Chapter Thirty-Seven
In which the clock is ticking.
Vadim…
"Easy!" Someone barks. "We don't want him dead yet!"
Ihiro grunts. "I know what I'm doing."
He does.
Like a gentleman, Dimakos introduced me to the pathetic fucks who hired his team, when they brought me into this steel shipping container. As expected, they moved me somewhere down by the Volga River. I can smell the damp earth and wet pine, the sharp stink of diesel fuel.
He then ushered Ihiro forward with some ceremony. "Ihiro is known for his skill in the art of torture. He has made men into something barely alive, unrecognizable as human. I'm looking forward to seeing how he treats you as his canvas.
I'm observing from a faraway corner of my mind, where I've put myself.
The agony is still not as bad as it was when I was fourteen.
Since my kidnapping and rescue, I've been shot.
Stabbed. Burned. Thrown out of a three-story window.
Hit by a car. None of it could ever be as soul destroying as those days as a boy in Grishchenkov's captivity.
This is close.
The slightest grunt comes from me as Ihiro's knife drives into my side again. He's an expert about manipulating the blade between the ribs to avoid any internal organs while knowing where every nerve bundle is.
Part of me feels like I'm hovering from above, watching this happen. I hope that doesn't mean my soul has already left my body.
"Was it worth trading your life for your bitch?" It's that Irish fuck again. He spits on me. "What kind of man can't control his wife?"
"You, apparently," I say, even though I'd sworn not to speak. When he punches me in the jaw, screaming curses, I can't help but chuckle.
The light is painfully bright. There are two men with cameras darting around Ihiro, eagerly seeking a close up of the systematic deconstruction of my body, hoping for an expression of agony on my face. They'll never get it.
"Maldito cerdo, fucking pig!" Mendoza, that cocksucker, I think. "Your puta took my sons. My heirs!" he roars. He's preening for the camera like a rooster, ruffling his feathers.
The chain cranks, and they haul me up to my feet, then higher. My arms are yanked hard enough that I'm waiting for a muscle to tear in my shoulder.
Nothing yet, it will probably come soon enough.
A fist drives into my ribs, and I swing on the chain, turning one way, and then the other. My head drops back, and I stare past my bound hands to the hook in the ceiling.
There's a searing slash of a whip across my back, over and over. Something red hot, driving into my leg. I smell my flesh burn. The far recesses of my mind are no longer strong enough to hold my sanity, it's fraying.
My Oksana is here, smiling at me with so much love, making room to hold me now that my own will is not enough.
She talks constantly. Happy observations about the horses, the house, the vivid "October Blue" of the sky, even though it's November now.
When we play chess, she keeps up a running commentary that I know she hopes will take me off my game.
Occasionally, it does. My bride doesn't seem to mind that I usually don't answer back, but she knows I am always listening.
***
A week ago…
"So, Dariy Agapov used his wedding gift to hold me hostage as he went on and on about your brilliance and strategy, and how you positioned the Turgenev Bratva for superior strength.
" Her feet were in my lap, we were relaxing in the library in front of the fire.
"I know he was hoping I'd tell you of his never-ending devotion, because he was certainly too scared to, the poor man.
He kept looking at me, expecting me to agree with him, I guess.
" She let out a half-snort, half giggle.
"I didn't know what to say, but I was thinking, 'I don't know about my husband's strategy and positioning strengths, but the man certainly gives five-star oral'.
" She slapped her hand over her mouth, looking horrified, but still giggling. "Wait. Did you -?"
I raised my eyebrow inquiringly, still rubbing her feet.
"I heard that!" she said accusingly. "Did you just laugh?"
"No." I said.
"You did!" she pointed at me triumphantly. "You laughed. I heard it."
"You're mistaken."
She crawled onto my lap, eyes shining. "What else makes you laugh? Are you ticklish?"
I flipped her underneath me, kissing her giggles away as she sighed happily, unbuttoning my shirt. Within seconds, we'd pulled away enough of our clothing and I pinned her to the couch, burying myself inside her while she tried to smother her moans in my shoulder.
"I love you," she whispered. "So much. Thank you for being my husband."
***
"Is he dead? He's not moving."
"Ihiro, you stupid bastard! Did you kill him already? Fuck!"
Oksana...
I thought the worst moment would be when I was torn away from Vadim, screaming and reaching out for him, but I was wrong.
It's facing his family.
Our group meets up with the Turgenevs along a stretch of the Moscow Canal. It's a bare stretch of gravel and broken glass, with two sputtering street lights.
When I see Vadim's mother, Mariya, I drop to my knees, taking her hand and pressing my bent forehead to it. "I am so sorry. I'm so sorry," I sob. "I wish they had killed me quickly, so that he never would have -"
"Stop." Mariya loops her hands under my elbows, helping me up. "Stop now. Do you think that my son could have survived, knowing you had died at the hands of those men?"
Her hand is on my chin, forcing me to look at her. Her expression is firm, but not unkind. It's clear she's not going to tolerate my guilt or my apologies. Konstantin is standing next to her, and to the left, slightly away from everyone else, is his grandfather, Alexei.
The look on his face freezes my soul.
"Of course," I force out the words between numb lips. "Not now. Please, tell us the plan."
"Between your family, the Morozovs, and ours," Konstantin says, "we've been tracking traffic cameras, and storefront security feeds. There are two vans, they're identical. They drove off in two different directions, so we're following the feeds of both."
"Does Vadim have a location tracker?" Nikolai asks hopefully.
Mariya's eyes close, and it's Konstantin who answers. "He did. It was cut out and left on the floor at the house."
I cross my arms, sticking my fingernails into my skin, welcoming the sting. I will not collapse again. I won't cry.
"Sirs?" It's David, our tech lead, looking green. This is the man who I know tours the dark web on a daily basis while eating a sandwich. He's holding his laptop with shaking hands. "They've started a live feed." He turns the laptop away from me and toward the Turgenevs.
Surging forward, I try to see the screen and Nikolai grabs my arm, pulling me back. I may not be able to see what they're doing to Vadim, but I can hear the taunts and jeers of the men. All the posturing and tough talk. Not a sound from my husband.
Mariya's mouth goes into a thin, flat line, and she sways slightly, Stepan puts his arm around her. Konstantin and Alexei's expressions are frozen. Their eyes, though, I can see the slow simmering of hell fire.
"Can you track the feed?" Konstantin's voice is remarkably steady.
"We're on it now," David says. "I'm patched into Kolya's feed, he's the Morozov Bratva's tech expert.
The signal is jumping VPN servers across six countries, faster than we can track.
Kolya, though, he's built a predictive program that analyzes the next fifteen steps based on the last thirty ones.
We're jumping ahead, he recognizes the pattern.
" David anxiously looks at me, then Nikolai and Maks.
"This is good," he repeats awkwardly. "A good thing. "
"Where do we go?" Alexi says. His face is terrifyingly blank, his black jacket blowing in the wind, looking monstrous like a carrion bird waiting to spread his wings.
David rapidly taps in a series of numbers. "We can start from right here," he says. "The predictive analysis shows the feed can't be coming any further than sixteen kilometers away."
Everyone surges toward the cars and trucks, including two monstrously huge trucks with reinforced grills.
Rezvani Tanks, I think. Maks had always wanted one because they're the closest thing to an actual tank that's road-worthy.
As eight more matte black SUV's roar into the parking area, everyone's guns go up until Konstantin shouts, "Put your weapons down! They're from the Volkov Bratva."
Kirill Volkov steps out of the first SUV in line, striding torward us. "I have thirty men with me. Viktor Balabanov is coming in from the east." He looks older, sterner than I remember, his jaw tight.
"Good to have you here," Alexei says.
Kirill nods respectfully. "It's an honor to stand with you, Sir." He glances over at me. "Anka is still screaming because I wouldn't let her come with us, even though I told her you'd been rescued."
I let out a half sob, half laugh. "That sounds like Anka."
Everyone is heading toward their vehicles as Alexi points at me. "You come with me."
Nikolai's hand on my arm tightens, but I pull loose. "Yes. Of course."
A guard tries to climb into the driver's seat of one of the Rezvani's and Alexi pulls him out by the collar. "In the back."
He climbs into the driver's seat and I scramble to get into the passenger side, buckling myself in as he stomps on the gas.
One of the guards in the backseat hands me a surveillance kit, and I fit it in my ear, listening to the chatter until I can isolate the channel where David is talking with Kolya.
"Keep heading west," Kolya says. "The signal dropped and picked up again."
A new voice breaks in. It's a woman, and she's furious. "You started the program without me?" Her accent is Asian, Chinese, I think. She's shouting and I can dimly hear Kolya babbling apologies. She cuts him off with a stream of incomprehensible technical information.
"Who is this?" Konstantin cuts into the conversation.
"Mei Chen, sir. I work for the Volkov Bratva." She launches back into the digital gibberish with Kolya and David.
"Switch to channel eleven," Konstantin says in my ear, and Alexi and I do.
"Explain," Alexi grunts. His reticence is so much like Vadim's that it sends another cut across my heart, like I'm bleeding inside.
"Kirill Volkov is joining us," Konstantin says. His tone is even, but I can hear the painful tinge of hope. "The girl - Mei - her program is mirroring the location. It's correct."
The line crackles and Nikolai joins in. "Lukyan Kuznetsov and his people are coming in from the north. We have drones up over the area. Mei and David believe the feed is coming from a cargo ship on the Volga River."
It's been hours since they took Vadim. How badly is he hurt? Is he even alive?
Please, please, please, pleasepleaseplease…