Harrison
“Fuck!”
Although Mark Denver had a perfect bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, Jimmy still pressed two fingers to the dead man’s neck to check for a pulse. “Nothing.”
“Well done on passing your detective's examination, Jim.”
“Hey,” he held up a hand. “Don’t take this out on me.”
I groaned, dropping to my haunches when I spotted Lily’s bangle wedged beneath Mark’s arm and the rug. Where the fuck was she? Lily’s bag was laid beside a pair of heels, and I made a quick scan of the area for any underwear. The setting was romantic, and I didn’t like how angry that made me. If this prick had touched her, I’d bring him back to life just so I could detach his cock from his balls and be the one to witness his very last breath.
Walking to Mark’s car, I narrowed my eyes at another set of tyre tracks. They stopped short before more lines showed the car had reversed the way it had come.
“Gonna have to call this in, Harry,” Jim informed me with a grimace. “Can’t cover this one up.”
I nodded. “Before you do, I think it’s about time we paid your Superintendent a visit.”
Jimmy rolled his eyes and groaned. “If I get my P45 over this, you’re buying me breakfast for the rest of my life!”
“Relax.” I smirked. “If you get fired I heard MacDonald’s are looking for staff. All the breakfast, lunch, and dinner you can eat.”
“Oh, well, that’s alright then,” he griped as he slid into the car beside me. “And what about him?” he asked, nodding his head towards the picnic carnage.
“Don’t really think he’s gonna bail on us, Jim. Besides, I saw a copy of Romeo and Juliet amongst his things, least he's got something to read while he waits.”
“You’re all heart.”
“And brains, Jim. All heart and brains.”
“With what we’re about to do, that remains to be seen,” he remarked as I swung the car around and left Mark Denver in the safe hands of William Shakespeare.
***
Superintendent Sally Greaves didn’t even attempt to hide her fear when she opened her eyes and found my gun wedged between her teeth.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty.”
She mumbled something, and I moved the gun from her mouth and pressed it to her forehead.
“How-How the hell did you get in?”
She had a K100 an inch from her brain and she was curious as to how I infiltrated her home. She really was crazy.
“Please,” I scoffed. Leaning into her ear, I pressed the gun harder into her skull. “They teach us all sorts in the SIS, you know.”
“You think I’m supposed to be surprised by that, Cole?”
“Not at all, I would be disappointed if you hadn’t done your homework on me.”
She glared up at me, using her eyes as weapons. “What do you want?”
“I want everything you have on Nikolay Kuznetsov and Yulian Markoff.”
Her eyes widened, and she had the gall to laugh. “The Bratva boss? You’re kidding me, right?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Fuck you! I’d rather die from a bullet in my forehead than go against the Bratva!”
It was my turn to laugh then. “Oh, who said I was going to kill you? Nuh-uh. I’m going to make sure you go down for a very, very long time. And,” I smirked, “You’ll be able to become reacquainted with every single woman you’ve put in prison, Superintendent.”
“You cunt!” she hissed.
“Get up!”
“Shoot me!” she taunted, shrugging.
“I thought you’d refuse to play,” I mocked, before shouting over my shoulder. “Jim!”
Jimmy walked in with an open laptop in his hands. “Morning, Superintendent Greaves,” he chirped as he settled on the bed beside her.
“I’ll have your badge for this, Mathers.”
Jimmy laughed. “I doubt it.”
Sally frowned when Jimmy started working on his laptop, then turning the screen towards Sally, he winked. “Well look at that, the force finally found out who killed Padraic Fedorov.”
Sally shook her head, distress making her tremble when she saw her own name as Padraic’s executor on the MET’s case file. Give Jimmy his due, he knew his stuff.
“Oh dear,” I grinned. “When the Bratva find out it was you who took out one of their own, I dread to think what will happen. I know they have access to all the records, Greaves, and I know you’re on their payroll. You’re going down for a very long time.”
“You can’t do this, you bastard.”
Clicking my tongue, I patted her cheek. “Or, if you don’t fancy sharing a cell with a brutal bitch, you can just give us a name. I just need a pointer in the right direction, and Jimmy here can delete all the evidence we have on you, and the fact that you assassinated Padraic.”
“I didn’t kill Padraic Fedorov!” she exclaimed.
Rolling my eyes dramatically, I nodded. “Well, we know that. But Markoff doesn’t… yet.”
“I presume this is over that whore of yours,” she spat with venom. She cried out when I struck her with the butt of the gun.
“Watch your mouth!”
Sally clenched her jaw, but her shoulders sagged in defeat. “I’ll meet you halfway.”
Narrowing my eyes, I looked at her dubiously. “Go on.”
She hesitated, and I pressed the gun to her cheek.
“I know you’re looking for Lily’s brother,” she revealed, surprising me.
I nodded with respect. “Very astute, Superintendent Greaves.”
She glanced at Jimmy. “You’re not as covert as you like to think, Mathers. I’ve been monitoring your logins for a while now.”
“Back to Lily’s brother.” I tapped the gun on her temple. “There’s no record of him after his birth.”
“No, there isn’t. That’s because the Bratva made sure to delete him from every document.”
“They forgot his birth record.”
“His birth record doesn’t make a difference. It couldn’t ever reveal who he is.”
“But I take it you do know who he is?”
The smug grin on her face had me stiffening. “Give me a name, or I give Markoff yours!”
She chuckled, her arrogance making my trigger finger twitch. “He’s been right under your nose all this time, Cole.”
“Who! Dammit!”
She winked at me. “Non-identical twins, Anastasia Yaroslav and Marat Yaroslav were born to a Russian woman, Anna Yaroslav, in the US. She was taking refuge from the Russian Mafia after she’d racked up a heroin debt with them. She managed to flee the country before they held up their promise to take her life as payment. Of course, the Bratva boss, who was Kirill Volkov at the time, didn’t know she was pregnant, and if he had, then he’d have come up with a much more creative way of hurting her without harming her babies.” She snorted. “Kirill was always a sucker for a baby.”
“Get on with it!” I hissed, growing more frustrated by the second.
She glared up at me. “Although Anastasia was adopted at birth, Marat remained in his mother’s care until she died from an overdose four years later.”
“This is all very interesting, but…”
“Anastasia became Lily Cooper. And aged seven, after moving from care home to care home for three years, Marat was adopted by Kirill after he visited America to scour children’s home for more kids to ‘save’. It was in one of those homes that he noticed a quiet, withdrawn little boy who was cowered in a corner after some of the other boys had beaten him. He was then given the new name of Erik Barinov.”
I frowned, shaking my head at the name. “Never heard of him.”
“Of course, you haven’t,” she laughed. “That’s because a year ago, after numerous attempts to ruin Lily’s life failed, he took on a new identity to seek out and destroy his sister personally.”
I was growing impatient, and just as I was about to force the name from her with a hole in her kneecap, she leaned towards me and whispered in my ear, “Erik was rechristened Liam Barnett.”