Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Gregor

The heat between Alissa and I could have warmed the winter night by itself, but I couldn’t respond to it. She was exhausted, overwrought, full of questions, and worried.

Yet what she had said, what she had asked was clear. She agreed with what I was doing more than I’d expected, but that agreement itself scared her. She didn’t like having a dark side. She didn’t like understanding what it was like to be satisfied by an enemy’s humiliation, their death.

I left her curled around her—our—daughter in my guestroom, sleeping so deeply that a shout might not have woken her up. My whole body wanted to join her in that bed, curl around her in turn, and keep her safe. But I knew my desires went beyond that, and she was in no shape. So, I left her and our child locked behind layers of security and went out to do my duty.

It was time for the remaining Ivanovs to pay the piper.

I got into my car, and was about to turn the key in the ignition, when Sergei called me.

“Hey,” he said, a hushed urgency in his voice. “How is it going over there?”

“I reunited Alissa with her daughter and told her as little as possible. They’re resting someplace safe now. What have you got for me about the Ivanovs?”

“Save that for a minute. That Alissa, she’s got a one-bedroom in Little Village, right?”

I stopped dead, hand still on the key. Christ, Vasily’s been having him keep tabs on me. I should have guessed that, especially since I had a personal stake in the matter. If my judgment slipped, the organization had to be protected.

It still felt invasive, though at least Sergei was good enough to inform me. “Yes, yes, she does.”

“Well, there’s a guy surveilling her place. Big, black hoodie, nondescript rental car. Probably armed.”

“Fuck. Any idea who he is?” My first guess was one of the Ivanovs looking to grab Michelle back, or shoot me for taking her. But would they know? The police had found some charred remains, but the investigation into the explosion was ongoing, and they hadn’t released the number of victims.

“No idea, but whoever he is, he’s agitated and paranoid. I figured you would want to know before you sent her home with her kid. I’m running the plates now to see where he rented it. Once I crack their CCTV, I can get his face and an ID for you.”

“Good. You thought right, and thank you. Are you there now?”

“Not for much longer. Vasily wants me across town.”

That didn’t sound right, not for the first time this evening I wondered if my pakhan was losing his touch. “Even though you just told him there’s a prowler watching the same place you are?”

“Eh, I figured you love this girl, you don’t need any help ripping a guy threatening her into stew-sized chunks.” His tone sounded almost artificially light. I knew he was dubious about the unexpected order too. But duty was duty.

“Thank you for telling me.” By which I meant cluing me in that he was being sent to watch me, and Alissa, as much as letting me know about the prowler. “You think it’s one of the remaining Ivanovs? Or someone they hired?”

“Definitely not a professional. He might have the skills, but he’s unbalanced. Agitated. Not in control. That’s one of the reasons I noticed him so fast.”

“And he’s definitely after Alissa?”

“I caught him putting a tracker on her car.”

Thank God she was safe at my place with this lunatic around.“I’ll deal with this. Go see what Vasily wants across town.”

We hung up and I started my car, a scowl deepening on my face. It seemed like the Ivanovs didn’t know when to quit. Well, if they were so eager to die of their stupidity, I would oblige them.

I parked a block away from Alissa’s apartment and walked over, keeping my eye out for Sergei’s prowler. I caught sight of him pacing back and forth in front of the driveway to her building’s underground parking lot before he stepped back into its shadowed maw. Sergei was right. He didn’t act like a pro. He acted like a serial killer working himself up to find a new victim.

I moved up on the garage entrance from the side, concealing myself behind a snow-covered bush next to it. I could hear the man muttering to himself from my hiding place as he came back out to pace some more.

“Bitch. Block my calls. Threaten to tell my boss. Who the fuck does she think she is?”

I frowned. Could this stalker have nothing to do with the Ivanovs? He sounded like a rejected lover. I watched him, timing things carefully. When he turned in his pacing to walk to the other side of the garage entrance, I emerged and slipped quickly up behind him, pressing the muzzle of my pistol into his back.

“Don’t move,” I growled. He froze. “What’s your business here?” I demanded.

“I…I…I…my girlfriend ghosted me for no reason, damn it! Now she’s disappeared.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “I see. You must be Miss Alissa’s stalker ex.”

“I’m not stalking her, I—”

“Shut up.” I patted him down with my free hand, finding his pistol, a zipped sandwich bag full of chloroform rags, handcuffs, heavy duty zip ties, and condoms.

“Oh lovely, a little rape kit for your night’s entertainment. Aren’t you a cop, you piece of shit?”

He stiffened, but stayed where he was, wary of the gun. “What? Who…who the fuck are you?”

“Her bodyguard. Got a tip someone was stalking her place. Didn’t expect to run into a dirty cop, but here we are.” I stepped back, keeping my gun on him, and pulled out my phone with my free hand. “Look at me, you piece of shit.”

I got some choice snaps of him crouching in the driveway of Alissa’s apartment building, with the address plate in frame, along with his face and the items at his feet. The gun, I kept.

“Now, here’s what we’re gonna do. You are going to fuck off home. You are never to contact or do anything to interfere with or harm Alissa. Otherwise, I send these pictures of you and your rape kit to your boss, your mother, and the press.”

“Look,” he said, pasting on a smile, trying to be man-to-man reasonable as I snapped more pictures. “My girlfriend’s just dramatic, okay? I would never hurt her.”

“What’s the chloroform for, then?”

He started to splutter. “It’s not what you think—”

“I don’t have time for this.” I grabbed him by the collar and shoved the pistol under his chin. “You came here planning to kidnap, rape, and probably murder a woman who dumped you weeks ago. I’m no fool. I deal with shitty domestic abuser cops all the fucking time. I know when one of you scumbags is handing me a line of bullshit to justify putting an innocent woman through hell. I would probably be doing the world a favor if I pulled the trigger on you right fucking now.”

“You wouldn’t dare. I’m a cop.”

“Not tonight, you’re not.” My pistol had an exposed hammer, I thumbed it back for emphasis and he started sweating in the cold. “Tonight, you’re human garbage out to do unspeakable fucking things to someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

“Why do you even care? Who the hell are you?”

I was so angry that I could barely think straight. Who was this filthy, murderous cop really? How dare he think he could turn Alissa, my Alissa, into a statistic. I wanted to put a bullet through his head. I wanted to seal his feet in concrete and leave him at the bottom of the nearest lake. I wanted to punish him, make an example of him that would scare dirty cops for generations.

“I work for her,” I replied, deciding to keep with the lie. “She suspected she was being stalked, so she hired security. Glad she did—you’re every inch the psycho she expected you to be.”

“Fuck,” he breathed, sounding plenty scared now. “O-okay. Okay. I get the message. Leave her alone. I’ll just do that from now on, okay? I’m leaving.”

“It’s not that simple.” My tone was cold. “You show up at your ex’s home with a rape kit, probably planning to murder her after, you can’t just walk away after and expect us all to forget about it.”

“You’ll be way deeper in the shit than me if you pull that trigger,” he warned me. “Cop killers don’t get off easy around here. And what else can you fucking do, call 9-1-1?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of taking footage from the building security cameras and her dashcams, putting them together in a nice little timeline of you stalking her, and send it to the press while identifying you.”

That seemed to scare him even more than the gun. He went sheet-white, and his eyes widened further. His lips trembled. “You wouldn’t. You can’t. I…I’ll do anything.”

I just stared at him. “You really can’t take being exposed, can you? You fail at being a cop, you fail at being a boyfriend, and your response is stalking, harassment, rape, and God knows what else. But you know that’s wrong, because you’re shaking in your fucking boots at the prospect of people finding out you do that shit. You’re not just a sicko, you’re a coward.”

“L-look, what is it going to take to get you off my back? You want money? You can have it! All of it!” He was trembling so hard that I expected him to piss himself. Some men could dish out threats, but just couldn’t handle taking them.

It was taking all my self-control not to pull the trigger on this piece of shit. “I don’t want your fucking money. I make more than you’ll ever see in your life, and I manage to do it without hurting any innocents.”

His nose was running, his eyes brimming with tears. “What do you want?” he sobbed.

“I want to blow your fucking brains all over the sidewalk for trying this,” I growled, and immediately smelled his bladder letting go. “But that doesn’t matter, fortunately for you. What matters is what’s best for Alissa—something you never took into account. And I don’t think she wants your death on her conscience. So, here’s what we’re going to do. You are going to go home, grab your shit, and be over the state line before dawn. Never return. If you do return, or do anything else to cause problems for Alissa, I will release the tapes. Then I will come after you. If that happens, pray the internal affairs men find you first.”

He nodded frantically and scrambled away from me, almost falling over in the process. I stood there like a statue, still pointing my gun at him. He kept backing away, bumped into his car, and edged around it, fumbling for his keys.

I didn’t relax until he had driven away. I didn’t know if I had made the right call in sparing him. But besides what it would have done to Alissa, that sick coward had been right about cop killers. Just not in the way he thought.

Killing a cop would have broken the agreements that kept the bratva and the cops from all-out war. That kept the bribes flowing, the cops looking the other way, and our men mostly out of prison. If I made a mess like that, we would all end up paying for it.

I spent half an hour cleaning up after Alissa’s stalker, getting copies of security footage and making sure he hadn’t actually broken into her place. I took the tracker off her car and dismantled it, just in case he drank enough courage to try anything else.

I’d have to warn Alissa.I hated the whole idea. The last thing I wanted to do was to bring her even more bad news. But at least I could bring it alongside the promise that I would never let that prick anywhere near her.