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“It’s so fucking sexy.” I trace the outline of the brilliant stone. “Do you want to see?”
She nods.
I go back to the bathroom and return with a mirror. She cranes her neck for a look, her flush deepening as she studies the sparkly stone that adorns her asshole. I’m not into BDSM or anything like that, but I am an anal man, and without this preparation, I risk hurting, if not tearing, her.
After I set the mirror aside, I get back onto the bed and pull her legs straight so she’s lying flat on her stomach. Ignoring my renewed need, I spend the next ten minutes massaging her shoulders, back, and buttocks to help her relax. When she’s soft and pliant, I press a kiss to the top of her crease.
“Stay,” I order. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with breakfast.”
As usual, breakfast waits in the warming drawer. Tima made syrniki. Served with sour cream, honey, and berries, the cottage cheese pancakes are my favorite. After feeding Katerina in bed, I rush through a shower and get dressed quickly. She’s dozing off again when I kiss her goodbye. It takes much willpower to tear myself away from her and walk out of the room.
Igor and Leonid are waiting in the foyer when I get downstairs. Dimitri and Yuri are already in the car, the engine idling.
“Guard her with your life,” I tell Igor. His orders are to protect Katerina when I’m not here.
He nods with a steely expression.
“Ready?” I ask Leonid.
He moves his jacket aside, showing me the pistol in his waistband.
We drive to my office in a convoy of five cars. I expect an ambush every minute we’re on the move. I almost wish for it, just wanting to get the fight over with and kill the motherfuckers already, but nothing happens, and half an hour later, we arrive safely at my office building.
Grigori greets me with coffee and a stack of reports. A pile of contracts waits on my desk to be signed. Once he’s briefed me on what I’ve missed in my absence, I spend the first hour catching up with the tasks on my priority list.
At noon sharp, Adrian calls on the secure line.
“What do you have for me?” I ask, swiveling my chair toward the window.
“Something big.”
My body tenses with anticipation. “Go on.”
“I’ve been keeping tabs on Oleg Pavlov, as you requested. A huge amount of money was recently moved from his bank account and distributed between various accounts. Some of those are offshore and others local. From there, the funds went dark. My finance expert managed to trace a portion of it. Some of the money ended up in Bitcoin and some in shell corporations. It’s a real fucking maze. Whoever designed the system made sure we’d be taken on a wild goose chase.” He pauses. “It turns out all the diversions lead back to one place, or should I say, one person.”
“Who?” I demand.
“A hacker in Moscow. Goes by the name of Mukha. He’s gone to great pains to keep his identity concealed. I’m afraid I don’t have his real name for you yet.”
A snowflake drifts down and sticks to the window. “What did Pavlov want with a hacker?”
“That’s what I asked myself. So I did a little probing. I offered the money you provided. The fish took the bait. Apparently, Pavlov paid him to encrypt and deliver a file.”
“What file?”
“He won’t say.”
“Then what information did my money buy?” I ask with impatience.
“He gave me the name of the person he delivered the encryption to. A certain Ivan Besov.”
Turning back to my desk, I type a message to Nelsky, ordering him to run a background check on Ivan Besov.
“Guess what my hacker discovered when he followed Mukha’s cyber trail?” Adrian continues. “Besov sent the file to Vladimir Stefanov.”
I go still. “He did, did he?”
“Most certainly.”
“In other words, Pavlov paid a hacker to deliver an encrypted file to Besov, and Besov delivered it to Stefanov.”
“Correct.”
I mull over the meaning of this. “What about Besov?”
“He’s ex-military. He got kicked out on charges of torturing a political hostage. It looks like he took the fall for his team. The charges were dropped, but after that, he went on his own.”
“What division?”
“Spetsnaz. Sniper.”
The snow starts falling harder. “That would make a good assassin.”
“My thoughts as well. He goes by the nickname of Bes.”
Bes. Demon or evil spirit in Russian. How subtle. I hook a finger between my collar and my tie and pull on the knot to loosen it. “Any teammates we can question?”
“No.” Paper rustles in the background. “He works alone.”
A ping sounds in my ear.
“I’ve just sent you an attachment with the information I could gather on Besov,” Adrian says. “He has an address in Moscow. If he’s been traveling lately, he’s been doing it with a false passport. According to his records, he’s retired, living on disability payments, and he hasn’t left Russia since his military missions.”
