Prologue #3
By 10:35 p.m., Jordan couldn’t wait any longer. The buyer was showing discourtesy to Bocharov that no self-respecting bratva would stand for. Jordan drove out the front entrance and took a left back toward town.
He tried to call Stork but still no signal. Finally, he hit the tollway, and his phone lit up like it was his birthday. He answered her call, “Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
His heart sped up a little at her urgent tone. “Sure. Why?”
“Bocharov is in the wind.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s onto us.”
“Not possible.”
“The team across the street from the club was found dead. The cops in the unmarked unit. Shot. Point-blank range. Mistress is alone. He’s gone. Warehouse is on fire.”
Jordan shook his head as if trying to clear his ears. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“He knew, Krychek. The son of a bitch knew.”
“Then why am I still alive?” he yelled.
Perhaps Bocharov was planning to blow up this car with some radio signal, a phone taped to some C4 under the gas tank. Perhaps in saying those words he’d just signed his own death warrant.
“I think he knew before he sent you out of the city.” Stork’s voice trembled.
Trepidation pounded his consciousness. “Why would he send me out of the city? Why not put a bullet in me?”
But he knew why. He knew.
“He wanted you out of the way.” A sob tore out of her throat. This experienced FBI agent was crying.
“No.” Jordan punched it. He hung up so he could concentrate on the drive. Concentrated on the leather steering wheel beneath his fingers and the slick conditions under the tires. He didn’t allow himself to think of anything until an eternity later when he pulled up on North Oakley Boulevard.
Flames poured out of the windows of the three-story building. He pushed past patrol officers who held back crowds of onlookers. Four firetrucks were fighting the blaze, but it wasn’t enough. The building was gone.
It didn’t mean his family were gone.
He clung to hope.
They were smart and always took precautions.
He looked around. Where the hell were they?
“Krychek!” Stork grabbed his arm.
“Where are they?” He pulled away from her.
Detective Tobias Granger, his childhood friend, whose idea this whole operation had been, approached him with tears streaking the black soot on his face.
“They’re gone, Jordan.” Tobias tried to grab him, but Jordan stepped back.
“What do you mean, ‘they’re gone’?” He stared at the building and then started heading that way, past firefighters wielding heavy hoses.
“You can’t go in there!” Stork was screaming at him, but what the fuck did she know?
He put his head down and tried to shield his face with his arm as he approached the inferno of his childhood home. Black smoke billowed toward him in choking waves.
Someone grabbed his arm, and he decked them. Another person clamped him around the waist and lifted him clean off his feet. Jordan struggled as three firefighters pinned him down to the ground.
“Let me go! Let me go!” he screamed. “My family is in there!”
“It’s too active. We can’t get inside until we can get the flames under control,” one of the firefighters told him. “I’m sorry, but it’s too dangerous.”
“You can’t save them, Jordan.” Granger sobbed. “It’s too late. I’m so sorry.”
The firefighters let him go and Jordan lurched to his feet. He took another run, but Granger tackled him to the ground. Cuffed his hands behind his back.
“For your own good.”
Jordan headbutted the guy.
“Stop it. Stop it!” Stork screamed, dragging him to a stop. He tried to shake her off again, but she didn’t let go. “They’re dead, Jordan. They’re already dead!”
He stared at the flames and knew in his heart nothing could survive that inferno. As much as he wanted to be with them, first he wanted to find the man responsible and make that evil sonofabitch pay.
“What happened at the meet?” Stork demanded, pulling him out of his dark fantasies of blood and death.
“Nothing happened at the meet. Nothing fucking happened. It was a distraction to get me out of the city so he could do this under your fucking noses. You were supposed to protect them.” He yelled so loudly his throat hurt. “You promised me they’d be safe.”
Stork wouldn’t meet his gaze.
Granger closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t good enough. It will never be good enough.” He turned to Stork. “You need to shut down all the airports and train stations. Issue an International Red Notice for this motherfucker.”
“It’s been done, but he’s in the wind.”
“You try his jet?”
“Of course! We searched and confiscated his jet,” she snapped. “We’re not amateurs, Special Agent Krychek.”
His snarled. “You could have fooled me.”
Glass shattered, and firefighters battled to contain the blaze so it didn’t spread, but it had already reduced everything he gave a damn about to ash.
Jordan closed his eyes as the realization hit him.
His beloved family were gone, and it was his fault.
All his fault. The grief wanted to blast out of him, but he didn’t let it. “Get these cuffs off me.”
“Are you going to behave?” Granger demanded.
“I am not planning to kill myself or harm any firefighters, but I make no promises about you.”
Granger pulled in a ragged breath and then removed the cuffs.
Rage, anger, and grief fought inside Jordan as he stared at flames destroying his family and the home they’d built since leaving Ukraine more than a century ago.
Jordan stared at the detective, the man he’d grown up with, and at the line of cops nearby. “Someone on your team let it slip. You’re the reason they’re probably dead.”
And the fact he still hung on to a kernel of hope showed him he was a fool.
“Could have been from your side.”
Jordan ignored the tears dripping down his cheeks and held out his arm. “Special Agent Stork, did you tell Konrad Bocharov I was working undercover for the FBI?”
Eyes massive, she frantically shook her head.
He tried to catch Granger’s stare, but the man wouldn’t meet his gaze. “What about you, Granger? Did you tell anyone?”
Granger wiped his hands over his dirty cheeks. “I can’t believe you’d ask me that.”
“That’s not a fucking denial!”
“No! I didn’t do it. I would never have done that. You know me. You know me, Jordan. I would never hurt your family.”
Jordan looked away. His throat hurt. His eyes hurt. His heart hurt. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
An Asian man jogged over to Stork. “We’ve found two bodies in the strip joint. Man and a woman.” He showed his cell to the other agent.
Jordan hadn’t thought he could hurt any more than he did. “It’ll be Micky and Ana.”
Stork’s eyes widened with suspicion. “How did you know that?”
His lip curled. “Because I thought it was weird earlier why only Dmitri and Micky were with Bocharov at the club. The others were obviously carrying out Konrad’s orders.
When Ana finished her set, he pulled her into his lap even though she didn’t want it.
Because we’d had sex once and he found out, and because Micky brought me into the fold.
That’s why they were killed. Micky was too stupid to have even seen it coming. ”
Jordan was stupid too. He hadn’t trusted his instincts, hadn’t realized the gig was up, hadn’t called his family to tell them to run. To hide.
Stork strode away talking on the phone.
Granger stood, face in his hands.
Jordan closed his eyes and then opened them to look up at the smoky sky as he made a silent vow.
He was going to find Konrad Bocharov, and he was going to make the sonofabitch pay.
It wouldn’t be by the rules. It wouldn’t be pretty.
And he’d show Konrad the same mercy the man had shown to his family.
He’d avenge them, and then he’d deal with the fallout.