“Show me her picture.” I drain the bottle of water and drag the towel over my face again. He takes a picture out of a slim folder, and holds it up to me.
I swear under my breath, shaking my head.
It’s a grainy picture, but I can tell she’s fucking beautiful. Black hair. High cheekbones, pointed chin, thick, dark eyebrows and lashes over light brown eyes. With her softly rounded, oval face, full lips, and pale complexion, she looks like a little pixie. She could be a model for a high-end fashion company, instead of the ruthless hacker who’s undermined our efforts and taken what doesn’t belong to her.
“Is she as small as she looks?”
“As tiny as a child,” he says, frowning. “Just under five feet tall, one hundred pounds.”
I stare at her picture in silence.
“Do we know why she’s done what she has? Are there any ties in any way?”
He shrugs. “Her father and sister were killed in a car accident three years ago, but the papers report it purely accidental.” That means nothing.
I curse again and throw the empty water bottle toward the trash barrel. It nicks the edge and falls to the ground, bouncing along the floor.
“And still, she needs to be stopped.” I’m thinking out loud. I could sit back and let others enact our revenge, or I could use this to my advantage. If I take her myself…
Suddenly, the right course of action seems vividly clear.
I nod, making up my mind. “I’ll go,” I tell him. “I want to extract her myself, and it’s time I paid our brothers in Kazak a visit.” I haven’t seen them since I’ve taken this position of power. I was only a brother in a line of many before. Now, I’m the pakhan, voted in by my brothers.
I snort. “Hell, it’s a write-off.”
He huffs out a laugh in reply.
“Show me her most recent infractions.”
Maksym nods, and takes out several printouts. “Her recent history,” he tells me. “There’s been half a million dollars in blocked transfers in the past month but done from multiple accounts and in small batches. Normally, it would be hard to track someone like her, but as I said she left it wide open this time. It would seem either she wants us to come for her, or it’s a fatal mistake.”
I curse looking over the evidence. If we hadn’t caught on, she could have destroyed one of the most lucrative transactions in decades.
“And that mistake was?”
“She made every transaction from the same location. The same room. The same computer.”
“Someone so brilliant yet so stupid?”
He shakes his head. “At first we even thought it was a trap. But after further investigation, we found out more about her… It has to be intentional, and there’s no indication she’s affiliated with any of our rivals.”
I shake my head. “She’ll pay for this, Maksym. Her name?”
“Calina,” he says. “Calina Brague. And of course she will pay,” he says, but then he looks away, as if he wants to hide what he has to say next. “But there’s something else you need to know.”
I look at him questioningly. I’ve already decided to go to Kazak and abduct her myself. What else could there be?
“Tell me,” I order, taking the papers from his hand and reading them over again.
“Her location, Dem…”
I’m losing my patience. I raise a brow at him and nod, waiting for him to continue.
“She’s a resident at Saint Andrews Hospital,” he says. “It’s a… mental institution.”
I swear under my breath and mask the cold sweep of anger that sweeps over me.
“Does she work there?” I ask, already knowing the answer to my question.
“No, Dem.” He shakes his head and doesn’t meet my eyes. “She’s a patient.”
Christ.Chapter 1I step into the entryway of Saint Andrews and school my features. For months, I would wrinkle my nose at the smell and let it affect me, but visceral responses to places like this make it more difficult to return, and I have to come here. I inhale deeply, and slip a strong white peppermint candy into my mouth. The abrasive mint overpowers my senses. I always come here with a full supply.
There’s a new uniformed greeter at the desk who gives me a quizzical look. I stifle a sigh. At first, it was amusing how doctors, nurses, and even patients would do a double take when they saw me on this floor. It’s getting old, though, and quickly became so when one overzealous guard put his hands on me two weeks ago, thinking I needed to be brought back to “safety.” I disarmed him and had him in a choke hold before he realized what I was doing, and smiled big when the others came running.
“Self-defense,” I said, flashing them a grin.
He keeps his distance now.
My identical twin sister is in a solitary room in a wing on the third floor, and never allowed in the main entryway.