Page 21 of The Enforcer's Vow
Then I open a new document and begin planning how to destroy the life of a woman who's starting to trust me. I'll make her fall in love with me completely, make her believe I'm her salvation. Then I'll use that love to draw her brother out of hiding so I can put a bullet in his brain.
The irony isn't lost on me. I'm about to become exactly the kind of man her brother probably warned her about—someone who would use her feelings against her, who would lie to her face while planning her destruction.
But that's the job. That's what I do. That's what I'm good at.
And if there's a part of me that doesn't want to do it anymore, that part will have to learn to live with disappointment. Because I have work to do, and Zoya Mirova is going to help me do it whether she knows it or not.
9
ZOYA
The computer screen flickers to life as I settle into my chair at the track office. Another day of counting dirty money, another day of pretending I don't know what the numbers really mean. But today is different. Today I'm not here to balance ledgers or process bets. Today I'm here to find the truth about what Damir has been doing with his money.
I wait until Yana steps out for her smoke break before I minimize the track's accounting software and open a web browser. I have maybe fifteen minutes before someone might notice what I'm doing.
Banking websites are tricky to navigate without the right credentials, but I know Damir's patterns. He's always been predictable with passwords, using variations of dates and places that mean something to him. I start with his primary bank, the one where he's always kept his legitimate earnings.
The login screen asks for his account number and password. I try his birthday combined with our old address. Invalid. Then our father's name with the year he disappeared. Invalid. On the third attempt, I try our mother's maiden name with the year we moved to Moscow. The screen loads, and I'm in.
The account balance makes my stomach drop. Twelve hundred rubles. For someone who claims to be making regular money from drug sales, this is nothing. I scroll through the transaction history, looking for patterns. Regular deposits stopped three months ago. Since then, only small withdrawals for basic expenses. Food, utilities, bus fare. Survival money.
This doesn't match what he told me. He said business was good, that he was making steady money but keeping it quiet. He said he was being careful, not flashy. But careful doesn't mean empty. If he's dealing drugs and making the kind of money he claimed, where is it going?
I check his other accounts, the ones I know about from years of handling his paperwork when he was too busy or too drunk to deal with it himself. Same pattern. Empty or nearly empty, with only minimal activity. No large deposits, no signs of the steady income he described.
The browser window suddenly fills with a security warning. Too many failed login attempts. I close it quickly and open a new tab, my pulse racing. I need to be more careful. These systems track everything, and if someone notices unusual activity on Damir's accounts, it could lead back to me.
Footsteps in the hallway make me freeze. I quickly close the browser and bring up the track's accounting software, pretending to review yesterday's betting receipts. Yana back walks in, smelling of cigarettes and cheap perfume.
"Busy morning?" she asks, settling into her chair across from me.
"The usual. Numbers don't balance themselves."
She nods and starts her own work, sorting through receipts and invoices. I wait until she's fully absorbed in her task before I try again. This time, I use the track's financial research tools, legitimate software that lets us check customer credit historiesand banking relationships. It's designed for verifying large bets, but it can also trace financial connections.
I enter Damir's information into the system, searching for any banking relationships that might not show up in his primary accounts. The search takes several minutes, and I watch the progress bar crawl across the screen while pretending to review betting slips.
The results are limited but revealing. Three bank accounts connected to his passport number, the two I already found, plus one more. A business account opened six months ago under a company name I don't recognize,Meridian Import Solutions. The account shows significant activity, but the details are restricted.
I make note of the company name and bank, then clear the search history. Whatever Damir is doing, it's not the small-time dealing he described. Import solutions suggests something bigger, more organized. International connections. The kind of operation that would require serious backing and serious connections.
Yana looks up from her work. "Everything okay? You look pale."
"Uh, yes..." I tell her, forcing my voice to stay steady. "Just feeling feverish."
She nods and returns to her receipts, but I can feel her watching me from the corner of her eye. I finish the morning's real work as quickly as possible, balancing the books and filing the necessary reports. All the while, I'm thinking about who might be watching me. About how much danger I might be in.
By lunch, I can't concentrate on anything. I tell Yana I'm not feeling well and leave early, walking the long way home through side streets and checking frequently to see if anyone is following me. The city feels more threatening now. Every stranger on the street could be watching me. Every parked car could containsomeone with instructions to keep me under surveillance, and I swear someone is tracking my movement. Someone who isn't Maksim.
The apartment building in Sokolnik almost doesn't feel welcoming now. I climb the stairs to the third floor, my keys ready before my phone rings. The sound makes me jump, and I nearly drop the notebook. The caller ID shows the same unknown number from before.
"Zoya."
"Damir." I close the notebook and lean against the wall. "Are you having me watched now?"
"I'm having you protected. There's a difference."
"Protected from what? From finding out the truth about what you've been doing?"
