Chapter 30
MATVEI
“Ireally think you should go to the hospital. Evgeny and I will track down whoever's at this address and let you know the details.”
“I’m fine,” I grunt as I scrub the blood from the side of my face and various gashes with something Kelly got from one of the paramedics. I can’t get it all off, but it’s the best I can do for now.
“And tell me again how you know my captain?” Kelly gasps and adds, “Is he on your payroll? Is he dirty?”
“Not at all.” I pull my gun from its holster and check the magazine, ensuring it’s fully loaded. “I don’t pay him a dime. He helps me with things—legal things—every once in a while. In return, I find people who may be of help to his cases.”
Kelly’s expression twists at the gray area Captain Quinn is skirting, but her phone rings before she can keep the conversation going.
“Speak of the devil,” she mutters under her breath before answering. I only hear one side of the conversation, and I’m not surprised when she hands her phone to me.
“Matvei, what the hell is going on? My officers are calling me frantically in the middle of the night, giving me some crazy story about a bad accident, someone missing, and that the guy in the accident took off from the scene. Shouldn’t you be in the fucking hospital?”
“I’m fine,” I reply bluntly. “The less you know, the better. I need you to look into the guy who owns the old green Buick. That’s the car that hit mine.”
“Interesting you say that.”
“Interesting isn’t the word I’d use.” My tone is sharper than intended, but I’m running on adrenaline and a pain and fear so intense it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
“Look, something didn’t sit right with me after that.” His voice is gravelly, like he’s still fighting sleep. “I looked deeper, and the owner of the car is a Dylan Jones. He’s in the wind.”
“Was anyone else involved?”
“Some guy named Anthony Demetrio.”
“Demetrio has ties to a disgraced faction of the Genovese family,” I tell him. “Mudak.”
I wave away Evgeny’s questioning look.
“You know the guy?”
“Unfortunately, I know him well.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Okay, well, that’s all I have.”
“That’s all I need. Thank you,”
“It’s Samson,” I tell Evgeny as soon as I’m off the phone. “Tony Demetrio is in on this.”
“That fucker?” Evgeny’s mood, already dangerous, sours further, the lines on his forehead growing deeper with his frown. “I’ll make the call.”
It only takes a few minutes to learn where Anthony Demetrio is hiding out.
“Where are we going?”
I take the backup pieces from the glove compartment, checking the magazines before handing one to Evgeny and tucking the other into the waistband of my pants, which I realize are stained with blood.
I have to stifle a groan, as I’m one entire mass of pain that I need to stuff down as far as possible so I can do what needs to be done.
“A mechanic shop,” Evgeny replies. “On the South Side.”
Kelly takes off as much as she can that identifies her as a cop, leaving on her bulletproof vest over her undershirt.
The mechanic’s shop is located down a one-way street in a seedy block of businesses and apartments. It’s dark and quiet, and at first, I think no one is there.
Evgeny takes the lead, moving like a shadow against the high chain-link fence, his gun held low. Kelly is on my right. I know the look on her face; she’s operating entirely on adrenaline and the singular, terrifying thought that Sonya and the twins are in danger.
Both wait for my nod to move, and I watch as they slip around their respective corners. I stand with my back against the wall and turn the knob. I ease the door open as slowly as possible, testing each inch for a creak that, thankfully, doesn’t come.
I creep through the dark garage and the bulk of machines, carts, and tools situated beneath shadowy behemoths of half-finished cars on raised lifts like giant, spectral trees in a misshapen forest. I see a blue glow off to the side.
The sound of a pneumatic drill punctuates the loud hum of an air compressor, and I follow the high-pitched rumble to a bay tucked away from the main area.
A man in oil- and grease-stained gray coveralls is bent under the hood of a new-model Porsche. The license plate has been removed, the tires stripped, and various parts lay on the floor beside it. I raise my gun and aim it at the guy, finger beside the trigger should he make any sudden moves.
“Is my brother promising you a good price for those parts? I can promise you more.”
The man jumps as though he’s been physically hit, yelps as he smashes his head on the car’s hood, then steps away from the vehicle. We stare at each other across the dimly lit space for a heartbeat.
“You.” It’s a snarl that starts in the back of my throat and ends in a shout.
“Oh, shit!”
The man’s eyes grow wide and panicked, and I have to duck as he hurls a wrench at me and dashes behind the car. The wrench flies by, hitting a metal pipe on the wall before skittering across the floor just as the man darts out from behind the car.
I take off after him, following his pounding footsteps through the shop. Pain sears through my body with every movement. I can see him just ahead of me, or at least his shadow, when Evgeny comes in from the other side. I call out in Russian to follow the guy, and Evgeny turns on a dime after Tony.
In the darkness, the unfamiliar mechanic’s shop seems cavernous and threatening, lit only by the few dim emergency lights and an ambient yellow glow from the windows we pass. It’s a graveyard of half-dismantled cars, exposed engines hanging from chains, and greasy equipment.
Both Evgeny and I duck as the crack of a shotgun goes off, followed by an explosion of concrete and brick. I dive behind a half wall, the air still vibrating with the shockwave.
Simultaneously, Evgeny opens fire from his side. Three quick shots that thud into the shell of a truck. A muffled exclamation is followed by more shotgun explosions, each a bright flash in the darkness.
“Fucker is going to get us all blown up,” Evgeny snarls, then ducks back out to fire two more rounds. More shotgun fire follows before everything falls silent.
“He’s out of rounds,” Evgeny mutters with satisfaction.
The crash of the shotgun being thrown onto the floor in frustration echoes through the darkness, and I tap Evgeny on the arm, a signal, before we both take off in the direction of the shots.
We hear pounding feet; the fucker is running again. We follow the sound of his boots pounding on the floor back through the shop.
“He’s heading for the back door, damn it.” I ignore the pain pulsating throughout my body and speed up, knowing if this asshole escapes, that will be it, and he’s my one link to Sonya and the twins.
I sprint through another room, weapon raised, moving too fast for him to track, and I manage to cut him off. He sees me, pivots, and somehow slips between Evgeny and me toward the workstation where I first found him.
Evgeny fires a distraction round, hitting a toolbox behind Tony and sending wrenches scattering with a clamor. Tony flinches, stumbling back into an open space under the skeleton of a car engine hanging from chains from the ceiling.
With a great squeal of iron, one of the chains breaks free, causing one side of the engine to crash to the floor. Tony dives at the last second, but he’s not fast enough to dodge the enormous piece of machinery entirely, and it comes down on his leg.
His scream is terrible, the sound of snapping and crushed bone worse. When I look back, Kelly is standing over him with her gun drawn. She’s breathing hard, the dangling end of the chain swinging by her hand.
“Tell me where the fuck my sister is,” Kelly shouts, her chest and shoulders heaving with adrenaline.
“Please,” he begs. “Please get this off me. It’s killing me.”
“You’re not going to die. Yet. It will take a while for you to bleed out.” I walk up to him and stare down at the face I know. “Anthony Demetrio.”
“Who is he?” Kelly asks without looking away from her suspect.
“My brother’s lackey. He’s been following Samson around since they were kids, like a little puppy dog just wanting to be loved. Samson uses him and his connections any time he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. It’s pathetic.”
“Okay,” Kelly says. “You two get this engine off of him, and we’ll take him to the station. I’ll make sure he tells us exactly where Sonya is.”
“We’re not taking him anywhere.”
Even in the dim light, I can see the fear in Tony’s eyes. He knows exactly what I’m capable of. We’ve had enough run-ins that he knows he’s pissed off his own personal grim reaper.
“We have plenty to take him in and question him,” Kelly insists. “Don’t you want to know where Sonya is?”
“I can get answers without a police station. In fact, I can get them faster and more accurately. Evgeny.”
I gesture with my chin to the engine, and with Kelly’s gun still on the guy, he and I manage to move the heavy block enough so his leg is freed.
Kelly gasps and looks away from the wound that’s revealed, a mass of bone and muscle exposed where a leg used to be.
“He needs an ambulance,” she whispers.
“What Mr. Demetrio needs is to tell me exactly where my brother has taken Sonya.”
With another gesture from me, Evgeny hauls the kid up and into a nearby chair, ignoring his screeches of pain.
“He needs an ambulance, Matvei. Do you want him to bleed out before he can tell us anything?”
“Oh, he’s going to tell us what we need to know long before he bleeds out. Believe me.”
I see Kelly swallow before she opens her mouth to argue again. I cut her off, turning sharply to her.