Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
37
VIKTOR
Jerome’s men did come close to finding him once, but it was the same story as the day Jerome and I went to the safe house looking for him. They were always just a step or two behind him and always arrived to find him gone. They even found a mug with an inch of still lukewarm coffee in the bottom. They must have missed him by less than fifteen minutes.
The more I heard, the more I knew that I had definitely underestimated Igor. I had believed at first that he was just an entitled druggie, but he was more clever than that. So clever he was starting to make me, and my men look like idiots.
While I waited for news, I went through the motions of going about my day as normal. If Igor had people watching me, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him think that he had me running scared. I went into the office every day or to one of my other businesses and I did what needed to be done to keep my businesses ticking over nicely.
My secretary organized the compensation payments I’d promised Lacey and Justine, and on a whim, I sent a similar payment to Amelia’s account. That would give her something to live on until we were together again, and it wouldn’t seem suspicious. In fact, it would seem more suspicious if she didn’t get a payment. This all added to the ruse. She had witnessed something terrifying and discovered who I really was, so she left me. She was paid off along with the other maids to keep her mouth shut. It was a simple and effective story, and it was much more believable than the version where she left me the day after a shooting on my estate without being paid to keep her mouth shut.
I’m sitting in the office now, dealing with emails and reports. It feels so mundane when I know I should be out there dealing with Igor, but if Jerome’s trained men can’t track him down, then I can’t see how I could. My cell phone rings, and I feel a tingling of hope deep down inside myself when I see Jerome’s name on the screen. I try to ignore the hope. I’ve fallen into this trap several times, assuming it was going to be Jerome calling with good news, telling me he had Igor’s location confirmed, only for it to be an update on a fresh disappointment or a question about something.
This time, it’s different though. I can hear the excitement in Jerome’s voice the second he speaks. It's three simple words, but they are words that send my whole body into an adrenaline spike.
“We’ve got him.”
“For real this time?” I ask, trying to remain cautious and not let myself believe it’s really this close to being over.
“For real. We know his exact location and I have men positioned all around the place so there’s no way in hell he can escape. I’m outside your office now,” Jerome says.
“Coming,” I say.
I cut off the call, grab my jacket, and leave the office without a word to anyone. If anyone needs me for anything, they’ll find out I’m gone pretty quickly. This is way more important than any phone call or signing some letter or something. I don’t even wait for the elevator, I take the stairs, running down them two at a time, putting my jacket on as I go. I sprint through the lobby and across the parking lot to Jerome’s waiting car.
“How far away is it?” I ask as I slide in.
Jerome fires up the engine and pulls out of the parking lot, the tires squealing. He’s not messing about this time. He joins the steadily flowing traffic heading east.
“About a ten-minute drive,” he says.
“He’s been right under our fucking noses this whole time,” I say, in wonder.
“Yeah,” Jerome agrees. “But it’s not somewhere we ever would have thought to look. I’ll be honest, boss, getting the word on this place was a lucky break.”
“So, what is it? Some sort of safe house?”
I don’t know of any safe houses around these parts, and Jerome’s words make me think it’s not, but what else could it be? It’s not like Igor was just going to rent a house in his own name when he knew my men were looking for him, and it’s not like they wouldn’t have found him if he had become that cocky.
“He’s staying in a property registered to a Michael Fields. Like I said, it was a lucky break. One of the men stumbled onto this information quite by accident. Michael Fields is…”
“Someone who got caught up in the crossfire on one of my drug deals years ago. Just a kid really, didn’t deserve to die that way. I remember,” I say.