Chapter 18 #2
They dragged her toward the van. She fought them, I could see that much. Got an arm free, swung wild, connected with something. But there were too many, and they were prepared for hysteria. Prepared for victims who watched murders and came apart.
Ninety seconds. Start to finish, the whole thing took ninety seconds.
The van door closed. The vehicle pulled away, unhurried, nothing to see here, just another delivery truck in the pre-dawn dark.
"I lost them in a camera blind spot on Atlantic," Maks said. "Working on finding them again."
I stared at the frozen image. The spot where Frank had died. The empty street where Maya had been a person and become cargo.
They'd executed a twenty-one-year-old kid because he'd helped her. Because he'd noticed her bruises and asked if someone was hurting her. Because he'd been kind.
And Maya had watched. Had screamed while they held her. Would carry that image forever—assuming she lived long enough to have a forever.
"Track that van." My voice came out wrong. Not human. Something scraped raw and rebuilt from darker material. "Find where they took her."
"Kostya—"
"Now."
Maks went silent. I could hear him typing, working, hunting through the city's electronic eyes for the vehicle that had swallowed my entire world.
The tablet showed the empty street. Frank's body was gone now—someone had come, cleaned up, made the scene disappear. Professional work. No evidence. No witnesses. Just another person who'd vanished in the night.
My foot pressed harder on the accelerator. The SUV screamed through Brooklyn's empty streets, and somewhere ahead, Maya was in a van heading toward people who would take her apart piece by piece.
The monster had been cold before. Controlled. Now it was something else entirely—not hot rage, not cold calculation, but that terrible space between where men became capable of anything.
"I've got the van," Maks said suddenly. "Queens. Industrial area. They went to ground at a private clinic. Kostya, it must be the harvesting site."
Harvesting. The word landed like a knife between my ribs.
"Address," I said. "Now."
He gave it to me. I punched it into navigation. Twenty-three minutes if I obeyed traffic laws.
I'd make it in fifteen.
"Get Nikolai," I said. "Full assault team. Every man we have."
"Already done. They're mobilizing."
"Tell them to hurry." My eyes stayed on the road, but my mind was in that van, in that clinic, with Maya strapped to a table while someone decided which of her organs to harvest first. "If they cut her before I get there, I'm killing everyone in the building.
And then I'm killing whoever sent them."
The line stayed open. Maks didn't argue. He'd known me long enough to recognize when words were pointless.
I drove toward Queens, toward Brand, toward the woman I loved, and let the monster take the wheel.
The staging point was an abandoned warehouse six blocks from the target—close enough to reach fast, far enough that our vehicles wouldn't spook Brand's security.
I arrived first, which meant standing in the dark for eight minutes while my skin crawled and my mind calculated every terrible possibility.
The destination made my stomach turn: a private wellness clinic in an industrial area of Queens. Legitimate front that processed wealthy clients during the day—discreet procedures, no questions asked, cash-only clientele. At night, it processed something else entirely.
Although Brand had been operating out of the Brighton Beach Medical Center, clearly the more delicate operations happened her.This was the place where people became inventory.
Maya had been in their hands for almost two hours now.
I pushed the thought down. Couldn't afford it.
Couldn't let the images in—Maya on a table, scalpel opening her skin, gloved hands reaching inside to extract what made her alive.
The monster howled in my chest, demanding blood, demanding violence, demanding I stop standing in this fucking warehouse and go get her.
Headlights cut through the darkness. Vehicles arriving—SUVs in formation, the particular configuration our people used for assault operations. Nikolai's convoy.
We were a few minutes away from the target, but we had to prepare out of sight. The plan was essential.
My brother stepped out of the lead vehicle, already in tactical gear. Behind him, men emerged from the other SUVs. Twelve of our best. Body armor, assault rifles, the kind of firepower that could start a small war.
Nikolai's eyes found mine across the warehouse floor. Whatever he saw there made him change direction, walking toward me instead of the tactical table where someone was already spreading building schematics.
"She's alive," he said. No preamble. No softening. "If they wanted her dead, they would have done it in the street like the kid. They want her intact."
"Intact means awake while they cut." The words tasted like acid. "Intact means she feels everything."
"She's alive," he repeated. "Focus on that."
He was right. I knew he was right. But knowing and feeling were different animals, and the feeling was screaming at me to move, to run, to tear through walls with my bare hands until I found her.
The tactical briefing started. Someone—Dmitry, I registered dimly—was walking through the building layout.
Three floors. Basement where the surgical suites were located.
Armed guards at every entrance. Security system that Maks had already compromised.
Four entry points, simultaneous breach, standard protocol for facility extraction.
I heard maybe half of it.
All I could think about was the timeline. Every minute they spent planning was a minute Brand's people could be prepping Maya. Minute by minute, second by second, the window for saving her intact was closing.
"We go now," I said, cutting through Dmitry's explanation of sightlines. "Every minute we plan is a minute they have to cut her open."
The warehouse went quiet. Twelve soldiers, plus Nikolai and Maks, all looking at me. Looking at the Besharov enforcer who never interrupted tactical briefings, who understood that rushing got people killed.
"Kostya—" Dmitry started.
"Now." I met his eyes, and whatever he saw there made him step back. "We know the layout. We know the entry points. We know they have guards. That's enough."
Nikolai studied me for a long moment. Then he nodded once, decision made.
"Kostya takes point on the surgical suite," he announced to the room. "Primary objective is Maya's extraction. Secondary objective is capturing Brand alive for questioning. Everything else—" He looked around at the assembled soldiers. "Everything else dies."
No arguments. No questions. These men had worked with me for years. Had seen what I was capable of when someone threatened mine.
"You get Maya," Nikolai said, stepping close enough that only I could hear. "We handle everything else. Just—" He paused, and for a moment I saw my brother instead of the Pakhan. "Just bring her back. Sophie's already making up the guest room."
I couldn't speak. Could only nod, once, sharp.
The convoy moved out. Five vehicles, sixteen men, enough ordinance to level a city block. I sat in the lead SUV, checking weapons with mechanical precision. Pistol: loaded, round chambered, safety off. Backup at my ankle: same. Knife: positioned for quick draw. Body armor: secured.
My hands went through the motions. My mind was already inside the clinic.
What would I find when we breached? Maya conscious or sedated? Maya whole or already opened? The possibility of arriving too late—of finding her body on a table, organs already packed in coolers—made my vision blur at the edges.
No. I couldn't think that way. She was alive. She had to be alive. Because the alternative wasn't something I could survive.
The clinic appeared through the windshield as we approached—brick building, tasteful signage, professional landscaping. The kind of place where rich people got discreet procedures, where privacy was guaranteed and questions were never asked.
The kind of place that ran a butcher shop in the basement.
"Thirty seconds," Dmitry called from the driver's seat.
I was out of the vehicle before it fully stopped.
Four entry points. Four simultaneous breaches. The clinic's peaceful facade shattered in the space of three heartbeats—glass breaking, doors splintering, the particular thunder of flashbangs designed to disorient and terrify.
I went through the front entrance because I was incapable of subtlety tonight.
The door gave way under my shoulder, and the first guard was right there—young guy, probably hired for his intimidating size rather than actual skill.
His hand was still reaching for his weapon when my knife found his throat.
He dropped. I stepped over him.
The second guard was smarter, positioned behind a reception desk with actual cover. He got a shot off—went wide, close enough that I felt the air move—before I put two rounds through his center mass. The desk exploded with splinters as his body hit it on the way down.
The third guard tried to surrender. Hands up, weapon on the ground, mouth forming words about just being hired security, not knowing what happened in the basement.
I broke his neck anyway.
Tonight wasn't about justice. Tonight was about clearing a path.
The lobby opened into a hallway that looked exactly like any high-end medical facility—tasteful art on the walls, soft lighting, the subtle scent of money and discretion. The kind of place where wealthy clients came for procedures they didn't want on their records.
The illusion lasted until I kicked open the first door.
Examination room. Nothing unusual except the restraints built into the table—leather cuffs at wrist and ankle positions, professional medical-grade, the kind designed for patients who might struggle. The kind you'd use on someone who hadn't consented.
I moved on.