Page 112 of Always Salty

“From what I’ve been able to gather, all her chaotic mumblings are true,” Lev offered. “I’ve searched through her files on her computer, and it’s all there. She was a full-time stalker, part-time cat breeder as a cover, and barely-time FBI agent.”

“How does that work?” Dima asked from his stance behind me.

He wasn’t holding on to me, but he was protecting me all the same from behind.

“She took a leave of absence. She was ‘breeding cats’ and establishing a life here. Chester conveniently found an FBI agent willing to ‘fake’ marry him. Gave him a place to be. FBI created the rest of his ‘life’ here. Window washer. Allowed him to follow and investigate the way he saw fit,” Lev said. “Correspondence between the two is on her computer. You can read it all through their text messages.” He laughed. “When he got rid of the cats, he was supposed to do it in a way that they couldn’t be found. He didn’t, and the neighbor, Jim, found out and she had to create this elaborate story to keep the lie going. At that point, Chester was beyond caring and kept his obsession going. Meanwhile, Natasha is pissed because he’s not sticking to the plan.”

“What was the plan?” Cutter asked, scrubbing his hand over his face in exhaustion.

“According to the messages, pretty much the plan was to isolate Keely, get her to hand over the cash they felt was theirs, and then hurt her in such a way that she couldn’t point a finger at them. They were going to stage it as an accident, make it look like she fell down the stairs at a park in town that she frequents,” Apollo answered.

I heard the leather of my chair creak, and I looked up to see Dima staring down at me.

He was angry.

I could see the fire in his eyes.

I reached up and caught his hand with mine, squeezing it lightly.

“Good ol’ FBI agent finds her when he comes to ask her a couple of questions. He’s the hero that saves her life. Natasha and him take that money and live the rest of their lives happy in the knowledge that Natasha’s ‘sister’ got what was coming to her,” Lev finished.

“Jesus Christ,” Shasha said. “That’s convoluted and messy. Did they actually think any of that was going to work?”

“They had been getting lucky for years,” Cutter interjected. “Why would they think that this plan wouldn’t work? I mean, they got Pettigrew to be interested in her with shitty photoshop photos. They got my dad to question her legitimacy and start treating her like a threat. They got Copper sent to prison because of it. Every one of their half-planned, harebrained schemes has worked. Why not this one?”

When he said it like that…

“What are you going to do with them?” I finally asked the burning question.

Shasha looked over to me, but it was Dima who responded, “Maybe y’all should not worry about it.”

I mean, the woman was my sister.

Shouldn’t I care?

But, no.

I didn’t.

She’d been responsible for a lot of my issues growing up.

Why would I care what happened to her now?

She may be blood, but she wasn’t a piece of my heart.

What did I care?

Had I cared when my father died?

No.

Why should I care if she died, too?

“I think you should shoot her in the forehead,” I muttered as I stood up. “Y’all want to go grab dinner together?”

“We can go to your place and help you pack,” Cutter suggested.

Giving the Semyonov brothers permission to do what they wanted and clean up the mess afterward.

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