Page 71 of British Bratva: A Russian Mafia Romance

“A hitman who cares about the environment.”

I shrugged. “Won’t be anything left for our kids if we ruin it for them.”

She held my eye, and her smile turned soft and thoughtful. Maybe I hadn’t meant our kids specifically when I said it, but I did after she looked at me like that. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I knew one day I wanted to see her holding our child in her arms. I wanted to be right there with her, looking down into our baby’s tiny face. I could practically see the hospital room in my minds eye.

“So, what are we doing with all this?”

My job, part of the craft that I wanted to teach Elizabeth, was how to turn all the paperwork into something useful. The way I worked was thorough and precise. I didn’t let people tell me where to go or where to target someone, I collected all the available information and cross referenced it all, until I had the perfect picture.

Sometimes it took weeks at the window of the building opposite to figure out a man’s routine so that I could make an approach in a window of time where he was expected to be out of contact. I could time my hit to make a man disappear, and when I got it right, no one would suspect anything for a full day and then it would be a process of reconstructing his last movements and trying to cobble together in reverse exactly what I was starting to do now.

Jean Alaman was the main focus.

I picked a new highlighter from a pack I’d purchased from WHSmiths and tossed it over to Elizabeth, as I picked up a sheaf of paper of my own.

“We’re looking for patterns. Regular locations that come up time and time again, the same routes travelled. We want to map out his day to day. Whether Monday has a different routine to Tuesday, when he goes to the gym, what he does on the weekend, whether he pays for sex. Where we’re going to be able to get eyes on him most effectively.”

Elizabeth looked at me, and popped the cap off her highlighter. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking until her smile broke. “You’re not exactly the spontaneous type, are you Maxim?”

“Spontaneity gets you caught. No one finds a Toropov corpse, because I give myself time to do it right. You want a sniper, or a drive-by, that’s a different matter. I’m not that guy. When I solve problems, they stay solved. I’m teaching you how to do that too.”

Elizabeth’s grin grew again, and she tapped at the corner of her mouth with the end of the highlighter she was holding. “You’re sexy when you get all serious.”

“It’s a good thing I’m a very serious man.”

As much as I wanted to drag her back to the bedroom at every chance we got, I managed to keep my hands off her long enough to form a picture of the movements of our over-curious investment manager.

Elizabeth

I looked up from the mound of papers I was working through, blinking hard when I realised that the day had gone on without us and night was starting to draw in. Maxim switched the lamps on and I rubbed at my eyes, stretching out, as I yawned.

I hadn’t thought his life would be like this. I couldn’t imagine how lonely he must have been, alternating between long stretches working research like this, going out into the world to show his face in his legitimate guise, but never really able to let anyone in before me, and then going into the field, camping out wherever he had to, hunting his prey right to the end. Only to have to manage the disposal and then start all over on the next job. No wonder this didn’t feel like his real home, he only really used it as an office and a place to regroup before he dove back under.

That was what my life was going to be like. I hoped that I could take it, that maybe with the pair of us in it together, we could find solace in each other.

“It looks like Sutherland paid him.”

Maxim looked back at me, drawing the curtains sharply closed. “I came to that conclusion too.”

“He might not even have meant to betray you. Not maliciously, I mean.”

“The motive doesn’t really matter.”

I frowned. “If all he’s after is money, then you guys can pay him better, can’t you?”

Maxim tilted his head, that familiar grimace on his face that always appeared when he didn’t want to tell me something told me I’d said something overly optimistic or stupid.

“Anyone who can be bought so easily is a liability.”

“But he didn’t even know who he was dealing with. He probably just thinks he’s blowing the cover on a bunch of tax dodgers. I mean, who’d be insane enough to cross the Russian mafia and have it down on paper to come back to them?”

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