Page 79 of Exacting Vengeance

“It’s nothing, Ma,” he lied, patting her hand. “Just some shi—stuff I have to work through.”

Elaina Gates sighed, then dropped a kiss on the top of his head. She knew him well enough to understand whatever was bugging him was more than just nothing. Being the wonderful mother she’d always been to him and his brothers, she also knew when not to push too hard. For all the reasons he loved her, that one was near the top of the list.

“Okay,” she said. “Gina and Jack should be here any minute. Deke’s on his way.” She went back into the kitchen.

The rich smells of lasagna and garlic bread wafted into the room. Normally, family dinners were on Sunday nights, but between flying out to Chicago to talk to the AUSA there and following up on leads about Yuri’s location, he couldn’t make it last night. None of the leads on Yuri had panned out. It was like he’d disappeared into the bowels of New York City, and that bugged him more than anything.

As highly trained as the other agents watching Victoria around the clock were, he worried they wouldn’t be prepared for the level of cunning and violence that flowed through Yuri’s blood like a drug. He wanted to be out there with them. Hell, he wanted to be standing no more than six feet from Victoria twenty-four seven, guarding her door with an M4 submachine gun. As strong as she was emotionally now, she’d be no physical match for Yuri.

He tossed the rhinoceros onto the stack unfinished and pressed his fingers to his forehead. Working nonstop for the last two weeks with little or no sleep was taking its toll, but he wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop until he got enough evidence to put Yuri and Nikolai Lebedev back in prison. That meant getting a search warrant for the Chicago lake property. The probable cause he needed was building, but he wasn’t there yet. They didn’t even have justification for wiretaps.

Those bodies were in that lake; he knew it in his gut.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan wouldn’t budge on one point: unless Victoria’s information led to Yuri’s and Lebedev’s arrests for kidnapping and murder, at a minimum she’d be charged with money laundering. She could be looking at twenty years.

His guts threatened to somersault right out of his mouth. As amazing as his mother’s cooking was, he didn’t know if he could eat a single bite.

“Dammit!” He pounded the table with his fist.

“What did that table ever do to you?” Jack came in and sat, eying the stack of origami. “I see.”

“Yeah.” His brother did see. It was like that with all of them. Their mother always said their brains were connected by an invisible wire.

“Hiya, Kyle.” Gina swept in carrying a stack of magazines. “Have you heard from Lance?”

“Nope.” Little bro was still MIA, God knew where.

Gina’s lips twisted into a frown Jack had once told him was cute enough to get him to do just about anything she wanted. That kind of love was rare. There’d been a time he’d thought—hoped—it was the kind he and Victoria had. For now, his personal feelings had to take a back seat to keeping her out of prison.

Gina looked at him, then back at Jack. “I think I’ll go into the kitchen and show your mom these magazines.”

“Good idea, sweetie.” Jack winked at his fiancé.

Despite his mood, Kyle couldn’t stop a corner of his mouth from lifting. The two of them had their own invisible wire. Gina understood his terse brother like no other. Though they weren’t married yet, she was already part of the family and had quickly become the daughter his mother had always wanted. Already, they had their heads together at the kitchen table, flipping through the magazines.

Jack hitched his thumb in their direction and snorted. “Wedding stuff.”

“Figured that.” Tonight was a wedding-planning dinner meeting. Despite the gravity of what Kyle was dealing with, other peoples’ lives went on, and he wanted to be there for his brothers.

“I hear the flyover didn’t help,” Jack said.

“Total bust.” Kyle shoved a hand through his hair. The turn-and-burn to Chicago had also included hooking up with an FBI air unit to fly over the lake property. With the Open Fields Doctrine, anything visible to the naked eye would have been admissible as evidence. “The acreage is still vacant. As expected, no heat signatures. Those bodies would be nothing but cold bones by now. The only way to know what’s at the bottom of that lake is with a search warrant.”

“Fourth Amendment rights can be sticky, even with open fields.” Jack nodded. “Did you meet with a judge up there?”

“That’s a no-go, too. For now.” He picked up a purple square of paper, intending to start a new figure but tossed it back on the table. “Deke found an old bank account in the FinCen report tying Lebedev to the property. I went to the city’s tax office and confirmed he’s paying taxes on the property, but it’s from a new bank account. Lebedev opened it after he got out of prison. Before that account was opened, taxes were being paid by someone we can’t tie to Lebedev or Yuri. The judge doesn’t see the connection to the new bank account and our old investigation.”

“So,” Jack said, “he wants fresh PC, or he won’t give you a warrant.”

“Exactly,” Kyle agreed. “We’re squeezing every CI we’ve got. Other than Mike’s CI saying he heard through the grapevine the bodies are at the bottom of a lake, we’ve got nothing. The U.S. Attorney’s Office doesn’t want to risk pushing a judge to give us a warrant, then having anything we find tossed out for questionable probable cause.”

“He’s not wrong,” Jack said.

Yeah. Kyle knew that. Didn’t make it sit any better, though.

The front door opened and slammed shut.

“Yo,” Deke shouted. “I’m here.”