Chapter 42 Jay
JAY
The alarm bells already blaring became a deafening crescendo when Volkov slammed his hand down on the steering wheel, swearing in Russian.
“What?” Ryker was instantly on alert, his gaze flying to the dashboard display screen, where the blinking red dot was.
The blinking red dot that was no longer there.
“Where the fuck is Nova?” I growled.
Volkov’s nostrils flared. “The signal has disappeared. That means that the tracker has been discovered, or she is somewhere that can’t be tracked.”
Shit. Either option was bad, bad news.
“Drive to the last known location of the signal. If anything has happened to my sister, I will kill you. Slowly and very fucking painfully,” Ryker said in a low tone, and Volkov’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel, white-knuckling the leather.
“Do not speak to—”
“Fuck. Off. I haven’t forgotten that you pulled a gun on me earlier. Don’t make this any worse for yourself.”
Me neither. I’d be happy to join in the torture, too, if anything had happened to the woman I loved.
Volkov’s jaw clenched as his gaze flicked between the display and the empty road. “I will find out what has happened, and those involved will pay.”
The deliberate pressure of Dan’s arm against mine had me glancing over at the other occupant of the back seats of Volkov’s Ferrari GTC4Lusso. “She’s gonna be okay.”
“Yeah,” I said hoarsely. She had to be. Because the alternative didn’t bear thinking about.
Volkov swerved off the main road onto a bumpy track, and I braced myself on the side of the car.
“Sports…cars…can…get…fucked,” Dan ground out between jolts. “This suspension is shit.”
“I will bring my Range Rover the next time I am chasing my fiancée across the country.” Volkov’s lip curled as he met Dan’s gaze in the rear-view mirror. “And you will not be a passenger.”
“Fine by me.” Dan saluted him before slumping back down. As he turned to stare out of the window at the darkness beyond, I caught the flash of worry in his expression he was trying to hide. I swallowed hard.
“She’s gonna be okay.” I repeated his words back to him.
He didn’t have a chance to reply because the car came to a sudden, screeching stop, the headlights illuminating a black Audi right in front of us before Volkov quickly flicked them off.
Ryker was already halfway out of the door, wasting no time. “That looks like one of my dad’s cars.” He dipped low, creeping around the side of the vehicle. As Dan and I scrambled out of Volkov’s Ferrari, we were stopped by Volkov holding up his hand.
“Wait. We do not know what we’re walking into.”
“Fuck waiting.” I shoved past him, following Ryker’s lead and dropping into a low crouch as I moved towards the car as quickly as I could.
A shadow fell over me. “Empty,” Ryker said, tugging at his hair. “Fuck. What now?”
“Now…” Hitting the button to switch on my phone torch, I pointed it at the ground, inhaling sharply at the clear signs of a scuffle. There was no more time to waste. I swung the beam upwards in the direction of the footprints and ran.
A red dot appeared on Volkov’s chest as he drew up next to me, and I reacted instantly, lunging at him and taking us both sprawling to the dirt as a gunshot sounded out, the crack bouncing off the trees and echoing around us.
Panting, I scrambled to my feet, unable to even catch my breath before Volkov was hauling me into the cover of the trees. A hand landed on my arm, and then a low, urgent voice sounded in my ear.
“Everyone okay? We don’t have the element of surprise, and we don’t know how many there are. They shot first without asking questions, so it’s safe to assume they’re hostile. We need backup.”
“I have a gun. There is an emergency contact system in my car that works without a phone signal,” Volkov replied to Ryker, his voice more breathless than I’d ever heard it before.
“Hoyton, take my key. It is the red telephone button on the ceiling—you cannot miss it. They will ask for a passcode in English and Russian.”
“Wouldn’t it be better for you to do that?” Dan interrupted. “Give me the gun.”
“I am the best shot. Thorpe is best with a knife. Attwood stays with me. Listen carefully to the passcode. You will say four-four-two-one-eight, and then my personal identifier, which is vratar.”
“Four-four-two-one-eight, vratar. Got it.” He wasted no time in taking the key and disappearing into the darkness.
“Come on. Keep to the trees. We’re aiming for that building.
” In the light from my phone’s beam, which I was hiding in my hand so I didn’t give away our location, I could just about make out Ry pointing towards a small, squat building between the trees.
There was a sliver of light coming from the partially open door.
“Let’s go.”
Winding our way through the trees, we drew closer to the building. Footsteps sounded close by, pounding down the dirt path we’d been on, and Ryker’s indrawn breath was the only warning I got before he dived out of the cover of the trees, tackling the man from the side.
Tearing after him, I pulled out my knife, but before I even had a chance to assess the situation, Ryker reared back, taking the man out with a powerful right hook that knocked him out cold.
Rolling his body over, we patted the man down, relieving him of his gun. “Nice KO,” I murmured, letting Ryker take the gun.
“The bastard deserved everything he had coming to him. I wasn’t gonna let him get to Arson.”
A shadow fell over us. “He is one of ours. I don’t understand.”
When I looked up at Volkov, it was too dark to see his expression, but the confusion in his voice was enough to give me pause. He wasn’t lying.
“Let’s go,” Ryker hissed, climbing to his feet and tucking the gun inside his jacket. We slipped back into the trees, moving faster as we drew closer and no one else appeared.
With his gun in hand, Volkov kicked the door open wide, and we crowded inside. We were in a small, bare room with a sloping passageway in front of us, dimly illuminated by a line of bare, flickering bulbs.
I stared down the passageway, taking in the oppressive atmosphere. The only way forwards was to go underground. “I think I know why Nova’s signal disappeared. Let’s get her back and make whoever’s responsible for this pay.”