I stared at him levelly. “I wasn’t the one who killed him, all right? Lay off.”
He pushed at my chest again, harder this time. I let myself stumble a couple of steps.
“You don’t give two shits, do you? He was our boss. He mentored us. We worked together. He treated you like a son.”
“I’m no one’s son,” I replied tersely.
“Yes, and you are just so fucking eager to never forget it!” Tom barked out a bitter laugh. “You really love the whole tortured screw-up persona. Makes you feel important, doesn’t it?”
I was getting tired of getting bitched about for something I hadn’t done. Sure, Holmes was one of ours, but I did not consider anyone family. Not even Tom himself. Family was a liability other people had. I had acquaintances.
“Look, this is not constructive.” I sighed.
“You know what’s not constructive?” Tom balled my collar in his fist. “The fact that you don’t have a damn heart.”
“No heart is better than too big a heart. Remember where you came from. Life ain’t pretty.”
He let me go suddenly, and I had the good grace to pretend to stumble back from the impact.
Two minutes later, a few police cars and a black sedan pulled in front of Ian’s front door. We gave them our statements, then our business cards. We weighed in with what we thought had happened. Who we thought could be behind this.
“Kozlov,” we kept saying. “His name is Kozlov.”
Like they didn’t know. Like they weren’t busting their asses trying to catch him this very minute. That is, if they weren’t in his pocket and under his payroll.
They sent us on our way and asked us to give them a call if we remembered anything more. Standard protocol.
During the drive back to Brat’s house, I considered telling Tom I was sorry for his loss, but then remembered he would just use it as a way to club me for not feeling as shitty as he did.
Tom was the first to break the silence. It happened when we glided onto Interstate 5 and got stuck in one of the longest traffic jams known to mankind.
“You know it’s the Russians.” His jaw ticked. He wore sunglasses, so I couldn’t see his expression, but I had a feeling he was misty-eyed.
“Logic dictates.”
“They’re ruthless,” he said animatedly.
“Most people are. But they’re also fearless. Not a good combo.”
Shortly before I’d handed in my resignation and went private, I was involved in a bloody operation against the Bratva in Los Angeles. These were tough-as-nails criminals who came here after the Soviet Union fell and muscled the Italian mafia out of Los Angeles in less than three years, leaving rivers of blood in their wake. The FBI would probably have been perfectly content with letting the two gangs kill each other off, but during my service, the Russians had gotten sloppy—power drunk—and often claimed civilian casualties.
Mistaken identities, assassinations gone wrong, gun fights in broad daylight forced us to step in. And in we stepped. Only we didn’t deal with amateurs. Soon, these people had our names, our addresses, a list of our loved ones. Tom and I, especially, were on their shit list. They knew about us from their friends in Chicago. How we worked with the Italians. Kozlov’d had a bullet with my name on it before I’d even known of his existence.
The Russians fought back. In the end, we’d managed to throw some of them in the can, but not nearly as many as we wanted to.
And not the main villain—Vasily Kozlov.
Ian Holmes had been in charge of that operation. He was no doubt a target for them. And what do you know? They’d decided his time was up.
“They’re clapping back.” Tom stroked his jawline. “Years later.”
“Technically, didn’t Holmes retire last year?” I asked. “He’d been on their case for a lot longer than we were. And they don’t exactly play nice.”
“Now, here is where it gets sticky for me.” Tom cleared his throat, shooting me an uncertain look. “You’re here, in Los Angeles. They have your name, your affiliation to Moruzzi. That makes you a target.”
I’d been trying to tell him as much back when he asked me to take the post.
“I can take care of myself,” I said flatly.