Page 13 of The Wrong Monster
I don’t even look at her. “I know.” That’s not reassuring. “If they dig deep enough, they’ll find something.”
Beaumont glances at me. “If there’s something to find.”
A swell of anger fills my chest, and it takes everything in me not to stand up and get in the old man’s space.
If there’s something to find? Of course, there’s something to find.
“Like money laundering,” I say calmly instead. “Inflated invoices. Fake subcontractors.”
“Stop,” Beaumont barks, but a dark satisfaction fills me with the realization that his voice no longer holds the same authority it did when I was twelve. He sounds old.
“Wire fraud. Falsifying business records. Commercial bribery—”
“Vasily.”
“Did you forget,” I grit out, standing and towering over him, “that I’m your Pakhan, Beaumont? That you work for me? Because I know why she’s here. But I’m wondering why the hell you’re here and not down at the station.”
His face and neck go white. He opens his mouth, but I interrupt him before whatever poor excuse he has crumbles out.
“Financial Crimes don’t stumble into fifteen years’ worth of accounting records by accident. Someone pointed them toward Mikhail. Someone knew where to look.”
I look first to Beaumont.
“You’ll meet him before they move him. I want to know everything. How they’re treating him. Whether they’ve approached him with a deal. Every charge they’ve mentioned. Every question they’ve asked. The second you leave that station, you call me.”
He gives one sharp nod. His hands are clenched, likely to hide the trembling.
“Of course.”
I turn to Ariadna.
“I want a name.”
“I assumed.”
“I don’t care if it’s a rival organization, a disgruntled employee, or someone we’ve trusted for twenty years. Find the leak.”
Her expression doesn’t change. “I will.”
The lake breeze stirs the papers askew inside the portfolio. She clutches them tighter on her lap. For a long moment, none of us speaks.
Then I look back across the water, no longer seeing the mountains.
“If they got to Mikhail,” I say quietly, “they weren’t trying to arrest an accountant; they’re trying to bury us all. Go. Now.”
The screen door clicks shut behind Beaumont, and the anger that’s been burning through me lessens just slightly.
“He’s getting weak,” Ariadna comments drily. “Scared.”
I don’t acknowledge her comment, though I agree. For the first time in years, I watched my lawyer walk away without the certainty that he could fix the problem he’d just been handed.
She reaches for the cappuccino I abandoned on the side table and takes a sip, lipstick leaving a half-moon stain on the rim.
“There is one more thing.”
I look at her, ready to walk into the lake with rocks in my pockets at this point.
“I was saving it until Beaumont left. A body was found yesterday morning.”
