Epilogue
Adrian
The office building smells like bleach, cheap cigars, and blood.
Down the hall, our cleanup crew is tossing the last of the Bulgarian bodies into bags that will eventually be wrapped in chains and tossed into the ocean.
Matei left an hour ago to get home to Jordan. I don't blame him. If I had someone waiting for me, I would have left too.
But I don't, and if I'm not working, I'm thinking too much, so I get the mop-up duty.
I'm alone in what they simply call the Admin Office, though the stuff that went on in this room, or in this building, is anything but simple.
A desk sits in the corner, cheap laminate peeling at the edges.
Papers are scattered across the surface.
Shipping manifests, ledgers written in Bulgarian Cyrillic that I can barely decipher.
A filing cabinet stands against the wall, one drawer hanging open, folders spilling out onto the floor, and on the desk, a tablet.
It's hard to imagine that from this office they controlled their entire LA operation, which as we've learned was two-fold: Siberian Ice and sex trafficking.
I feel like with this last job, LA is 100% ours despite what Matei says. I mean, we came about controlling the city in a unique way. We were actually the good guys. I mean, shit, we saved so many girls, and in doing so dismantled and took down the Bulgarians.
There's no one left but us. The Russians? They were never here, just their drugs, and we got that too.
I step over a dead guy the crew hasn't gotten to yet and grab the secure tablet resting on the desk. The screen is locked, requiring someone's thumb to unlock it. I guess these bastards weren't complete idiots, just evil.
I look down at the Bulgarian leader bleeding out on the floor. Half his skull is missing, courtesy of my Glock. Blood pools around his head, and his hands rest palm-up, fingers curled slightly.
Maybe his? I think.
I walk over, crouch down, and grab the dead man by the wrist, hauling his heavy, limp arm upward, and press his bloody thumb against the tablet's sensor.
Click.
The screen unlocks.
I drop his hand and wipe the blood off my fingers on his shirt.
The first thing I do is navigate to Settings. I disable the lock feature entirely. I can't risk this thing timing out while I'm digging through it. I've had that happen before. Never again.
I lean against the desk, swiping through the files to find their banking ledgers and supply routes. Instead, I find a photo gallery.
I click it open and the first image loads, and my stomach turns.
A woman. Maybe twenty-five. Blonde hair matted against her face. Eyes glazed, unfocused. She's tied to a chair, wrists bound with zip ties that have cut into her skin. Blood trickles down her forearms. Her dress is torn, one strap hanging off her shoulder.
I swipe to the next image.
Another woman. Brunette this time. Younger. She's on a mattress on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees. Track marks line the inside of her elbows. The blue glow of a vial sits on the floor beside her.
Swipe.
Swipe.
Swipe.
Each image worse than the last. Women in cages. Women drugged senseless. Women staring at the camera with the dead eyes of an addict that make my chest tighten because I know that look.
I've seen it on myself in the mirror.
My hand shakes as I back out of the folder. I can't keep looking. Not right now. I back out to the home screen and tap on Documents instead.
It opens to a list of folders and files. Most are in Bulgarian. A few in Russian. One folder catches my eye immediately.
ASSETS.
I click on it.
It opens, and there are tons of folders named after various countries.
Albanian.
Denmark.
France.
Greece.
I keep scrolling and stop.
Romania.
I tap it and see there's one file in it. I click it.
The document loads slowly, images first, then text beneath each one. It's formatted like a fucking catalog.
Each entry shows a photograph of a woman. Below the photo: a date, banking codes, and transfer amounts. And at the bottom of each entry, the same two phrases repeated over and over.
ASSET TRANSFERRED. TRANSACTION COMPLETE.
I shake my head. Talking about people like they're furniture.
I scroll through, forcing myself to look at each face. To remember them. To carry something of what was done to them, even if I can't undo it.
The list goes on. And on.
I scroll faster, trying to gauge how far back this operation in Romania goes. The dates blur together.
Over two years of this.
My finger freezes mid-scroll and I stop.
Because I see her name.
I haven't seen her name written anywhere since I ordered the headstone. Since I stood in the rain at her funeral and watched them lower a casket into the ground with what was left of her. Because the police said the crash was too severe, the fire too hot to preserve the body.
My hands shake as I click on the entry. The screen goes black for a moment, then the image loads.
It's a woman in a cage.
Diamonds glitter against her wrists, but it's not jewelry. They're shackles.
The woman is curled in the corner of the cage, knees drawn to her chest. Her hair hangs loose, dark and tangled, obscuring most of her face.
I zoom in on the image.
No, no, it can't be.
There. On her chin.
A small scar, crescent-shaped. Barely visible unless you know to look for it, but I know to look for it.
Because I was there when she got it.
We were eleven. I dared her to ride her bike down the steepest hill in Bra?ov without pressing on the brakes. She told me I was an idiot but did it anyway because she never backed down from a dare.
She crashed halfway down. Flipped over the handlebars and slid across the dirt. Tore up her knees and split her chin open. Blood was everywhere, and I thought she was knocked out.
She wasn't.
She stood up, wiped the blood off her face, and punched me in the shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. Then she laughed.
That scar never faded.
And now I'm looking at it on a screen, in a photograph of a woman who's supposed to be dead.
My chest caves in and I can't breathe.
The room tilts, and I grab the edge of the desk to steady myself.
It's her.
It's Elena.
The woman I loved. The woman I mourned. The woman I've been drowning over for a year because living without her felt impossible.
She isn't dead.
She was stolen.
I scroll down and read the words underneath her photo.
BUYER: Volkov Bratva.
PRICE: $50 Million USD.
STATUS: SOLD. Transported to Moscow.
Fifty million dollars.
They sold her for fifty million dollars to this Volkov Bratva.
The fucking Russians.
Probably the same Russians who were selling the Siberian Ice to the Bulgarians. That's probably how they got into business together.
They have her. They've had her for over a year.
And I buried an empty casket.
I stood at her grave every week for months, convinced she was gone. Convinced I'd lost her forever.
But she's alive somewhere in Moscow.
My vision blurs, every emotion firing all at once.
My legs move before my brain catches up. I'm already out the door, down the hall, taking the stairs two at a time. The cleanup crew shouts something as I pass, but I don't stop.
I hop into my SUV, slam the door, and floor it.
The drive to Matei's house is a blur.
I pull up to the gates and punch in the code. They swing open too slowly. I'm already rolling through before they're halfway open.
I run inside with the tablet. "Where's Matei?" I call out.
"His room, sir," a maid says, popping her head around the corner.
I look up and take the stairs three at a time, almost tripping.
Their bedroom is at the end of the hall. Door closed.
I slam my fist against the wood hard enough that the frame rattles.
"Matei!"
Silence.
Then his voice. "Come back in the morning, Adrian."
"No."
"Adrian. Later."
I shove the door open.
Matei's on his feet in an instant, wearing nothing but black boxer briefs.
Jordan sits up in bed, clutching the sheet to her chest. Her eyes are wide, startled but not afraid.
Matei's glare could melt steel. "What the fuck? You can't just—"
"Elena."
The word stops him cold.
His entire body goes rigid and he freezes. His eyes lock onto mine.
"What did you say?"
"She's alive," I yell like if I don't, it won't be real.
Silence.
Jordan looks between us, confused. Matei stares at me like I've lost my mind.
"What?" he says. "Adrian, no, that can't be."
I hold out the tablet and shove it at him. "Look. Look."
He takes it and his eyes drop to the screen.
I watch his face as he reads it. His jaw tightens and he slowly sits on the edge of the bed in disbelief.
He reads it again, his breathing stopping just like mine did, then looks up at me.
I meet his gaze and say the only thing that matters.
"I'm going to go get her back."