Page 150 of Sweet Ruin

I leave it alone.

In a strange way, I like being marked by her.

Though I think I’d enjoy marking her myself just a little bit more.

“Luckily,” interjects my brother, “you have me to dig up more actionable information.” Niko flips back a few pages on the pad of notes he’s holding. “His name is Anders DeLeon. Thirty-six, freelance photog and paparazzo. Lives in Ozone Park with his mother, no priors worth mentioning. Shoots weddings and quinceañeras and does a little work for a gossip site that pays him per photo. He’s not connected to anybody. Kind of a bozo, to be honest.”

I snort. “Then I assume he sang like a canary when Yuri started pulling out his tools.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe how bad,” Yuri confirms. “Snotting and bawling and pissing himself before I even got the blowtorch fully assembled.”

“And?”

Niko sighs. “And he doesn’t know anything, Kane. The way he explained it was, he got a call on the day of the party offering him a gig. The caller never gave a name. Just told him where to go, when, and what they wanted him to hunt for.”

I pick up my letter opener and start to roll it in my palm. “Which was what?”

Niko reads it off the pad. “‘Clear images of the male subject, Mr. Kane Makov, with the unidentified female companion. Prioritize capturing moments of intimate physical contact. Faces must be identifiable.’“

I growl in my throat.

I don’t like the sound of this shit at all.

Especially not since he got what he was after.

“Did he know Lilah’s name?” I ask.

“No,” Anton says. “The client called her the mystery woman every time.”

“Did he know why the client wanted her?”

Yuri answers. “He gave me the same answer before and after I separated two of his fingers. He knew nothing beyond the assignment.”

I believe him. Yuri has been detaching fingers for me for a long time. If there are any nuggets of information remaining in a captive’s head, he’ll find them.

“Where is he now?”

“Sleeping.”

“He fell asleep after you broke his hand?” Niko asks.

Yuri looks at him and grins crookedly. “I may have helped with a little lullaby of sorts.”

“I’m guessing it’s the kind of lullaby that involves a power tool?”

Yuri’s grin widens. “A magician never reveals his secrets, young Nikolai.”

Niko laughs. “You have such a nurturing soul.”

“Enough with the fucking jokes,” I interrupt. “What else have we found out about the caller?”

Niko stops smiling. He gets up and turns the map so Brighton Beach faces him. “I traced the call to a shell corp. The registered agent serves three hundred companies from a mailbox on Brighton Sixth. We found nothing behind most of them. But… four of them use the same bookkeeper as a repair shop that washes money for the Vetrov family. It’s thin evidence, but it’s not nothing.”

That gets me out of my seat.

“Osip Vetrov,” I rasp.

“I’d say he’s suspect numero uno,” Niko agrees. “There are a lot of moving pieces and hidden layers here, but my money says this came from his side of Brooklyn.”