57. CARSON

“Stay out of this, Maks,” I say. “It’s between your uncle and me.”

“And me!” Cassie snaps.

“Excuse me!” Tricia gripes. “I’m sitting right here!”

Maks steps slowly and deliberately toward Nabatov. The guards move to intercept him, but a raised hand from his uncle stops them.

“Was that a threat?” the older man says, eyes wide. “From little Maksim?”

“I won’t let you hurt them,” Maks says, his voice stronger this time.

“And what will you do to stop me? Dance at me? Make me drink until I pass out?”

Maks stops on the edge of the exquisite Persian rug, a few yards from where Nabatov stands in the arched doorway.

“I don’t have to be doing anything,” he says. “That’s the easy part.”

Nabatov frowns.

“What the hell are you talking about, boy?”

“All I have to be doing is not calling a phone number for a few days,” says Maks. “When I don’t do that, someone I pay money to will be sending a package to FBI office in New York City.”

The older man’s face slackens and this time, the cigar actually falls out of his mouth to the floor.

“Stupid little Maksim is not so stupid, Uncle,” says Maks. “Ever since I was being teenager, I make recordings. I take photos. I am writing things down. Just in case something ever happens to me; maybe someday you decide I need to be gone.

“So I give sealed package to someone and pay them to be keeping it for me. If I am not contacting that person, they know something bad is happening. They deliver the package.”

Holy shit, Maks. This is the life you’ve been living behind that smile? I glance at Cassie, who looks at me wide-eyed.

“You think I don’t know what you were doing in Russia?” he continues. “I know all. You ruined lives of girls. You killed people. Now in America, you are making embarrassment of our family! You are like a rat in the sewer. This country is giving us everything, but you spit on it.”

Nabatov tries to smile, but it looks ridiculous on him.

“Maksie, Maksie, come on now,” he says. “We don’t need to do this. We’re family.”

“No.” Maks waves a hand at me and the girls. “These people are being my family now. Not you.”

Nabatov’s face hardens again.

“If you do this, your father will go down with me,” he says coldly.

Maksim’s eyes close for a long moment.

“I know,” he says. “That is why I haven’t been doing this before now. But I must stop you. My friends must be going free.”

The room is silent. I guess no one knows what to say next. I sure as hell don’t.

“Very well,” Nabatov sighs. “We have what the Americans call a Mexican standoff. You may leave. Obviously, I have enough information on all of you to burn you if you try to talk to anyone. I will have to compensate Mr. Buckner, but that’s the cost of doing business.”

Cassie and I exchange hopeful glances.

“And you’ll return the money you owe her to the account in Grand Cayman,” I say. “That’s $2.75 million USD.”

He flashes annoyance, but nods.

“One more thing,” I say.

“Do not push your luck, Mr. Drake,” says Nabatov. “My patience is not infinite.”

“The woman in red.”

His eyes narrow.

“What about her?”

“Do you know what happens to the quarries after the Chase?”

“They take their money and disappear,” he says with a shrug. “It is no concern of mine.”

“They disappear, all right. But not in the way you think.”

“What are you talking about?” says Nabatov.

“Yeah,” says Cassie. “What are you talking about?”

Before I can answer, I hear the cough of a bullet, and see the guard closest to Nabatov dance a strange jog and fall to the floor. Two more coughs and the other two follow suit.

“He’s talking about me,” says the blonde in the red dress as she enters the room from the hall.

Her silenced pistol is aimed squarely at Cassie’s head.