Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 141532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Fyodor shrugged. “There were two left alive. No one shot them. One surrendered. He put his hands into the air and we all ceased fire. The other one shot his friend in the back of the head and then shot himself. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot we could do.”
“We’ll need their identities. Someone has to know them.”
“They’re definitely from out of the country,” Fyodor said. “South America, I’d guess. None of them have identification on them. Their clothes are new. None of them had anything on them that would give their identities away.” As he spoke, he was eyeing his cousin’s shoulder, where blood leaked down his arm in a steady stream. “You might want to take care of that.”
Mitya glanced down at his shoulder, a little surprised to see the blood. The pain had faded as he’d fought the second leopard, and he had regarded the slice through his skin as nothing more than a nuisance.
“You look like hell, Mitya,” Timur said as he tossed a towel to his cousin. “Sevastyan is royally pissed. I don’t think your woman was very cooperative either, so that made him really angry.”
That sobered Mitya immediately. Sevastyan wasn’t a man who got angry often, but when he did, no one was safe. “Not cooperative?” he echoed.
“She fights dirty,” Timur continued. “And she’s apparently skilled.”
Mitya closed his eyes for a moment and sent a few curses out into the universe. Ania was going to be equally as pissed as Sevastyan. “Maybe I’ll wait before I head home. See if Jake’s wife can do something with this shoulder.”
“Coward,” Fyodor said. He signaled for the men to back the cattle cars off the road and out of sight. They’d piled the bodies onto the trailers in the hay. They would be gone over with a fine-tooth comb, subjected to fingerprinting, photographs, facial recognition, every kind of way to identify the men who had tried to kill them.
“Couple of things bother me,” Timur said as he walked with Mitya toward the car waiting for them. “These men had nothing whatsoever on them to identify who they were, yet in the lead car, there was a matchbook from the port in Houston. None of them smoked, or if they did, they didn’t carry cigarettes on them, but conveniently, there is a matchbook identifying the port and, specifically, the Caruso restaurant.”
Mitya didn’t like that either. He slid into the back seat and moved to make room for Fyodor. Timur took the front passenger seat. Their men would continue with cleanup. They’d contacted Bannaconni to let him know of the ambush and what had happened, so he wouldn’t be blindsided. His security had to have heard the shots, and they didn’t want law enforcement called until all evidence was gone. Every leopard body had to be properly disposed of. That meant burning them was necessary, but Mitya wanted to identify the men and where they came from. Burning them immediately might keep that from ever happening.
“We found an advertisement for the company that does bulletproof glass, the Anwar company, but in the SUV.” Timur continued. “That isn’t all, Mitya.”
By the tone of his voice, Mitya knew he wasn’t going to like what was said next. He wrapped his arm with the towel and leaned forward to get the water bottles out of the ice. He handed one to each of his cousins. “Just tell me.”
“There was evidence pointing to you, as if you had something to do with killing Ania’s family. I’ve got all of it and was careful not to touch it so we can lift prints off it, but—”
“What kind of evidence?”
“I imagine it’s the gun that was used to shoot Antosha Dover. It was in a bag and has your fingerprint on it. Fyodor could see there was a print and he lifted it and tested it, using the fingerprint scanner. We’re all in the FBI database. Your name popped up instantly, Mitya.”
Mitya was silent, frowning. The car was already in motion, carrying him back to his house—to Ania and Sevastyan. “This doesn’t make a lot of sense unless someone wants to start a war between all the families.”
“A war?” Gorya echoed. He was driving, and he glanced over his shoulder at his cousin. “Why would someone want to start a war? That doesn’t even make sense. No one wins.”
“What other explanation is there? Why else would they be planning on planting evidence against both of the Houston families and against me? They probably have other items they can scatter around to indicate some of the other families,” Mitya said.
“If that’s true,” Fyodor replied, “then that little notebook that was on its way to the Anwar family has to contain incriminating evidence, manufactured or not, against Drake Donovan and Jake Bannaconni. We’re all being played.”