Margo


    They’re gone.


    Me


    Lucy signed?


    She did.


    Fuck you, Margo.


    It’s for her protection. You understood this.


    I would have found another way.


    My role is as a matchmaker. I’m getting tired of ying mediator between men with oversized egos. Finish what you started. And take your woman shopping. She’s got a ball to attend.


    Though I didn’t know the specifics of the covenant/contract Lucy signed with Margo, it had something to do with agreeing to marriage prospects. Good luck with that. My sister was too independent for arranged marriages. I had a feeling her get-out-of-jail-free card was to annoy the fuck out of each prospective groom, enough so Margo would break their agreement to save everyone’s sanity. But for now, it would protect Lucy from bratva retaliation stemming from going after Tomlin.


    I slid my phone into my pocket and stared at the man lying on the bed. Grigori Petrov. He had leukemia from radiation exposure four years ago due to an arms deal involving nuclear material. Last-ditch effort with chemotherapy failed. It was a shame karma got to him first. That was why he kept Sloane around. If he couldn’t sell her, he was hoping to have a nursemaid when the time came. Anton tried to kill him under orders from Tomlin. Grigori discovered that betrayal and contacted Margo for an exchange since she’d asked him about Sloane before. The exchange was medical care. Margo told me rescuing Sloane cost her more than she’d like and I’d be receiving that bill, too.


    Fuck that. And I told her if she was going to charge me for Grigori’s medical bills, then she would have to reveal the name of Sloane’s harassers.


    When Margo revealed it was Tomlin, I thought she was full of shit because it was too much of a coincidence. But Trevor matched payment records between Scotty’s Cleaning and the Tomlins’ Park Avenue residence. It didn’te up in our searches because it was under the maiden name of Tomlin’s mother. The back alley picture where the dumpster was located matched the building’s architecture.


    “Is it over?” Grigori groaned from the bed.


    I approached him. Standing off to the side and leaning against the wall was Sandro. He was eyeing the Russian with the chilling intent of a grim reaper harvesting his next victim. In our line of work, being afflicted with a terminal disease did not erase our past atrocities. Atrocities could traverse a morally gray line, but trafficking children fell on the irredeemable side. For this, Grigori deserved to burn in hell. He was well on his way there, but it didn’t mean we couldn’t give him a taste before he met his maker.


    We’d turned off his morphine drip that kept himfortable and Sandro injected him with a drug cocktail he used in interrogation that fried the recipient’s nerves.


    Grigori was pale, sweating, and moaning in misery.


    I leaned close. “Not until you tell me where Anton is.”


    “For thest time,” he gritted, jaw clenching with each syble, “I. Don’t. Know.”


    When he’d been more lucid and coherent, he told us that Tomlin must be hiding Anton and the rest of the crew who betrayed Grigori.


    I nced at Sandro and he shook his head, meaning Grigori was telling the truth and he had nothing else to bargain with.


    I walked to Sandro. “How do we finish this?”<fnc5e2> Fresh chapters posted on find~novel</fnc5e2>


    “I’ve kept him alive long enough. The serum is going to kill him in a few hours.”


    “Can’t you just shoot me?” Grigori cried with whatever strength he had left.


    “That’s what they all say,” Sandro said without a trace of sympathy.


    “I won’t be satisfied until I get Anton,” I said. That motherfucker strangled Sloane.


    “Neither will I,” Sandro responded. “But Grigori is finished.”


    I nced over my shoulder, watching the writhing body on the mattress. The smell of antiseptic couldn’t disguise the stench arising from his diseased flesh and soiled bedding.


    “We’re done here,” Sandro said. “Let the drug do its job. His vitals are on my phone.”


    I turned once more to face Grigori. “Rot in hell, motherfucker.”


    We were on the second level of Margo’s mansion. The security in this house was discreet, but I believed, like the De Lis, there was a whole other operation in the basement. The unlived-in state of the first floor was merely a cover.


    Margo met us at the bottom of the staircase. She scrunched her nose. “I believe you men are satisfied?”


    “Not until I catch Anton.”


    “I gave you all the leads,” Margo said. “Just don’t act against the Russians.”


    “If Kirill retaliates, then we have no choice but to defend ourselves. Don’t tell me he doesn’t suspect you know where Grigori is.”


    “He does,” the woman responded. “But if he wants any hope of clearing Kolya’s name, he will stand down.”


    I raised a brow. “He must hate that.”


    “Men always do when you have them by their testicles.” She smiled shrewdly. “Still, I wouldn’t underestimate Kirill.”


    “If an innocent man is in prison, I don’t see why you would withhold any evidence to clear his name,” Sandro argued.


    Margo narrowed her eyes at Sandro. “I believe, Mr. Rossi, you have outstayed your wee here.” She pointedly walked to the entrance and opened the door with practiced grace, belying her scornful words.


    Sandro and I exited the property, noting how it had given me the creeps. Though I’d like to investigate Margo some more after the contract my sister had struck with her, my objective was to get my girl ready for her unveiling.


    We just reached Manhattan when Sandro told me that Grigori was dead.