She shook her head. "The door's always unlocked. Part of the whole small town mentality, I guess."
Ash set a couple of glasses on the coffee table that she recognized from her own collection and poured a healthy finger of whiskey into each from a bottle she didn't recognize. He handed her one which she exchanged for the tea and watched him settled back, taking a healthy swallow from his own glass.
"You didn't tell me you had a personal connection to this case."
He looked at me from over the rim of his glass. "I haven't told anyone, really."
"Why not?"
"Because I knew they'd all stop me."
"Should they have?"
Ash shrugged. "Maybe."
Sutherland sat back and sipped at her drink, loving the heat that ran down her throat and exploded through her belly. It reminded her a little of the taste of brandy she'd tasted on Bodhi's lips. But this was rougher, a little rawer.
Ash stared into his glass, drinking it down in big swallows, pouring himself another glass.
"I don't know how much you know about what happened five years ago, in Santa Monica." He swirled the glass, fascinated with the way the liquor looked in the cut crystal glass. "We were mostly dealing with stalkers, ex-boyfriends who couldn't stand to see their women with new men. But then we took this case of a widow who ran a shipping business. He was getting threats from the Bazarov Cartel, because he refused to allow them to use his ships to move product." He leaned forward a little, the memory agitating him. "I put Joss on it—you met Joss, right?"
Sutherland nodded. She'd met all of Ash's operatives over the past few months on a few visits to Gray Wolf's original office.
"I put Joss on it because I thought it was a basic babysitting job. The cartel's threats were mostly against the widow's kid, so I thought it would be good for Joss to hang out with her for a while because she'd lost her own kid and was still struggling... turned out it probably wasn't the best choice. The cartel was more serious than I expected. They chased her out of the house, shot her as she tried to get the kid to safety."
Sutherland hadn't heard that. It made her sit up a little straighter, made her wonder what could happen to her own people during the raid they were about to embark on in a few hours.
"Joss is smart. Strong. She got the kid out of there and insisted on sticking with the case. It eventually came down to a direct fight between her and the cartel's patriarch, Vitaly Bazarov. That led to a battle between Vitaly's men, each one believing he'd be the best leader of the Bazarov Cartel. The job eventually fell to Dimitri Avdonin."
Ash spoke the name like it was a curse word. Sutherland sipped at her drink, staying quiet because she knew Ash well enough to know interruption would stop his narration and she knew this narration was very important for her to hear. He poured himself more whiskey, tossing this glass down in one, long swallow before pouring more. The bottle was half empty now where it'd been full when he walked in. Sutherland was still working on her first.
"This Avdonin had a hard on for me because he blamed me for taking down the Bazarov and his son. And he had this girlfriend... she recognized me from a magazine cover I'd done and she came to me for help because she was very pregnant and didn't want Avdonin near her child. But, of course, he came after her, used her to locate our compound. We managed to keep him out, but... things happened and we hit his safe house, taking him out before he could hurt her."
It was actually Mina who took Avdonin out. If Sutherland could read Ash's mind, she'd see it exactly as it went down:
“Where is she?”
“The living room.”
I ran the final few steps, only slowing when I reached the bottom step. She was cowering against the back door, staring at her hands. They were covered in blood and it only took me a second to figure out why.
Avdonin was lying on the floor with a sizeable hole in the center of his chest.
She killed him.
I rushed across the room. A big mistake. A gun fired behind me, catching me in the center of my back. The blow pushed me forward, but I managed to catch myself. I turned and a man, a blond man, stood just inside the archway coming from the kitchen, the gun trained on me. He was injured, his arm charred like he’d been caught in some terrible fire.
“It’s over,” I said.
“It’s not over. Not until you’re dead.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
He lifted his gun. I fired my rifle, the round smashing into his shoulder, pushing him backward. He fired, but his round went wild. Then Mina spoke, rising slowly to her feet. I moved in front of her as the blond put her in his sights.
“Dimitri’s dead, Andre. It’s over.”
The man’s wild eyes moved from her to the body on the floor.
“It’s never over. We’re too many. We’re too fucking smart for this bullshit.” He stared at her, something like awe in his eyes. “How did you do it? This house…no one knew. The records, the bills, none of it was connected to us. How did you know?”
And then the awe left his eyes. He fell, his forehead exploding.
Kirkland was behind him, his gun raised.
He ran his hand over the top of his head, the pain in his eyes making it clear to Sutherland that he was talking about Mina, his wife. She'd already heard parts of the story, but never from him. The pain in his eyes was almost painful for her to see. Even after five years, it was still too fresh for him.
"We thought it was done, thought the Bazarov Cartel was crushed well enough that they would never rise up again. But then we found another connection to them, a connection that went further back." He drank from his drink, taking the whiskey slightly slower than before. "Kipling... this is mostly his story and I probably shouldn't share it, but I want you to know what you're walking into tomorrow."
Sutherland leaned over and poured more whiskey in her glass.
"Is this about his wife and daughter?"
"Yeah."
Sutherland knew some of the details. Kipling's wife and three-year-old daughter were murdered in their home in Houston while he was deployed, just months after Mitchell died. They thought they had the guy, this Mickey Connors, but apparently, he only took the fall for someone else.
"You know he was involved in the prosecution of that guy all these years, showed up at all his court appearances, made sure the prosecution knew the details of his crime. And this guy's sister was always there, too, showing up as often as Kipling. And when the guy died, she convinced Kipling that she had evidence that he was innocent. Together they did some investigating and uncovered this whole thing... the Bazarov Cartel had fingers in the drug trade in Houston. Dimitri himself murdered Kipling's wife because she slighted him at some point... turned down his advances."
Ash shook his head. "Man was a fucking menace to society."
Sutherland took a generous swallow of her whiskey, bothered by the idea. She'd met Jesse McKay a few times. She was a shy, pious woman, one of those who seemed as though she couldn't hurt a fly. How someone could do such a horrifying thing to her, Sutherland couldn't understand. She was more than innocent. She was angelic. It was like hurting a child to hurt a woman like that.
"When I heard about it," Ash continued, "I started looking into the Bazarov Cartel again, especially Dimitri Avdonin. I wanted to know if there were any more secrets that might come out and hurt my family... my son."
Ford. Sutherland knew him, knew him well. He was an adorable five-year-old, active and happy, a gorgeous boy who looked just like his mother. The idea that this child came from a monster, this man capable of killing Kipling's wife and daughter, made her sick to her stomach.
"When I did, I found connections to several other crime organizations. The one that stuck out to me the most was the Mahoneys. They began in Boston but were pushed out by another family group, the Callahans, so they set up shop in Connecticut. Over the years, they built up their organization, moved to other states, other ventures. They have real estate holdings in New York, Rhode Island,
New Jersey. They have restaurants and casinos in New Jersey, Nevada. They have drug empires in so many states it's hard to remember which ones. They haven't set up in California yet, but I expect they will soon enough. And they began working here in Wyoming almost a year ago. There's no telling how big the organization is here now."
Ash ran his hand over the top of his head. "They bank rolled the Bazarovs. I always assumed the money came from Russia, from Vitaly's connections there, but now it looks like most of the money came from the Mahoneys. They were paying Vitaly and his men to run drugs into the United States from Russia, Poland, places like that. Ridiculous amounts of money were moving between the two cartels. And there's reason to believe the Mahoneys might have been involved in Mickey Connors' death. His mother gave the word, but I think the Mahoneys were backing her."
It was a lot of information. Sutherland found herself working it over and over in her mind as he offered her more. This one group of people had done so much damage to so many of the people she called friends. And now they were part of the reason Becky had had to go on the run, part of the reason she'd never disappeared a week ago.
"Why would the Mahoneys be so interested in what happened to a few old acquaintances in Texas?"
Ash smiled a dark, scary smile. "Mickey Connors took the fall for Dimitri Avdonin while he was running operations in Texas. Dimitri went to California in the wake of old man Bazarov's death and his son's imprisonment, took over there. That left a gap in the leadership in Texas. Two men were fighting for control, which probably made the Mahoneys nervous. They needed them to concentrate on business, not each other. Maybe they did their research, realized Kipling would never let this whole thing go after Connors' death. And maybe they were ready to get Connors' mother out of the way so they could position their own candidate in office." Ash shook his head. "We know they have their fingers in a lot of pies. There's a lot of reasons for them to have gotten involved. All I know is that they're bigger and meaner than the Bazarovs. And I know they came after Kipling while he was hunting for his wife's killer. And I know it wouldn't take much for them to come after you or Becky Kay, or anyone else I care about. After Kennedy blew our cover on the Cheyenne bust, there's no telling what they know about Gray Wolf and our involvement in that operation. I'm not going to sit around and wait for them to come after me or the people I care about. I'm going after them."
This was clearly very personal to Ash. Sutherland leaned over and touched his knee, eliciting a small smile.
"We're right behind you."
"I know." He sighed. "Mina thinks I'm chasing ghosts. And maybe she's right. Maybe I'm just trying to kill Dimitri Avdonin over and over again." He shook his head again, running his free hand over his skull before swallowing the last of the whiskey in his glass. "Every time I look at my son, I see trust and naked love in his eyes and it kills me to think I might not be able to protect him as completely as I should."
"None of us can protect our children from everything."
"But this... I will protect him from these people. I will fight to take them all down if it takes the rest of my fucking life!"
She rubbed his knee again, trying to calm the anger clearly consuming him. He put his glass down and sat back, slipping her hand into his, his gaze moving slowly around the room, taking in the photographs of Mitchell and his parents, family photos she'd never had the courage to take down.
"He wouldn't want you to live like this, you know," he said softly. "He would want you to find happiness."
"I know."
"I heard him talk to Hank about it once. Heard him say that he worried about sending you back here to the ranch alone. He wished he could have gotten an emergency discharge when his father got sick so that he could be the one to nurse him, the one to take the brunt of it all. He hated he had to put it all on your shoulders."
"It made more sense. I was pregnant. I was going to have to get a discharge soon anyway."
"But it wasn't your family."
Heat flooded Sutherland's cheeks. No one had ever been that blunt about it before.
"I was..."
She said it so softly that he didn't hear. His gaze came slowly back to her face.
"Have you ever thought about it?"
"What?"
"Finding your biological family? You have all these resources at your fingertips now, what with all of Gray Wolf's equipment and technicians."
"Why would I want to do that?" she asked, pouring herself more whiskey and drinking it quicker than she'd intended. "Why find the biological bastards who abandoned an infant in the middle of a hardware store, of all places?"
"Haven't you ever wanted to ask them why?"
"Do you think your son will ever want to ask his biological father why?"
She knew it was a low thing to ask, but she felt attacked. Ash, however, took it with the curiosity it wasn't intended with.
"I've thought about it. Mina and I agreed that we'd answer any and all questions he has."
"That's generous."
He reached over and snagged Sutherland's hand again, tugging her closer to his side of the loveseat. They faced each other, almost knee to knee, his warm eyes moving over her face with a deep affection that came from years of friendship.
"You should think about it, Sutherland. Sometimes knowledge is far better than what our imaginations can drum up." He stroked her cheek lightly. "For all you know, your father might be a CIA agent who had to abandon you to save your life. Or your mother is some sort of royal and you were kidnapped and abandoned by some enemy of the crown."
Sutherland laughed. "Don't think so."
"But you should try to find out the truth. It might put to rest some of the questions I know you have."
Sutherland lifted her hand and kissed the back of his. "I have all the family I need with you and Mina and the kids and Kipling and David and Hank and Becky and... you've given me more than you can imagine with this business. Kirkland and Mabel have been a God send!"
"Yes, one of these days we'll have to discuss your punishment for stealing one of my best operatives."
She smiled. "Shouldn't have lent him to me, brother."
"I guess not."
He stood, stumbling a little as he tried to gain his balance. She wasn't much better off, but they managed to make their way to the back door without too much trouble. Ash turned into her before he left, his hand moving over the side of her face.
"I'm really sorry I couldn't do more to save him," he said softly, his words slurring a little.
Tears burned in Sutherland's eyes, but she just nodded. "You couldn't have known."
"But it should have been me. I don't know why it wasn't."
"Because you were meant to be here, meant to be a father to Ford and your beautiful daughter. You were meant to save Mina from those people and help me protect Becks from these other criminals." She touched his face lightly, her thumb caressing the familiar turn of his jaw. "We couldn't do this without you, Ashford Grayson."
He pulled her to him and kissed her warmly on the cheek. Then he sighed.
"Mina would kill me if she knew how much I'd had to drink."
Sutherland laughed. "I won't tell her if you don't."
He smiled, turning to stumble across the yard.
"Better get some sleep. Tomorrow's a long day."
Sutherland watched him go, pausing to study the dark windows above the barn where her daughter was sleeping. She wondered often—especially when Elizabeth was little—how different their lives would have been if Mitchell hadn't stepped on that IED that day. How would her little girl be different? Would there be other children? Would they have been happy living here on the ranch, happy in each other?
There was no way to really know. She liked to think they would have been. But losing Mitchell and having to take control of the ranch all at once had changed Sutherland, forced her to grow up and become a person that even the Army hadn't created. Would she have become the person she was if Mitchell had lived?
; She wasn't sure.
She went inside and closed the door, locking it for the first time in a long time. After locking the front door, too, she went upstairs and dug a box out of her closet that she'd carried around with her since she could remember. It held a handmade baby blanket—it was white and green, soft as silk, very elaborately crocheted in a pattern that must have taken hours and hours—a baby's dress that was also white and green. And a teeny bracelet on which hung an even smaller heart with the name Rainy engraved on the back.
Sutherland had held these things off and on, running her hands over them, wondering who would have taken the time to crochet the blanket, to get the bracelet engraved, only to abandon the child they were made for. Was it even meant for her? Was it stolen? Was the bracelet hers, her mother's? Was Rainy her name?
Why hadn't they called her Rainy when they took her into state custody, when they put her in the system? What did they know about her that made them give her a new name, a different name? Who told them to change her name?
Contrary to Ash's opinion, she was curious about her past, about her parents. But she wasn't sure there was anything left to find. She'd gotten her foster care records, had read things she didn't remember, like the names of some of her early foster parents, the names of her many caseworkers. The records she had begun when she was seven, when she was transferred from one county to another when the system became overwhelmed and there wasn't any space for her. She hadn't been able to get her earlier records, the ones that might have told her why they named her Sutherland Butler instead of anything else. And there didn't seem to be any police records even though finding an abandoned infant in a hardware store must have been noteworthy enough to file a police report.
It was more than thirty years ago. She knew she'd have a better chance if she asked Kirkland to look into it for her. But it was personal. And a part of her was deeply afraid of what she might learn.
Ash insisted her imagination might blow it out of proportion, be something worse than the truth. In reality, she kind of liked the dreams her imagination had come up with.
She liked to think there was someone out there who loved her very much, someone who never wanted to lose her. She liked to think that person still thought about her from time to time with affection and, maybe, a little heartache. That was enough.
Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming Page 48
