Chapter 29
The knock on the door was soft. Too soft. Professional.
My heart stopped.
I lifted my phone that I’d never bothered to set down, and pressed in the last number I’d called.
“Are you in the Uber?” Code said.
"No." I whispered. "Code, someone's knocking on the door."
“Do. Not. Answer. It.”
“I’m going to go check to see who it is.”
“No!” he roared. “Don’t go near the door. You stay put.”
I got up with my phone still pressed to my ear.
“Please, please. I’m begging you. Open the door.” The woman’s voice was distinct and full of fear.
“Somebody needs help, Code. I’ve got to go.”
“It’s a trap.”
“If it is, I won’t open the door.” I set down my phone on the dresser and put the speaker on. “There, the speaker is on. You’ll hear everything. You’ll see none of us will do anything stupid.”
“Help me. Please.” I flinched at the agony in the woman’s voice.
"Kit?" Sophie whispered from where she sat on the bed, hands still trembling. Russell stood frozen by the desk, blood from his broken nose dried on his chin.
I held up one finger. Stay quiet.
“Our Uber is here,” Russell announced quietly.
“Let me see what’s going on with the lady outside, then we can go.”
I crept to the door and looked through the peephole.
Viktor Sokolov stood in the hallway, one arm wrapped around a young woman's throat, and she was turning red.
Her mouth was taped shut with a wide piece of silver tape.
She was wearing a hotel maid uniform. She couldn't have been more than twenty.
Her eyes were wide with terror. Viktor's other hand held a gun to her temple.
Even through the fish-eye distortion of the peephole, I could see the silencer attached to the barrel.
"Russell, are you in there?" Viktor's voice was calm, almost pleasant. Russian accent, but his English was perfect. "I know you're looking at me right now. Open the door, or I kill the maid."
My mouth went dry. I couldn't move. Couldn't think.
"Kit?" Sophie's voice cracked behind me.
"Don't." I barely got the word out.
"You have five seconds," Viktor continued. "Five. Four."
Think. Think like Code would think.
"If you kill her," I called through the door, forcing my voice steady, "you lose your leverage. You won't kill her."
The silence lasted two heartbeats.
Then Viktor shoved the maid against the opposite wall. She stumbled, tried to run. He took aim with the casual precision of someone who'd done this a thousand times.
The gun made a sound like a sharp cough.
The maid screamed behind her gag—a muffled, animal sound of agony—and collapsed against the wall, clutching her thigh. Blood bloomed through her khaki uniform pants, spreading fast.
"Oh my God," Sophie gasped behind me. “Was that a gunshot?”
My legs nearly gave out. The maid was writhing on the carpet, trying desperately to crawl away while her leg left a smeared trail of blood.
"That was leverage," Viktor said pleasantly. "I didn’t hit her femoral artery, but still, I nicked something bad. It looks to me like she’ll bleed out in less than fifteen minutes.
If she gets medical attention in ten minutes, she probably lives.
You have three seconds to open this door, Katherine. Three. Two."
My hand was on the deadbolt before I consciously decided to move.
"Kit, no!" Russell grabbed my arm. "He'll kill us all!"
I looked back at Sophie and Russell. Sophie had gone white as paper. Russell's eyes were so wide I could see the whites all the way around.
The maid whimpered in the hallway. I could hear it through the door—small, desperate sounds of someone dying alone.
"One."
I yanked the deadbolt open and was confronted by a smile of pure evil. I tried to dart past him. Tried to get to the bleeding woman in the hallway, but he shoved me back so hard, I fell into a heap on the floor.
He turned his head and said something in Russian. I watched as two men in black t-shirts and black slacks, both wearing almost identical black blazers, came into view.
“Move,” Viktor said, as he shoved at me with the toe of his expensive loafer. I scrambled up off the floor. When I got up, I turned and saw Sophie and Russell both sitting on the far bed, looking shell-shocked.
Viktor’s men followed him in, one carrying the maid, the other shutting and locking the door behind him.
The man carrying the maid dumped her onto the floor near the bathroom. She writhed in pain, her muffled cries pitiful behind the tape over her mouth. Blood was spreading across the carpet in a dark stain.
"Nobody makes a sound," Viktor said pleasantly, his accent making each word precise. "Or I finish what I started with her. Understood?"
Sophie and I both nodded. Russell just stared, frozen.
Viktor crossed to Russell in three casual steps. Then, without warning, he swung the gun in a vicious arc. The butt of it connected with Russell's temple with a sickening crack.
Russell crumpled off the bed onto the floor, blood immediately streaming down the side of his face.
"Russell!" Sophie started to move, but one of Viktor's men grabbed her arm, holding her in place.
"Now." Viktor crouched down beside Russell, who was groaning and clutching his head. "You are going to give me everything. All your code. All your files. All the deepfake technology. Yes?"
"I don't—" Russell's words were slurred. "It's not here. It's all in LA. I can give you access remotely, but I need—"
Viktor said something sharp in Russian. Immediately, both men started tearing through the room. One yanked open the dresser drawers, the other started going through our bags.
"Phones," Viktor ordered in English. "All phones. Now."
The first man moved to Russell, patting him down roughly and pulling out Russell's phone. Then he moved to Sophie, snatching hers from her pocket.
My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might break through my ribs. My phone was still on the dresser. Still on speaker. Still connected to Code.
The man walked over and grabbed it without even looking at the screen. Just shoved it into his jacket pocket with the others.
Please, Code. Please understand what you heard. Please hurry.
"You two," Viktor gestured at Sophie and me. "Stop the maid's bleeding. I need her alive for now. She is my insurance if anyone comes."
Sophie and I both scrambled to the maid. Her eyes were rolling back, her skin was going pale. There was so much blood.
"We need something to tie it off with," Sophie whispered, her hands shaking as she pressed against the wound.
I grabbed a pillowcase off one of the beds, ripping it into strips. Sophie took one piece and started tying it above the wound, pulling it tight. The maid whimpered, her body going rigid.
"Tighter," I whispered to Sophie. "It has to be tight enough to stop the bleeding."
Sophie's hands were slick with blood, but she pulled the makeshift tourniquet as tight as she could. The bleeding slowed. Not stopped, but slower.
"Good," I breathed. "You did good."
The maid's eyes focused on me for just a moment. Terror. Pain. Pleading.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Viktor barked something in Russian. Before I could process what was happening, one of his men lunged across the room and grabbed Sophie by her hair. She gasped as he yanked her upward, her feet barely touching the ground.
"No!" I started to move, but the other man stepped in front of me, his hand going to his weapon.
Sophie's face was twisted in agony, but she bit down on her lip so hard I saw blood. She wasn't going to scream. She wasn't going to give them the satisfaction.
Viktor said something else in Russian—a command. The man holding Sophie pulled her higher, then drove his fist into her stomach. Once. Twice. Three times in rapid succession.
Sophie's face went gray. When he released her, she dropped like a puppet with cut strings, curling into a ball on the floor, gasping for air. Tears streamed down her face.
"Stop!" Russell's voice cracked. "Stop it! Please! My laptop—it's on the balcony! In Sophie's tote bag! I'll give you everything, just don't hurt her anymore! Please!"
Viktor smiled. That same pleasant, terrifying smile. He gestured to one of his men, who moved toward the balcony door.
I looked at the nightstand between the two beds. The digital clock read 4:05.
Code had said eighteen minutes at 3:49.
That meant he and Jase would be pulling up to the hotel at 4:12.
Seven minutes.
Seven minutes, and they'd be here. Seven minutes, and Code knew exactly what he was walking into because that phone was still in the goon's pocket, still transmitting everything.
Just hold on. We just have to hold on for seven more minutes.