Page 24 of Devil's Retribution
I should have just gone with the stolen helicopter. Storming the place from the top down, the exact opposite of what he would have expected. Instead, I had just spent one of the longest five minutes of my life watching pretty, kind Emma learn firsthand that her uncle was not the man she’d thought. That he was worse—worse even than I had suspected.
Or were we both reading too much into it? Maybe the old man collapsed on us when he got the news. Maybe something completely unrelated happened.
Not knowing for certain was pissing me off even more than the possibility that I had seriously overestimated this man’s loyalty to his overprotected niece. That the plan I had felt forced into could have been unnecessary.
What the hell was I going to do if this bastard of a man suddenly decided he didn’t really care about his family after all? How should I handle Emma and the boy? I couldn’t just let them go free after all of this.
They shouldn’t have had to pay for his sins. Not even for a few minutes. But here they were, helpless in my hands while Graves was out of reach.
***
Tolya saw my face as I stalked into the club and paled beneath his tan. He waved at a few of the others, and they assembled at my table as I sat down.
I put my game face on, though my head was starting to throb. “I want reports,” I snapped. “Graves. Any activity, any calls, any movement.”
“He’s still gone dark online. No presence, no posts, no transactions. My guess is, he’s keeping offline deliberately. Maybe having someone else do that work for him.” Alexei opened his laptop and started bringing up windows. “No activity in his bank accounts, either. At least the ones we know about.”
That didn’t help my confidence right now. “And the people physically watching the place? What about them?”
“They’ve been able to confirm that he’s home, and has taken a few meetings, including with a guy with his arm in a sling. Maybe the security man from the night we kidnapped Graves’s relatives.”
“Probably a good guess.” I shook my head, staring at all the evidence on Alexei’s screen that told me how we were failing to get our hands on the vicious old bastard. Emma’s phone stayed silent on the table in front of me. “I don’t understand this man. He had me fight my way through five men to get to his niece, and now he won’t answer a phone call to keep her safe?”
“Maybe he wasn’t keeping her or the boy safe out of love,” Tolya speculated, eyes narrowing thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?”
“Graves. Yes, he’s overprotective, but there are other reasons a man does that besides love.”
My frown deepened. What kind of man was Graves that he could protect his niece her whole life, invade her privacy to watch over her, and then not be moved at all when she called him begging for rescue?
I had not been unmoved. I was supposed to be cold, focused, and just as harsh as I needed to be. But when I heard her voice breaking as she’d left that message, it had felt like a needle sliding into my guts.
The men at my table had fallen silent. I looked up and saw them staring at me. Tolya had worry written across his face.
“Watch the building.” I handed Tolya Emma’s phone as Alexei nodded. “Tolya, if that man actually calls her back I want to know right away.”
“What will you be doing?”
“I’m going home,” I said flatly. “I need to think.”
The men erupted into questions as I fell silent. What was I going to do about Igor’s gun deal? What about the police? The security man who had gotten away? And what was I going to do with that woman and child if Graves kept his radio silence?
“I’ll talk to Igor personally. Our contacts in the police department are aware of the situation and are handling it. Everything else depends on what we learn in the next twenty-four hours.” I gave my two lieutenants a pointed look as their men watched. “I want an immediate call if circumstances change with the Graves situation. I don’t care how small the change is.
“As for Kalashnikov, if he shows his face in my club again, let me know as well. He seems to know something about my brother’s murder, if he wasn’t just telling tales at a very coincidental time.”
“Do you think it’s possible he knows about the hitter? We still haven’t been able to track who Graves used exactly.” Tolya was looking at me uncomfortably, his meaty hands knotted together white-knuckled on the tabletop.
“Maybe.” The throbbing in my head had reached eye-watering levels. I didn’t get tension headaches too often, but when I did it felt like a tank was rolling over my sinuses. “I’m kind of hoping he doesn’t have anything useful or new to tell us. I just know he’ll hold it over me if he does.”
“It’s Igor, of course he will. He’ll try it even if he doesn’t even have anything of value, the man hasn’t been in his right mind about any of us for five years.” Tolya sounded exasperated.
I smirked and looked around the table. “Any further questions?”
There were none, so I stood. “Very well. You know where to reach me if I am needed. I have business to attend to.”
“Not stopping for a drink?” Tolya looked genuinely startled.