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“I’ll leave your door unlocked,” he adds, already moving toward it. “You can leave the room if you want to, but Anya has to be with you—always. And don’t even think about giving her the slip. She’s highly trained, and I have men all over the house.”

His tone makes it final.

Relief floods me as I watch him leave, followed by somewhat begrudging gratitude. He’s not treating me the way I expected at all, sexual torment or not.

26

DIMITRI

Grace Turner has had a difficult life, and that’s putting it generously.

Left on the steps of a Catholic church in Brooklyn at age three. Cycled through foster placements until the system quietly gave up and parked her in a group home, where she made exactly one friend worth keeping—Millicent Wilson, her roommate. And when they aged out of the system, they got an apartment together and enrolled in the same nursing school.

I scroll, letting the cursor hover over Millicent Wilson’s name. My gut tells me she might be the key to unlocking Grace. An alert pings from one of my background programs, and I minimize the file to check it.

I inhale sharply, satisfaction warming me from the inside out as I read the notification. “Fucking finally.” I grab my phone and dial Noah. “Get the cars ready. I found a lead on the East River warehouse explosion.”

With a spring in my step, I leave my study, rolling my shoulders to loosen up. This motherfucker won’t know what hit him. When I get outside, two cars are already idling in the driveway.

Noah glances at me as I slide into the passenger seat next to him. “Where to?”

“El Barrio,” I answer darkly, leaning over to type the coordinates into his GPS.

He cocks a brow at the destination but starts the car anyway. Behind us, the second car—loaded with three of my men—pulls out in sync.

“Who’s the bastard?” Noah asks as we merge into traffic.

“One of the men from the warehouse shootout. He ran before the explosion, so he survived. A nobody in the grand scheme of things.”

“But he might know something. Or someone who does.”

“Exactly.” I’ve been running facial recognition on every man who entered the warehouse that day, but they either died in the explosion or turned up dead in “accidents” not long after. The only witnesses we had were the ones Aleksei and I caught ourselves that night, and we killed them after getting the location of our missing men.

We should have fucking kept at least one alive for further questioning. But the moment we noticed Vanya was missing, still stuck inside the building, everything else stopped mattering. This guy is the first crack in the wall of mystery surrounding that incident.

The rest of the drive passes in silence, both of us lost in our thoughts as we weave through the Manhattan traffic. But my spine stiffens when he turns onto the street and slows in front of the small bookshop. He kills the engine, and we get out, the second car emptying behind us as we do.

“You can’t park there, it’s a—” The man in front of the shop cuts off mid-sentence, his eyes widening as he looks up and sees me. I raise a finger to my lips, and he nods quickly, backing off without another word.

I motion for two of my men to stand watch outside while Noah, Denis, and I head inside.

“Welcome to Librería. How can I help you?” a teenager drawls from behind the counter.

“We’re here to see Leonid Bianco,” Noah answers.

She blows a bubble with her gum and pops it. “Yeah, I’m not supposed to tell anyone where he is. Store policy. So maybe get lost before I call the cops.”

So she doesn’t recognize me. Interesting.

I step forward, shifting my jacket enough to reveal the gun in my holster. “We are the cops, honey,” I lie smoothly. “Now tell me where your boss is, or you can explain to a judge why you’re obstructing an investigation.”

Her eyes go wide, and she jumps to her feet. “I-I’ll show you.”

Smart girl.

I nod at Noah and Denis to stay alert as we follow her through rows of bookshelves toward the back. She stops at a random bookshelf and glances over her shoulder.

“You guys are detectives, right? What did Leo do?”