Page 87 (1/1)

1

Hailey

I FELL for Konstantin Gulyev long before I ever met him

That hard, tan jaith its perfect shadow of black stubble was etched intoat it day after day I spent soat his lips, the top one hard and stern, the lower one soft and sulkily pouting, that I knehat they’d feel like brushing against mine I knew hi came from his tailor in Russia or his tailor in New York, from the way the snohite fabric stretched over the broad slabs of his chest

There are other crime bosses in New York Even a few other Russian ones But none are as notorious, none have produced as ends as hiht They say he kills his enemies with his bare hands They say his old, and the government doesn’t dare try to arrest him because he has so much money he could crash the economy…

That last one, at least, isn’t true I know because I’ Konstantin down, and we are trying We’re just failing His organization is huge and uniuns and bribed officials and encryption He’s untouchable and he knows it

Watching him was my job It had become my obsession

As his limo entered the deserted construction site, I was a tiny speck in the distance, perched in the darkenedof an abandoned building over half a h that I could see the rivets on the limo’s license plate as it prowled across the uard’s hand as he opened the li at him Konstantin

He was ilance down as his Italian leather shoes were ruined by the ray sky and soaked his hair With his coat billowing out behind his, he marched over to where the other man cowered beneath an umbrella He stopped so close, and he was so tall, that the otherand spluttering, his face bone-white with fear I held down the ca a flurry of shots

Everyone is scared of Konstantin Gulyev, from the small-time crooks at the bottom to the white-collar crooks at the top You don’t run for mayor in this city unless Konstantin says so Rumor is, you don’t run for senator

S Guns Protection Billion dollar construction contracts obtained through bribes He’s not a criminal, he’s the criminal

And we—the FBI—can’t prove any of it That’s why I’ve been watching hfim for two years

And at soet obsessed

Itto his phone calls, every long r and hard k of his Russian accent earthquaking downacross the street, a telephoto lens bringing that brutally handsome face so close, it felt like I could reach out and press ht have been the time I was in the next hotel roo the vibrations as he fucked his girlfriend up against the wall, hisinto her no more than a foot from me

He’s pure bad, given human form And he’s not just my enemy, he’s my nemesis I’ve run surveillance on plenty of criminals and Konstantin is the only one I haven’t been able to bring down I should hate him But…

But there’s so about his raw, dark power that pulls me in and holds me He terrifies me and yet I can’t look away I knew that, if we ever actually met, he’d utterly destroyas a cliff edge

He looked up

I froze

I knew that he couldn’t see ray, and I was deep in the shadows, up on the tenth floor of an abandoned building But none of that ht at me

Konstantin’s eyes are like no one else’s At first, you think they’re utterly devoid of color, a pale gray that puts me in mind of a winter sky about to unleash a truly biblical ice storh, if you really concentrate, there’s the faintest hint of blue there Just enough blue to give you some sort of forlorn hope Just before he crushes it completely