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I rush to get to her, driving as fast as possible. But someone else beat me there. The door to Kat’s apartment is wide open. As I stand outside, I hear somebody ruffling through her belongings.
Intrigued, I step inside the apartment, carefully avoiding announcing my presence to the mysterious individual by making too much noise.
Usually, nothing would have delighted me more than thoroughly examining Kat’s place and the things that make it her home. But as I observe the ransacked state of the living room and the strange woman inside it, snooping around is the last thing on my mind.
The woman has her back turned to me, so I can see nothing but her light-colored sweater and jeans, plus the back of her blonde head. She turns around and gasps, startled by seeing me.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asks, breathlessly clutching her chest.
“Who the fuck am I? Who the fuck are you? Where’s Kat?”
She huffs indignantly. “That’s what I would like to know, too.” While narrowing her brown eyes at me, she says, “And, unlike you, I am a concerned party with the keys to this place and a right to be here. I will only ask you one more time, mister. Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing here?”
I’m tempted to call her bluff, but I let go of the idea. The last thing I need is to antagonize this woman. In fact, getting her on my side would be an impressive coup in my current circumstances.
“You must be A.J.,” I say under my breath. I hold my hand out to her. “My name is Nikolai Stefanovich. I’m looking for Kat.”
A.J. raises her eyebrows so high I’m mildly surprised they don’t disappear behind her bangs. With a scowl, she shakes my hand. “Oh, I bet you are, Nikolai.”
Her tone surprises me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I think you know. I’ve heard all about you.”
I laugh humorlessly. “I sure hope not.”
“Obviously. And I don’t blame you. If I were you, I’d be embarrassed, too.”
I spot a cell phone on the floor, just outside the kitchen. Wordlessly, I walk towards it and pick it up. “No wonder Kat didn’t answer my calls,” I say.
A.J. gasps over my shoulder. “Shit.”
I turn to look at her. “What is it? Tell me,” I ask.
A.J. needs no further encouragement, talking a mile a minute. “The reason I came here in the first place is because I was on the phone with Kat—sharing some pretty spectacular news, by the way—when she just became unresponsive. The call dropped. I called back a bunch of times, but she never picked it up. She never called me back, either. That’s not like her. I just had a bad feeling about it.”
I have a bad feeling, too.
“Tell me everything you discussed with her,” I say with urgency. A.J. hesitates, and I ask, “Is this about Salvatore?”
Eyes wide, she gasps before scanning me from head to toe. “You know about the stronzo?” she asks, sounding surprised.
I frown, puzzled. “Who?”
“Giuseppe Salvatore. The Italian family boss. Kat and I call him the stronzo. It means asshole in Italian. Did she tell you about him?”
I nod. “Yes. I know about the fucker. Were you two discussing him?”
A.J. shrugs. “In a way. Earlier today, I finally got my hands on the motherlode—a couple of boxes of records concerning his dirty little secret. As I’m sure you’re aware, the stronzo is only the boss of the Italian family by the grace of his good wife, Gianna. If her father hadn’t passed the mantle to his daughter’s worthless husband before dying, maybe we’d never have the displeasure of dealing with him. You’d think that would keep him from straying, right? But it didn’t. Rumors have always run amok, but until recently, they were just that—rumors. Until today. I’m proud to say that I now have hard proof of his misstep. And I’m not afraid to use it, trust me. As soon as I find Kat, my next move will be to let Gianna Salvatore know all about her husband’s love child, this guy named Dmitri Ivashkov.”
My heart screeches to a halt inside my chest, painfully contracting. “What did you just say?” I ask, holding my breath.
“I said I have to find Kat ASAP so I can pay Gianna a call. Then maybe Kat and I will go to Ibiza. You’re not invited, of course, and?—”
“No, the son’s name. What did you say it was?”
“Oh,” A.J. says, blinking. “It’s Dmitri Ivashkov. Why? Do you know him? I didn’t want to be rude and ask you outright. I didn’t want to imply that all Russians know each other or anything like that.”
“You must’ve heard it wrong,” I say. “The name. That’s not him. It can’t be.”
