the results resemble the plate I saw on the back of the black Mercedes.

No point trying to trace the registration details when I don’t even have a partial number, so instead, I call on the information I gleaned from Enzo when we were together and make a list of Russian bratva names.

Ivanov.

Petrov.

Safaryan.

Malevsky.

Next to the names, I make an additional list of clubs and casinos that are already on the NYPD’s database, using a VPN to log in. Even though my new employees don’t have my name or address, I’m following their example and taking no chances.

By the time I’ve finished narrowing the list down to the most lucrative and well-known bratva-owned businesses, I’ve drunk an entire pot of coffee, and the caffeine is buzzing around my veins.

I have eight hours until my shift at JADED, assuming I’m still employed by them, and there’s no time like the present.

But I’m not going as me. I’m not even going as Kate Glasgow. Because I was introduced to a whole bunch of wealthy businessmen, socialites, and celebrities when I was with Enzo, and these people make it their business to never forget a face in case it can be of use to them in the future.

I wear a black wig Enzo once bought me for a masquerade ball, and an ivory-colored vintage dress that makes me feel like I stepped straight out of a 1950s movie, demure round neckline, cinched at the waist with a black belt, the skirt flaring to my knees. I add bold black flicks to my eyes and nude lip gloss and take a taxi to a casino resort deep in the heart of Manhattan.

Ignoring the butterflies flapping around in my chest, I smile at the doorman and concierge on my way through to the casino, but I don’t speak. People remember voices. They remember accents and bad manners and drama, but genuine smiles often fade into oblivion, bogged down by the moments that stand out.

The bar is busy. Half the round polished tables are being used by men in immaculately pressed suits and women in outfits chosen specifically for their recognition factor. I take a deep breath, remembering how exhausting Megan found it when she was first plunged into this world of being seen and being seen well-dressed.

I wander slowly through the casino, subtly trying to hide my limp while checking out the guests around the tables as if I’m looking for someone. Any time someone tries to catch my eye, I look away, making it less obvious that I’m here alone.

Unfortunately, there’s an abundance of black suits, thick necks, and buzzed hair, but no one I vaguely recognize from the club. I could walk straight back out and move onto the next resort, but I remember the old saying my mom always used when I was trying to keep up with my hare-brained brothers.

Softly softly catchee monkey.

I might get better results if I stay in one place and move onto somewhere else tomorrow.

So, I order a Diet Coke from the bar and find an empty table on the mezzanine level where I have an unobstructed view of the casino floor down below.

I watch men guiding women between tables with one hand on their lower backs. Women climbing elegantly onto stools surrounding the roulette tables. Servers carrying trays loaded with drinks on one hand above their shoulder, making it look a doddle, when I learned first-hand in the UK that it would be easier and less stressful to carry around a basket filled with writhing venomous snakes.

I drag my eyes away from a server who expertly swerves around a wide-chested gray-haired man in a silver suit who isn’t watching where he is going, and back to the bar, where two men are now seated with their backs to me.