Chapter 158 165

Chapter 158 165
He jerks his head towards me. “Aleksandr Makarova forced Olivia Lawrence into marriage against her will. She was under duress. She was his prisoner at the time. Is that not a criminal offense?”

Kennedy turns to me. “If there are charges you would like to file, Ms. Lawrence… now would be the time to bring it up.”

I turn to Aleks. Our eyes meet. He doesn’t say anything, but his expression says everything that needs saying.

The only question left worth asking.

Do you trust me?

I take a deep breath before I speak.

But I already know my answer.

“No, Mr. Kennedy, no charges,” I say confidently. “Aleks never abducted me. I went with him willingly. I was—I am in love with him.”

Hargrove ruins the moment. “That’s fucking bullshit!” he spews.

Kennedy turns to Hargrove with a disgusted expression. “Don’t make a fool of yourself, Donald. It’s time to get you down to the station.”

“He murdered her!” Hargrove screams as he’s being towed away by a pair of federal agents. “Makarova just killed his own mother in cold blood. How can you not believe he’s the real villain in this?”

Aleks's brows come together. “You’re really trying to pin this crime on me, too, Hargrove?” he asks. “I’m not the one who killed my mother. You did.”

Hargrove looks momentarily dumbfounded. “What the—”

Aleks turns to Kennedy. “Check the bullet that killed her. It was fired from Hargrove’s gun.”

Hargrove’s eyes bulge, and as they do, I finally realize the reason for the leather gloves that Aleks is wear—

I stop short, realizing that he’s no longer wearing the gloves. His hands are bare again.

I look up at him and he winks at me. It takes everything I have to keep my mouth from falling wide open.

“You son of a bitch!” Hargrove screeches before turning to Kennedy. “He took my gun and killed her with it!”

“And then… handed it back to you?” Kennedy asks skeptically.

“Why would I kill Yulia?” Hargrove demands. “She was on my side!”

“Really?” Demyan says, speaking up for the first time in a while. “Because from where I was standing, it looked like she was about to confess to her part in all this and you didn’t want her to give away your game.”

I frown, my heart beating hard against my rib cage. Her part in all this. It’s right there on the tip of my tongue, dancing just out of sight in the shadows.

And then it hits me.

The truth I’ve been trying not to see.

Yulia didn’t believe Hargrove’s lies.

She helped him dream them up in the first place.

“Yulia was the groomer,” I whisper.

40

ALEKS

I watch both Olivia and Rob connect the dots.

Rob pales visibly like he might puke on his shoes at any moment. But Olivia? She stands there. She’s the pillar of support now. She’s the bedrock of the Lawrence family.

“You want the truth?” I ask Kennedy. “There were plenty of witnesses in this room. These two,” I point at Jennifer and Demyan, “work for me, and they’re both filthy liars, so I wouldn’t advise trusting a word they say.”

Both of them smile.

“But that one,” I continue, jerking my head at Rob, “is a federal agent. Plus, he hates my fucking guts. I think you can count on him for the truth.”

I make eye contact with Rob. He stares back at me in disbelief that all this is happening, but I already know what he’s going to do.

He glances towards his colleague. Then he clears his throat, stands up tall, and says in a rasping baritone, “It was Hargrove who pulled the trigger. He killed Yulia Makarova.”

Kennedy doesn’t ask any more questions. He just nods once and Hargrove is dragged off, kicking and screaming and frothing at the mouth.

Jennifer and Demyan close ranks around me, but I have eyes only for Olivia.

She’s visibly shaken, barely keeping it together. All I want to do is get her out of this room as quickly as possible. I start to make for the exits, but Kennedy blocks my path.

He gives me a bemused smile. “That went better than I expected, actually.”

“It went exactly as I’d planned.”

“As for your mother’s death,” he says. “You’re sticking with the story that Hargrove killed her?”

I raise my eyebrows. “The witnesses just told you what happened. That’s the only story to tell.”

“I’m not interested in stories, you know,” he says. “Only the truth.”

“Is this a truth you’re planning on pursuing?”

He hesitates for a second, weighing the consequences of picking at a lie he suspects but can’t wholly prove. Then he sighs and slumps his shoulders.

“No,” he says. “She had it coming, no matter who killed her.”

I smile. “We’re in agreement on that.”

Kennedy rubs his face in pure exhaustion. His conscience has taken a beating over the last few weeks. “I never expected to work with a son of a bitch like you, Makarova,” he muses.

“Nor I with a sanctimonious prick like you, Kennedy.”

“But we caught the bastard.”

“We caught the bastard,” I agree.

“This doesn’t make us friends.”

I chuckle at that. “No, it does not.”

Kennedy nods once more, as if signing off on the end of our deal, and then he offers me his hand. We shake.

As soon as his hand drops, his expression goes sour again. Ah, well. An alliance between the Bureau and the Bratva was never going to last very long. It has served its purpose.

“We’ll need to clear the room,” he intones.

“Not a problem. I’m leaving anyway.”

As Kennedy rejoins his men to coordinate whatever bullshit they have to do next, I head over to Olivia.

But I stop short a few yards away. She’s still standing with Rob by the window. They’re clinging to each other, both giving support and taking it, both trying to come to terms with the new truths slapping them harshly across the face. The ugly, sharp-edged new realities.