47. Kirill
Kirill
We land at Midway Executive, just as details come in.
“We tracked the plate,” Drago says and immediately gets back on the phone to mobilize my bratoks.
My veins pump hot as I transform into something lethal, something not many people see often.
I jog down the airstairs and jump right into my waiting Escalade.
From traffic cameras, we find the Tahoe sitting in front of a warehouse in a row of older buildings, most unoccupied. Hovering at the entrance, which is now surrounded by my men, I wait for details of what I’m walking into.
“Three men inside,” Drago murmurs, reading drone data on his phone.
Three men. With my wife and daughter.
“Let’s go.” I remove the gun from my jacket and check the slide.
Whoever took them wants something from me. This was a negotiation tactic to get me to the table. But who? And for what?
A Barinov? A Gideon? Someone else I killed to rise to this position of power over all other brotherhoods?
We descend on the warehouse in a show of force. I kick open the steel door and step into the dim interior. A single fluorescent panel serves as the sole overhead light. Drago is on my right with other men behind me.
The first man to step from the shadows freaks out. “Who the fuck are you?”
I answer with a bullet to his head. If he has no idea who I am, then he’s not Bratva and must be a paid mercenary who will kill me in a heartbeat.
The second man reaches for a weapon, but Drago takes him out with a hollow point right in the neck before he can return fire. The crack of bone and the wet, choking sound that follows cuts through the pounding in my head and ringing in my ears.
I continue to move forward, past the two dead bodies. Both men I don’t recognize.
There are stacks of crates piled to a height of nearly eight feet, creating a maze and providing places for men to hide. I’m walking into an ambush.
Another man, slender and young, stands up from behind a crate. Shaking, he steps into the light. “Pa… Pakhan. W… Wait. Please.”
“You have exactly five seconds to tell me where my family is.” I raise the gun to his head.
“Wait.” The young man’s eyes widened. “He told us this order came from you and—”
“Who the fuck is he?” Drago says, his gun on the man as well.
When the young bratok opens his mouth, his eyes explode from a bullet to the back of his head.
The bratok fucking drops dead in front of us.
Further back, a figure dressed in black lowers his gun with a faded curl of smoke coming from the barrel.
Shoving the gun in a jacket, he disappears out a rear entrance door. Then tires screech over gravel outside.
Drago flies to the window, yelling into his phone. “Stop that car!”
“Where is my wife? Where is my daughter?” I yell.
The air becomes threaded with the unmistakable sound of a child trying not to cry and failing. My heart lurches into my stomach at the sound of Violet. But I can’t see her.
“Find me, Daddy!” Violet’s choked cries shatter the new silence.
Find me. Find me.
“Violet!” I rush that way, not caring if more men are hiding in these crates.
I turn corner after corner.
“Daddy!”
Find me. Find me.
“I’m coming, sunshine.” I reach the middle of the maze.
The dead end. Where there is nowhere else to run. Where my daughter is tied to a fucking metal chair. Her cheeks are wet, and a rag is tied around her head to cover her eyes.
“Solnyshko!” I mutter, keeping it together.
“Daddy,” she cries again, recognizing my voice, and it tears my fucking heart out. “You found me.”
“I’m here.” I kneel, the knife already in my hand, slicing through the ties at her wrists clean and precise.
I tear her blindfold off, and she surges forward the second her arms are free. She wraps them around my neck with a force that pulverizes her nightmare hugs in the dust. It’s so tight with trust. Her small body trembles against mine as I lift her.
My knife falls to the floor, and I’m confident Drago will pick it up.
“I’ve got you,” I growl, holding her head against my shoulder.
She clings tighter to me, her breath hitching against my shoulder. I make my way back out of the maze, Drago covering me. I’m already calculating my next steps. I see the exit sign over the door we came in.
Go. Must leave.
Then it hits me. Sandrine. Holy shit. There was a hole in my vision, my thinking. I…forgot about her. All I heard was my daughter. That’s normal, right? I hadn’t had to divide my loyalty, my love?
I whisper to Violet, “Where’s Mommy?”
“I don’t know,” she whines.
My legs go weak, and I make eye contact with Drago, who starts tearing this warehouse apart. He’s kicking in doors and yelling her name.
“Pakan,” he says outside a room, in front of a door.
A door to what? Hands shaking, I don’t want to let go of my daughter, but I don’t know what I’ll find. What we’ll find. We lost her once. Both of us.
I get closer, and Drago nods, that small signal that she’s okay. My wife is okay.
In a dark room, only lit by that single bulb, Sandrine sits in the same kind of chair. Also tied up. Also blindfolded. But with tape over her mouth.
“Mommy!” Violet cries out and twists to get out of my arms.
She wants her mother. Not me.
Drago is behind Sandrine with a knife to cut her free.
“Wait,” my Bratva brain says.
“Pakhan?” Drago straightens, obeying me.
“I want Mommy!” Violet cries out, kicking.
Sandrine is right there, close enough that I can smell her shampoo and hear the pulse in her throat.
I keep hold of Violet. “Just a minute, solnyshko.”
I step up to Sandrine and take the blindfold off, then gently remove the tape over her mouth. Her eyes squint, but they immediately search my face.
I notice a smear of dirt along her cheek. Her hair was pulled loose from the combs that held it in place earlier this morning. Her coat hangs open, and I look closer at her clothes for something torn, something exposed, something no one should see but me, because she is mine.
No, they didn’t touch my wife. Not that way.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
She blinks, her hands still tied behind her back. But she doesn’t answer.
“Mommy!” Violet shrieks, hands outstretched.
“Pakhan, we must leave.” Drago leans forward and slices Sandrine free, defying me.
The minute her arms are loose, she’s reaching for Violet. “Give her to me,” she growls.
I get a flashback, remembering the note I wrote to Ares Zervas months ago when I knew he had Sandrine.
Give her to me…
I place Violet in her mother’s arms.
“It’s okay. We’re okay. Daddy saved us.” Her eyes are on me while Drago cuts the ties from her legs.
Drago is correct. We have to leave. We have no idea who crashed out that rear door, or if he’s bringing back twice as many men as I have guarding us.
“Let’s go. Now. Move.” I motion for her to walk ahead of me.
I count a few seconds and then step behind them, my gun raised. The distance is deliberate. Necessary.
The soft scuff of her boots against the concrete and the slight hitch of her breath as she carries my daughter guts me. All in between Violet’s soft whimpers.
Outside, the cold air cools my heated skin for a brief moment. The SUV door is already open by the time we reach it. Sandrine waits to get inside the car, and my heart breaks seeing her red-rimmed eyes that have no idea why I’m being such a dick.
“Get in the car,” I say, my tone even, my gaze connecting with hers only briefly. “We’ll handle this at home.”
Pain flickers across her face. “Yes, Pakhan,” she answers like a fucking lackey.
God, that hurt.
I straighten before she can move, before anything can blur the lines I need to keep intact.
“Violet. On your feet, sweetie,” she says. “Mommy can’t lift you into the car.”
“Okay.” She slides down her mother’s body.
Sandrine gets in, and Violet climbs in after her. I grab the booster seat from the cargo area and secure it in the center position. Violet waits patiently while I buckle her in.
I have no idea what we’ll face when we leave here. Whatever happens next, my daughter will be secured properly.
I close the rear SUV door myself. The click gives me only a fraction of the peace that comes with being behind armor. We still have to get out of here, and I don’t know if we’ll be ambushed.
As we pull away, Drago does something I’ve not seen him do in years. He opens his window and sits on the frame, his gun pointed out at darkness, at nothing. Christ, he’s exposed. He’s risking his life for me. For my family.
As he should, but he’s also my sister’s husband, and that changes my perspective on how I feel about the way he’s personally guarding my family with his life.
I say nothing. This is the life he chose. My sister knew the risks as well.
Shaking that away, I notice the interior is silent except for the soft, uneven rhythm of Violet’s breathing. Her head is tipped toward my wife, who doesn’t look at me. She stares down at our daughter.
There’s so much I want to say, but I let the silence hang heavy and deliberate.
Because if I start talking now, my control will snap.