Chapter 39 #3
His eyes turned cold. A ruthlessness that I’d never seen in him before suddenly rose to the surface, showing me the monster lurking behind his facade. It was as if the curtains were finally lifted. “Not Greg, Lieutenant. Vadim Grigorievich Orlov.”
Tara’s head jerked in surprise. My mind spun in a loop, going back to the moment we’d first caught him. Not me. Tara. Tara had been the one to save that girl from Greg—fucking Vadim himself—and I’d snatched the fucker from her.
“Then who the fuck was the leader you showed us?” I asked, trying to keep him talking as my mind started to piece the puzzle together.
The fucker had been playing us all along.
Greg—Vadim—shrugged. “My right-hand man, of course. He and my brother always knew that if I ever got caught by the cops, I would claim to be a mere lackey. That I would try to escape prison by agreeing to be an informant. Most of our trusted men knew this plan. And the men we didn’t trust never saw our faces. Brilliant, wouldn’t you agree?”
My heart pounded in my chest, a blinding, visceral need to tear apart this city and get Tara safely in my arms, riding hard through my veins. “What do you want, Vadim?”
He looked at me as if I were stupid. “My brother, of course. I know you planned to keep him alive.”
I nodded, showing him I heard him. “Ruslan is dead.”
He waved his hand. “Good. I was getting tired of him. A small sacrifice to get my brother back safely.”
Dominic quickly typed out something on his phone and showed it to me. It read Chopper’s on the way. We’re going to the HQ. Everyone is meeting there.
He seemed to be in conversation with the team. Brandon, Clark, and Sloane stood right across from me, listening to the conversation.
I looked at Vadim and asked, “Did you get in touch with any of your other men?”
His face turned ugly with hatred. “I did get several calls while I was about to leave the fucking city with my brother. We had set everything up perfectly. I’d carefully led you and the pink-haired girl to the auction.
I’d given you Ruslan on a fucking platter.
I was hoping to leave with my brother while you finished your little job. But you had to be naughty.”
Tara laughed behind him. “You didn’t expect the Wildcats, did you, fucker?”
He landed another slap to my woman, and my heart pierced in agony. Flames lit up my veins as the phone in my hand cracked. “One more slap, Vadim. One more touch. And you will beg me to kill you.”
The fool waved his hand. “Oh relax, Lieutenant. It was just a slap. The bitch killed several of my men mercilessly, freed up all the girls we’d spent months collecting, and blew everything apart.
She deserves worse. And she will get worse if I don’t get my brother back in one piece. Your girl in exchange for my brother.”
With gritted teeth, I asked, “Where?”
He barked out another laugh. The sound grated on my nerves. I was going to fucking pull out every single one of his teeth. “Now, now, Lieutenant. I need to see my brother alive first. I will tell you the location after.”
“I’m not close to your brother, as you very well know. Your brother is in damn New Jersey while I’m in fucking Brooklyn. Give me an hour to show you proof of life. But one single scratch on her, and I’ll find you from the pits of hell and give you your brother’s head. Are we fucking clear?”
“You have thirty minutes.”
With that, he dropped the call.
My body let out a bone-chilling roar as I threw the fucking phone on the ground, shattering it into pieces. I turned to Brandon, grabbing his shirt. “Where the fuck is he?”
His terrified eyes met mine, and he audibly gulped.
“Sir, he must’ve taken out the chip because his location shows he’s still in the North Riverdale hideout where they’d kept Sloane.
It hasn’t changed since this morning. We were all so busy getting prepared for today’s mission that nobody thought to monitor Greg. ”
I pushed him back and clutched my hair. “Fuck. Fuck. The fucker played us.”
Dominic stepped in front of me then. “The chopper is here. Let’s go to the HQ. Samaira is bringing Maxim there in another chopper. We’ll take it from there.”
I turned to Brandon, and before I even had to speak, he said, “Sir, we’ll handle everything here. All the processing will be done by tomorrow morning. We’ll explain everything to the captain. You get your girl back safely. Please let us know if you need the team.”
“Be ready with thirty men when I alert you. I don’t know if the fucker is alone or has a team.”
“Yes, sir.”
With that, the three of us ran to the descending chopper a few hundred yards away.
The moment we were seated, Sloane’s eyes met mine. “We will get Tara back. She’s strong. Stronger than Greg. Vadim. Stronger than anybody I know. She’s handled worse pain than anything Vadim can inflict on her.”
I nodded and met Sloane’s and Dominic’s eyes. “I will tear this city apart and burn this world down to the ground to find Tara. The fucker took my girl. He touched my girl. Fucking slapped and punched her. He is going to pay in blood.”