Page 18 of Savage Little War

“Yeah, why?”

“This is a map of that area,” Sean tells me, making me pause and look his way. He gestures to one of the maps before pointing at one building. “That’s the Wynn.”

“Jesus,” I mutter as I walk over to him, my eyes scanning the entire map. “Are those red dots?”

We both lean closer, staring at two red dots on two other buildings across the street from the Wynn. Realization hits me like a punch to the stomach.

“The snipers. That’s where the fucking snipers were stationed,” I say confidently. “The fucking Italians were behind the shooting.”

“I told you it wasn’t me,” Sean replies with a pointed look. “Why would I have put Cara in that kind of danger?”

“I thought you didn’t care who got hurt.”

Sean rolls his eyes at me. “Let’s keep looking around. I don’t even see a laptop in here.”

He’s right. There isn’t a desktop computer or a laptop.

Sean starts snapping photos with his phone of the maps, dots, faces, labels, fast and methodical.

“He must have his electronics stored at another location,” I reply as I venture back over to the filing cabinets. “This is where he wants to play detective and spy.”

“He’s definitely been keeping an eye on both of us,” Sean tells me as he gestures to two photos of each of us caught on some sort of surveillance camera.

“Creepy,” I mutter before diving back into the folders. There has to be something of interest in one of these cabinets. I’m about to close the one I’m rifling through and move on to the next when I see a name on a folder in the very back.

Mikhail.

Ice floods my veins as I stare at his name, my heartbeat jolting to a stop.

No.

“What is it?” Sean asks, noticing my frozen state.

“Mikhail,” I say before finally forcing myself to grab the folder out of the back. I pull it out of the cabinet and lay it on the desk on top of all the other strewn out documents, my hands almost feeling numb.

Sean moves to my side, remaining quiet as I flip open the folder.

A few pictures of Mikhail and his men taken while he was walking through the city stare back up at me. They were totally oblivious. It must have been when he first arrived.

I push the pictures aside and glance over a profile written about Mikhail. Information about who he is, where he lives, and all the things that he owns and does as Pakhan. Or did.

The Council swore that he went back to Russia, but I know my friend. If he was alive, he would’ve sent some sort of word to me.

“These pictures were taken the day that he was supposed to meet with me about buying the casino,” Sean says as he points to the date stamp on the back of the pictures.

I exhale slowly as I keep flipping through the contents in the folder. “There’s information about the deal in here. They must’ve found out about the meeting.”

“Bastards,” Sean grits out.

Both of us go still when I flip over the last document. At the bottom of the pile is another picture of Mikhail.

My hand cramps around the folder so hard the paper creases.

For a second, I can’t hear anything but the blood rushing in my ears.

Mikhail is dead on the ground in a goddamn alleyway with a bullet wound in his forehead along with several of his guys.

“Fuck,” I breathe out sharply as I look away from the picture, my stomach churning so hard that I almost throw up. I finally get a grip so I can take a few photos for proof I might need later.