Page 47 of Devil's Retribution

His bank and investment statements totaled out to $2.8 billion dollars, minus the roughly six hundred million he’d run off with.

I could definitely find ways to get my hands on that, especially if Viktor would help. As for the missing money, we would have to see. I already had the chance to get the majority of my own back, and meanwhile, I had already started taking over one of his businesses just to get his poor employees paid.

There was nothing else of interest in the bills and business letters pile. I looked at the small stack of private correspondences, then at the packages.

I grabbed one of the packages and tore it open, it was filled with medications. I frowned and went through them. Heart medications, diuretics, blood pressure pills, medication for high cholesterol. I was at med school before I went into psychiatry as my specialty, so I knew what this all meant. He was on quite high doses, and given the combination it looked like he was in end stage heart failure.

How was he going to get his meds while hiding overseas? He could try getting them black-market, but the risk of receiving fake or contaminated medication was high. My uncle was paranoid, especially about his health. That meant he would try to get them from a legitimate overseas source.

But how?

An idea surfaced in my head, and I smiled. The new doctor would probably call his old doctors looking to verify his prescriptions and diagnoses. With the amount of medical fraud circulating in the world, they wouldn’t just rely on a copy of his medical records.

We needed to question his doctors. They would at least be able to tell us what country his new doctor was in.

I smiled. Finally, a solid lead.

I opened the other package, there were more medications. Everything from Viagra to hemorrhoid cream. I shuddered a little, but they were all prescription too. More things to ask about—though I wondered about the doctor who had prescribed the Viagra, in a man with an underlying heart condition, that could lead to potentially dangerous side effects, though I guess that money talks, and everyone has a price.

I quickly realized that I would have to go through Viktor. Trying to get the information via legal channels might be difficult. As a doctor I could probably try and gain access to my uncle’s medical records, but the risk of being caught and the potential ethical violations made that more of a last resort. I felt bad about the doctors needing to have the details tricked or scared out of them, but we had little choice. This was the first truly solid lead we’d gotten in days.

At least I would have some good news when Viktor came home.

I started opening the correspondences. My heart sank when I saw them. Two of the letters were in Russian, which confused me, because why on earth would my uncle be getting mail in Russian? Viktor could take a look at them later. The third was more interesting, it was a vague letter from a yacht company about how his new yacht would be waiting for him in Barbados. I checked the details on it, and then looked up the company—Caribbean Yachting—online. They looked legitimate and were based in Key West.

Barbados. Could he be holed up there? Certainly, he had to be somewhere in the Caribbean if he had used that yacht to get out of the states. Maybe he was using it to move from place to place. I tried checking the yacht’s details online. He’d named it The Silver Queen—it was huge, powerful, and had room for not only the crew but several guests, along with food, clean water, and fuel stores. He could have stayed aboard it for weeks without landing anywhere, but that was it.

He’s definitely in the Caribbean. And I would be able to give Viktor that information as soon as he returned.

I especially wanted to find out what he made of those two letters in Russian. It couldn’t be a coincidence. There was simply no way at all.

I was cleaning up the mess when I heard the beep of the keycard reader and the door open. Viktor walked in, looking so haggard that it shocked me.

I stood up at once. “Oh God, what happened?”

He sighed, turning to the foyer closet to shed his raincoat, gun holsters and boots. “There was a bombing at my club.”

“A bombing?” Dear God. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I have a couple of injured men, and we have to have the foundations and elevator checked. The club will have to be closed until it’s been cleared, but it could have been much worse.” He finished putting things away, stepped out of his boots, and walked over to the couch, flopping down on it and crossing his legs.

I sat down gingerly. “I’m sorry.”

“How was your day?”

“Well, I set up appointments for all of Uncle Charles’s staff, got his employees paid after spreading the story that he’s comatose in the hospital, and took in his mail and started going through it. And I found some things.”

I went through it all and saw some of the tension and anger drop away bit by bit from his expression, until he was even smiling a little.

“Trace his medications? That’s a great idea. And you managed to track some of his activities to Barbados. Not a bad day’s work at all, Emma.”

“Thank you. But um... that actually isn’t all.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“There were two old-school letters sent to him, in Russian. I hoped maybe you could—”

“Let me see those.” He took up the letters and read through them rapidly. “Hmm.”