Page 62 of Marked

“Too soon, Noah.” Duncan began walking away. “You’re both with me. Let’s hit the road.”

“Ten years from now would be too soon,” Lanie muttered as we moved to follow him.

“Sometimes you need to laugh to keep from crying, Darlin’.”

“What happened to the stoic, reserved agent I hired?” Waverly called out once we were a few feet away.

I draped my arm over Lanie’s shoulders and shouted back.

“I fell in love.”

13TMI

Lanie

For the second time in under eighteen hours, we circled around the conference table. This time was no less painful than the first. Emotions were running high and patience was running thin.

“You want to do what?”

That bomb must’ve done more damage to my hearing than I realized, because there’s no way I heard my boss––a special agent with the F-B-fucking-I––say what I thought she just said. It was categorically impossible.

“We’re going to set up a meeting with Zakhar Vlaschenko.”

Clearly, I hadn’t given her enough credit.

“Why?” Noah asked the million-dollar question.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out why she’d want to sit down with the head of the family trying to overturn the current Bratva regime. Information was a game changer. They had it and we needed it. What we didn’t know was her other angle, because there was most assuredly anotherangle. What could she possibly hope to accomplish? It wasn’t as if the federal government was going to partner with one crime family in order to take another out of commission.

“Before this goes any further,” Waverly started pacing the room, “if anyone has an issue dipping between the lines of the law, you should leave now. No hard feelings. No shame, but you can’t be here.”

Not a single muscle moved. Hell, I think most of us were afraid to breathe. The least we could do was hear her out. This wouldn’t be our first venture into the land of the gray and with the luck we had, it wouldn’t be the last either. And if it turned out our RAC’s moral compass was lacking direction, we’d handle it like we always did.

As a team.

“Umm…” Nelson peeked his head around the corner into the room. “Are you ready for me, ma’am?”

She studied us again, looking for any signs of movement before waving in our tech guru.

“How many times do I have to tell you? My name is Waverly, not ma’am.”

“Sorry, but my mom would skin me alive if I didn’t show respect for my elders.”

“Oh shit,” Koen sputtered.

Duncan barked out a laugh. I bit my lip to hold mine in while Keaton and Noah both turned red in the face. Sometimes I forgot how awkward Nelson could be around Waverly, especially when he was nervous.

“I’m thirty-eight, not eighty-three.” She sighed. “I’ve got a few more years before I collect my pension.”

“Sorry.”

“Now that Nelson’s here, he can fill you in onwhat he’s found in regards to Vlaschenko.” Waverly gave him a subtle nod, then stood against the wall with her hands clasped in front of her.

After taking a seat at the head of the table and opening his laptop, Nelson launched in. “The Vlaschenko family is known to have their hands in many different pots. Extortion, money laundering, underground fight clubs, to name a few. They own several casinos up and down the Eastern Seaboard, which are the perfect cover for their illegal endeavors. While they’ve never officially been investigated for murder, there have been a few cases where their name was thrown around; all of them vigilante-style killings. The biggest difference between them and the Bolotovs is they don’t stand for crimes against women. As in they have a zero tolerance policy.”

“So these guys are moreRobin Hood, and lessGodfatherstyle mobsters. Gotcha.” Koen interrupted. “They’re like Bratva-lite.”

“In a sense, yes.” Nelson tapped a key on his laptop, projecting an image onto the wall. “Meet Zakhar Vlaschenko, known to his close friends and family as Zak.”

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