Page 36 of Marked By the Devil

I drove her to Adrik’s house, the Volkov mansion that I bet tons of federal agents would want to have an invite to. But now that I was seeing her less as an agent and the obvious enemy and more as a woman I wanted to make come again, I dismissed how strange it might seem for her to show up as a guest.

My guest.

And hopefully in about an hour, my informant.

Adrik opened the door and raised his brows at Wren walking in with me. She had yet to lose that what in the fuck is going on? look. Her cautious, bewildered expression stayed put on her face and he glanced at me.

“It’s not booby-trapped here,” I teased her.

She slid a scowl my way as she continued inside like she expected to be re-kidnapped all over again. “Don’t expect me to know what to think or how to act when you’re escorting me into the lair of a Mafia boss,” she quipped.

“You are a rookie,” I joked.

Cue another glare from her.

“Elena’s upstairs,” Adrik said, gesturing for us to follow him through the house.

Wren didn’t speak up. She walked with me and roved her gaze, taking it all in. Once we were in the office that Elena had claimed as her primary workspace, she glanced up at us and yawned.

“Rough night?” I asked, offering to hold Luka as he slept on her chest, propped up in a cradling position that looked like it’d wreck her upper back.

She nodded and handed over her son to me. “Yes, so please don’t mind if I ask that you keep this request on the short side so I can nap.”

I rocked Luka and nodded. “Can you please show Wren the transactions and payments you’ve discovered of the bribes we’ve been tracking?”

As our main bookkeeper and the investigative genius that she was, she knew exactly what I was talking about. For the last couple of months, she’d been highlighting payments that came from Gregori’s shell companies. He moved a lot of money for his network, but she was singling out certain ones that alluded to payments to federal agents and cops. Thanks to Mila and Lev, we had more aliases of which officers and agents and government administrators were being targeted by Gregori to put pressure on us, but it wasn’t a clear system of locking in who owned those accounts. Most of the money was put into untraceable deposits. We couldn’t be sure who was who from the law enforcement side.

But maybe Wren could fill that in for us.

“Is that the USCEV server?” Wren asked. She pushed her glasses up to see the screen and gawked.

“Yes.” Elena raised her brows and yawned again.

“You have access…” Wren shook her head and shut up, clearly stunned that Elena could help herself to a nationwide banking server.

For the next hour, Elena flagged and pointed out ample evidence of payments made to accounts that likely belonged to Smithson and others at her agency. Trojan piped up too, and Elena switched to another monitor so he could show his feed as he walked us through the surveillance footage of Smithson and other cops meeting with suspected Mafia associates that Gregori likely had on his payroll. Many of them were Cartel and gang members, but we were keeping our eyes on a few contractors connected to smaller Bratvas in the region.

“What’s your impression of all this, Red?” I asked, so used to the weight of Luka sleeping in my arms that I almost forgot he was there.

She glanced at me, then lowered her gaze to the infant. Then she cleared her throat and shook her head slightly. “My impression?”

“Yeah.”

“My impression is that you seem to think I can have something to offer to all of this. To explain it.” She gestured at the computer monitors. “I don’t. I… I really don’t. I started my career in a department that investigated fraud. So I’m aware that corruption like this exists. But…”

Adrik and I shared a glance, almost like we were bracing for her to protest that this wasn’t what it looked like.

“But I don’t know. I don’t know these agents or the people who could have these accounts. I don’t know who is who in the local law enforcement. I just transferred to my first field job.” She furrowed her brow, looking off to the side. It was clear that she was unsettled about the evidence that I was showing her, all these facts that implied she might not be on the “good” side of anything.

“Is this why you’re keeping me hostage?” she asked, looking at me, then Adrik, and back at me. “So I can verify that bribes are happening?” She straightened in her chair. “I know it happens. While anything can be doctored and manipulated in images and video, I can tell these are from reputable sources.” She again gestured her hand at the computers. “If you’re waiting for me to be shocked, I’m not. If you’re looking at me as a source for investigating this further, you’re out of luck. I still don’t know anything. And unless you tell me what you are seeking, I can’t offer any ideas on how to solve your problems.”

“Are you willing to?” I asked.

She frowned again. “Willing to what?”

“Are you willing to offer ideas?” I answered. “Will you be willing to work with me while you continue your stay with us?”

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