Chapter 46
THEA
The service corridor behind the DJ booth is narrow and dark, lit by a single emergency strip that casts everything in a dull, eerie red. It smells like stale beer and sweat.
I move as quickly as I can without making any noise. My bare feet are freezing against the floor, and I feel like I’m making a descent into hell.
There’s a map on the wall, and I pause to review it. The exit is located at the first junction to the left, just past a storage room. There’s a main office on the right, likely Kolya’s.
Don’t stop. Don’t look. Don’t breathe louder than you have to.
I reach the junction and go left.
The corridor opens slightly, with doors on both sides labeled storage, electrical, and utility. The muffled thumping of bass starts somewhere up above. Is it evening? Does that mean Kolya’s getting ready to open up this shithole for the night? I can’t imagine anyone being here willingly.
I hear footsteps behind me, and I freeze. The steps are fast and light. I spin, pressing myself against the wall, my heart hammering.
It’s Sylvie.
Thank God.
She rounds the corner at a jog, slightly breathless.
“How did you get away?” I ask, looking her up and down to confirm she’s okay.
“I told them I needed to go to the supply room to get stuff to clean the bar. They don’t know any better. That gives us, like, ten minutes, tops, to get out of here.”
“Is that going to be enough?”
“It’ll have to be.”
The relief that floods me at the sight of my friend is so intense that it nearly makes my knees buckle. I grab her arm and squeeze once. She offers me a tight smile and nods, then we move.
The corridor bends right, plunging us deeper into the guts of the building. We pass a door marked PRIVATE—padlocked from the outside—and another that’s slightly ajar, warm light spilling through the gap.
I know I should keep moving, that I don’t have a second to waste. All the same, I can’t help but stop and glance inside.
It’s a dressing room with long mirrors, vanity lights, and cheap rolling racks of clothes. Six women are inside, some sitting, some standing, some applying makeup with the precision of someone who’s done it a thousand times.
And they’re young. Too young. Barely college age. They’re dressed in club clothes that show too much skin, their expressions blank in the same way Sylvie’s was when I first saw her, like the lights are on, but the soul is nowhere to be found.
When one of them looks up and sees me, my heart skips a beat and my stomach drops, expecting her to start screaming for Kolya. And while her eyes flicker with the briefest moment of curiosity, the light fades just as quickly as it appeared, and they just look blank again.
“Don’t look in there,” Sylvie says. “Just keep moving.”
But I don’t listen. I can only stare, my heart clenching as I realize what I’m looking at.
“Who are they?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“Kolya’s inventory. At least, that’s what he calls them.” There’s a quiet rage to her voice. “He’s got this club, another one in Brighton Beach, and his house in Long Island. He staffs them with girls he traffics. They do whatever he wants, whatever his clients want.”
I feel sick. She doesn’t need to go into further detail.
“Human trafficking is his specialty. Young women, mostly. Says he’s been doing it for years.”
“We have to help them.”
“We have to help ourselves.” She grabs my elbow and pulls me away from the door.
“Listen. If we get out, we can come back with Gabriel, with his people. We can get enough firepower to shut this whole operation down and put Kolya in the ground. But if we get caught now, those girls won’t have a chance, and neither will we. ”
She’s right. My eyes linger on the strip of light coming from the dressing room.
“Come on. We have to move.”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
I swallow hard, then start moving again. The corridor narrows as we get close to Kolya’s office. Sylvie slows and puts a finger to her lips. I can see the door ahead on the right. It’s closed, but light pours through from underneath.
I can hear his voice.
“I want her gone before Moretti’s people have time to organize. The cousin is a complication, yes, but Petrov won’t move without Gabriel’s blessing and Gabriel won’t move without knowing where she is. We’ve got time, more than enough to cripple him.”
Another voice I can only assume is Sasha’s.
“And the girl? The baby?”
A pause. Then Kolya chuckles. “What girl? What baby?”
Evil, awful laughter follows. I press my hand against my stomach. Sylvie wraps her fingers around my wrist and squeezes.
We creep past. Soon, we’re within sight of a gray door at the end of the corridor, a big EXIT sign above it.
We reach the door. Sylvie puts her hand on the push bar and looks at me.
“Ready?”
I nod.
She pushes and we spill out into the night.
I start shivering the second the cold air hits me. The night sky is deep and dark above. I have no idea what time it is. My heart is beating so fast, it hurts. The alley is dark and narrow, with dumpsters on one side, a chain-link fence on the other.
I can see the street beyond in the distance, cars zipping past at the far end of the alley.
“Come on,” I say over my shoulder to Sylvie. “We’re so close.”
I move farther down the alley, the relief so intense, I can hardly stand it. I can’t believe we’re almost free. My eyes sting and my throat aches. My feet have to be caked with a layer of dirt an inch thick at this point.
“We can flag down a cab,” Sylvie says over my shoulder.
“Stoy.”
The command comes somewhere from the left. The voice is calm, bored almost.
Two men step out from behind one of the dumpsters.
One of them has a gun. He steps toward us. Sylvie makes a sound, small and strangled. She hadn’t been expecting this. She didn’t know they’d be here.
“Sylvie, run!”
Something hits the side of my head. It’s hard and metallic. The world goes white, then sideways, then black.
When I come to, I’m back on the nightclub floor.
I see the same purple lights, hear the same hum from the refrigerators, feel the same cold, sticky concrete against my cheek.
But the room is different now, fuller. When my vision clears, I count ten men standing along the walls and near the exits, all armed, all watching.
Sylvie is on her knees near the bar, tears streaking down her cheeks. Two men flank her—one with a hand on her shoulder pressing her down, the other with a pistol resting casually against his thigh. Her face is ghostly white, and there’s a cut on her forehead that wasn’t there before.
Kolya stands in front of me.
He’s taken off his coat and rolled his sleeves to the elbow, exposing disgustingly hairy forearms. There’s a gun in his right hand, a compact black pistol that almost looks like a toy. But I know it’s not. He’s turning it over slowly, the way someone might fidget with a pen.
“You know,” he says, “I had the whole evening planned. There were going to be drinks, conversation, good food. I was going to tell you more about your family, things you don’t remember, things that no one else knows, like your mother’s favorite song, your father’s favorite cocktail, or the sound your brother made when he…
” He drags a finger along his throat quickly, then laughs.
“But you’ve spoiled the mood, my dear Teodora. Running away like that. So very rude.”
He crouches in front of me.
“I had planned to keep you around for a while, you know, have a little fun. Kolya Sokolov, keeping the final Fetisov around as his little pet. Imagine what your parents would say to that. It’s almost poetic, in a way.
” He sighs, shaking his head. “But you took the fun out of that, too. How can I relax when I know that you’re a flight risk?
Not to mention I’m an old man, and old men have very limited patience. ”
“Screw you,” I snarl.
“Charming last words.” He stands. “And make no mistake—those will be your last words.”
He steps back and raises the gun.
“Farewell, Miss Fetisova.”
That’s when the lights go out.