11. Vitya
Chapter 11
Vitya
I watch Sveta with Samantha while a smile plays at my lips. Samantha has been all giggles lately, and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Sveta’s introduced her to peek-a-boo, and when she moves her hands, revealing her face to the happy baby in front of her, Samantha squeals and gives a deep belly laugh that’s adorable and infectious.
God, I love them both so damn much it hurts.
My girls.
I’d thought the words when I was talking to Val, and it had surprised me then just as much as it surprises me now. I never thought I’d have a my anything and now I have a woman that I can’t imagine not spending the rest of my life with and a baby who feels every bit like she’s mine and always has been.
I swear I can almost hear Seryozha laughing in my ear. He would’ve enjoyed teasing me about this.
Walking into the living room, I sit down next to Sveta, loving how she immediately turns her head to kiss me. I’m not the only one who’s thrilled to finally be able to show affection, and she’s just as spirited about it as I knew she would be. She’s not the kind of woman to ever do anything halfway. She’s the type to go all in, and now that she’s been fully introduced to my cock, she’s fucking obsessed with it. Every chance she gets, she’s groping me in one way or another, and I love every goddamn second of it. This morning I woke up to her mouth on my dick, and as soon as Samantha went down for her afternoon nap, Sveta had stripped and pulled me into the bedroom. Even after all that, when I meet her brown eyes, she’s still looking hungry.
“You’re insatiable, pcholka ,” I tell her.
She grins and gives me a wink. “It’s not my fault you’re so much fun when you’re naked.”
I laugh and pull her closer, kissing her until Samantha squeals at us for attention. We turn back to the smiling baby, more than happy to give her what she wants.
“I can’t believe we have to leave tomorrow,” Sveta says while giving Samantha one of the soft toys I’d picked out for her. It lights up and plays music, and as soon as I push the button on the dog’s paw, Samantha’s eyes light up when a song starts playing.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her. “I won’t allow us to be separated.”
She nods, but she’s still worrying her bottom lip.
“We can call Val when we get to the city, and he can meet us if you think it’ll help,” I remind her.
“It certainly won’t hurt to have him there.”
“Then we’ll call him.”
She sighs and rests her head on my shoulder. “No matter what happens, Vitya, I want you to know that this has been the best week of my life.”
I cup her face and turn her towards me. “This has been the best week of my life, too, Sveta, but don’t talk like things are going to change, because I’m not going to allow that to happen. I love you, and I’m not letting you go.” I glance over at Samantha. “I’m not letting either of you go.”
“Promise?”
I meet her honey-brown eyes. “I promise, Sveta. I love you, and nothing is going to separate us. I’m going to marry you, sweetheart, and we’re going to be a family.”
She grins and cups my face. “You’re not even going to ask me?”
I smile and gently tug on a strand of her hair. “When I have a ring to put on your finger, I will.”
“I wonder what I’ll say,” she whispers.
“It better be an exuberant yes or you’ll be breaking my heart, pcholka .”
She gives a soft shrug. “Guess you’ll have to wait and find out.”
I laugh and give her another kiss, loving that she’s always going to keep me on my toes. When I pull back, she’s smiling up at me and giving me one of her heated looks. I’m slowly learning to read her arousal levels, and right now she’s sitting firmly at you might want to limber up before bed tonight because I’m going to wear your ass out.
“God, I’m the luckiest fucking man alive,” I whisper against her lips. “I’ll give you what you’re begging me for,” I promise her, “but first I’m going to go get some firewood. It might snow tonight, and I thought it’d be nice to have a fire.”
Her face lights up, and I’m not at all surprised when her mind immediately goes to food. “We can make s’mores!”
“I didn’t buy any marshmallows,” I tell her, but she just waves her hand toward the kitchen in a don’t you worry your pretty little head about that kind of way.
“We always have s’more supplies here.”
I raise a brow at her. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Because you know me well enough to know I’d never go anywhere without a bag of marshmallows?”
I smile at her and say, “Exactly. You’re insatiable in more ways than one, sweetheart.”
“Apparently, I just need dick and sugar.”
Laughing, I cup her face. “I think you’re forgetting a very important word in that sentence.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“You’re supposed to say I just need your dick and sugar. ”
She grins and kisses me. “I just need your dick and sugar.”
“Much better.” I give her another kiss before standing up. “I’m going to go and get some wood. I’ll be right back.”
She smacks my ass and smiles up at me. “Hurry back. I’m going to need your dick again soon.”
I shake my head at her in mock disappointment. “I’m more than just a piece of meat, Sveta.”
She quirks a brow at me. “You are?”
I can’t help but laugh at what a smartass she can be. God, I love this woman. She gives my ass another smack before I walk away to get the firewood. Throwing my jacket on, I step outside and scan the line of trees that runs around the property. I’ve been keeping an eye on things, and I haven’t seen any signs of anything even remotely suspicious, but that doesn’t stop me from spending several minutes walking around the house and checking again. When I walk past the trellis on the side of the house, I take a second to stop and inspect it. It goes up to the second-floor window, and when I test the strength of it, I let out a groan at the thought of Sveta climbing her way down this thing. I’d say I can’t believe she was fucking crazy enough to do it, but I’m not at all surprised. I can easily imagine her flinging her beautiful leg out the window and scurrying her perfect ass down the side of the house. She probably laughed the whole way down.
I’m going to have my hands full with her.
I’m still smiling at the thought as I load up my arms with firewood and head back inside. While I start the fire, Sveta gives Samantha her bottle, and by the time I’m finished, she’s already burping her and then putting her in her playpen so she can kick at her piano. We watch her for a few minutes, and when I start toward the kitchen to get supper going, I see Sveta reaching for her sketchpad. She’s been working on a new drawing of Samantha, and I know she’s eager to get it finished.
After I’ve put the chicken in the oven, I set the timer and walk back into the living room. I don’t see Sveta and when I walk over to the playpen, I smile at the sight of Samantha sprawled out and in a deep sleep. I reach down and graze her cheek, whispering that I love her before going in search of Sveta. I find her by the side door that leads outside. She’s staring at the spot where I’d been stabbed, so lost in thought that she doesn’t realize I’m next to her until I’m standing right behind her.
She lets out a sigh and leans against me when I wrap my arms around her chest. “I’ve never been so scared in my life,” she whispers.
I lower my face to hers so our cheeks are touching as we both stare at the floor, remembering the night I almost died. “I’m fine,” I remind her. “I’m right here, and I’m alive and well because of you.”
She gives a quick nod, unable or unwilling to look away and turn her back on the memories that still haunt her.
“I dream about it sometimes,” she admits. “Except in my dreams, I can’t save you. I scream at you to stay awake, to stay with me, but you just slip away, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Her voice is shaky and low, and I can hear the tremor in her words.
“I hate that you have nightmares about me, and I hate that you still worry.” I kiss her face and tighten my grip on her. “I wish I could take it all away, but I can’t. There’s no changing the past, I live with that painful truth every damn day, but we can’t let the memories ruin our future, pcholka . We’re together. That’s all that matters.”
She nods and turns her head enough to see me. “You’re right. I just get scared thinking about something happening to you. I don’t know what I’d do.”
I step in front of her so I can cup her face. “You’d survive, Sveta, because you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
She shakes her head and fists my shirt. “Don’t say that. Promise me nothing is ever going to happen to you.”
“I gave you my word that I would never lie to you. You know my job is dangerous. I promise that I will love you and be faithful to you for the rest of my life.”
I’m surprised when a tear falls down her cheek. “Not good enough,” she whispers on a shaky breath.
“I promise I will do everything I can to always come back to you.”
She shakes her head again as I guide her to the wall behind us, and when she’s flush against it, I start to unbutton her jeans and slide them down her legs.
“I promise that I will worship your body every chance I can, and I promise that you will always be surrounded by my love.”
“And that nothing bad will ever happen to you,” she says again.
I yank her panties off and unzip my pants so I can free my cock. Grabbing her hips, I lift her up and bring my mouth to hers.
With the head of my cock pressed firmly against her pussy, she clasps her hands behind my neck and begs me for a promise that I know is stupid to give. I can’t guarantee that I won’t be killed while working for her family’s Bratva, but I also know that I can’t deny her this when she needs it so badly. Her soft brown eyes search mine, begging me to give her this reassurance, and when I start to slide into her, I meet her eyes and say, “I promise I will always come back to you, Sveta.” I slam into her, the force of it pulling a groan from both of us. “Nothing could ever keep me from you.”
Relief fills her eyes before she kisses me hard. I know the promise is reckless, that I’m tempting fate and giving her a hope that will shatter into a million pieces if something happens to me, but I can’t take the words back now that I’ve said them.
Her arms and legs wrap around me, clinging to me as I fuck her hard against the wall. Our mouths lock in a hungry kiss, neither one of us able to get enough of the other as she clenches so damn tightly around me, reminding me with each thrust that she’s my home, my life, my entire fucking world.
When she moans into my mouth and I feel her body tense with her release, I let go with her, swallowing her screams as I fill her pussy with everything I have. She leaves me breathless and shaky, disoriented in the best way possible, and it happens every time I’m with her. I lose myself in this woman so easily.
“I love you, Sveta, so fucking much,” I whisper against her lips.
I feel her smile, the lazy kind she always gives me after a good orgasm. Her fingers run through my hair, dragging her nails along my scalp in the way that she knows drives me crazy .
“I love you too, Vitya, so fucking much.”
“No more worrying, baby. Everything is going to be fine.”
She nods and kisses me again while I slowly lift her off me. A familiar wave of sadness hits me when our bodies part. I hate leaving her. I hate breaking that connection and putting distance between us. I know she feels the same way, because as soon as I set her down, she closes the distance again and presses her body to mine in a tight hug, burying her face in my chest as I wrap my arms around her and cup the back of her head. Neither one of us is in any hurry to move, so we don’t. We stand just feet from where she saved my life two years ago and hold each other.
“Have I ever told you how much I love knowing that at one time your blood was running through my veins?” I ask her.
“No,” she whispers, and then she gives a soft laugh. “You’ve also never thanked me for giving you that blood.”
I kiss her head, breathing in the scent of her. “Maybe I’ll have to do that one day,” I tell her, smiling when she huffs out a small breath of air.
She lifts her head to say something, but the oven timer goes off right as she opens her mouth. I smile down at her and kiss the tip of her nose and smack her bare ass.
“Time for supper, pcholka .”
“I swear you planned that somehow.”
“That would be pretty amazing if I had. I’m good, baby, but I’m not that good.”
She laughs and grabs her panties off the floor while I tuck myself away and then help her with her jeans. We walk back hand in hand, determined to enjoy every second of our last night here.
Samantha wakes up as I’m getting the chicken out of the oven, and after we eat, we spend the rest of the night together as a family. Sveta eats her weight in s’mores and tries like hell to get me to try one. I don’t. I kiss her afterwards, though, and it’s enough to give me a sugar rush. It’s a perfect night, better than perfect, and later on when I fall asleep with Sveta’s body tucked in tightly against mine, I can’t imagine life getting any better than this .
I should’ve known it was too good to last. My brother’s death should’ve taught me that lesson, that everything I love will always be ripped from my grasp and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do to stop it.
As soon as I open my eyes, I know something is wrong. I can sense it, a dread that burrows its way into my bones, making it hard for me to breathe. The room is dark, but even before I reach for Sveta, I know she’s not there. The bed is empty, and when I turn on the light and sit up, all I can see is an empty crib in front of me.
I try to tell myself that everything is fine, that Sveta is probably just giving Samantha her bottle on the couch so she doesn’t wake me, but I know it’s not true. The sinking feeling in my gut is screaming at me that they’re gone. Throwing the covers aside, I grab my gun from the nightstand and run out of the room, hoping like hell that my instincts are wrong, but instead of seeing a smiling Sveta, who’s rolling her eyes and telling me I’m overreacting, there’s an empty house, and the weight of it is oppressive.
Keeping quiet, I do a quick sweep of the downstairs, but every passing minute has my heart racing and my mind spiraling out of control. When I see that her shoes and jacket are missing, I throw on my own boots and walk outside. I’m only in my boxers and it’s started to snow, but I don’t feel anything. I’m numb to everything except the weight on my chest that’s growing heavier and heavier. When I see the fresh tire tracks in the dusting of snow, I let out a ragged yell, my heart breaking in my chest at the realization.
They’re gone.
Someone came in and stole my world right out from under my fucking nose. The snow has stopped, leaving the tire tracks visible, and when I check my watch, it’s a little after four. Samantha usually gets up at one for a feeding, so they could be three hours away by now, maybe more, maybe less. I can’t fucking think, and the blind terror is threatening to close in on me.
I force myself to go back inside, and all I can think about is the promise I’d made Sveta earlier. I was wrong. I’d been so fucking wrong. The promise I was so worried about giving her, when all this time I should’ve been making her promise me that she’d be safe, that she’d always be next to me, and that she’d never leave.
Once inside, I do a thorough search of the house, noticing things I’d missed earlier in my panic. Samantha’s diaper bag is gone and so is her car seat. When I check the kitchen, a couple of boxes of formula are missing. Knowing that Sveta was able to grab some basic supplies makes me feel slightly better. Whoever took them allowed it, so he must not want either of them dead, at least not yet.
Grabbing my phone, when I search for Sveta’s location, I’m not at all surprised to see the map showing that her phone is still here at the house. I hadn’t expected her kidnapper to let her keep it, but it sure as fuck would’ve been nice. Swiping down my contact list, I hit the one number I really don’t want to call. Even though I know I’m waking him, Vitaly answers immediately.
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s gone,” I tell him, barely recognizing the hollow sound of my own voice. “They’re both gone.”
“What the fuck happened? And what do you mean both ?”
“Someone came and took them,” I say again, knowing I’m not making sense to him, but I can barely breathe at this point. All I can think about is how scared they must be and how I’m not there to protect them. “Sveta and Samantha, they’re gone.”
“Who the hell is Samantha?” Vitaly growls at me. I can hear Katya’s frantic voice in the background, and a few seconds later, Val’s joins in.
“Our baby,” I whisper.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
Vitaly’s words are a confused growl, but before I can even try to answer, Val’s voice is on the line. “Tell me everything you know, Vitya.”
“I woke up and they were gone. There are tire tracks outside, but I don’t know how old they are. Sveta took the first feeding, and that’s usually at one.”
“Don’t move,” he warns me. “Don’t do anything. We’re leaving now. I’ll get in touch with Niki on the way and see what he has for us. We’re gonna get them back, Vitya.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I hear his dad say before a car door is slammed shut.
“Listen to me,” Val says again. “We’re going to get them back. You hear me?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, but it’s lackluster at best. He hangs up while I fall to my knees. Hands braced on the floor, I try to suck in a breath, but my lungs won’t loosen enough for me to get any air. I haven’t had a panic attack since my brother’s death, and this one hits me hard. It’s paralyzing and suffocating and it threatens to drown me. I can’t lose them. I won’t fucking survive it. My hand tightens on my gun, letting the hard metal ground me and remind me of where I need to be putting my focus. I will find my girls. I can’t allow myself to envision any other outcome. I’m getting them back, and I’m going to get the motherfucker who dared to take them from me and tear him apart limb from fucking limb.
With my focus purely on revenge, I get up and dress in warm clothes before pulling my boots back on. Tucking my gun into the waistband of my jeans, I grab my phone and jacket and then go in search of a flashlight. The sun hasn’t risen yet, and I want to take a look around outside. While I dig through one of the kitchen drawers, I spot one of Sveta’s sketchpads on the counter. I’d been in such a rush earlier that I hadn’t paid it much attention, but when I see the drawing of Samantha, my heart tightens in my chest. I’m so overcome with grief that I almost miss the scribbled writing in the corner of the paper.
Taking it in my hands, I read over the words. It’s Sveta’s writing, but it’s sloppy and rushed, and I know she must’ve hurried and written me a message when she’d been grabbing Samantha’s formula.
White truck, S’s dad.
Beneath the sparse description, she’d managed to scrawl out a quick Love you beneath it.
My thoughts are all over the place because my emotions are constantly threatening to consume me, so I force myself to take a breath and think. Sveta risked everything to write me this. Part of me hates that she took the chance, and the other part of me is so goddamn proud of her. She knew I’d remember the white truck from the grocery store parking lot, the one I’d had a hunch was following us, but how the fuck could that be Samantha’s dad?
I send a quick text to Val, letting him know about the note and what it means so he can pass it on to Niki and his dad. If anyone can get the information we need, it’s those two. Finding a flashlight in the next drawer I check, I head outside and start looking around. There’s no sign of anyone forcing their way at any of the doors or downstairs windows, so I aim the flashlight at the second floor and do another circle around the house. When I get to the rose trellis, the same one I’d been looking at just a short time ago, I aim the flashlight at the window above me and hiss out a curse. The window is open. It must’ve been left unlocked, and the bastard climbed right up, letting himself in the same way Sveta and Natalya had snuck out. I curse my own stupidity for not double-checking all the windows upstairs, and in a moment of rage, I grab the trellis, ripping it from the side of the house and tossing it aside before following the tire tracks, desperate to find any sign or hint of where they’ve gone.
An hour later, I’m freezing my ass off when I see the burnt orange color of Val’s Jaguar turn onto the drive. I’ve been searching the woods, but there’s no sign of anything being out of place, no hint that anyone’s been watching us, and no other tracks aside from the white truck that evidently drove up, grabbed my life, and sped away with it.
I wave a hand at Val when I emerge from the trees to meet them at the front of the house. By the time I get there, the rest of his family is already pulling in, and Vitaly is glaring at me like he wants nothing more than to pull his gun out and shoot me. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t already.
When I’m only a few feet away from him, he points his finger at me and yells, “I’m going to fucking kill you as soon as we find my daughter. The only reason you’re still breathing is because I need everyone working on this. ”
“Dad, you can’t kill him,” Val tells him, ignoring the look his dad gives him. “Sveta loves him. She’ll never forgive you.”
He shakes his head like he doesn’t believe it for a second while Lev gives me a what the fuck were you thinking look. Roman and Luka usher us all into the house, and Vitaly lets out a disbelieving huff when he sees all the baby items cluttering the living room.
“Okay, this is what we have so far.” Danil and Niki set their laptops on the kitchen island while Max starts making coffee. “The house you found Samantha in is owned by Wesley Hicks.” Danil flips his computer around so I can see the image of his driver’s license. I recognize him immediately.
“I slit his throat that night,” I tell them.
Danil reaches over and taps a few keys, pulling up two more images. “And this is Bill and Alan Butler. They’re brothers who were renting rooms at the house.”
Sasha leans against the island and takes the mug of coffee Max hands him. “I killed those two fuckers.”
“Right,” Danil says, “so that leaves this guy.” He pulls up another photo, one I don’t recognize, but then Niki turns his screen around, showing the face of a woman. It’s hard to place her as the rotten corpse I’d found in the closet, but it’s definitely her.
“She was already dead when we got there. I found Samantha next to her body,” I tell them, even though I know Val has already filled them in.
“This is Dana Miller, Samantha’s mom, and she was involved with Shane Lyons. There’s a hospital record of her giving birth four months ago,” Niki says. “A little girl, only five pounds when she was born, and I dug around and found the hospital notes. There were drugs in Dana’s system when she came in. The birth certificate lists her and Shane as the parents. They named her Erin Lyons.”
“What kind of vehicle does Shane drive?” I ask them.
Niki looks over at me. “A white F-150.”
“How the fuck did he know we were here?” I slam my hand onto the counter, so pissed I can barely think. “No one followed us here. I made sure of it, and there’s been no sign of anyone.”
“Well, he found you,” Vitaly says. “You took his kid and pulled my daughter into all this.”
“I saved her life, and I couldn’t just dump her off at some hospital.” I meet the pair of eyes that are so goddamn similar to the woman I love that it’s painful to see. “I love your daughter, and I love that baby. I couldn’t walk away from either of them.”
“Keep digging around for information,” Matvey tells Niki, squeezing his nephew’s shoulder as he walks by. “We need to know where the bastard is.”
“I went back and found his laptop,” Sasha tells me. He points to the one Niki is working on. Danil leans closer, watching his son as they have a whispered conversation about how best to find what we’re looking for.
When I realize it’s going to take longer than just a few minutes, I turn around and lean against the counter, waving away the cup of coffee Max offers. I can’t stomach the idea of eating or drinking anything right now. Val takes the spot next to me.
“We’re going to find them,” he tells me, and I can hear the determination in his voice.
I look over at him, noticing the haunted look in his eyes and knowing this is killing him too. It’s his twin sister out there and none of us know what’s being done to her. She’d hate to see him so worried, so I nod my head at him and say, “He let her pack things for Samantha. If he wanted either of them dead, he wouldn’t have done that.”
Val thinks for a minute. “Maybe he needs her to take care of Samantha. You said when you found her that she was starving and that it was obvious she’d been there a while. He clearly doesn’t give a shit about his baby or have the faintest idea of how to take care of her. As long as he needs Sveta for something, she’ll be okay.”
“She’s smart, Val, we both know how fucking smart she is. We’re getting her back.”
Vitaly watches us, the murderous look in his eyes is still there, but it’s not quite as intense when he meets my stare. I know he’s just worried about his daughter, but I also know that he’s not getting rid of me this easily. I’m marrying his daughter. He’s stuck with me for a son-in-law, whether he likes it or not.
Unable to just stand here, I push off from the counter and start to pace the room. With each passing minute, I feel my sanity start to slip, and when the minutes turn to hours, I know I’m reaching my breaking point. As frustrated as I am, I know I can’t take it out on anyone but myself. I’m the one who fucked up here. No one else. Just me. Her family is doing everything they can to fix my fuck-up, and I know I’ll never be able to repay them for it.
Roman and Luka eventually start making a quick lunch for everyone, but I can’t bring myself to eat anything. Vitaly waves away the turkey sandwich that Luka tries to give him, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the man turn food down. He looks as miserable as I feel. While the others eat, he walks around the living room, and when he spots his daughter’s sketchpad, he sits on the couch and starts thumbing through it. This is her bigger pad, the one she’s been filling up with drawings of Samantha, and, thankfully, not the one with the nudes. He flips to the earlier pages, and when he sees all the drawings she’d done of me, he looks over and asks, “How long?”
He doesn’t need to elaborate. I know what he’s asking. “I never crossed the line with her. It wasn’t until after I found Samantha and we came here.”
He holds up one of the drawings. It’s from one of their family dinners, so old that Natalya is pregnant with Isabella in it. In the sketch, Sveta has zeroed in on me. She’d captured me standing in the corner, watching over her, just like I’ve always done.
I hold his stare, letting him see the truth of what I’m saying. “I never crossed the line with her until after we came here with Samantha.”
“But you wanted to.”
It’s not a question, so I don’t bother answering it. His lips tighten in a firm line as he keeps flipping through the sketchpad. “And she wanted you to,” he eventually says, his words so low I almost miss them.
“I love her,” I tell him again, but he just sighs and tosses the book aside before scrubbing a hand over his face.
“I don’t want to fucking hear it right now,” he tells me.
I don’t fight him on it. I just sit down across from him and reach for the stuffed bunny that Samantha loves so much. I nearly lose control of my emotions when I picture her cute smiling face. I know Sveta is taking care of her, but who’s taking care of Sveta? She’d give her life to protect the baby that she’s quickly fallen in love with and that scares the hell out of me.
I miss them both so much it makes my chest ache. They’re my family, my whole fucking life, and I can’t breathe without them.
“I found something.”
Vitaly and I both jump up at Niki’s words, running across the room to see what he’s dug up. Danil looks over at his son’s screen, says something to him that I don’t catch, and then starts typing on his own laptop, fingers flying across the keys in the skilled way that only few can manage. It goes so far beyond just being a skilled typer. They can unearth things that most people can’t even comprehend. They’re an invaluable asset to the Bratva, and they’ve saved our asses on more than one occasion.
“He’s going to sell the baby,” Niki says, and it’s the last thing I’m expecting him to say.
“What? What do you mean?” I quickly ask, and then my mind immediately goes to the worst case scenario and I start to feel nauseous. “Who is he selling her to?”
Niki quickly shakes his head. “No, not like that. It’s a couple who wants to buy her. They can’t have kids, so they’ve arranged to buy her from Shane.”
“He’s selling his baby?” The disgust in Vitaly’s voice is mirrored in all our faces.
“He is,” Niki confirms, “for a hundred thousand.”
“Jesus,” I groan. “Do you know when it’s happening?”
“Give me a sec,” Danil says, still clicking away on his keyboard and never once taking his eyes off the screen. After a tense few minutes, he finally says, “It’s happening tomorrow at midnight. They’re meeting at a spot that’s thirty minutes outside of the city. It’s a remote location. We can get there and have our men surround the place before they arrive. We’ll take him out and get Sveta and the baby back.”
“If he brings her,” Vitaly says, voicing all our fears.
“He will,” Roman tells him.
“And if he doesn’t,” Matvey adds, “we’ll torture him to within an inch of his life until he tells us what we want to know.”
“He won’t hurt her before he sells Samantha,” Lev says. “He needs Sveta to take care of her until then.”
“I’m going to call Timofey and let him know what’s going on. He can gather everyone and have them set up a perimeter around the meeting site,” Roman says, already putting his phone to his ear.
“I need to call Katya and update her,” Vitaly says, walking away and sounding like he’d rather do anything other than have to tell his wife that their daughter is still missing.
I stand next to Niki, looking at his screen as he scrolls through Shane’s laptop. He may only be sixteen, but the kid is wise beyond his years. Sensing that I’m close to losing it, he starts pulling up everything he’s found and explaining it to me so that I have something to focus on. He’s throwing me a lifeline, and I gladly fucking take it.
I don’t know how I’m going to make it until tomorrow night without them. I can’t stop worrying about every little thing that could be going wrong, but I try to push all of it aside and focus on Niki’s words. He shows me more photos of Shane and Dana, and I may be biased about our sweet little girl, but I see nothing of her parents in her. They look cruel and have the spaced-out look of someone who hasn’t been fully sober in a very long time. Our girl has the cutest, sweetest face, and her eyes are bright and clear. There’s an inquisitiveness in them that her birth parents lack. They may be responsible for her conception, but she’s our daughter.
In thirty-six hours, I’m killing this bastard, and I’m getting my family back.