Vanessa #2
“Sorry, mate, but your woman knows how to handle herself and any asshole who dares cross her. You can’t blame me for trying to recruit her to my team.” Then he turns to Braxton. “So it’s your old lady who seems to have brought us here today.”
I assume Braxton is going to correct Liam and tell him I’m not his old lady, or something along those lines, but he doesn’t.
“It is. Thanks for coming,” is what he says instead, and he holds out his hand to shake Liam’s in a firm grip. “Vanessa, Liam. Liam, Vanessa.”
“Vanessa Krainyukov, a.k.a. Vanessa Krain. Your stepbrother is a nasty piece of work. His name has come up in several files that Camryn’s late sister had possession of,” Liam says.
“No one has to tell me how awful he is. I lived with the bastard,” I tell him. “He and Sokolov have my sister and mom.”
“Yes, my brother apprised me of the situation.” Liam turns to Ozzy. “Can we use your office? Maybe this isn’t the best place to talk particulars,” he says, looking at Syd and Colby.
Ozzy nods and heads toward his office with Jude and Knox following. Liam is next, and Braxton takes a step to follow, but I stop him.
“I’m your old lady now?” I ask, looking up at him.
Braxton nods. “Yup.”
“And you didn’t think that needed more of a discussion?”
“Nope. Do you?”
I open and close my mouth, not sure what to say. “I…I guess not,” I finally say.
“Come on,” he says, nodding toward the office. “We need to get a plan in place, preferably before Russ reaches out.” He takes my hand and pulls me in the direction of Ozzy’s office.
When we enter, Ozzy is behind his desk with Knox and Jude sitting on the couch and Liam sitting in one of the two chairs in front of Ozzy’s desk.
“Have a seat,” Ozzy says, and I take the other empty chair with Braxton standing behind me.
“So Sokolov has your sister and mum? And we have no idea where they are, but Nikolai Petrov’s hacker, Fallon, has been working on it?”
“Right,” I say. “Though he refers to her as his computer specialist.”
Liam laughs. “Oh, Sawyer is going to love that one. Jude told me about the box that he left for you at Midnight Rose, and that he plans on making contact for a trade. Your sister and mother for you.”
“Yes,” I confirm.
“Are you aware of the businesses that Sokolov and your stepbrother run?”
“Illegal casinos, strip clubs, and I think a couple laundromats that they clean the money through,” I answer.
“That’s not all. They run—or rather, ran— a successful human trafficking ring on this side of the pond.
They were in league with some powerful men here and in Russia.
They weren’t at the top of the food chain as far as human traffickers go, and we suspect it wasn’t the largest, but they definitely had their hand in that particular cookie jar.
We know it goes deeper than them, and we’ve been working on taking those fuckers out as we find them. ”
My eyes widen. “Human trafficking?”
Liam nods.
“I mean…I knew he wasn’t above breaking the law, but no, I didn’t know that. I’d heard rumors about girls disappearing if Sokolov said the word, but I didn’t know exactly what that meant, and I kept as far away from that guy as possible.”
“We’ve learned quite a bit about Damien Sokolov, but like Nik and Ozzy, we haven’t been able to nail him down. If Fallon gets him before Sawyer, I’ll never hear the end of it,” Liam says, rolling his eyes.
“Focus, brother. Let’s get to him first, who gives a toss on the who?” Jude says.
“Right, right.” Liam pulls a small case out of his pocket.
“So, I have a little bit of tech here that is going to come in handy. He said absolutely no Black Roses and threatened to kill all of you if he sees one. Since we don’t have eyes on him, we obviously aren’t going to wait until we can find them.
” He opens the case and takes out what looks like…
a hollow tooth? “When he contacts you, you’re going to meet him with this in your mouth. ”
“What the hell is that?” Braxton asks.
“It’s actually a tracking device that will fit over one of your molars. It’s silicone, so it will mold to the shape of your tooth, and to the untrained eye, no one will be able to see it. And every eye is untrained, because these haven’t even hit the black market yet.”
“Okay, then what?” I ask.
“Then we track you from a safe distance, and with this little device, even if they search you, they’ll never find it. No one ever looks in the mouth, not that they would see it even if they did, rest assured. But we’ll know exactly where you are at all times.”
“This plan has more holes than Swiss cheese,” Braxton says. “What if they don’t take her to her mom and sister? What if she bites too hard and breaks it? What if they fucking kill her before we can get to her?”
The leather of the chair I’m sitting in creaks, and I look behind me to find Braxton gripping the back so tightly his knuckles are bone white.
“Nothing is foolproof, Braxton. She won’t break the tracker, that I can guarantee. Everything else I can’t. But since time is of the essence, and we’ve hit roadblock after roadblock, our options are limited at this point,” Liam says.
“I fucking hate this,” Braxton grits out as my phone dings with an incoming text.
Unlocking the screen, I see an address and a time. Then another text comes through.
Unknown: If I see one biker, everyone dies.
I look at Braxton, who is reading the texts over my shoulder, and swallow hard before turning back to Liam.
“It’s Russ. He reached out.” I hand my phone to Liam.
“Alright. We have a time,” he says, looking between Braxton and me. “Do we have a game plan?”
I don’t bother looking back at Braxton, because in all reality, this isn’t a choice he can make for me—and he can’t protect me while I do what’s needed to protect my sister and mom.
I nod once. “Yes.”