Chapter 17 #2
Without warning, without telegraphing, he backhanded Eva hard enough to snap her head sideways.
The crack of impact echoed through our war room. I lunged toward the screen like I could reach through it, catch her, stop what had already happened. Alexei's hand caught my shoulder, holding me back from useless violence against technology.
Eva's head rolled back up slowly. Blood ran from her split lip, bright against pale skin, but she didn't cry out. Just spat blood onto the warehouse floor and looked back at the camera with pure defiance. My fierce girl, refusing to break even zip-tied to a chair.
"She's spirited," Chenkov observed, like he was commenting on wine. "I can see why you keep her. Though honestly, the eyes alone make her valuable. Such a distinctive genetic anomaly. I've had three separate collectors inquire about purchasing them. The eyes, I mean. Not the whole girl."
My vision went red at the edges. The suggestion of it, casual and commercial, like Eva's eyes were something to be harvested and sold.
"But business before pleasure," Chenkov continued, walking behind Eva's chair.
His hand settled on her shoulder, possessive and wrong, and I watched her try not to flinch.
"The terms are simple. The original USB drive—I know you have copies, but I want the original.
Plus five million dollars for my inconvenience, for the disruption to our operations. "
His fingers moved to Eva's hair, running through it with mock gentleness that made bile rise in my throat.
"You have six hours. Well, five hours and forty-seven minutes now. After that, I begin removing pieces of your pet." He paused, seeming to consider. "Small pieces first. Fingers. Toes. Things she'll miss but survive losing. For a while."
Eva's jaw clenched, but she stayed silent. Smart girl, knowing anything she said would be used against us.
"Six hours, Mr. Volkov. The original USB and five million. Or I start my work. And I should mention—I've been practicing. Studying. New techniques from a colleague in Mexico who kept a judge's wife alive for thirty-seven days. I think I can do better."
He raised his hand again, and Eva's eyes found the camera in the split second before impact. Looking for me. Making sure I'd see her being strong.
The video cut off with the sound of his hand meeting her face.
The silence that followed was absolute. The kind of silence that comes before catastrophe, before worlds end, before men like me stop pretending to be civilized.
Then I put my fist through the conference table.
The wood splintered, gave way, opened like the world should open to give Eva back.
Pain shot up my arm, knuckles splitting, blood immediately welling, but it wasn't enough.
I needed to destroy everything, needed to tear the building apart brick by brick, needed to paint every wall with Chenkov's blood until the color matched my vision.
Alexei grabbed me before I could destroy anything else, his arms locking around me with the strength that had built an empire. Not a hug—the Pakhan didn't hug. This was restraint, pure and simple, one predator keeping another from useless violence.
"Getting yourself injured won't help her," he said against my ear, but his voice carried the kind of promise that meant blood would flow, just not mine and not here.
I stood in his grip, breathing hard, knuckles dripping onto the ruined table. The pain helped, gave me something to focus on besides Eva's face when Chenkov hit her. That defiance that would get her killed if I didn't figure this out.
"We know where he has her," Ivan said, pulling up satellite images on his screens. "Red Hook, the warehouse. The Morozovs use it for special projects."
The warehouse sprawled across Ivan's screens in high definition—a fortress pretending to be industrial storage.
One main entrance, two loading bays, windows all bricked over years ago.
The thermal imaging satellite pass from this morning showed the heat signatures of at least twenty men throughout the building, positioned to repel any assault.
"Defensive positions here, here, and here," Ivan marked the screen with digital pins. "Overlapping fields of fire. No way to approach without being seen from at least three hundred meters out. They'd have five minutes minimum to kill her before we could breach."
Five minutes. More than enough time for Chenkov to paint the walls with her blood.
"We pay," Ivan suggested, practical as always. "Wire the money, deliver the USB, get her back."
"He won't let her go." The words came out hoarse, my throat tight with certainty.
"She's seen his face, his location. She can identify him, testify if it ever came to that.
And more than that—he enjoys it. You didn't see his face when he talked about keeping her alive for thirty-seven days.
That wasn't a threat. That was anticipation. "
I'd met men like Chenkov before. Men who'd found their calling in cruelty, who approached pain like artists approached canvas.
The money didn't matter. The USB didn't matter.
What mattered was that he had something beautiful to destroy, and Eva with her distinctive eyes and defiant spirit would be his masterpiece.
"Even if we pay, even if we give him everything, he'll kill her." I pulled free from Alexei's grip, moving to the screens showing the warehouse. "He'll just decide whether it's quick or slow based on how much we amuse him."
"Then we take it," Alexei said, studying the schematics with tactical precision. "Full assault. Overwhelming force."
"Twenty men minimum, probably more," Ivan countered. "Defensive positions, prepared ground. We'd lose half our soldiers breaching, and they'd execute her the moment we appeared."
The math was brutal but simple. Any force large enough to take the warehouse would be visible coming. Any approach fast enough to surprise them would be too small to succeed. It was a perfect trap, designed by someone who understood violence as well as we did.
"Unless they think they're getting everything they want," I said, the plan forming even as I hated it. "Unless we make Chenkov believe he's won completely."
Alexei turned from the screens, reading my intention in my face. "No."
"He wants the USB. He wants money. But what he really wants is to hurt me through her. So give him that chance. Me, walking in alone, supposedly to trade myself for her."
"That's suicide," Ivan said flatly. "They'll kill you both the moment you're inside."
"Maybe. Or maybe Chenkov's ego makes him play with his food first. Maybe he wants to make me watch, wants to break me before he kills us. That gives you time to position, to wait for my signal."
"What signal?" Alexei asked. "You'll be searched, disarmed, probably chained next to her."
I thought about the ceramic knife that looked like a belt buckle, the carbon fiber blade sewn into boot leather, the wire garrote that resembled a shoelace. All the tricks I'd learned from men now dead, all the ways to carry death past security.
"I'll figure something out. I get close enough to kill Chenkov, create chaos, keep Eva alive until you arrive."
"The probability of success is less than fifteen percent," Ivan said, because of course he'd already run the numbers.
"Better than the zero percent if we try anything else."
Silence settled over the war room while my brothers processed what I was suggesting. A suicide mission with a prayer of success, banking everything on Chenkov's personality, on my ability to hide weapons, on timing that had no margin for error.
"I won't authorize this," Alexei said finally.
"I'm not asking for authorization." I met his eyes, enforcer to Pakhan, brother to brother. "I'm telling you what I'm doing. You can either have backup ready or let me die alone. Your choice."
His jaw clenched, that tell that meant he was fighting between logic and emotion. The Pakhan knew this was foolish, would likely cost him his enforcer. The brother understood that I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try.
"If you're doing this," he said finally, "you're doing it right.
Full wire, backup weapons, soldiers positioned at every exit.
Ivan runs overwatch, I lead the breach team.
The moment you confirm she's alive, you signal.
Don't try to be a hero, don't try to take them all yourself.
Your job is to create enough chaos for us to reach you. "
"Understood."
But we both knew I was lying. My job was to keep Eva alive by any means necessary.
If that meant taking on thirty men alone, if that meant dying to buy her seconds, then that's what would happen.
She'd trusted me with her safety, and I'd failed.
The least I could do was try to correct that failure with my life.
"We have four hours," Ivan said, pulling up equipment lists. "We need to move."
Four hours to plan the impossible. Four hours to figure out how to walk into death and come out with Eva. Four hours to become the Beast that even monsters feared.
I looked at my brothers—Alexei already shifting into tactical mode, Ivan calculating approaches and probabilities—and felt something that might have been gratitude. They'd help me save her or help me die trying. Either way, they'd be there.
"One more thing," I said, remembering Chenkov's words. "He has collectors interested in buying her eyes. That means transport arranged, probably medical equipment for . . . harvesting. He's planning to keep her alive for a long time."
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
"Then we make sure he doesn't get the chance," Alexei said, and his tone carried the kind of promise that had built our empire on bones. "We make sure he doesn't survive long enough to touch her again."