Chapter 2
Harbinger watched as Pierre drew a deep breath and let it out. “Abrasha Molchalin is a Russian oligarch. Very wealthy. Made that way by the fall of the Soviet Union. He’s in control of most of the oil refineries in Russia. My sister, Léonie, met him more than thirty years ago when he was amassing his wealth. She was in love with the ‘bad boy’.” Pierre shook his head and muttered a string of foul words in French. “He got her pregnant. When she told him, he demanded she abort the baby. Léonie would have none of it and broke off the relationship. She would never harm a baby. It was not in her. Only her bad boy was actually the devil, and he held control over her like I’ve never seen. Here.” He pointed to his head. “If he’d allowed her to have the baby, I would have never known anything about the man. Léonie would have willingly stayed with him.”
Pierre stood up and ran his hands through his hair again. “I sent her to America to stay with friends I’d made when I studied abroad. She had no phone, and computers weren’t like they are now. My friend lived in a very rural area. Abrasha couldn’t find her. Tracking people thirty-five years ago was different and much more difficult. He knew she was in the States but had no way of finding her there. Léonie delivered Ysabel. I traveled to America and adopted Ysabel. She is my daughter. That is legal and binding. Léonie returned to Paris alone, and Abrasha was waiting for her.”
“Why did she go back to Abrasha?”
“Because my sister was … I hate to admit this, but she enjoyed the demeaning sex. He treated her as less than a person; she reveled in that control. They had a sick type of love, but for both of them, each other was the only person. She tried to explain how he made her feel, but I could never understand. I still can’t.”
Harbinger leaned back in his chair. “How is Abrasha a threat? Why did Ysabel break things off with me?”
Pierre plopped down on the chair again and stared at Harbinger for a long minute. “I did not trust you.”
Harbinger lifted a single eyebrow. “No shit.”
Pierre rolled his eyes. “Americans. I had you followed as soon as I learned Ysabel was dating you.”
“I know. As I told you, it wasn’t difficult to play with your goons.” Harbinger had made a game of disappearing and then tracking the hapless private investigators. He’d followed one of the first investigators back to his office, broke in that night, and gathered all the information he needed about Pierre Archambeau and the man’s intent to have him followed. His work wouldn’t allow such oversight, and he wasn’t going to allow his lover’s father to keep tabs on him. When things became serious with Ysabel, and that happened quickly, Harbinger ensured he kept his work far from his lover and kept her father in the dark.
“What do you do, Heath? Are you a businessman who can disappear into thin air, or are you something more?” Pierre asked as he clasped his trembling hands together. “I pray you are more.”
He ignored the question. “How do you know Abrasha has Ysabel?”
Pierre closed his eyes. “I have proof.” Pierre pulled out his phone and swiped at the face several times. “Here.”
He studied the picture of a severed arm. Clasped in the hand was a phone with a number displayed on the screen. “What am I looking at?”
“The detective I hired to keep tabs on the Russian. This was sent to me the night Ysabel went missing from Corsica.”
“Corsica?” Harbinger looked up from the phone. “Why would you send your daughter to the place with the highest murder rate in the nation?”
Pierre lifted his eyes slowly. “Family takes care of family.”
Harbinger’s eyes narrowed. “So, your removal from le milieu is not as complete as you’ve portrayed.”
Pierre shook his head. “It is. I run a legitimate business, but when I needed to protect her, I contacted the ca?d and asked for a favor.”
The boss of the French Mafia. Well, Pierre did have connections in very low places, didn’t he? “And that favor?”
“To hide her until Abrasha lost interest or I found a way to make him do so. Only it wasn’t Ysabel he wanted. It was me.”
Harbinger leaned forward. “So, he doesn’t have her?”
“He does. Swipe to the right.” Pierre nodded to the phone still clasped in Harbinger’s hand. Harbinger thumbed across the screen and winced. A gag pulled Ysabel’s mouth back in a contorted slash across her face. There were tears streaming down her cheeks, and her thick black waves of hair were snarled and clumped against her face. There was a bruise on her cheek, and her left eye was blackened. Fury filled his veins as he stared at the woman he loved more than life itself.
“When was this sent to you?”
“Three days ago, via text from an unknown number, just like the first picture. I’ve been searching for a way to contact you. Ysabel never gave me your cell number. I have contacts in customs. They told me you flew to the United States. I hired investigators there, but without more information on you, it was a waste of money. They could find nothing. When you returned, my contact in customs called me. I came here immediately. Are you more than just a businessman? Can you help me?”
“Whether or not I can help you is yet to be determined.” Harbinger ignored the question about what he was and pushed his emotions back, even though it was the hardest thing he’d ever done. His next question would determine what he’d be willing to do. “Why did she break off the engagement?”
Pierre swallowed hard. “I told her to. I convinced her a simple businessman wouldn’t be able to protect her, keep her safe. I also told her Abrasha would kill you as leverage. I believe he would have killed you or anyone else around her to use her against me.”
“Why?”
“Her mother sent documents. According to the letter Ysabel let me read, Léonie had collected a massive amount of information about Abrasha’s business. She said the information was in the envelope. Information that could be used to stop him from coming after me.”
Harbinger leaned back. Ah, that bit of information didn’t compute. Pierre had just said he didn’t think Abrasha was after him. Pierre thought Abrasha was after Ysabel. Things were not adding up. “I thought you said Abrasha was after Ysabel, not you? Which is it?”
“He goes after her to get to me.” Pierre ran his hands through his hair. “It doesn’t matter the who, we are both in danger and because of the information.”
Harbinger narrowed his eyes. Flip and flop. Pierre didn’t have his story straight or he was so overridden with worry that he wasn’t speaking correctly. “Where is it? The information in the envelope?”
“That’s just it. The envelope she showed me didn’t have the information. Ysabel said it was sealed, but there was only Ysabel’s original birth certificate, plus a letter from Léonie apologizing for giving her up. The letter said all the information was in the envelope and that Abrasha would eventually find out about the data breach. She warned Ysabel to flee. That Abrasha might come after her once he realized she was his.”
Harbinger stared stone still and intently at the man across from him. Finally, finally, he had verification. He knew breaking off the engagement wasn’t Ysabel’s doing. That gut-deep truth had lived through the months of bullshit excuses and reasons he’d created in his mind.
Harbinger could sense that something was wrong. She wouldn’t look at him, her demeanor was guarded. “What’s wrong?”
“Dance with me?” she asked him, and he automatically stood up. They fell into the waltz and spun around the ballroom. Her gown floated around his tuxedo. She was absolutely beautiful, but there was something …
“I wanted you to dance with me because I have to tell you I can’t marry you.”
Harbinger stopped dancing. “What do you mean?” He held her hand still, but she pulled it free. She took off the engagement ring. “I made a mistake. I don’t love you. Please have the grace to not make a scene.”
“Make a scene?” Harbinger snapped his mouth shut. “Your father is doing this.”
“No, I’m doing this. Take this.” She grabbed his hand and placed the ring in his palm. “Don’t call, don’t come after me. I wasn’t seeing the truth about our relationship, but I am now. Goodbye, Heath.” She turned to walk away, but he went after her. Two men stepped in front of him.
“We don’t want to make a scene, but we will. Let it go for now.”
Harbinger glared at the bastard holding his arm. He could kill him in a heartbeat, but the ballroom floor was not the place. He’d find her, and he’d find out what happened to force her into giving him back her ring.
But he never did. Harbinger pushed back the flood of emotion and memories and focused on what Pierre was telling him. “But instead of asking for this documentation, he kidnapped her?”
“Yes.” Pierre ran his hands through his hair yet again.
“And he hasn’t asked for the information Léonie gave Ysabel?”
“Correct.”
Harbinger dropped that line of questioning. “Have you had any proof of life since this picture?”
“None.” Pierre ran his hands through his hair and grabbed it this time, pulling harshly. “Abrasha wants me to acquire thirty-seven billion dollars of cryptocurrency. He’s given me three weeks to get the people in place to do what needs to be done.”
An oddly exact number, wasn’t it?“This crypto will come from your holdings?”
“No, others. People I have never met; the list is long.”
“Is this theft possible to do?” Harbinger’s mind was racing as he built a mission in his mind because it had become one for him whether Guardian sanctioned it or not.
“Steal the crypto? Yes. It would take a massive effort and experienced computer thieves, but yes. Not all cryptocurrencies are on the public blockchains. Privacy-focused crypto and decentralized finance make it doable without detection for a time. But most wealthy people”s cryptocurrencies are vaulted and guarded with almost unbreakable safeguards. No one is getting into those vaults, which is what I explained to that bastard. Well, to his messengers.”
So, he hadn’t talked to Abrasha himself. “And the response?” Harbinger placed Pierre’s phone on the table.
“He would provide the fobs that hold the crypto. I am to break the code and deposit the funds via routing numbers he’ll send me.”
“Do you have the people and the technology to do it?”
“I have the technology but not the right people.” Pierre flopped his head back against the chair. “But there’s no guarantee the son of a bitch will release her if I do what he says. If I go to the police, she’ll be killed. I’m under the thumb, as you say. I’ve started recruiting people to do the work.”
Harbinger narrowed his eyes. “You don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you, but …”
Pierre’s head snapped up. “But?”
“I’ll make some calls. I’ll need your phone. I want to see if I can trace the number that texted you these.”
Pierre nodded readily. “It’s yours. What else do you need?”
“Right now, privacy. Go home, Pierre. If you’re being watched, he’ll know you contacted me. You’ll need a plausible explanation.”
“You were worried about Ysabel, and I came here to deter you from looking into her status.”
Harbinger lifted a brow. That rationale came quickly, didn’t it? “I’ll contact you.”
“How? You have my phone.”
Standing up, he ordered, “Go home, Pierre.”
“You’ll help me get her back?”
Harbinger looked at the older man and then looked at the door. “I’ll make some calls.”
* * *
Harbinger closedthe door behind Pierre and moved to the window. He pulled the drapes back slightly and watched the street. Pierre got into his chauffeur-driven car, and it pulled away from where it had been double parked. Nothing like making it obvious. He continued to watch as a man got out of a gray coupe and crossed the street toward his building while the car followed Pierre’s vehicle at a distance.
Then he went to the living room and put Pierre’s phone into his pocket before heading to the spare bedroom. At the back of the closet, he pushed a panel, slid it up, and placed his palm on the exposed screen. The mechanism whirred and then unlocked. Harbinger went into the secure room and put Pierre’s phone into a small Faraday box. If the phone had a listening device or tracker, it wouldn’t transmit now. He turned the camera on that monitored his front door and pulled out his secure phone, powering it up. Once it had a signal, he pushed the number one.
“Operator Two-Seven-Four, how may I route your call, Sunset Operative Seventeen?”
“I need to speak to Fury and Anubis.”
“Hold, please.”
Harbinger rolled his shoulders and turned on the cameras that covered his building and the streets outside. The man who had exited the gray sedan was at the front of his building, casually leaning against the wall by the door, scrolling through his phone.
“Fury online.”
“Anubis online.”
“The line is secure, and Operator Two-Seven-Four is clear.”
“I need some help,” Harbinger said without pretext.
“Authenticate messenger,” Anubis interrupted him.
“Heralder,” he replied immediately.
“What’s up?” Fury asked.
“I’ve just been told Abrasha Molchalin has kidnapped my ex-fiancée.” Or fiancée, he wasn’t sure.
There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line. Harbinger pulled the phone away from his ear to ensure he was still connected. “Did you hear me?”
“We did,” Fury said. “I’m not sure if we’re more shell-shocked over the fuckwad Abrasha showing up on our scope so quickly or that you were engaged and didn’t inform us.”
“Smoke was aware. He’s always known about Ysabel. The engagement lasted just over a week. I was going to tell everyone by bringing her back to the States, but she gave the ring back and told me to stop being pathetic.”
“Damn. Harsh.” That was Anubis, and yeah, Harbinger agreed with him.
“So …” Fury continued, “what does Abrasha want with her?”
Harbinger flicked his eyes to the camera covering his building before he began to unfold the story Pierre told him.
“Does her father or she know what you are?”
“No. Although the father assumed I worked for the government.”
“Why?” Anubis asked.
Harbinger explained his fun at playing around with the private detectives Pierre had put on his tail. “It was amusing at the time.”
“Do you love this woman?” Fury asked.
“I do, and if what her father told me is true, she still loves me.”