Becoming Rain

  I want to pin this little woman down, slap handcuffs on her, and drag her into a room where I can pull the answers out of her silver-tongued mouth.

  But I smile instead. I’ll have my chance.

  Wave after wave of people pass by, paying their respects to the nephew of a “kind and generous man.” Luke does well, nodding and offering tight-lipped smiles to them all. But the way he’s leaning into me and the pallor of his skin tells me he’s overwhelmed.

  And finally, it happens. The tattooed knuckles of Vlad Bragin reach out. “I’m sorry that my last words with your uncle were ones of anger,” he says. Nothing about him—his stance, his expression, the way he locks eyes with Luke and holds it for five long seconds—says that he’s sorry at all.

  Luke’s jaw tightens, his hand around my waist squeezes, and I’m afraid he’s going to start uttering threats and accusations. But then he simply nods.

  The rest of the line passes, and I keep my vigil next to him, the stoic girlfriend, while my eyes trail Vlad weaving around the various intimate groups. The rain has stopped and people are already lowering their umbrellas, making it easier to read all the faces.

  Certainly easier for the various FBI agents scrambling to salvage a case that may have been buried with the body of Rust Markov.

  Or perhaps wasn’t.

  Vlad passes Aref and slows, exchanging a few brief words and a handshake, before moving on. I expect him to rejoin his father and duck into his car now, but he doesn’t. He veers off slightly, stopping in front of a burly garage manager whose face is tightening with anxiety with each passing second.

  Miller takes two steps away from the girl in the wheelchair to receive whatever Vlad leans in to say in his ear. It’s quick, but it’s clearly impactful, because Miller’s face pales. He nods as Vlad walks away, staring vacantly at the casket that waits to be lowered for a few long minutes before stepping back to his family.

  Smiling down at them as worry and fear and guilt fills his face and his shoulders seem to sink. Smiling like a father who loves his family, who will do anything for them.

  And it clicks.

  A quick glance up at Luke tells me he didn’t see it, too busy trying to get through the last of the Russian mafia. A glance over at Warner tells me he did. He’s already moving away from the crowd, punching numbers into his phone.

  “Rain?”

  I peel my hyperalert focus away from him and give it back to Luke. “Sorry, yeah?”

  “We’re going to order some dinner back at my mom’s.” He nods over to his mom and Ana, standing next to Jesse. Alex didn’t come. I wonder if it’s because she’d rather remain hidden. “Do you want to come?” His eyes beg me.

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  He sighs, relieved, leaning in to kiss me softly. “I don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, for us. Honestly. I . . .” He stalls, faltering over the next word, his mouth poised to utter words that I fear will both swell and break my heart.

  “Rain?” Warner interrupts the disastrous situation.

  Luke looks past me, his brow furrowing.

  “Not sure if you remember me. Jack, Rain’s brother.” Warner sticks his hand out. “Rain told me what happened. I’m sorry for your loss.” Eyes back on me. “And I’m sorry to do this but we’ve got to go. Dad’s surgery was this morning.” His eyebrow spikes in that knowing way.

  I feel sick to my stomach. Because I know what that look means.

  Sinclair’s made the call.

  He thinks he’s found his break.

  “Oh . . . right.” Luke gives his head a slight shake. “I’m so sorry. With everything else going on, I completely forgot. I hope everything’s okay?” Just like that, he believes me. He trusts me.

  No . . . Not yet. I close my eyes as the moment I’ve been dreading is finally here. This is it for Luke and me. In a few hours, he’s going to know everything. He thought this was bad? Everything is about to get a whole lot worse.

  “You’ll call me? Let me know how things are?” he asks, cupping my cheek with all the affection of a boy in love.

  A lump forms in my throat. “Give us a minute, Jack?”

  The hardness in Warner’s eyes fades for a fleeting second. He nods once and moves away. On his phone again. Making plans for the systematic destruction of Luke’s entire life.

  This is my job . . . this is why I’m here.

  And Luke does deserve this for his part in crimes that hurt others.

  I wish I believed that. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like I’ve led a young lamb into a mountain lion’s den.

  I started out wanting to bury every last person who was involved with Wayne Billings’s murder in the name of a red Ford truck. I still feel that way. But at some point, I allowed myself to care.

  Maybe even to fall in love.

  Maybe that’s why I can’t resist this overwhelming urge to stop Sinclair from stretching Luke’s neck out on a chopping block.

  “It’ll be fine. Your dad will be fine. Okay?” He wraps his arms around my body, cradling me in warmth. I absorb the last small amount of comfort I’m ever going to feel from them while I curl my arms up in between us, sliding over his chest, taking in those curves.

  My fingers reach for my pendant and switch the wire off. “Luke, I need you to listen to me carefully. Everything you’ve ever told me about Rust, the car stuff, everything, stays between you and me, okay?”

  A frown flickers across his forehead. “Yeah, of course.”

  “No . . . no matter who asks you. You don’t know anything, got it?”

  I spot Warner’s head pop up in my peripheral vision, aimed my way, a deep frown marring his face. Surveillance has let him know that the wire is off. I squeeze tight against Luke’s body and whisper, “You’ll get through this, I promise.”

  “Ready to go?” Warner made quick time back.

  “Yeah.” I pull away from Luke and smile. “I’ll call you later.”

  I feel Luke’s eyes on us as we make our way to Warner’s undercover car.

  “Surveillance lost you for a second,” Warner states, matter-of-factly.

  “I guess it must have gone off when he hugged me.” I hear the bitterness in my voice, and pull out my sunglasses to cover the tears forming in my eyes.

  Chapter 55

  ■ ■ ■

  LUKE

  “I’ll pick something up on the way. Just heading home to have a shower and grab Licks.” I need my dog with me. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  “You know what you should get? A giant bucket of fried chicken. Uncle Rust would love that.” Ana’s laughter carries over my car’s speaker.

  “One bucket, coming up.” I smile, thinking about how Rust would show up to our house with a bucket on Sundays and the four of us would play Monopoly. He’d never let anyone win. Said that wouldn’t help us in the long run. It’s been a long time since I’ve spent any real time with Ana, or my mom. I think I need to change that. They seemed to really like Rain, but I wonder if that was just circumstance. Rust had warned me that my mom would be a hard one to win over for any woman.

  My mind is so wrapped up in thoughts of Rain and my family that I don’t notice the black sedan pulling up next to my private garage. Time seems to just hang in the moments that I stare at my reflection in the tinted windows. Waiting.

  When the sound of an automatic window opening hits my ear, my heart slows, each hard beat bringing with it increasing dread. Expecting to see the nozzle of a gun pointed at me. Maybe the same one that killed Rust.

  In those few seconds, I see Rain’s face flash before my eyes.

  But the person behind the glass isn’t Vlad or Andrei or anyone with a semiautomatic. It’s a salt-and-pepper-haired guy with silver streaks along his temples and a sharp black suit.

  Holding up an FBI badge. “Get in.”
r />   I assume there’s protocol for what the FBI is supposed to say—introductions, at least. But I get the impression this guy doesn’t give a shit about any of that.

  “But my dog—”

  He cuts me off. “We’ll make sure Licks is fine.”

  A sinking feeling hits my stomach. The FBI knows the name of my damn dog.

  This can’t be good.

  ■ ■ ■

  “So you’re telling me you have no idea who this guy is?” demands Special Agent Joshua Sinclair, jabbing at the black-and-white picture taken at the funeral today.

  The fucking Feds were at Rust’s funeral.

  “His name is Vlad,” I say calmly.

  “Yes, we’ve already established that. Now I want you to tell me how he knew Rust.”

  I shrug. “He did business with him.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “You’ll have to ask Vlad that.”

  Air hisses through Sinclair’s gritted teeth as he inhales sharply. We’ve been playing this game—where he lays out pictures of every Russian mobster who shook my hand only hours earlier and asks me about them—for nearly an hour, three times over. The two hours before that they left me sitting in this FBI interrogation room to stew in my own terror, a giant wall-to-wall mirror across from me and countless faces hidden behind it.

  And they still won’t tell me what this is about.

  The three times I’ve asked if I need a lawyer, Sinclair’s asked me if I’ve done something that deserves a lawyer. I think I’ve held up well, given I’m ready to piss my pants.

  “Don’t you want to help us find your uncle’s killers? The people who did this to him?” A new set of pictures is tossed down in front of me. Of Rust, hunched over the steering wheel of a black SUV, wearing the exact same burgundy shirt he was wearing the night Rain and I met him at The Cellar. No wonder he wasn’t answering any of my calls the next day. They must have got to him on his way home.

  I look away from the image, but not before it is firmly emblazoned in my mind, tears stinging the back of my eyes, threatening to spill. This guy’s a fucking dick.

  Tap, tap, tap over Vlad’s face again. “What do you know about him?”

  Rain’s words of warning echoing in my ears. “I’ve already told you everything that I know.”

  “What about him?” A glossy shot of Aref lands in front of me.

  And that confirms that this is about more than catching Rust’s murderer. I shut right down. “A friend of Rust’s. That’s all I know.”

  “I think you’re lying.” He sits back, folding his arms over his chest. He’s a big guy, probably about my size, and yet I feel small in this room with him. “I think you know exactly who Vladimir and Andrei Bragin are. I think you know that your uncle’s been selling stolen cars to them to be exported overseas, by Aref Hamidi.” He leans in. “And I think you’ve been helping him do it.”

  I focus on my gold watch, trying to hide the panic. How the hell do they know all of this? “I own Rust’s Garage, and I work in the office. That’s all I do.” I hope he can’t hear the shakiness in my voice.

  “Oh, I think you do plenty more. Helping us now will make things easier for you later. The way I see it, there are all kinds of things we could pin on you. You could see ten . . . fifteen years locked up. I think they’d like a guy like you in there. And I’m guessing your friends won’t be helping you out.”

  If he’s trying to scare me, it’s working.

  Suddenly, he switches directions. “What do you know about Alexandria Petrova’s disappearance?”

  I hear her name and my head snaps up before I can control myself. He lays down an older picture of Alex, back when she was still driving a Z8 and wearing Versace.

  “Nothing.”

  “You sure?”

  I shrug. “I used to see her around.”

  He nods slowly. “I’ve launched an official investigation into her disappearance.”

  “She’s been missing for over a year and now you’re investigating?”

  “So you know she’s missing?”

  I clench my jaw and he smiles. Sneaky bastard.

  “So you don’t know anything about where she is or what may have happened to her?”

  Where the hell is this coming from? “No.” I pause, feeling like this asshole just slipped an invisible noose around my neck and it’s tightening with each word out of my mouth. “I think I need a lawyer.” The firm Rust retained for his estate stuff also has a criminal law division.

  Sinclair stands, leaving all the pictures on the table. “For the record, I believe Vlad killed your uncle and we have evidence that may help us prove it.”

  Hope sparks inside my chest.

  “But I’m less inclined to pursue that while a car theft ring that’s hurting innocent people is still in operation. One that I think Vlad killed your uncle in order to take over. Chew on that while we get you a phone to call your lawyer from.” He takes a few steps but then stops, waving at someone behind the glass to come through. “But first, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand, his tone suddenly lighter than the one he’s used for the last hour.

  The wait for the door to open feels like forever, and when it does—when I see the face that appears, her light blue eyes zeroing in on mine to hold them—I feel like someone’s punched me square in the chest.

  “Luke, this is Officer Clara Bertelli.”

  Chapter 56

  ■ ■ ■

  CLARA

  I’ve always enjoyed that moment when the target realizes who I really am. The predictable emotions that cycle across people’s faces—recognition, understanding, shock. Sometimes it stops short at anger; other times it finishes with resignation, because they know they fell for the ruse and they’re done for.

  But I’ve never seen a target’s face filled with such hurt.

  Not until today.

  Doors close somewhere outside the observation room. Warner and I watch an officer stroll in and drop a brown bag and a Coke on the table next to Luke. I know that it’s from a certain food cart vendor without asking. Just another way for Sinclair to send a message to Luke.

  We know everything there is to know about you.

  The lump in my throat is making it difficult to talk, to swallow . . . even to breathe. I’m not sure who got kicked harder in the chest when I stepped into that interrogation room. Luke certainly looked like he had taken a swift boot.

  For a moment, I thought I was going to leave a pile of vomit on the floor.

  There was no time to utter a single word, or apology. Sinclair did it for impact, quickly ushering me back out and leaving Luke in the room by himself. To stew over every intimate moment we shared, every dangerous word he ever spoke to me, every way that I could nail him to the wall with what I know, while waiting for his lawyer.

  He looked worried before. Now, he looks terrified.

  All I can do is hold out hope that it didn’t work to scare him enough to talk, that he’ll remember my words, that the lawyer who shows up is good. Because I know they don’t have enough for a conviction and the second the lawyer pushes to see the charges laid and the evidence, they’re going to realize that too.

  I feel Warner’s eyes on me. They’ve been on me a lot since we arrived at the station.

  “What’s with the Alexandria Petrova angle?” I ask. “Why does Sinclair care about a late mobster’s wife?” Sinclair hasn’t mentioned digging up information on her since the night he called me on it. I figured that with all the other evidence trickling in, he had forgotten about it. Stupid of me.

  “He doesn’t. But he’s going to try and use it to keep Luke on obstruction, leveraging what we got from your detail.”

  “Will that even work?”

  He shrugs.

 
“So, what’s going to happen then? Are they going to just show up to her ranch and interrogate her?” An image of police cruisers rolling up the driveway to dig up painful truths the poor girl has put past her hits me. I close my eyes.

  “You look sick.”

  “I feel sick.”

  “Luke Boone is not an innocent, misunderstood guy, Bertelli.” He holds up a stack of case files. “Look at the shit he’s mixed up in. Did you forget that while you were sneaking around with him? Lying to me? Jeopardizing our entire case?”

  There’s no small amount of judgment in his tone and I’m not in the mood for this. “Just say what you’re dying to say.”

  Warner closes in on me, dropping his deep voice. “You did what you said you wouldn’t. What you laughed at when I suggested it. You got too close to your target.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I deny, taking in Luke’s hunched posture, his fingers locked behind his head, his elbows resting on the desk. He won’t even look up at the glass. He won’t look up at me. “I did what I had to do.”

  “So when were you guys meeting up? At night? In the park, while walking the dogs?” Warner pushes. “You weren’t even in your room, that night in the yacht, were you?”

  I set my jaw firm.

  “You don’t think that if I walk in there right now, he’s not going to hang you out to dry? You don’t think he’s going to tell his lawyer everything? You’re going to get crucified if this ever makes it to court. Your career is done!” Thank God these rooms have thick walls because Warner is borderline yelling. “You may as well stop protecting him and admit everything to me right now. Maybe we can contain this.”

  Warner’s probably right. There’s no reason to protect what I had with Luke because it died the second I stepped through that door. Hell, it’s always been on life support, waiting for someone to pull the plug. I know that. I’ve always known that. Yet, I chose to ignore it. I chose to act with my heart and not my head. I chose to think that I could somehow change him.

  Save him.

  I need to try and save myself now.