7. Pasha
7
The world is muffled. Blurry.
Chaos.
Makari runs out of the room to grab the security guards, our guards, anyone.
Sofiya hits every speed dial she has and yells into her phone.
Mama is searching through the cabinets and closets just in case.
Daphne is screaming. Sobbing. Frantically stabbing the call button on her hospital bed so someone will come help us.
And amidst it all, for one horrifying second, I can’t… I can’t move. I can’t breathe.
Think, Pasha! Pull yourself together!
Pasha!
“Pasha!”
Daphne’s voice breaks through the fog. She’s kneeling on the bed, begging me to look at her.
It only takes three strides to cross the room, sweep her into my arms, and press a firm kiss to her forehead.
“Stay here. I’ll bring her back to you.”
Another three strides and I’m grabbing my coat and yanking the door open. “Mak, you’re on guard. No one goes in or out. Sofi, you’re with me.”
No one questions me. Not right now. Not in this mood.
My sister and I beeline for the nurse’s desk and grab the first authoritative figure we can find. “My baby has been kidnapped,” I tell her. “We need you to lock this place down.”
The nurse sputters. “What? No! I can’t do that!”
“Then find someone who fucking can!”
The head of security rounds the corner at the perfect moment. No doubt he heard the shouting, so I make use of the commotion to get his undivided attention.
“Put the hospital on lockdown,” I order him. “My baby has been kidnapped.”
“Sir, I’m going to need you to calm down?—”
“Did you hear a goddamn word I said? Someone stole my fucking baby!”
Other parents shrink into corners at the thunder of my voice, but I don’t fucking care. If it gets any of them to do what I say, so be it.
The guard holds his hands up in some pathetic maneuver to placate me. “Sir, please. We have protocols for this?—”
“Sofi.” I lower my voice as she steps closer to my side. “Schematics. What’s above this room?”
“Storage room.”
“Good.”
I pull out my gun and fire a single shot into the ceiling.
It has the intended effect. Everyone screams and starts scrambling for cover. The head of security shouts into his radio for a hospital-wide lockdown. Doors slam and locks are thrown. Perfect.
“Sofi, call Lev and have his men secure the parking garage. Dom can check the elevators. You—” I point at the guard. “—are going to show me the security footage for my wife’s room.”
“I am not—what the fuck?! Let go!”
I don’t have time for this bureaucratic bullshit. I grab him by the collar and drag his cowardly ass to a door that looks like it belongs to the back end of operations. “Is this it?”
He clams up.
I slam him into the door and jab my finger in his face. “Listen to me right now, motherfucker, because I’m not going to fucking repeat myself. If my daughter is lost to your negligence, I will personally make sure your life becomes a living hell. I brought a goddamn gun to a hospital—do you think I’m playing around?”
“N-no.”
“Correct. I am not. So let me ask you again: is this where the security footage is stored?”
He nods. “Y-yes. B-but you have t-to understand?—”
“I don’t have to understand shit. Open it. Now.”
I have neither the time nor the patience to figure out what his problem is. Once he works the lock open, I shove him inside and make him sit in the chair at the controls to pull up the feed from Daphne’s room a few minutes ago.
“Right there.” I point at one of the screens where it shows Stewart and Ophelia entering the room. Even just watching a recording of them makes my fist clench. “Slow it down. There.”
He follows my orders surprisingly well, slowing the playback around the time the place was swarming with angry family members and exasperated security guards.
“Slower.”
I can see Tatyanna in her bassinet. Bodies moving back and forth prevent me from getting a clear view of her. But when they part again, her bassinet is empty.
Ophelia’s bag, however, looks suspiciously full.
“Play it back again. Five seconds.”
The image on the screen rewinds, then plays again. This time, I focus on tracking Ophelia’s every move.
The camera never catches her in the exact act, but it’s unmistakable: her bag is limp and empty before the swarm, then full and heavier after.
She glances around, then zips it up.
“Make a copy of this. I’ll send someone in to pick it up later.”
“I’m not just gonna?—”
I hold a hand up to silence him. Not just because I’m tired of his weak protests, but also because there’s something else on an adjacent screen. A highly relevant scene that a different camera caught on tape.
Stewart Hamish… handing this same exact head of security a wad of cash.
“You son of a bitch.” I grab the back of his head and slam his face against the screen. Spiderweb cracks go rippling across the image of him accepting the bribe. “What did they tell you to do? Huh? What the fuck did they pay you to do?”
“Just to slow you down!” he wails. The guard was not cut out for this job. He breaks into a screaming sob and spittle flies across the glass. “They just wanted you delayed! A hundred dollars to buy them time!”
“A hundred fucking dollars?!”
My fist connects with his gut before I can even process my rage. He doubles over, and it’s exactly the angle I need to slam his head against the desk once again.
“What kind of cheap motherfucker sells out a baby?!”
Sofi runs into the cramped space. When she sees me slam his face against the screen again, and what’s happening on the screen itself, it doesn’t take long for her to piece the puzzle together.
Her face darkens and she straightens into the pakhan’s second I need her to be right now. “Tell me what to do.”
“Lock him in here. Have Ilya send someone to fetch him later. I need a copy of this feed, someone to call Tomei, and you to come with me.”
Sofi falls in step beside me, getting on her phone and barking orders in Russian to every man involved.
I’m going to skin them alive. I’m going to fucking flay each one of the Hamishes as they watch, and I’m going to feed their skins to this fucking so-called guard?—
“We’ll find her.” Sofi gentles her voice in an empty corridor, suddenly my sister again. “She’ll be safe. She’ll be fine. They’re not going to do something stupid.”
“They put my daughter in a fucking bag.” I want to punch the wall and vomit at the same time when the words leave my tongue. “They already did the last stupid thing they’ll ever do.”