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“You checked up on me, huh?” he says. “I’d say I’m flattered, Yuri, but I figured as much. You’re screwing my daughter, after all. I don’t need to interrogate you. There’s nothing you could tell me that I don’t already know about you. Plenty of it, I don’t give a shit about, no offense.”

Yuri. He didn’t say Leonid.

I think of the text message I’d gotten the night of Zinaida’s birthday party. The night some anonymous source flipped the railroad switch and sent my train barreling in Meera’s direction.

Come find me, Yuri.

Connecting the dots with such flimsy thread makes it farfetched, but at least it’s something. Maybe it’s the fucking pain—and it could be, with the spike in adrenaline coursing through my veins—but it shoots a thrill through me. This is the closest I’ve been to figuring out who the fuck’s been doing this since the night of the auction.

I just have to keep him talking. Especially if he keeps drinking, he’s bound to let information slip. That’s a start.

“Have you been using all those cop connections to watch?” I rasp out a laugh that hurts to expel. “That’s kind of sick, Ray.”

The man slurps down another glug of vodka. “They said you were a funny fucker,” he mutters darkly.

“They,” I repeat. “Anyone I know?”

“Now, see, that would be the kind of question that’s above both our paygrades,” he tuts, shaking his head at me. His finger swirls in the air—or what I think is air until I catch what he’s actually gesturing towards, and it’s the cameras dotting every corner of the fucking room. “You don’t want to perform a little bit better for your audience?”

I’ll admit, it had been a heavy-handed provocation. I’m beat all to hell though, so it was still worth a shot. “Maybe I need a drink, too,” I suggest. Mostly, I could probably use it to disinfect my wounds.

Ray wags the bottle at me, friendly as a backyard barbecue. “I commend the balls on you. They won’t do you any good, but still.”

“You’ll share your daughter but not your vodka? That’s interesting,” I bait him the way he’s baited me with his daughter, unbeknownst to her. That’s all it really takes to make him blanch. I squint at him, my swollen eye straining. Disbelief and disdain war to underscore my words. “You aren’t even close to being the mastermind behind this, are you?”

“I’m not your mole, pal,” he sniggers an ugly sound.

My teeth gnash together, swallowing back my fury. I can’t use my anger to do anything but fuel me. I don’t let it color my words when I challenge, “Balls aren’t all I’ve got. I have money. Give me a name—” I look right into the closest camera. “Whoever it is, whatever the number is, I can pay off whatever that leash costs. I’m the man who can triple that number before lunch. You’ve seen our books. Hell you’ve been in our books, apparently.”

A cruel look twists his features. And I know, somehow, this was the wrong move. Something in the man’s eyes shutter. “There it is,” he sneers. “Just throw your blood money at the problem, huh? That’s how fuckin’ easy it is for you?”

“I’ve been in your books, too, Ray. I wouldn’t judge cash when you’ve been raking in plenty of your own. Who’s paying you like that? And for what, exactly? What’s the deal?”

“You think I did this just for money.” It isn’t a question. He settles back with such heft, the chair creaks in protest. “I did it for nothing but the job, once upon a fuckin’ time. I believed in the justice system. And then I spent year after year watching my city get carved up by bastards like you and your fuckin’ brothers. There are no consequences in your world, are there? Only untouchable, powerful cocksuckers. The law’s nothing but a fence around a pasture, and the wolves figured out how to get through the gates a long time ago. So, a man’s got two choices. He can stand at the fence blowing his pussy-ass whistle all his life. Or he can learn what the wolves already know, and make it work for the pasture’s benefit.” He takes a feral swig, soaking his mustache with vodka. “I’m not proud of all of it. But somebody was going to eat off that fuckin’ plate. Better a man who—”

“The kind of man who sells his little girl? You whore her out to be, what—bait? What kind of fucking man is that, you piece of shit?”

It would be startling to someone who hasn’t faced off against worse, the way Ray Gallagher’s expression changes with the flick of a switch. In a single instant, his sneer drops and his face reddens. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

He’s so close to breaking. I can fucking feel it. “No? So, you didn’t know that she was taken off the sidewalk, drugged, stripped, and then presented like a piece of meat to purchase?”

“I fucked up,” he spits out venomously. “They took her to spite me. I wouldn’t do that to my daughter, you sick fuck.”

My head tips back against the pipe, tilting a look right at him. “So, she’s just collateral damage to you? What number on a check justifies what you’ve done to her?”

He shakes his head, but his gaze has dropped to the bottom of the bottle clutched in a shaking fist. He says nothing. That pisses me the fuck off. It pisses me off more than whatever he could’ve said, I’ll bet.

I lose that bet a second later.

“A hundred and eighty grand,” he says. “That’s the number you put on a check for her, isn’t it? I heard all they had to show you was a fuckin’ photograph. So, looks like she made for quality bait. One of a kind. And you bit so fuckin’ hard they’re still laughing about it upstairs.”

The pipe groans about the way I wrench at my limbs, plastic shredding raw flesh. I hiss through my teeth, “I’ll tear you apart with my bare fucking hands.”

Just witnessing my struggle slumps his shoulders and calms his pallor. He sighs, “Once you start getting notoriety and respect that years of service in the trenches never got you—and that’s on top of the boatloads of cash—no one warns you about the bottomless hunger.”

Smoke must be pouring out of my ears. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Someone gave me hot info, and I sold it to the highest bidder. More than one of them. I got greedy. I double-crossed someone I shouldn’t’ve fucked with.” There’s a faraway look on his face as he stares off, right toward the camera in the corner. “Taking Meera was bait for you. And it was a punishment for me.”