Reuben
The time had arrived. Rurik parked the vehicle we rode in down the road from the house.
Since it was a private road that ran back to the house, and it was a two-mile stretch, we weren’t concerned about uninvited witnesses.
But to be on the safe side, he parked it off the side of the gravel road, back in the trees. The darkness helped to conceal it.
They slithered through the darkness like ghosts. I wasn’t nearly as smooth or quiet as they were. They didn’t seem to care. When the house came into sight, we paused.
“Remember, you come in the front with me. Vasily will come through the back. We don’t know if he’s alone, though all I see is one vehicle.
Never presume. Mikhail assured the Pakhan that you know what you’re doing with a gun.
Don’t shoot unless you clearly see what you’re shooting at and what or who is behind it.
If you shoot our asses, we won’t be happy,” Rurik said.
There was enough light for me to see the wink he gave me.
“I’ll do my best not to. Thanks for coming. If you’re ready, I am.”
A final chin lift from them both, then we took off. We crouched low and sprinted from one spot to another, using the shadows to disguise ourselves. Vasily split from us about halfway there to circle to the backside of the house.
Rurik and I crept up on the small porch. There was a light or two on inside. We could see the glow coming from around the window coverings. It wasn’t a huge house, so it shouldn’t take long to discover who was in there.
In case we were wrong about who was inside, we wore face masks.
Rurik pulled his down, and I followed suit.
With our identities disguised, we crouched, and Rurik took out a set of lock-picking tools.
I held a small flashlight so he could see what he was doing.
Within what seemed like moments, he put them away, whispered, “It’s a go on three.
” He was talking to both me and Vasily. We wore ear comms.
“One…two…three.”
As soon as he said three, Rurik turned the handle and eased inside.
I waited two seconds, then did the same.
We were in a small entryway. To one side was a tiny dining room, and the other what appeared to be an office.
Ahead was the light we saw, and the sound of a television playing in the background, way too loudly in my opinion, but it would help cover any noise we made.
Easing forward, we kept scanning every dark nook as we moved toward the light.
“The back laundry is clear,” Vasily whispered in the comms.
“Front clear. Heading for the lighted room,” Rurik whispered back.
We were about to peek around the corner into the room where the television and light were. I saw Vasily poised to do the same from the opposite direction. Rurik held up three fingers, then dropped them one by one. When his hand formed a fist, they moved with me right behind.
A man was seated with his back to us, facing the television. He had dark hair, which I knew Fisher Adams had. I would know if it was him once I saw his face. Outlaw and Iker provided us with a good picture of him, and Cristiana verified that he was the man we were looking for.
Rurik went left and Vasily right. I stuck with Rurik. We came around the end of the sofa. That was when the man reacted. His body jerked, and his hand moved toward the slit between the sofa’s cushions.
“I wouldn’t do that unless you want a third eye,” Vasily said darkly. His gun, like ours, was trained on the guy. The man had to be an idiot if he went for a weapon, but some were. As he sat there frozen, I studied him.
He was sitting there in a dingy wifebeater shirt and a pair of briefs.
Both had stains on them. His hair was a mess.
His face was covered in unkempt hair. He looked like he’d been neglecting himself.
However, despite the facial hair and his unkempt appearance, I recognized Fisher Adams. Elation coursed through me.
I got you, you son of a bitch, I thought triumphantly.
“Who are you? You have no right to be here. This house is private property,” Adams declared.
“So what. Besides, it’s not your private property, so what gives you the right to tell anyone to leave?” I asked.
My words drew his attention to me. Adams scrutinized me, and I saw the moment he recognized me. How? I didn’t know, but he clearly did. His following words proved it.
“You’re the motherfucker who took Ana away from me. You had no right. She’s mine. You put her up to playing games with me and running away.”
“No one took Tiana away from you, you delusional bastard. She ran. She wants nothing to do with a sick fuck like you. She told you repeatedly, but you didn’t listen. What’s about to happen to you is no one’s fault but your own,” I told him.
As I talked, Vasily went to Adams and searched the cracks between the sofa cushions.
He withdrew a small nine-millimeter handgun.
Even though Adams was barely dressed, Vasily yanked him up to check underneath him, then patted him down to ensure he had nothing hidden on him, like a knife.
A nod to Rurik and me verified that there were no other weapons nearby the idiot.
“Get your hands off me! You have no damn right to touch me. And you’re wrong. Ana loves me. She’s meant to be mine. I let her play her game, but it’s time for her to stop it and come home with me,” Adams exclaimed. He scowled at all of us.
“You’re living in a fantasy world. Tiana is mine. She’s living in my home. She’s in my bed. Soon, she’ll be my wife,” I informed him. I knew my words would enrage him.
“She’ll never be yours! Stop calling her Tiana. Her name is Ana. And she’s mine. Ana is meant to be my wife and to bear my children,” he shouted, causing his face to redden and his wild eyes to bulge.
Vasily had left the room after searching him. It wasn’t long before he returned.
“The house is empty. From the looks of upstairs, he’s the only one who has been staying here. I suggest we save any further discussion until we arrive at our special location,” Vasily said.
“Agreed. Let’s get him out of here,” I stated.
“We’ll take him in his car to ours, then switch—no need to drag his ass that far in the dark. If anyone comes looking for his sorry ass, they’ll be left to wonder why it was abandoned,” Rurik stated.
“I’ll follow your lead. You’re the experts,” I told the two Bratva soldiers.
“H-hey, let go,” Adams sputtered as he tried to wiggle loose when they jerked him to his feet and marched him toward the door.
It was cold out, being the end of November. Not that I gave a fuck if he froze his cock and balls off. When the door opened, he tried another tactic.
“It’s cold out there. I need to put on some clothes and shoes. You can’t expect me to go out there mostly naked. I’ll freeze and get sick.”
Vasily chuckled, then glanced over at Rurik, then to me. “Is this guy for real? As if he has to worry about getting ill.”
Rurik snorted. “He’s an idiot.”
I laughed and stayed silent. They pushed him out onto the porch, then down the stairs. He protested and begged the whole way to his car. His whining about the cold and how the rocks and twigs on the ground hurt his feet grated on our nerves.
“Shit, we’ll need his keys,” I muttered after we arrived.
“No worries, I’ve got them. I picked them up from his dresser when I cleared the upstairs,” Vasily said.
Rurik opened one of the backseat doors and thrust Adams inside, then slid in next to him.
Vasily headed for the driver’s door, so I rounded the car and got into the front passenger seat.
I turned myself so I could see Adams. His eyes darted around.
There was fear in them, but not enough. The fool was thinking he could escape or find a way out of this, still breathing.
We’d make sure to show him the error in his thinking after we had him at the final destination.
The transfer to our vehicle was completed within just a few minutes.
Only this time, he wasn’t placed in the backseat.
Adams was stuffed into the trunk, but only after his wrists and ankles were secured and a rag was thrust into his mouth.
I sat back and plotted what I’d do to him when we got to our final site.
???
Finally, we were at our destination. Instead of taking us back into the Memphis area, we headed toward Nashville.
When we were about halfway there, Rurik turned off onto a secondary road.
We rambled along it for several miles, then transferred to a dirt road.
We continued driving until we ended up on a country lane.
One that was choked with dead weeds. It didn’t appear to get much traffic.
We bumped along the rutted lane for a mile or so until we ended up in the middle of a wooded area. In the moonlight, there was a clearing in the middle of the trees. Standing there in the clearing was a derelict barn. I saw no house. Rurik drove straight up to it and came to a stop.
There were a couple of other vehicles there, and the lights were on inside.
I saw the illumination through the large cracks between the wooden planks that made up the barn.
By my calculation, we were somewhere outside the town of Camden, or thereabouts.
Exiting the car, Vasily and Rurik wrestled a straining Adams out of the trunk.
I attempted to help, but they waved me off.
“Move it,” I said, kicking Adams in the back of the thigh.
His leg almost buckled under him. He shot me a nasty look, then hobbled forward. I hurried ahead to open the door. I swung it open and took a look inside. I wanted to know who was here.
I allowed the soldiers to get ahead of me with Adams, then I closed the door.
The middle of the barn was open space. The periphery had various farming implements and equipment that hadn’t seen use in years.
There was a tractor, a wagon, a hay baler, a disc plow, a seeder machine, and others I didn’t know the name of.