Page 42 of Brooklyn Bratva

This wasn’t the Bratva’s fund. The cash was all Mehmet’s and all the paperwork was to do with his shop, but his wife wasn’t going to be pleased if the envelopes I gave him, cash in hand, started causing problems. I gritted my teeth at the sight of a cluster of prescription pill bottles with different names on the sides, then gathered them up.

Whatever side deal Mehmet had going on, I could find out later. Right now I needed to get rid of any links to me and anything dodgy.

“The guy who shot you do this?”

“Probably.”

Becca’s lips pursed together and she pulled out a reusable bag, holding it out to me.

“Hold it open.”

Becca watched me shove the pill bottles and three envelopes into the bag and lock the safe again. I rifled the desk drawer, reaching right to the back for the false top, and pulled out the little Ruger revolver I kept in there, just in case, and tossed it into the bag too.

There was a camera hooked up in the corner. The laptop it usually linked to was gone, but I didn’t need the other cops in my department looking for it, or them starting to bother Mehmet’s wife asking about what he was mixed up in. I pulled it down, bundling the wires up, shoved that in the bag too and wiped everything down.

Not only had someone taken him out, they’d increased the murder rate of the area by 100% overnight. I’d worked hard to keep my precinct clean. And they were messing with my stats without any concern for the knock on consequences.

That made me nearly as pissed as the rest of it.

It was one thing to be able to look the other way, and reorganize patrol routes, or misdirect my officers to facilitate a business deal, but a murder investigation involved a whole lot of people who were out of my control, not least the forensics team. Attempting to sweep this under the rug would only draw suspicion to my door. So I had to do the best I could in the time available to limit the evidence they had.

No doubt Ruslan had passed on the contacts I’d given him to fence his goods straight to Grigori Menshevik, and Menshevik’s men had blown a hole right in the middle of my communication hub. With that laptop they were likely going to go after anyone else they recognized and try to poach the whole network.

Mehmet was a strategic kill. His death did the job of sending a message to the outliers in the area that they needed to start choosing who to align themselves with one way or another. And they were not going to get away with it.

No doubt Ruslan had been compensated for the information he’d shared, and offered a better cut if he traded through Ukranian connections. Menshevik was trying to claw back control, and he knew he had more manpower than I did when it came to making a stand.

There had been a gradual shift over the past decade in the syndicate, from ruling through fear and thuggery, to gaining trust of criminal partners throughout the underworld simply by consistently offering the best monetary returns. We were a kind of club, and I was a kind of secretary, making sure the membership fees came in on time, and no one pissed in the pool.

It had been a long time since I’d had to remind anyone that we weren’t simply skilled and well connected businessmen. But none of the men I knew as colleagues in the underworld had started out that way. Menshevik was going to be in for a surprise if he thought we’d take this lying down.

No way was the Bratva going to relinquish territory just because some Ukranian thought he had big enough balls to take us on. I’d personally castrate him and his operation. That was why I was here.

I could hear the sirens approaching, and I steered Becca back out to the front of the shop, pulling the door closed behind us, just as two of my finest officers barged in the door. She’d called them and mentioned me, no doubt. So she had to be here.

“Scene’s secure, boys. We’ll need Becca’s prints for exclusion. I’ll take her down to the station. Get it rolling with forensics and door-to-doors. Someone must have seen something.”

CHAPTER 22

Becca

No one even glanced at the bag I was carrying for Ivan as he steered us back out onto the street. The blue flash of the patrol car lights caught me right in the eye, dazzling me momentarily. I felt sick with nerves. Someone was winding out police tape, and there was already a crowd pressing in and we were walking towards one of the cars. Ivan was taking me right past them.

My hands started sweating around the handle of the bag. I felt like it was transparent. Anyone who looked at it must surely know I was making off with so many things I shouldn’t have. Things that Ivan should have wanted investigated, as a cop. Unless he was on the other side.

---