Page 52 of Devil's Retribution
Then I wondered if I was going soft. Doting on Nick, letting my intel men have an office puppy, having soft feelings for a woman that went beyond wanting to fuck her. My objectivity was crucial, I couldn’t do my job without it.
But there was a difference between objectivity and being a hard, humorless bastard. That had been what Igor had been, back before he’d betrayed us and turned into the cruelly sadistic ass he was today. It probably hadn’t helped his mental health to be so rigid. And it showed how ‘cruel’ lurked in the shadows behind ‘rigid’.
I was a soldier in a street war. We of the organization had our honor, even if Igor had forgotten that. Cruelty was the worst, the sickest self-indulgence a human was capable of. Taking pleasure in others’ suffering was for men like Igor, not for me.
A man could be a warrior and still have a heart. Perhaps it was even essential.
Or maybe I’m being sentimental after all, I thought as I let myself in and walked into Alexei’s current nerve center.
Immediately a bundle of blonde fur scrambled up to me, yapping in greeting. She half-collapsed into a play-bow, wiggling her entire behind.
“Ah, hello.” I patted her on the head, then stepped over her and walked down the aisle between cubicles. “Alexei!”
“Back office, boss!” he called. I walked that direction with the puppy trailing after me, jumping to try and get my attention.
I wonder if Nick would like a dog. He certainly seems responsible enough for one.
Alexei’s desk spanned an entire wall, a gathering of big flatscreen monitors clustered on the wall behind it. Some had text, some images, a few streamed live video. The largest one sat dead center on the surface of the desk. Alexei’s keyboard was in front of it, the desktop was full of open text files. A folder sat next to the keyboard with my name on it.
Alexei stood with his back to the monitors to greet me. He kicked a smallish rubber squeaky-ball for the puppy—Mila, that was her name—who went scrambling down the corridor after it. “I’ve gotten everything off the laptop and that thumb drive. I managed to run some searches on some of the information too.” He handed me the folder. “That has a copy of the full report, along with those letters you wanted.”
“I see. Good. Give me the short version.”
“Charles Graves has been working with some kind of underworld interests here in Los Angeles for decades. I haven’t tracked down who, yet, but I do know that he’s been doing a lot of shady shit for almost as long as I’ve been alive.”
My eyebrows went up. “Go on.”
“He’s still making payments to someone for a double murder he had committed over twenty years ago. Apparently, the hitman has been blackmailing him the whole time.”
I felt my gut tighten. “Double murder?”
“Yeah.” His smile faded slightly. He took a deep breath before going on. “It’s Dr. Martinez’s parents, Viktor. He had their car sabotaged.”
It felt like a punch in the gut. The first thing that went through my head at the news was how was I going to tell her? It would break her heart again, to learn that her uncle had been behind her parents’ deaths.
I kept my voice even, but I felt sick. “I see. You’re certain?”
“Yeah. It’s one of the few regular email correspondences he gets, and I have been able to link it up to his bank expenditures.” He showed me both on that big central screen.
“I wish I could say I was completely surprised, but I am not. After he abandoned his niece and great-nephew, especially.”
“That poor woman.” He ran his hand back through his hair, and then kicked the ball for the pup again. I watched the cute little creature run after it in an awkward game of fetch. I knew he was doing it because he hated giving this news, and I guessed it was healthier than diving into alcohol.
His mind, however, stayed sharp. “But the thing I don’t get is, why take her and her sister in after that?”
“To get his hands on the whole inheritance, for one.” But of course, it was never that simple. I could tell. Graves had to care for those two at least a little. Maybe most of his kindness and indulgence had been guilt, and trying to goldwash his conscience with cash and good deeds. But he had still murdered his own brother and his sister-in-law and made orphans of two innocent girls.
The heart speaks, but money speaks louder. And saving one’s own cowardly skin speaks loudest of all.
“Disgusting,” I muttered. “And men like this call us criminals.”
Yet I didn’t judge myself as much better right that moment. I had kidnapped Emma and her boy. I had threatened them. I was still compelling their cooperation, though at this point it took little compulsion.
I am not the man she deserves. The thought came unbidden, startling me—but it was painfully true. Still, I pushed it aside for later consideration. Right now, I was still wondering how I was going to bring her such terrible news.
“I’m just left wondering who in the world has been blackmailing him this whole time. Whoever they are either did the hit themselves or supplied the hitter.” Alexei looked pretty disgusted himself. When the puppy came back, he paused to rub her belly before throwing the ball again.
“If we can figure out who did that, it’s another potential lead to finding the bastard.” Unless, of course, he’d run from the blackmail as well. “Or perhaps…”