Page 64 of Emerald

“Five hundred K.”

He nods, eyebrows raised. “That probably cleared his whole bank account,” he says.

I want to point out the incredible irony that after all the things Ivan’s done, all the people’s he’s pissed off, the thing that almost got him killed was messing around with a married woman.

But I can tell he’s already embarrassed, so I keep a lid on it for the moment.

“What’s on that drive?” I ask Zima.

“I don’t know!” he says. And then, seeing the look of disbelief on Ivan’s face, “I really don’t!”

“Well,” I say, “you’re going to figure it out.”

Zima is ten times the hacker I am. I couldn’t crack the encryption on the drive, but I bet he can.

“Get your laptop,” I tell him. “You’re coming with us.”

* * *

18

Ivan

I’m driving back to Sloane’s old apartment. She says the flash drive is hidden there, and that it might still be readable.

I’m not thinking about the flash drive, though. I’m thinking about Lyosha Egorov.

For once in my life, I actually feel guilty.

Nadia Egorov meant nothing to me, but she must have meant something to Lyosha. He risked everything to take revenge on me.

It would have confounded me before. Now I understand a little better how a woman can drive a man mad.

What would I do if I married Sloane, and then lost her to someone else?

I can’t even imagine it.

Sloane knows what’s bothering me. She’s ignoring Zima, who’s trussed up in the back of the van. She’s watching my face instead.

“What are you going to do to him?” she asks me.

“To Egorov?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know,” I say.

Before, I would have ordered him cut into a thousand pieces and the pieces fed to my dogs.

But now, I feel like he was only doing what any man would have to do. If he really loved his woman.

“I was thinking you should send him a fruit basket,” Sloane says innocently. “After all, if he hadn’t hired me to kill you, we never would have met.”

I can’t help laughing. I’ve tried a hundred times to tame this woman, but she has this rowdiness inside of her that can never be extinguished.

“That’s not a bad idea,” I say. “You can help me pick it out.”

We pull up in front of Sloane’s flat. The top floor is a smoking ruin, the whole apartment complex taped off. Leaving Zima tied up in the van, Sloane and I scale the iron fire escape up the side of the building.