Page 72 of Exacting Vengeance

“What did he do with the money after he counted it?”

She shrugged. “He’d stuff it back in the bag, then leave the house. Where he went, I don’t know. He always came home with the bag empty.”

Kyle assumed he’d either been making delivery directly to Lebedev with his share or taking it to Sharapova for dissemination.

He clicked open the second file—another spreadsheet, this one with only two columns, both unnamed and each with hundreds of entries. The first entry in the lefthand column was 5.4 million. Each successive number in that column was less than the previous entry, the final number being just under a million.

The right-side column entries varied between twenty thousand and a hundred thousand. There was no third column, but he easily understood what this spreadsheet documented. He looked up to see her eyes glinting with challenge. “These are the amounts of cash you gave away.”

“Yes.” She lifted her chin and crossed her arms. “I still won’t tell you or anyone else who I gave it to. Even if it means I have to go to prison for the rest of my life.”

The thought of her being sentenced to prison was more painful than if someone had reached between his ribs, gripped his heart in a tight fist, and squeezed the life out of it.

There had to be a way to keep her from being incarcerated. No matter what did or didn’t happen to Yuri or Nikolai Lebedev, he’d move mountains to make sure it didn’t.

That ransom money hadn’t done the victims any good. Legally speaking, it belonged to their families, but it could never bring their loved ones back. Knowing Victoria, he was certain she’d given it to worthy charities. That would be part of his pitch to AUSA Washington when he recommended she not be charged.

“We need to go home.” He snapped the laptop shut and cursed himself for his inadvertent choice of words. His home would only be hers until other arrangements could be made.

“I need to stop by my apartment and get a few more things.” She headed for the door, readying to switch off the lights.

He tucked the laptop under his arm and cued up Deke’s number on his phone. “We’re making a quick pit stop at her apartment next door,” he told his brother.

“I’ll let Jack know,” Deke said.

Minutes later, Kyle and Deke stood behind Victoria as she unlocked the door to her place. Jack waited outside, watching the door to the building. “Wait here,” he said to Deke, following her inside.

Without a word, she disappeared into her bedroom and flipped on the lights. How he’d get through the night living under the same roof with her and not touching her, he honestly didn’t know. It would kill him, but somehow, he’d get through it.

The framed photo of Victoria’s mother caught his eye. He picked it up as she returned to the living room. “This was in your house in Chicago. So you did go back to the house after leaving the hospital.”

She went to the window sill and began plucking dead leaves from one of the plants. “After I checked out, I hid in a local safehouse while arrangements were made to get out of the city. When I was well enough, Marissa and two men from the Women’s Crisis Center went with me to the house so I could get some personal things. Including that photo. You’d already arrested Yuri, so there was no danger, really.” She continued plucking off more dead leaves, then picked up a watering can and began watering the plants.

“Is that when you took the laptop?” he asked. For logistical reasons out of his control, the search warrant had been delayed. That delay had let the laptop slip away.

“Yes,” she answered without turning around.

“Why did you take it?”

“I don’t know for sure.” She set the watering can on the coffee table and sat in a blue chair. “Insurance, maybe.”

“Insurance against what?” The only thing that ledger had done was create a dangerous link to Yuri that still existed to this day.

“I’m not really sure. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I’d just spent weeks recuperating from the damage he inflicted to my body and to my life. I wanted to get away from him forever, but a tiny part of me wanted to hurt him like he hurt me. I could never do it physically, so I took something that was important to him. Aside from being a possession—a thing—I knew I wasn’t important to him, but that ledger was. So I took it. I know it was stupid, and I regretted it every day until I started giving the money to charity.”

When she picked up the watering can again and headed to the kitchen, a niggling suspicion snaked up his spine. From the second they’d walked in the door, her demeanor had been off. He went into the kitchen to find her refilling the can at the sink. “Why aren’t you packing?”

“Because,” she answered, turning off the water but not looking at him, “I’m not going with you.”

“The hell you’re not,” he yelled, not caring if the walls were paper-thin and every other tenant in the building heard him.

“I can’t stay with you, and you know it.” She slipped past him into the living room. “It was a mistake to go to your house in the first place. Then, you pushed it on me because I refused to go to a safehouse. Now, you’re only offering to put me up because I’m a witness, someone you can’t afford to lose. This could take months, even years, before it goes to trial, and you want me to hide all that time?” She huffed and shook her head. “I won’t do it.”

He ground his teeth, struggling to gain control. It was true, he didn’t want to lose her. Not because she was a witness. Because she was… God, he didn’t know what she was to him anymore, and now wasn’t the time to delve into it. That backbone she’d grown in the last ten years made her strong in ways he couldn’t help but admire. It also made her reckless with her life. “We’ve been through this before. More than ever, it’s not safe for you here.”

“Then make it safe.” She spun so fast water spewed from the spout of the watering can. “I told you before, I won’t run, and I won’t hide. If I do, Yuri wins, and I won’t let him do that to me again. Besides, once you take the money from the bank box, I can’t give it to him. I’ll tell him I don’t have it anymore, then maybe he’ll leave me alone.”

“And maybe he won’t.” In Kyle’s mind, there were no maybes about it. “Yeah, he wants his money. But his obsession is you. Sooner or later, he’ll make his move.” The fact he hadn’t done it already, bugged the hell out of him. There had to be a reason.