Gian (Trassato Crime Family #1)(52)

“Talk about what? I get it. You don’t want me to contact Evie. What more do we have to discuss?”

This f*cking prick wouldn’t quit. I whipped the butt of my gun across his face. “I want to know everything about Ana Ivanka.”

He blinked. “Ana?”

“Yes. How did you meet her?”

“I don’t understand what this has to do with Evie.”

“Answer the f*cking question,” I growled through clenched teeth. Despite my earlier threat, I didn’t have all day to toy with this piece of shit. “You don’t need to understand.”

He swallowed. “Ana and I were introduced by a mutual friend. She wanted to raise her profile in the art community.”

“Who’s the mutual friend?” He started to shake his head. “Stop right there before you piss me off even more. If you want me to leave you in one piece, I need to know everything, including Ana’s ties to the Russian mob.”

Kevin sagged against slats of the blond wood chair, quietly fuming as he realized his chance to avoid coming clean had slipped through his fingers. A vicious satisfaction surged through me.

“About six months ago, an acquaintance invited me to a high-stakes poker tournament. I played. I won around a hundred grand, and I was hooked. Three months later, my luck turned, and I lost a shit ton of money.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred grand.”

I whistled. What a dumbass. This was how it always happened. It was the oldest trick in the book. You roped in a pretentious * who recently started making good money. You propped up his ego with a few wins. You showed him your power and made him think he was part of something important. Then you went in for the sucker punch. Bam, he was in debt up to his greedy eyeballs, and you took him for a ride.

“Let me guess. You didn’t have the money to repay the debt.”

“No. I wholesaled a bunch of my paintings. I raised two hundred grand, and I tossed him another hundred grand from my savings. Needless to say, he wasn’t satisfied.”

I frowned. “Who?”

His faced paled, and he cleared his throat. “Alimzhan Trincher.”

“Alix? You went to a poker game organized by Alix Trincher?”

Alix was a sociopath. On the street, they called him Bloody Alix, partly because of his red hair and partly because he’d left a sizeable path of blood and death in his wake when he rose to power.

“I didn’t realize who he was at the time. If I did…” his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, “I would have stayed far away from the whole thing.”

“So Alix asked you to help Ana Ivanka.”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes briefly and jerked his head up and down. “He showed up here one day with Ana, wanting me to teach her everything I knew and get her a couple of gallery showings featuring her work. If I succeeded, he agreed to forgive the rest of my debt.”

I snorted.

His shoulders tensed. “What?”

“There had to be more.”

“No. He hasn’t been back. He hasn’t asked for anything else.”

“So that’s it. You started mentoring her, which led to f*cking her, and Evie caught you in the act.”

“Pretty much.” His voice sounded strangled. “I didn’t mean to hurt Evie, but Ana…” his gaze went distant, “she screwed with my head. She was always touching me and brushing against me. She’d show up here wearing next to nothing. It was like Alix sent her to me to make me cheat on Evie and ruin my life. I mean, there’s only so much a man can take. Right?”

My spine stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” he whined like the man-child he was. I had no clue what Evie saw in him. “I never cheated on Evie with anyone else.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Do I have sucker written across my forehead?”

“No. You’re right. I wasn’t a choirboy by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve had protégées hit on me. Granted, I’ve crossed the line a time or two, but it never went too far if you know what I mean. Ana was different, though. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. She’d strip naked and ask me to demonstrate a painting technique on her body. She’d drag me into closets at parties and stick her hand down my pants while Evie was in the other room. She was everywhere, and I couldn’t get away from her. Every time it happened, I promised myself I wouldn’t do it again—only, she was like a shot of heroin. I was hooked, and I couldn’t stop.”

“Where’s Ana now?”

“I don’t know. She disappeared after that night we ran into you guys at that club. She disconnected her phone and vacated her apartment.”

“Did you ask Alix?”

He groaned. “Yeah, and he won’t tell me shit. He said we both did our jobs, and my debt was forgiven.”

“That’s it?”

“He said he’d end me if I ever turned up at one of his poker tournaments, again.”

“Has Ana’s artwork showed up in another gallery, or is she working with another artist?”

“No.” He shifted in the seat. “That’s the strange part. The day after we ran into you and Evie in the bar, she went radio silent. A few days later, someone broke into my studio. They took all her work and stuffed it into the dumpster out back.”