Connie was still talking, but Raven slid the magazine across her lap and onto Fox’s. Schooled her features and lifted her head.
“I was hoping–” Connie said, and Raven cut her off.
“Connie, did you show Mike this magazine? This shoot in particular?’
Her brows knitted, which was no good; Raven didn’t want her getting suspicious. “Yes. I think it’s some of your best work.”
Raven forced a wide smile, tried to lever some warmth into it. “I think so too.”
Connie let out a breath, shoulders dropping, relieved and glad.
Meanwhile, Raven was drawn tight as piano wire, because she understood, now, how all of this had kicked off. Misha here with his mistress, snapping on his watch and freshening his cologne after a good afternoon romp, and Connie, innocent and too-sweet, rumpled from his attentions and thrusting another magazine under his nose. Only in this one, Misha had finally found something interesting: his old rival for the boss’s affections, his old protégé and traitor, arm in arm with the famous designer Raven Blake. That had been the kicking-off point which had led to this very moment.
It hadn’t been the club that had put Toly in danger; it had beenher.
She threw up some hasty mental supports to keep from being crushed by the knowledge, kept smiling at Connie, and said, “Your Mike sounds like such a special guy. Where’d you two meet?”
“He owns this night club…”
~*~
“Your brother came through,” Maverick said when they walked in the door back at the house. “The nice one, I mean.” Miles, then. “Between him and Ratchet, they were able to find airline records: a flight from Moscow dated four months ago, passenger named Grigory Rosovsky, one-way ticket to the Big Apple.”
“That’s good,” Raven said, only half paying attention as she stripped off her coat. She was still stuck in that headspace of seeing the candid street photo for the first time; the gut-punch realization of having been the reason for all of this.
But Maverick stood from his chair, walked toward her, and showed her the screen of his phone.
She looked, and then looked again.
“Fuck!” She clapped a hand over her mouth, the way Connie had done back at the apartment. The passport photo of Grigory Rosovsky, the Butcher’s son, was Greg Ingles.
Mav’s expression was rueful. “Tenny says you know him.”
“I know who he was pretending to be! God. Shit. Greg. This whole time – in my office – that first day – and Toly was there –shit!”
She turned away from Maverick when his gaze went sympathetic. “It’s my fault,” she muttered through her fingers, heart in her throat, stomach on the floor. “Everything. All of it. They saw him in that bloody rag, and then they used me to–” She cut herself off before she could start hyperventilating. No. Push it down. Suppress, suppress. Castigate later.
It was bloody hard, though.
Maverick’s hand was warm and sure on her shoulder, but not reassuring in the least. “There’s no way you could have known.”
“Yes. Right.”
“Raven–”
“Let’s get on with it, shall we?” She lifted her head, turned away from all his good-guy sympathy, and sought her father in the assemblage. “How’d you get on, old man?”
He touched his heart as though wounded, but didn’t muck about beyond that. “Waiting for a call back. If young Ilya’s not giving us the runaround, then Andrei Kozlov should definitely want to take my call.”
“What if he calls Misha himself? He could tip him off and ruin the entire plan.”
“He won’t,” Fox said, confidently, draping his suit coat on the back of a chair. “At least, if he does call, he’s not going to tip his hand.”
“I’ve got Topino and a couple other guys sitting on the girlfriend’s house. If there’s movement, they’ll let us know. If tonight goes to plan, we’ll have a crew in place to apprehend Misha when he shows up.”
“We’ll be heading that,” Tenny said, thumb hooking toward Reese.
“And we,” Fox said, gesturing to himself and Devin, “will pull Toly.”
