26
T he morning dragged on too slowly. He'd promised Alessandra he would be back by three, but by the way things looked, Roman knew chances were slim that he would make it home on time.
Standing by the hostess station in the restaurant that had just opened for the day, he checked his watch impatiently. Dimitri was late. As always.
After surveying the handful of people that had sat down at a table near the windows, Roman turned to the hostess.
She was new, her pretty blue eyes and perky tits a welcome distraction for the male patrons frequenting the restaurant—a good portion of them either in the Bratva or associates of the organization.
“I'll be in the office. Let Dimitri know when he arrives.”
The girl—he couldn’t even remember her name—gave him a smile, fluttering her lashes at him suggestively. “Sure thing, Mr. Leskov.”
Irritated by the delay to his plans, Roman made his way down the corridor until he reached the massive oak door. Pushing it open, he headed straight for the desk and reached inside the top drawer for a stack of papers that needed his attention. Might as well get some things done while he waited.
Halfway through the second page of a delivery contract, his focus was derailed by his cell phone.
“What is it?” he answered, clicking his pen absentmindedly, his eyes still poring over the document.
“Your wife is not answering the door,” Andrei said. “I knocked, rang the doorbell, nothing.”
Roman stopped clicking the pen. Maybe she was in the shower or listening to music on her headphones, though he did tell her to be ready at eleven-thirty. A quick glance at his watch told him it was twenty minutes to noon.
“Let me call her.” He put Andrei on hold before scrolling through the list of recent calls and dialing Alessandra. When it skipped straight to voicemail, he frowned and resumed the call with Andrei. “She's not answering her phone. Did you try the door?”
“I did. It’s locked. I even tried the back door.” As Andrei spoke, a sudden and unwelcomed feeling of unease settled into Roman’s stomach. “It’s too fucking quiet. I don’t like this, boss.”
Roman pushed to his feet, tossing the pen on the desk and shoving the papers back into the top drawer. There was no reason for him to worry, and yet… a small voice at the back of his mind whispered that something wasn’t right. He made an effort to sound calm. “Break the door and get inside.”
“I'll pick the lock. It will only take me a minute.”
While Andrei did that, Roman found himself walking out of the office, almost as if his feet were carrying him that way before he’d even made up his mind about it. As he headed toward the restaurant's front entrance, he ran into Dimitri who was on his way to see him.
“You're coming with me,” he snapped, the cell phone still glued to his ear.
Dimitri looked surprised by the command and the harsh tone, but followed quietly nonetheless.
“I'm in,” Andrei said over the creak of a door opening in the background.
“Check every room. I'm on my way.”
Climbing into his Mercedes, he connected the phone to the car's audio system. Dimitri slid into the passenger seat, giving his boss a curious look.
Roman put the car in reverse and eased out of the parking lot, his heart doing a strange thing inside his chest. It fluttered awkwardly like the wings of an insect clinging to life after being hit by a truck.
“I just checked the first floor. There's no one home. No sign of struggling either.”
“Go upstairs and don't hang up.” Flicking his eyes from the road to his list of contacts, he called his sister. As soon as the line connected, he asked in a tight voice, “Is Alessandra with you?”
“Uh, no,” Tatyana said, sounding confused. “Why?”
“Just asking. Talk to you later.” Ending the call, he slammed his foot on the gas.
“Her parents' house, maybe?” Dimitri suggested as he fastened his seatbelt, having caught on to the problem. “It's worth a try.”
“And if she's not there? Rossetti is going to have a fucking fit. ”
“But what if she is there?”
Roman shook his head, keeping his gaze on the traffic ahead as he sped home. “She wouldn't go without telling me. Something's not adding up.”
The ring of his phone startled him. Seeing it was his brother, he answered.
Alek sounded annoyed. “Ivan stood me up. He was supposed to meet with me at Sunshine to talk to Misha. The asshole never came.”
“Ivan,” Roman muttered, his eyes moving to Dimitri. “Where is Ivan?”
Dimitri shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”
Roman's chest tightened as a nasty thought hit him. That motherfucker wouldn't dare. Would he?
“Find him,” he barked to the man at his side, then reached over to switch the call back to Andrei. “Alek, get your ass to my place. Now.”
By the time he made it home, Andrei was sitting on the hood of his car, smoking. He threw the butt to the ground and jumped to his feet to greet Roman. A second later, Alek's sports Audi was pulling up behind Roman's car, tires screeching.
Alek slammed his door closed, and Roman was surprised to see he'd brought Stepan with him. “What's going on?”
“Alessandra is gone.” Roman walked up to the front door, needing to see for himself, and maybe hoping for a fucking miracle and for her to materialize out of thin air. The rest of the men followed.
“She ran away?” Stepan asked, sounding a little incredulous as he caught up to him.
“No, I think she's been taken,” he said in a tight voice, his eyes scanning the empty foyer. “Ivan is missing, too. He's not answering his phone.”
Stepan paused in the doorway and gave Roman a strange look. “You think...”
“He'd better not,” Roman said through gritted teeth, fighting against the panic rising up from the pit of his stomach. He needed to keep a cool head so he could fucking think .
“Call every man,” his friend suggested. “See if anyone else is missing.”
“Already did that,” Dimitri announced. “Nobody has seen Ivan or Boris today. Which is strange, because Ivan missed a meeting with Alek, and Boris was supposed to supervise a delivery today but he never showed up.”
Roman looked away, his eyes landing on Alessandra's pink bomber jacket hanging from the coat rack. “If they touched her...” His words trailed off as his thoughts turned so dark they consumed him from the inside out.
“What do we do, brat ?” Alek asked quietly.
Silence followed.
Realizing all eyes were on him, Roman gave his head a slight shake, trying to clear his mind. He needed to think, but it was hard with his thoughts racing and his heart beating a hundred miles per hour. “Get me Damir. He has eyes everywhere and can track anyone in this goddamn city.”
???
“Found her,” Damir announced in gritty Russian as soon as Roman picked up the phone.
The bear-resembling Siberian wasn’t a part of the brotherhood, but he could have easily been with how often their paths crossed.
“ An associate of mine saw one of your cars drive into Englewood an hour ago.
It headed into the industrial area. I'll send you the location.”
Roman closed his eyes in relief as his fingers tightened around the phone. “Thank you, Damir. I owe you one.”
“Don’t mention it.”
That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to cash in the favor—Roman didn’t actually think the man had used his many connections out of the goodness of his heart, if he even had one.
What it meant was that he was going to collect when the right time called for it, and Roman had to deliver, whatever that favor might entail.
But he didn’t care and he wasn’t going to think about it now.
All that he cared about was getting to Alessandra before it was too late.
As he hung up, Roman took a moment to look at the men sitting around his living room, waiting for news. “They've taken her to Englewood.”
“Englewood?” Stepan shot to his feet, the expression on his face matching Roman’s thoughts. It was bad and about to get worse. “That's Armenian territory.”
“I don't know if Davit has anything to do with this, but if he's involved, he's a dead man walking.” Grabbing the duffle bag with a few extra guns and ammunition, Roman headed for the door. “Let's go. We're already at least an hour behind.”
It took them under twenty minutes to get to the location Damir had sent. As they came to a stop in the mouth of a dirty alleyway, the two vehicles parked in front of the abandoned building immediately got everyone’s attention.
Dimitri swore under his breath but quickly followed after Roman when he got out of the car.
“That’s Boris’s BMW,” Stepan noted, climbing out of the passenger seat of Andrei’s car.
Now they had confirmation both Ivan and Boris were there, if not more men from their ranks. Maybe some Armenians too.
“You think this is a trap?” Andrei asked, watching the dilapidated building with a frown.
“I don't fucking know,” Roman muttered, opening his trunk to get the duffle bag with the ammunition. “Even if it is, I'm going inside.”
“We're going with you,” Stepan said.
Roman gave a slight nod, feeling grateful for their presence. Stepan didn't answer to him, and they were acting without Vitaly’s orders or his knowledge. But he didn’t have time for that, knowing it was only going to delay them further.
They took a minute to load their guns and grab extra ammunition. Removing the safety on his 9 mm, Roman glanced at his younger brother. “Stay behind me.”
Alek looked like he wanted to argue, though he didn’t. His own gun drawn, he followed quietly, as did the others.
Roman was the first to step inside. Keeping his gun in front of him, he carefully scanned the area for any sign of activity. Slowly advancing inside one by one, the men looked around, hands on their guns and minds on high alert.