3. Vadim
3
VADIM
In the distance, a concrete building—where Sayanaa's tracked location is pinging— rises from the darkness like a ghost in the mist. My hands gripping the steering wheel tight enough to make my knuckles white as I bring my car to a stop. Behind me, two more cars mirror our action.
My hand still throbs in pain, but it gives me focus.
"Out," I command my men. "We proceed on foot."
It takes us no more than five minutes to sneak up in the rain, and I look at the situation before us. Three guards stand outside, smoking.
Lacey and Serena are there.
They have to be.
" Gotovi? " I ask my men. Ready?
Nods all around. Good. These are my most loyal boeviki , handpicked for their ruthlessness. I won't need to repeat myself.
"Kill them all," I order. "Anyone who stands between us and that building is a dead man."
My men fan out, weapons already drawn. The guards barely have time to reach for their guns before my boeviki open fire. Three bodies hit the ground as thunder rumbles overhead.
We rush towards the building. Somewhere inside, that psychotic bitch Sayanaa is probably getting off on all this.
The front door suddenly bursts open. Armed men stream out, weapons raised. More of Kirsan's thugs, responding to the gunfire. I count at least twelve of them.
"Kill them!" I command.
My men take positions behind any cover they can find, already returning fire. The air fills with gunshots and dying men. But I keep moving forward, one step at a time. Nothing will keep me from that building. Nothing will keep me from Lacey.
The first wave falls quickly under our coordinated assault. I step over their bodies and rip the door open. My boeviki follow closely behind me.
Gunfire erupts from inside. I dive behind a concrete pillar as bullets chip away at the edges. The dark red lights flicker overhead, casting strange shadows across the warehouse floor.
A woman's scream pierces through the gunfire.
I peek around the pillar and see one of Kirsan's men dragging a terrified woman in front of him. My finger tightens on the trigger, but I can't get a clean shot without risking her.
A gunshot rings out and the woman crumples. Then another. And another.
"Fuck!" I curse, recognizing what's happening.
"Take the shots if you have them!" I command my men in Russian. "Don't let them murder any more!"
I move from cover to cover, looking for angles. Another scream cuts off with a gunshot. These animals are systematically executing everyone who could testify against them.
I spot movement to my left—one of Kirsan's men raising his gun to another victim's head. My bullet takes him through the temple before he can pull the trigger. His victim collapses, in shock but still alive.
But for every one we save, I hear another execution. The sound of each gunshot feels like a personal failure. These women were supposed to be rescued, not slaughtered!
I press forward, staying low, searching for any sign of Lacey or Serena among the chaos. The concrete walls amplify every shot and scream into a hellish cacophony.
A flash of movement catches my eye. One of Kirsan's men grabs a young woman, using her as a human shield.
His eyes are wild, desperate. He knows he's cornered.
"Stay back!" he shouts, pressing his gun to the girl's temple. She whimpers, tears streaming down her face.
I keep my weapon trained on him, looking for an opening. His shoulder is exposed—just barely—as he shifts his grip on the terrified woman.
I take the shot.
The bullet tears through his shoulder. He screams, releasing his hostage as he crumples to the ground. His gun clatters across the concrete floor.
I kick the weapon away and press my boot into his wounded shoulder. "Where are they?" I demand in Russian. "Where's my wife? Where's my sister?"
He spits blood at my feet. "Fuck you!"
My finger tightens on the trigger, rage burning through me. But movement catches my eye—the women huddled against the walls, watching with terrified expressions.
I can't execute someone in front of them. They've seen enough violence tonight.
"Get them out of here," I order one of my boeviki in Russian. "Call ambulances. Make sure they're taken care of."
I grab the wounded man by his collar and drag him toward the exit.
"Take this mudak outside," I tell another of my men. "Make it quick."
I search through the building, my heart pounding harder with each woman I pass who isn't Lacey. Some huddle against walls, trembling. Others lie motionless on the ground. My men escort the survivors out while I move deeper into the building.
"Lacey!" My voice echoes off concrete walls. No answer.
No… No! No! No!
I start checking the corpses, rolling each one over with shaking hands. Dark hair, not blonde. Wrong build. Too tall. Each corpse that isn't her brings both relief and escalating panic.
Where the hell can they be?
"Vadim Petrovich," one of my men calls. "We've cleared the building. No sign of her."
I slam my fist against the wall as I storm back outside in the rain, the pain barely registering through my fury. That's when I spot it—a heavy metal door set near the back wall.
A cellar entrance.
The man I ordered executed lies crumpled nearby, blood pooling beneath him. I step over his body.
"Open it," I command my men, gesturing to the cellar door.
Two boeviki grab the handles and heave it open. I draw my gun and start down the concrete steps, my footsteps echoing in the enclosed space. Stale air wafts up from the darkness below.
At the bottom, fluorescent lights flicker to life, illuminating what looks like an office. And there, tied to a chair, is Lacey. Beside her is a girl who looks almost like a mirror image of my Mom.
Serena. I think. It has to be.
The two of us stare at each other, and time seems to freeze. Neither of us moves as our eyes—so much like Mom's—drink in every detail.
There's recognition Serena's eyes, and for a moment, I'm a boy again as I stare back through a haze of tears at Polina to look at me one last time before Pyotr ripped me from her arms.
Then, a gentle hint of citrus and lavender comes drifting over, and my eyes find Lacey. Her amber-flecked irises shimmer in the light, and relief floods through me.
My hands shake as I holster my weapon and rush towards both of them.
" Zvyozdochka ," I whisper. "I should have protected you better. I should have known Olga would?—"
"Vadim, listen to me!"
Lacey's voice is panicked and insistent. But I can't stop the words tumbling out, desperate to erase the fear in her eyes. "I'll make this right. I swear I'll?—"
"VADIM!" Her voice cracks like a whip. "Stop apologizing and listen !"
My hands still on the ropes as I finally register the urgency in her tone.
"This is a trap," she says, her words coming fast now. "Sayanaa called the police. She's setting you up to take the fall for everything—the trafficking, the murders upstairs, all of it."
Ice spreads through my veins as the pieces click into place. The too-easy phone trace. The systematic executions upstairs meant to eliminate witnesses.
Even Sayanaa's theatrical phone call makes sense now.
She wanted me emotional, reckless, charging in without thinking.
And I did…
"The police are already on their way," Lacey continues. "She wants them to find you here, in charge of all this. We need to go, now ."
I finish untying her bonds, my mind racing. If what she's saying is true, we have minutes at most before this place is surrounded.
"Wrap it up and get ready to move now!" I shout up the stairs in Russian. "Police are coming!"
My men respond immediately, herding the shell-shocked women toward the exits. None of them speak English, and none of them are responding to Russian either. I look at their faces, seeing the characteristic features of Tuvans from the Russian Far East, and realize that there isn't a single person here who can talk to them.
I stare at the women huddled in the rain, their terrified faces illuminated by flashing lightning. Every fiber of my being screams at me to help them, to get them somewhere safe and warm. But police sirens are already wailing in the distance, getting closer with each passing second.
"Get in the car. Now." My voice comes out harsher than intended as I usher Lacey and Serena toward our escape vehicle.
Serena pulls back, those storm-gray eye—so like my own, so like Mom's—fixed on the group of women. "But what about them? We can't just leave them here!"
The sirens grow louder. My men are already peeling away in their vehicles, following our predetermined escape routes.
"Listen to me carefully," I grip Serena's shoulders, forcing her to meet my eyes. "I cannot help anyone if I'm arrested. These women will be taken care of by the police. But if they catch me here, everything I've been doing will fall apart. Do you understand?"
She nods, tears mixing with the rain on her cheeks.
"Get in the car. Now."
They climb into the backseat together, Lacey wrapping a protective arm around my sister. I slide behind the wheel, my hands clenching white-knuckled around the leather.
The first police cars zoom past us just as we turn the corner, their lights painting the wet road in strobing red and blue.
I force myself not to look back at the women we're leaving behind, and my self-loathing deepens by the second at the choice I've made.