The Russian mobster’s eyes narrowed. She could hear the bodyguards shift behind her. “Why you care? Not your beezniss.” Business.
Georgia gestured to the chair. “May I?”
He shrugged. Georgia figured she had about a minute before he threw them out. Or worse.
She and Matt sat in the chairs in front of the recliner. They weren’t much more than folding chairs, rigid and uncomfortable. Purposely, of course. Make the supplicant uneasy.
“So who run this ring?” the man asked.
Georgia glanced at Matt, then back at him. Was she being played? He had to know. Carefully, she said, “That’s why we’re here. I think it’s someone you know.”
The man raised his hands, palms up. “You think I tell if I do?”
Georgia nodded. “I do.”
He canted his head. “Why I tell you?”
“Because I think he’s cutting into your turf. Again. And you want him out of the way.”
Her comment elicited an intense look. He narrowed his eyes. “Go on.”
Georgia told him about the man who’d been gunned down in Evanston a few weeks earlier. “I kept wondering why it was so public. You know, when you guys don’t get along, bodies turn up in ditches. Or the lake. But this was right out in the open. On an Evanston street.
“After a while I wondered if the guy who was killed was informing for you. That you were running a double?”
“Who you think running this gang?”
She hesitated. Then, “Vlad.”
He blinked and folded his arms. She could sense the bodyguards behind her go on alert. Even the dog picked up his head.
She was on the right track.
“How you know?”
“I saw him.” She told him about the Capron farm. “Look—uh—sir—” She didn’t know what to call him. Neither Matt nor he had told her his name. But his features softened almost imperceptibly at her words. She took it as a good omen. “If I’ve been able to piece together this much, the cops will too, at some point, and they’ll be coming after you, even if you’re not involved.”
The softness vanished, and a suspicious glare came over him. “And you will make sure they know.”
She raised her palms, mimicking the same gesture he’d made just a moment ago. Two could play this game. She heard Matt’s sharp intake of breath. She wasn’t sure where her courage was coming from, but she barreled on.
“At the very least there will be a mountain of shit thrown your way. And”—she hesitated—“my sister is mixed up with them.”
He leaned forward. “You sister?”
She nodded and explained the note that had been stuffed in her mailbox, the DNA test she’d done. “She’s pregnant, and she needs my help. I want to get her out. And I’m pretty sure the man who delivered the note was the guy gunned down in Evanston.”
Boris—she decided to call him that, at least to herself—lifted his eyebrows.
“So you go in with heem”—he yanked a thumb at Matt—“and get her out.”
“He’s not involved. It’s just me. That’s why I’m here. I need backup. But I don’t want to involve the cops.”
His eyebrows arched higher.
“They’d screw it up. Everyone will end up dead. Including my sister.”
He deigned to give her a slight nod.
“But I can deliver Vlad to you. And if you or your krysha get involved, you’ll be able to take him out. Consolidate your turf. Maybe even add to your lines of business.”
Boris leaned back, grabbed the handle at the base of the recliner, and pushed it forward until he was sitting upright. Suddenly, he was three feet closer, almost on top of Georgia. She swallowed. If he was trying to intimidate her, he was succeeding. She heard the bodyguards moved closer.
“No baby ring,” he said firmly. “No is steady beezniss. Babies is problems. Need to put up women. They cannot work. No drugs. Is too much—how you say—out of pocket. Plus the women, they go crazy. They want escape. Even keep babies. No. Not good beezniss.”
It was Georgia’s turn to raise her eyebrows. He knew a lot more than he had let on. Was he already getting a cut? She couldn’t ask; he’d never admit it. She had to use her final card.
“I haven’t told you everything,” she said slowly. “Whoever is running it has an extra business on the side.” She told him about the human transplant organs.
He was quiet. Then he inclined his head, his expression flat. “How you know?”
She shrugged, but his knowing expression indicated she might have given him too much. If Boris was involved in the ring, or knew who was, he might realize what a threat she posed to the operation. She would leave this room a marked woman. She wouldn’t know when or how, but they would come for her.
No. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—live that way, no matter what the consequences. She figured she had one final shot. She decided to go for broke. “So, sir, or whatever you call yourself. What proof do I have that you’re not part of it?”
He leaned forward in the recliner and stared at her. Shit. She’d blown it. He was going to destroy her. Maybe shoot her right here and now. She held her breath. She sensed Matt doing the same. He must have been shitting his pants.
But then Boris did something totally unexpected. He cracked a smile. “Because you still alive.”
She let his words roll over her, then let out a breath. He was right. She chose her next words carefully. “Does that mean you are not in league with Vlad?”
Boris templed his fingers. “What you think?” Always a strategic move to answer a question with a question.
She glanced at Matt. He nodded. “I think he’s a monster. At least he was ten years ago when I dealt with him.”
Surprise spread across Boris’s face. “What happen ten years ago?”
“You remember when his network fell apart? When Max Gordon was taken down?”
Boris nodded.
“That was me. And another person.”
“You?” He frowned as if he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—believe her. Then he shook his head. “I help finance. I lose much money.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Banks. Skyscraper. Is all fake. I never trust him.”
“I watched Vlad kill his wife. Then jump into the Chicago River. He went back to the Ukraine.”
Boris nodded. “I hear he back.”
“He is.” Georgia was telling him something he already knew. “I saw him.”
The man’s shoulders hunched as if he was about to sigh. “You know, of course, he is worse kind of bad. He play with people. Like cat with mouse before it pounce.”
Georgia nodded. “He may be setting me up.” She explained how she’d been able to find the warehouse, Chad Coe, Zoya, and Claudia Nyquist. “He’s letting me get close to my sister. I’m good, but not that good. He’s setting a trap. He wants revenge.”
Boris kept his mouth shut.
“Just tell me one thing. The man he gunned down in Evanston—he was your man, wasn’t he? Vlad was sending you a message. Toying with you, too. Or trying to, right?”
Boris kept his mouth shut, but a calculating, measuring look came over him.
“Look, I want my sister alive. And we both want this bastard gone,” she said. “I can bring you to him. But I need help.”
He didn’t answer.
“Hey, I risked everything to come here. I’ve told you what I know. Please. Give me something.”
He gestured to the Manilow jacket on the wall. “Is bad timing. I go show in Vegas. He like my son, you know. I know him for years.”
Georgia glanced over her shoulder at the jacket, then at the crucifix. “Then you know what a crime against nature it is to kill a young woman.”
Boris shifted uncomfortably.
“Here’s what I propose,” she went on. “I will set a time for your men to meet me out at the farm. It will probably be within the next twenty-four hours. I’ll call you—or one of your krysha, if you’re at—out of town.” She just couldn’t say the words “at a Barry Manilow concert.”
“I’ll wait for an hour; then I’ll go in. If they don’t hear from me within a few minutes, it means I got in trouble. The likelihood is I’ll be dead, but I don’t matter. I want your men to get my sister out alive.” She paused. “Then do what you want to Vlad.”
“An eye for an eye,” Boris said.
“A sister for a sister.”
Boris didn’t say anything for what seemed like forever. Georgia wondered what he was thinking. Finally, he said, “Here is number you call. When you ready.”
She nodded and handed him a card with her number. “Just in case you need it.” She leaned back in her chair. “So does that mean we have a deal?”
Boris smiled enigmatically. “Maybe yes. Maybe no.”
She gritted her teeth. She’d have to be satisfied with that.