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1
ALICE
Alice tappedher foot impatiently as she waited for the meeting to start. She’d arrived right on time twenty minutes ago, but no one had started the meeting yet. She wasn’t sure how many people were supposed to be here, but she knew that the man that had brought her in on this investigation, Agent Benjamin Roberts, had yet to arrive.
Looking around the table, she didn’t recognize most of the faces present, but she assumed that they were Senior FBI agents. Most of them were older men with grim expressions that seemed to be permanently etched onto their faces.
Then, again, thiswasserious business. Agent Roberts was leading a task force to take down the Bratva. The fact that the Russian mafia ran Davinapolis was a well-known rumor, but the FBI couldn’t do anything without proof.
Alice was new to this team, recruited by Roberts when she transferred to this local office last week. It was supposed to be a chance to prove herself. Everyone knew why she’d been transferred here, she could tell by the way that half the office looked at her with judgment shining in their eyes. There were even a few jokes thrown her way. She heard one on her first day about how hard it must be to climb the ladder while on your knees.
It was humiliating, but there wasn’t much of a comeback she could give the man that said it. He wasn’t likely to believe that she and her last boss had been in a real committed relationship for a whole year that had nothing to do with her trying to get ahead at her job. In fact, they were able to keep their personal and professional lives completely separate until their messy breakup. Greg cheated on her, jumping right into a serious relationship with the other woman and proposing to her within two months, even though he refused to take that step with Alice. It all spilled over into tension at the office until it was clear that they couldn’t work together anymore. Greg had insisted on transferring her to a whole new city “for her own good.”
Between his betrayal and the fallout for her career, she had plenty of reasons for regretting the entire relationship. All that she could do now was throw herself full-heartedly into this Bratva investigation and hope that she could somehow be taken seriously again when she helped take them down.
The door of the meeting room opened, and Agent Roberts came in. He was carrying a thick folder in his hands and looked harried.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, striding to the table but not taking a seat. “I was in a meeting with our section chief.”
“Everything okay?” one of the men at the table asked. They could all see the tension in Roberts’ body, the way that the muscle of his jaw clenched and the bunching of his shoulders.
“Honestly? No. The deputy director is coming down hard on her for all the sources we’ve allocated to this investigation over the last few months with nothing to show for it.”
“We do have something to show for it,” one of the other men at the table argued. “We’ve been able to compile a list of suspected Bratva members and known associates.”
“The key word issuspected.Without proof, we’re dead in the water, and the section chief is going to have to pull the plug if we don’t find some evidence to support our theories.”
“What’s the plan?” the only other woman at the table asked. “Agent Calloway is still missing, and the Bratva is the best lead we have on his disappearance.”
Alice hadn’t been a part of this field office for long, but she’d heard all about the disappearance of Rick Calloway, a senior agent that was investigating the Bratva last year before he went missing. He was Roberts’ partner, but he’d been looking into the organized crime in the city largely on his own. Roberts had taken leave due to the death of his father, so he wasn’t around to have his partner’s back and everyone knew that he felt guilty for it. He’d been gunning for the Bratva ever since, sure that they’d killed Calloway and determined to prove it.
“I’ve got a plan.” Roberts looked at Alice, and everyone else at the table did the same. She suddenly felt like she had a spotlight on her.
“Does everyone know Special Agent Silvers?” Roberts asked. “She’s a recent transfer to our field office, and she has training in undercover work.”
Limited training.But she kept that to herself. If Roberts wanted to give her a shot at this, she was going to take it.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” the man beside her asked, shooting Alice a skeptical look.
Roberts flipped open his folder and held up a picture of a man with dark hair. “This is Alek Razin. We believe that he’s the leader of the Bratva. He owns several businesses in the city, and the plan is to secure you a position at one of the establishments where we hope you can get close enough to learn something useful.”
“What kind of business?” Alice asked as Roberts passed around packets of information to each person at the table. It looked like he’d been watching this Alek guy for a while.
“The strip club.”
Her eyes widened as they snapped to him. “W-what?”
“I’ve read your file, Agent Silvers. You worked in bars before. All you have to do is be a bartender. Men don’t often pay attention to what they’re saying in a place like that. Get a few shots in them and provide a distraction in the form of half-naked women, and they flap their jaws.”
Alice frowned as she scanned the packet of information in front of her. “I’m not saying that you don’t have a point about that, but I’m not sure it’s the best play.”
“You can’t be reluctant to work in a strip club, can you?” a sneering voice asked. She realized that it was the jerk that made the joke about climbing the ladder last week.
Alice narrowed her eyes at him. “I can do what is necessary to get the job done, but I’m not sure this is the best move here.”
“Sounds like an excuse to me.”
“That’s enough, Crowe,” Roberts said, looking at Alice thoughtfully. “Do you have something else in mind?”
