Chapter 36
LEDGER
Three days.
Seventy-two hours since Savannah was taken from our home.
I stand at the windows of my office, staring down at the city that’s supposed to be mine.
Every building, every street, every dark corner should be under my control.
But somewhere down there, in one of those buildings or warehouses or abandoned properties, my pregnant wife is being held by men who want her dead.
And I can’t find her.
Behind me, Silas is on his fourth pot of coffee, coordinating searches across a dozen locations simultaneously. The desk is covered in maps, surveillance photos, lists of Kozlov properties and associates. We’ve torn this city apart looking for her.
Nothing.
“The industrial district is clear,” Silas says, hanging up his phone. “Twenty warehouses searched. No sign of her.”
“Then search them again.”
“Ledger, we’ve been through—”
“I said search them again.” My voice comes out flat, dangerous. “She’s somewhere. They didn’t make her disappear into thin air.”
My phone is on the desk, face up. The fake texts from Savannah’s number stopped coming yesterday. Thirty-seven messages total, over two days, all designed to make it look like she ran away and doesn’t want to be found.
I’m safe. I just need time.
Please stop looking for me. I made my choice.
I’m starting over somewhere new. Somewhere you can’t control me.
The door opens. Alexi walks in, looking like he hasn’t slept in days. He probably hasn’t.
“Anything?” he asks.
“No.”
He sinks into a chair, running his hands through his hair. “This is my fault. I should have been there.”
“Don’t.” I turn from the window. “They would have gotten past you too. They had Isaac on the inside. Had Pedro lured away. They planned this carefully.”
“Isaac is still missing?”
“Silas’s men found his body this morning. Dumped in the desert with a bullet in his head.” I walk to my desk, pick up the surveillance photo of his corpse. “The Kozlovs don’t leave loose ends.”
“So they killed him after he helped them?”
“Of course. He was expendable. Just like Mason was.” I drop the photo. “They use desperate men, promise them money, then kill them when they’re done.”
Alexi stands and walks to the maps spread across the conference table. “What about the traffic cameras? We tracked the SUV to the industrial district, but then nothing?”
“They switched vehicles. Probably had three or four cars staged along the route. By the time we figured out which one she was in, the trail was cold.”
“And her phone?”
“Turned off immediately after the last fake text. Either destroyed or in a Faraday cage. We can’t track it.”
“Bank accounts?”
“No activity since the withdrawals they made to stage her disappearance. They’re not touching her cards or accounts. They don’t need to.” I stare at the map, at all the red circles marking locations we’ve already searched. “They have everything they need. Her. The baby. Time.”
My phone buzzes on the desk. Unknown number.
I grab it. “What?”
“Mr. Volkov.” Dmitri’s voice is calm, pleasant, even. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
Every muscle in my body goes rigid. Silas and Alexi both freeze, watching me.
“Where is she?”
“Safe. For now. I’ve been taking good care of your wife. Making sure she’s comfortable despite the circumstances.”
“If you’ve hurt her—”
“Hurt her? No, no. I’m not a monster, Mr. Volkov. I’ve given her water and let her sleep. Even had a doctor check on the baby.” He pauses. “I didn’t know you were having a son? Congratulations.”
My hand tightens around the phone so hard the case cracks. “Let me talk to her.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible right now. She’s resting. The stress has been difficult for her, you understand. Being eight months pregnant and tied up in a warehouse isn’t ideal for the baby’s health.”
“What do you want?”
“What do I want?” His voice turns cold. “I want you to understand what it feels like to lose everything. To have your family ripped away. To be helpless while the people you love suffer.”
“You touch her and I’ll—”
“Find me? You’ve been looking for three days and haven’t gotten close. My men are everywhere, Mr. Volkov. Watching. Waiting. You can’t move without me knowing.”
“Then why call? Why not just kill her and be done with it?”
“Because death is just the end. The suffering is the point.” He laughs.
“Now comes the second layer,” he continues.
“I’m going to send you something. A video.
And when you watch it, you’ll understand that your wife has been suffering for three days while you wasted time doubting her.
While you searched in all the wrong places.
While she begged for her baby’s life, you weren’t there to save her. ”
My phone buzzes. Incoming email. Unknown sender.
“Watch it, Mr. Volkov. Watch what I’m going to do to your family. And know that you’re completely powerless to stop it.”
The line goes dead.
I open the email. There’s a video file attached. No subject line. No message.
Alexi and Silas crowd around me as I press play.
The video is grainy. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting, but then I see her.
Savannah.
She’s on the concrete floor of what looks like a warehouse. Her wrists and ankles are bound with zip ties. Her dress is dirty and torn. Her hair is tangled. Her face is pale, streaked with tears and dirt.
And her stomach—eight months pregnant, impossibly round—strains against the fabric of her dress as she lies on her side.
“No,” Alexi whispers beside me.
The camera moves closer. Savannah’s eyes are closed. She’s either asleep or unconscious. I can’t tell which.
Then Dmitri’s voice comes from off-camera. “Mrs. Volkov. Wake up.”
She stirs. Opens her eyes. Sees the camera and tries to turn away.
“Look at the camera.”
“No.” Her voice is hoarse, broken. “Please don’t—”
“Look at the camera and tell your husband how you’re feeling.”
She doesn’t move.
Dmitri walks into frame, crouches beside her. Grabs her chin and forces her face toward the camera. “I said look at the camera.”
Her eyes meet the lens. Red-rimmed. Terrified. Exhausted.
“Ledger—” Her voice cracks. “Ledger, I didn’t leave you. I didn’t run. They took me. They—”
“Enough.” Dmitri releases her face and stands. The camera follows him as he walks around her slowly. “Your husband needs to see what happens to the people he loves.”
He stops filming. The video freezes on a close-up of Savannah’s face—pale, terrified, crying.
Then it cuts to black.
I stare at the blank screen.
“Dad.” Alexi’s voice sounds far away. “Dad, we’ll find her. We’ll—”
The phone slips from my hand and clatters on the desk.
Three days.
She’s been in that warehouse for three days. Bound. Alone. Pregnant. While I searched the wrong locations and doubted her, wondering whether she had left me or not.
While I wasted time.
“Ledger.” Silas’s hand is on my shoulder. “We need to—”
“Get everyone here.” My voice comes out flat, emotionless. “Every man we have. Every contact. Every person who owes us a favor.”
“What are you planning?”
“War.” I look up at him. “I’m going to burn the Kozlov family to the ground. Everything they’ve built, I’m going to destroy.”
“That’s going to draw a lot of attention. The FBI, local police—”
“I don’t care.” I stand. “I’m done pretending to be legitimate.”
Alexi is on his phone, making calls. “I’m getting the Chicago family on the line. And New York.”
“Tell them I’m calling in every debt, favor, and alliance we’ve ever made.” I walk to the windows and look out at the city. “And tell them that anyone who helps the Kozlovs dies with them.”
Silas pulls up a map on his laptop. “Kozlov operations. I count seventeen businesses in Vegas alone. Front companies, cash operations, distribution networks.”
“Burn them all.”
“That’s going to take—”
“I don’t care how long it takes. I want every single Kozlov operation destroyed by morning.” I turn to face him. “And I want every one of their associates dead. No warnings. No negotiations. Just eliminate them.”
“You’re going to start a war.”
“They started it when they took Savannah.” I grab my jacket. “I’m just going to finish it.”
My phone rings. Dmitri again.
I answer. “You made a mistake.”
“Did I? I’m looking at your wife right now. She’s crying. Begging for her baby’s life. Doesn’t seem like I made a mistake.”
“You showed me where she is.”
Silence.
“That warehouse,” I continue. “The walls are concrete. Exposed beams in the ceiling. Broken skylights. High ceilings. That narrows it down significantly.”
“You’ll never find it in time.”
“I don’t need to find it. You’re going to bring her to me.”
“Am I?”
“Because starting in about ten minutes, every business you own is going to burn. Every associate you have is going to die. Every operation you’ve spent years building is going to crumble.” I walk toward the door. “And it won’t stop until you give her back.”
“You can’t—”
“Watch me.”
I hang up.
Alexi is waiting by the elevator, phone pressed to his ear. “Chicago is mobilizing. New York wants confirmation on targets. Moscow is standing by.”
“Tell them all targets are green. No restrictions. No rules of engagement.” The elevator doors open. “Anyone associated with the Kozlovs is fair game.”
We ride down in silence. When the doors open to the parking garage, there are already twelve cars waiting. Armed men in dark suits standing beside each vehicle. Silas’s best operators, the ones who handle the problems that can’t be solved with money or diplomacy.
“First target?” one of them asks.
“The shipping warehouse on Industrial Boulevard. Kozlov uses it to distribute product throughout the southwest.” I get into the lead car. “Burn it. Kill everyone inside.”
The convoy pulls out, twelve cars moving through Vegas traffic like a funeral procession. Except we’re not mourning the dead.
We’re making them.
The warehouse on Industrial Boulevard is a large metal building surrounded by a chain-link fence. Two guards at the gate. Security cameras on every corner.
We don’t bother with subtlety.
The first car rams through the gate. The guards reach for their weapons, but my men are faster. Two shots. Both guards down.
The convoy pours into the lot. Men exit vehicles with weapons drawn, moving with military precision toward the warehouse entrance.
Inside, there are maybe twenty Kozlov associates. Workers, distributors, enforcers. They’re not prepared for a full assault.
It’s over in four minutes.
Bodies on the floor. Blood on the concrete. Product scattered everywhere—bricks of cocaine, bundles of cash, weapons.
“Burn it,” I tell Silas.
He nods to his men. They pour gasoline over everything. The product. The cash. The bodies.
One match.
The warehouse explodes into flames, black smoke billowing into the afternoon sky. We’re back in the cars before the fire trucks arrive, already moving toward the next target.
A nightclub on the Strip. Kozlov front for money laundering.
A restaurant in Summerlin. Distribution point.
An auto body shop near the airport. Chop shop for stolen vehicles.
One by one, we hit them all.
By midnight, seven Kozlov operations are burning. Thirty-four associates are dead. The police are scrambling to understand what’s happening, why Vegas is suddenly experiencing what looks like a gang war.
Alexi stays with me through all of it, his face pale but determined. He shoots a man trying to escape from the nightclub. He doesn’t hesitate, just pulls the trigger and keeps moving.
He’s his father’s son.
“We have a problem,” Silas says around 2:00 AM. We’re in the car between targets, covered in soot and blood. “The FBI is getting involved. They’re calling this domestic terrorism.”
“Good.” I reload my gun. “Maybe they’ll find Savannah before I have to kill every Kozlov associate in the state.”
“Ledger, we need to be smart about this. If the feds come after you—”
“I don’t care.” I look at him. “Do you understand? I don’t care about the FBI or the police or the consequences.”
“What if Dmitri kills her because you’re destroying his operations?”
“Then he dies too. And his family. And everyone who ever helped him. It’s as simple as that.” I chamber a round. “But he won’t kill her yet. He wants me to suffer first. Wants me to watch her die. That gives us time.”
“Time for what?”
“To make him so desperate that he makes a mistake.” I look out at the burning city. “Every operation we destroy makes him weaker. Every associate we kill reduces his resources. Eventually, he’ll have to move. And when he does, we’ll find the warehouse.”
My phone buzzes. I’ve been sent a photo and a text from an unknown number.
It’s Savannah. Same warehouse. But this time she’s sitting up, hands still bound. Her eyes are closed. And there’s a gun pressed to her temple.
The message below reads: Keep burning my operations. See what happens.
I stare at the photo. At the gun against my wife’s head. At her exhausted, terrified face.
And I make my decision.
“New plan,” I tell Silas. “Contact every informant we have. Every criminal, every cop, every person who might know where the Kozlovs operate. Offer them anything they want—money, immunity, protection. Someone knows where that warehouse is.”
The phone rings. Dmitri.
“You’re destroying my life’s work,” he says. His voice is strained now, the calm facade cracking.
“Good. Now you know how it feels.”
“I’ll kill her. Right now. Put a bullet in her head and send you the video.”
“No, you won’t. Because the moment she’s dead, you lose your leverage.
And the moment you lose your leverage, I’m coming for you with everything I have.
” I lean back in the seat. “Right now, Savannah is the only thing keeping you alive. So keep her breathing. Keep her safe. Because the second I know she’s dead, you become my only focus. ”
“You can’t win this.”
“Watch me.”
I hang up and look at Silas. “Next target. The cash house on Paradise Road. And this time, leave one alive. Someone who can run back to Dmitri and tell him exactly what I’m doing to his empire.”
The convoy moves through the night, hitting target after target. By dawn, twelve Kozlov operations are destroyed. Fifty-three associates are dead. And the city is burning.
Somewhere in all that smoke and fire and blood, Dmitri Kozlov is watching his empire crumble.
And somewhere in a warehouse, Savannah is waiting for me to find her.
I will find her.
Even if I have to burn Las Vegas to ash to do it.