by Roxie Rivera
But he didn’t leave. Spider stayed and helped him with the ugly work of cleaning up the mess left over from their raid on the dairy farm where Erin, Bianca, Danny and Boy had been held. Considering the shitty luck they’d had all day, the recovery of the women and their soldiers had gone off without a hitch. Ivan and Sergei had their wives back, and Danny and Boy were recovering in the hospital. Ten had gotten patched up and sent home before his PO had gotten wise to the possibility Ten might be doing something illegal.
“What do you think the police will think” Spider asked as they stood at a sink washing their hands sometime later.
“Probably that it was a kidnapping and ransom gone wrong,” Kostya reasoned. “They took Erin and Bianca. Both of their husbands work at the Warehouse. They were just in Vegas with their fighters competing for high dollar prizes. Ivan is known to be wealthy. Bianca has money.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Spider agreed. “Fuck, the cops are probably so tired of all of our bullshit they won’t look very deep.”
“If we’re lucky,” Kostya said, reaching for a roll of paper towels. As he dried his hands, he asked, “Did you talk to Romero? About this shit with Scorpion and Marco?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“He’s glad it’s done. He was disappointed to find out Spider had turned on us, but it happens in this business all the time. I felt like he was expecting it.”
“You tend to develop a sixth sense about betrayal.” Remembering Spider’s worries about being ratted out by Scorpion, he added, “I tracked down Spider and Marco’s contact. She wasn’t actually working with the government. She’s dead now so she isn’t a risk to any of us.”
Spider narrowed his eyes. “If she wasn’t working for the government, who was she working for?”
“Lorenzo and an old problem from back home,” he answered. “Lorenzo will be handled tonight.”
“You think Hector has good intel on Lorenzo’s hideout?”
“I do.” Hector had offered an address just before they had raided the abandoned farm to rescue Erin and Bianca. He’d checked the address with Fox before giving it to Nikolai and providing him with everything he needed to finally finish this.
“And the other problem? From back home?”
“I’m working on it.”
“If you need help…”
“I know where to find you.”
Spider looked around the warehouse, his gaze lingering on the now clear floor where the bodies had been piled earlier. Kostya sensed he’d had enough cleaning for one night. “Why don’t you go home? I’m almost done here. I can handle the rest of it alone.”
“You sure?”
He nodded, and Spider left without another word. Alone in the stillness of the warehouse, he took a moment to close his eyes and just breathe. Long, deep, slow breaths to relax the tight coil of anxiety in his chest. He was a stranger to failure. He didn’t like it. Standing here, knowing that he’d made a bad call earlier that morning, cut deep. Bianca and Erin could have been killed. Danny, Boy, Ten and Artyom were all injured. He’d lost two men, both of them leaving behind girlfriends and kids.
Fucking disaster.
Leaning back against the sink, he kept thinking about what Spider had said. The toll all these years of wetwork had taken on him was starting to add up. There was a tiredness in his bones he couldn’t shake. A fatigue that couldn’t be fixed with sleep. He needed a break from all of this. A permanent one.
But those feelings of responsibility and loyalty to Nikolai were hard to shirk. He didn’t want to leave his crime family in the lurch. He didn’t want the soldiers and captains and their families to suffer because he wasn’t here to clean up their messes and make all their mistakes disappear. He didn’t want to lose the only real friends he’d ever had.
I don’t want to lose Holly.
There was the crux of his problem. He would have to choose. He couldn’t keep Holly in his life, be the man she needed him to be, and continue working as a cleaner. The two things were simply incompatible.
A buzzing sound infiltrated his thoughts. He patted his pockets but they were empty. Glancing across the warehouse, he spotted the worktable where he’d tossed his jacket earlier. He strode toward it and reached into the right pocket to retrieve his phone. Looking at the screen, it was blowing up with phone calls and messages from Fox and Sunny.
And Holly.
His heart stuttered in his chest as he tapped on her message and read it.
I can’t wait. I’m going. I’m sorry. Find us. Please.
Mouth dry and stomach roiling, he swiped to answer the incoming call from Sunny. Before she could speak, he asked, “What happened?”
“I’m sorry, K. We fucked up! Big time,” Sunny said in a panic.
“Tell me what happened!”
“I left the safe house to track down leads. Fox left the safe house to get to her control center so she would have access to traffic cams. We left Holly at the safe house and told her to stay put. Everything was fine until the alarms went off, and I got there as quickly as I could but she was already gone.”
“Gone? Where?” He tried to calm his voice, but the fear of losing Holly had overwhelmed him.
“I found the phone in an empty lot behind a couple of businesses near the safe house. There were messages and photos from a burner phone. They used Savannah and Lana to lure Holly out of the safe house. She had a time limit—thirty minutes—or they were going to start torturing her friends.”
“How long ago did she leave the safe house?”
“A little over an hour.”
“Shit,” he cursed, knowing only too well how far she could have been taken in that time. “Do you know where they took her? Can you track her?”
“They dropped her phone so the easiest possibility is out. Fox is digging through traffic and security cams trying to find vehicles driving into and leaving that area, but it’s kind of a shithole down there so she isn’t having much luck.”
This is not happening. He had been so preoccupied that he had taken his eyes of Holly just long enough for someone to grab her.
“Do you have any ideas?” Sunny asked. “Any leads I can chase down?”
“I have to make a phone call,” he said, already dreading it. “Tell Fox I’m coming to see her. Meet me there.”
“Okay.” Sunny hesitated. “Kostya, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. This is on me.” He hung up and tried to calm his racing thoughts. Visions of Holly being tortured with Savannah and Lana tormented him. Was she scared? Was she already hurt? Bleeding?
Swallowing hard, he dialed a number he’d only had for a day. There was only one ring before it was answered. Hissing like an angry cat, Frances asked, “Where is my daughter?”
“He took her. She’s gone.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A PAINFUL SENSATION in my ears drew me out of my drug-induced sleep. Groggy and nauseated, I lifted my head and tried to focus. My eyes were dry, and my vision so blurry I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing.
“Shh,” Savannah’s familiar voice urged in a gentle, mothering way. “If you make too much noise, they’ll come back here and hit you with the drugs again.”
More awake, I realized I had my head against her shoulder. I grimaced at the wetness on my chin. I had drooled all over her shirt, but she didn’t seem to mind or even notice. Her gaze was focused on the platinum blonde hair in her lap. Wrists bound, she tenderly stroked Lana’s hair, her face pinched with worry. “She woke up and started fighting with them so they hit her with another syringe.” She lifted her gaze to mine. “She’s so small, Holly. They’re going to kill her with that shit.”
Sharing her concern, I swiped at my chin with my bound wrists and finally managed to take in our surroundings and make sense of it all. We were in a plane. A large jet, by the looks of it. The three of us had been corralled in an area that was normally used as a galley. Our legs and wrists were bound with plastic ties
. Savannah and Lana both had bruised and bloodied faces. I’d managed to avoid that fate so far, but I didn’t hold out much hope that I would be lucky enough to stay that way.
Forcing a yawn, I popped my ears and relieved the pressure. “Are we descending or climbing?”
“Descending,” Savannah said quietly.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
“Mexico,” she said, leaning forward to gaze toward the main cabin area. “There are five of them watching us. Two pilots. No attendants. One of our kidnappers went into the cockpit a while ago, and I heard them talking about landing. Something about the cargo in the back and the trucks they need to meet to keep the delivery schedule.”
“Cargo? Us?”
She shook her head. “This is a delivery jet. Like FedEx but not.”
“They had delivery trucks when they kidnapped Erin earlier.”
“They kidnapped Erin?” she asked, aghast. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.” Glancing around nervously, I wondered aloud, “Why Mexico? Why did they want us?”
“You,” Savannah corrected. “They wanted you.” She gulped anxiously and looked down at Lana. “I have a feeling we aren’t going to be around very long. After we hit the ground, they don’t need us anymore.”
My stomach dropped. It made me sick to even think about it, but she was right. They had been used as bait to lure me into a trap. They had done their part. What would happen to them now? Would they kill them? Would they rape them first? Sell them into sex slavery? How many horrible things would happen to them?
This is all my fault. All of it.
But why me? Why did these psychos want me?
Was it Kostya? Were they going to use me to get to him?
“Some of these guys are Russian, Holly.” Savannah’s expression showed confusion. “Lana was yelling at them in Russian, and they were just laughing at her in the most condescending way. The others are Mexican. I just—I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Maybe it’s a gang thing,” I guessed. “Like a different family in the Russian mafia and some cartel guys?” I shrugged hopelessly. “I don’t know.”
“Well, we need to figure it out if we have any chance of negotiating for our lives,” she said seriously. After a few tense moments, she added, “I guess you weren’t really sick, huh?”
Ashamed, I shook my head. “Someone broke into my house last night and tried to kill us. Kostya put me in a safe house.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? The guy who broke into your house?”
I shook my head. “He cut me a little, but it’s fine.”
“Is he…?”
I nodded. “He’s dead.”
“Jesus.” A second later, she asked, “Why did you leave the safe house?”
“They sent me pictures of you and Lana. I couldn’t wait. I just…I ran.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “I love you, but you are really dumb sometimes.”
“Rude.” I jostled her shoulder. “But, yeah, it was really dumb.”
“Well, did you at least have a good time with Kostya before all this shit went down?”
My face felt warm as I nodded. “We were naked and in bed when the break-in happened.”
“He banged you like a screen door in a hurricane, huh?” Her mouth quirked with a playful smile.
Laughing and starting to cry at the same time, I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Hey,” she bumped me with her shoulder, “we’re going to be okay.”
“I don’t know, Savvy,” I said, tears running down my face. “This doesn’t feel like something we’re going to walk away from…”
“We have to try,” she insisted. “Whatever this is—whatever they want—we have to do whatever it takes to stay alive until he finds us.” She held my gaze. “Kostya will find us.”
Sniffing, I wiped at my face with the backs of my bound hands. “You’re right. We have to stay calm.”
The plane started to drift lower, the pressure changing enough to make my ears hurt again. I reached out for Savannah’s bound hands, grasping them as best I could. We shared a look, silently communicating what neither of us could say. There was no telling what waited for us on the ground, but we were going to fight to survive.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“WOULD YOU STOP breathing down my neck?” Fox snapped at Sunny as Kostya entered her private lair. She had taken the top floor of the building that held Hen House Security as her own personal space, outfitting it with the best electronics and technology money could buy. He had long ago given up trying to understand what all the different gadgets did or where all the wires went.
“I’m not breathing on you!”
“I can’t think with you hovering over me!”
“Sorry.” Sunny walked away from Fox’s control center and started pacing the floor in the far corner of the room. She raised her head as she finally noticed Kostya and frowned. “We don’t have anything yet.”
“You’re looking in the wrong place.” He stepped behind Fox and scribbled a name on the notepad by her arm.
“Who the fuck is Igor?” she asked, brow furrowed.
“The man who took Holly and her friends,” Frances interjected from the doorway. Dressed in all black, she cut an intimidating figure, her posture stiff and her gaze one of disdain. He could practically hear her thoughts as she glanced around the room, taking in Fox’s messy space. She was probably cataloguing all the faults, the easy security breaches and the lack of exits in a crisis.
“Uh, K?” Fox looked up at him, her eyes wide with surprise. “Why is Holly’s mom here?”
“I’m not her mother. Biologically,” Frances corrected as she walked closer. “I’m her aunt. Maksim is my brother.”
“Holy tangled web,” Fox muttered. “And this Igor guy?”
“He used to be my boss,” Frances explained. “Back when we were—”
“In the KGB,” Fox interrupted, her hands flying to the bottom drawer of her desk. “I got the files last night,” she rambled, hauling out a pile of moldering, yellowed paper crammed into disintegrating green folders. “From our contact in Russia,” she added, flipping open the folders and flicking through the pages. “I’d planned to read them all today, but then I had to take Holly to the safe house and…”
“Focus,” Kostya instructed gently. “Is there something in there that can help us?”
“There was a list of names. Aliases,” she said, as she flicked through the papers. “One of them was Nicaraguan. Something Ortega.”
“Mariano,” Frances said. “I think it was Mariano. He was there with the Sandinistas.”
“Marcelo,” Fox declared, finding the correct page. “Yeah, Marcelo Ortega.”
“His cover was running a coffee plantation,” Kostya remarked, reading over her shoulder. Glancing up at Frances, he asked, “Do you think they would take the girls there?”
“I doubt that plantation is still in his control. It’s been too long. The government would have taken it and privatized it by now,” she guessed. “I don’t know that he would be able to get the political cover he needs to fly into Nicaragua without raising alarm.”
“But if he had one business in Central America, he probably had others,” Sunny suggested. “Like, that’s how y’all made money, right? The high-ranking government members and KGB agents? You laundered money through business interests in other countries.”
“Yes,” Frances agreed. “That was generally the way it was done. It would have been easier to do in places like Central America back then. There wasn’t as much oversight. You could get away with a lot more.”
“So maybe we start looking into the business ties he had back then,” Sunny decided as she hurriedly moved to a computer and plopped down in a rolling chair. “We skiptrace his alias and his business ties to see if any of those old properties or accounts are still active. We dig down deep and look into his old partners and associates.”
“He’s working with L
orenzo Guzman,” Kostya explained. “They have a common enemy.”
“My brother,” Frances clarified.
“I’m sure there’s a long fucking list of people who consider him an enemy,” Fox muttered under her breath. “Sunny, are you good to handle the skiptracing? I finally have access to the flight data I need.”
“Flight data?” Kostya asked, leaning forward for a better look at what she was doing.
“The delivery trucks,” she said, tapping away and scrolling quickly. “Sunny and I were talking about the trucks that were used to take Erin and haul the cartel crew around town. There was a delivery truck parked behind the salon when the kidnappers busted in and took Savannah and Lana. They got hustled into it.”
“You think a similar sort of decoy cargo jet may have been used to get them out of the country,” he said, following her reasonable assumptions. “What are you looking for now?”
“A list of all the flights that took off within, maybe, an hour or two of Holly going missing. I assume they’d want to move quickly.”
“Yes. Ideally, they’d want to take the girls straight to the tarmac and load them in the jet. They’d head south after takeoff so filter out any other destinations.”
“Yep.” Fox winced with pain as she typed.
He frowned. “Are you okay?”
“My feet are killing me,” she grumbled and shrugged. “I guess they’re swollen or something.”
“You sit too much,” Frances interjected. “You’re too young to be spending so much time in a chair. You need to switch to a walking desk.”
“Not really a fan of exercise,” Fox muttered as she scanned the departure data. “These look promising,” she said, pointing at her screen. “And this one. Shit. These two also. We need a better way to narrow down our search.”
“I’ll call Gabe.” Frances moved to a corner of the room for privacy. “He might be able to help us trim down the list of possibilities.”
Fox glanced up at him with surprise. “She knows Gabe?”
“He does some freelancing for her.”