Chapter 38 - Konstantin
I ended up at Dima’s house since the beach house was useless until the swarm of cops left.
Olivia greeted me, unsure why I was there, and instantly worried that something awful had happened to her husband.
We Fokins did seem to have nine lives, but all of us were perilously close to using them up.
Any one of us could end up dead at any time.
“He’s fine,” I said at the look on her face once she saw me standing alone in her doorway. “At least he was when I left.”
“Why did you leave?” she asked accusingly.
I smiled at her fierce protectiveness, something I understood all too well. “Another emergency. The woman I’ve been keeping safe has disappeared.”
“I know all about Tatiana,” she said, motioning for me to follow her. In the kitchen, she started the espresso machine, moving with the efficiency of the personal assistant she used to be to Dima. “You wouldn’t believe how much this family gossips.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, not surprised that word had spread. The small talk was grating on my nerves. My thoughts were consumed with Tati. Where was she? Who was she with?
As soon as a cup of nuclear strong coffee was in front of me, she disappeared, returning a few moments later with a bland-looking young man, both tall and wide. “Our head of security,” she said. “Tell him how he can help.”
Any slight annoyance I had with Dima’s lovely wife evaporated, and I gave her a grateful smile she didn’t see because she was busy putting together a snack tray. I gave him Tati’s phone information, informing him there was a tracker in it, and he left, telling me to give him five minutes.
“Feels like an eternity, I know,” Olivia said, setting a plate of vegetables, hummus, and seed crackers in front of me. “And I also know you won’t eat any of that, but I tend to work when I’m anxious.”
“Dima will be fine, like always.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, steady despite the worry in her eyes.
The guard made good on his promise, and within five minutes, he returned. “The phone is off, the tracker’s no longer pinging. The last location was about a mile and a half from the beach house.”
I cursed Grigor for not installing a more high-tech tracker, then just plain cursed him. I should have started in on Tati, but at the moment, I couldn’t be too mad at her. I was too consumed with worry for her safety.
My phone rang, and I told Olivia it was Dima.
Her shoulders lowered with relief as I answered.
“Are you all good?” I asked, since I left him in the midst of a fight.
It was difficult to care too much about that when everything I had was focused on Tati.
Right now, I needed him to stop caring too, so I could enlist him to help look for her.
“Better than good,” he said. “How’s my house?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I bellowed as he chuckled. “It’s fine, but swarming with cops, that’s why I’m at your main place.”
“God, don’t get that one burned down, too.”
“Can you just tell me what has you in such a good mood?” I demanded, in no state of mind for jokes, when my stomach felt like I had eaten glass shards.
“When we got to the next location after the warehouse, we managed to grab a guy who’s very desperate to stay alive. Supposedly, he knows where Grigor is. It’s not far, and he says he’ll take us there.”
“That’s awfully convenient, isn’t it?” I asked, not daring to hope it was true.
“He knows he’ll die painfully if he’s lying,” Dima said, and I could envision him shrugging. “It’s the best lead we have.”
“And we have to take it,” I said, resigned to trusting a stranger who might be leading us into a trap. “Because now Tati’s missing, too.”
“Hurry up and get over here, then,” he said, hanging up. A second later, his location came through.
I jumped up, running toward the door as I tossed some thanks over my shoulder to Olivia, who looked equal parts confused and pissed that I didn’t pause to explain.
The drive to his location seemed unending, but after only twenty minutes, I was there.
The building they had managed to save was a shopfront with several apartments over it in the heart of the city.
If the enemy attacking it had managed to set it on fire, it might have been disastrous.
As it was, only the plate glass shop window was broken, and the shelves inside were overturned and smashed.
It could go down as the work of an ordinary burglar if Dima wanted to claim insurance, and the most important thing was this guy, who couldn’t run fast enough, might actually have some valuable intel.
The man was wiry, with a scar intertwined with a barbed wire tattoo down the side of his face. He was clearly not high up on the food chain, and what little hope I had was dashed.
“How does someone like that know something so important?” I asked as Dima dragged the man to a car.
His steps were sluggish, and he was bent over. When he looked up, both his eyes were already blackened, and his nose slowly dripped blood. “I swear I know. I was part of it.”
He didn’t speak anymore, dozing from the beating he had already received. Dima drove, and I prodded the prisoner every time we had to make a turn, and he roused himself enough to give further directions, determined to stay useful until the bitter end.
A small army followed us, and that didn’t seem to bother the man, but it still could have been a trap, so my guard was up as high as it could go.
After heading past the outskirts of town, we arrived at a decrepit house in a cul-de-sac of an even more decrepit neighborhood.
The house to the right of it seemed deserted, with boarded-up windows and more graffiti than stucco, but the one we entered seemed fairly well cared for.
I told Dima and his men to stay outside and surround the place. Inside it was a typical safehouse, sparsely and cheaply furnished with the bare necessities.
“So where is he?” I asked, shaking the man. He pointed with his chin since his hands were cuffed behind his back.
“Last bedroom on the right. You’ll let me live now, right? I’ve got kids…”
I ignored his sniveling. What damn criminal didn’t have kids? We all had people we loved, but it didn’t mean we deserved to stay alive. I shoved open the last door, my gun drawn, still expecting the worst.
And I got it, just not in the form of an ambush.
My oldest friend lay on a bare mattress in the middle of the floor, tied up and badly injured.
His face made our guide look like he was ready for a magazine cover shoot, swollen, cut, and barely recognizable.
His torn shirt was stained with blood, his hands that were clasped together and tied in front of him were scraped and caked with dried blood.
That was Grigor. He’d go down swinging and give as good as he got. I shoved down the old affection and nudged him with my foot.
“Wake up,” I said, kicking a little harder when the nudge didn’t wake him.
He slowly opened his eyes and then struggled to sit up. “Am I dreaming?” he asked, wincing when he rubbed his eyes with his bound hands.
“No, it’s really me,” I said. “And what the fuck are you doing dreaming about me, anyway, asshole?”
He laughed, then coughed, spitting blood. “I guess they got to you,” he said, managing to look mournful under all the swelling.
“You’re delirious from getting your head bashed in,” I said. “You’re the one tied up. I’m curious about that. All of it, really. Did you get what you deserved after trying to double-cross them with my enemies?”
He groaned, leaning up against the wall and staring at me through eyes that would barely open. “They had Klara,” he rasped.
His assistant, whom he cared deeply for. For a lot of years, I suspected they were secretly more than employee and boss. He would have done a lot to protect her. I nodded coldly for him to continue.
“The Yakuza were so pissed at you,” he said, laughing roughly, but shaking his head. “We took so much of their territory, and then you had that fling with the official’s woman. I just wanted Klara back, and figured we’d work together to get your money back once she was safe.”
“This is a really good story so far,” I said.
“Oh, it gets better,” he said, spitting out a glob of blood. “I could use some water, Kon.”
A surge of pity made me pause. This was Tati’s father, whom she’d been so desperate to find. Well, I found him, and he was as bad as I feared. And if he didn’t keep talking, I was going to finish him myself.
“Maybe when you’re done,” I said, shoving aside any feeling other than what had driven me before Tati wormed her way into my heart and reminded me I had one. “Or maybe not.”
He sighed. “She was in on it.” He looked at me, the heartbreak clear beneath the bruises.
“She was sick of the life, thought the Yakuza was going to give her a payout, and cut her loose for turning on you. Right before they took her away, she told me she wanted to go to Fiji and live in a hut there, under the radar. No more crime. I didn’t think she was serious, and I laughed. ”
“That sucks,” I said, knowing how he felt. “I always suspected you loved her.”
His choked laugh was bitter. “So then they had me. Klara was gone; it looked like I had disappeared with all that money. It was all manipulation to draw you out, all the way to LA. They were going to parade my dead body in front of your nephews if it came to it.” He laughed some more, spitting more blood.
“Nobody’s ever been that pissed off at you.
The Yakuza don’t get over stuff like some of the others. ”
I was beginning to believe him, and as he explained that the Mexican cartel, which had been working with the Yakuza in LA, while simultaneously looking for any opportunity to double-cross them, was put in charge of watching Grigor.
It turned out our prisoner was the one who’d gotten him away from Riku and brought him here, hoping to use him as a bribe or leverage.
Then he fell into Dima’s hands and decided his own life was worth more than keeping the secret any longer, so that was how I found myself going to the safehouse kitchen to get Grigor a bottle of water.
He took a long swig while I unfolded my knife to cut through the rope around his hands. “At least Tati’s safe,” he said. “I was able to tell her to stay put in Moscow and not talk to anyone. I want to get back to her soon, before Riku figures out she exists and decides to go after her.”
The guilt that hit me hard enough to make me see, once I realized Grigor had never double-crossed me, increased tenfold. I was horrified as everything with Tati ran through my mind like a film reel.
Grabbing her off the street, holding her in my house. The fights, the good times when we pretended things were normal. The better times when we forgot we were enemies and fell into bed, or onto a lounge chair, or the shower, or the sand at the beach house.
Fuck. What did I do?
What was I going to do?
“What?” Grigor asked, slowly rising with the aid of the wall. “Why do you look like you just saw the ghost of your mean old great-grandmother?”
“About Tati,” I said slowly, trying to decide where to start.
He froze, halfway to standing. “What about Tati?” he asked.
It all spilled out, starting from her going to LA to search for him, and me rescuing her from crossing paths with Riku, to the fact that she was very probably with him right now.
He shouldn’t have had enough strength to keep standing, but Grigor managed to haul back and punch me right in the jaw when I was done filling him in.
“Why the hell didn’t you take her back to Moscow?” he yelled, sending himself into a coughing fit. Doubled over, he tried to swing at me again.
I stepped back, out of reach. He was allowed one, but I wasn’t in the best of moods, either, still terrified for Tati, guilty about not trusting Grigor, and finding out I was the one who’d been doing the betraying all along. Not a good feeling.
“You know how she is,” I said.
“Yes, I certainly do,” he wheezed. “You better not try to make me believe that you know her better.”
“She wanted to help. She had some good ideas.”
“And now she’s with fucking Riku Yoshida,” he said, waving his hand around his face. “The guy who did all this has my baby girl.”
That wasn’t helping. I was all too aware of what Riku was capable of, and it was ripping me apart. “I swear I’ll get her back,” I said. “Tell me where they were keeping you before the cartel nabbed you.”
“Like hell I will. I’m going with you.” He took two steps forward and fell to his knees, his hands slapping against the floor as he barely caught himself before faceplanting.
Pulling out my phone, I called Dima to come inside and help me get the stubborn fool into the car so we could get him some medical help. By the time we were back at Dima’s house and his private physician was waiting, Grigor was only half-conscious, barely able to keep his head up.
I watched as the doctor and his assistant, along with two of Dima’s guards, hauled him to a bed and hooked up a drip. Holding my breath and using all my self-control not to kick him again, I waited until they were done with their initial exam to push past them.
“Wake up and tell me how to find Tati,” I said, shaking his shoulder. The doctor yelped at me, but I ignored him, shaking until Grigor’s eyes cracked open. “Tell me where to go so I can bring her back.”
He nodded slightly, reaching for my hand. I let him squeeze it, wondering what he’d try to do to me when he knew the full extent of what Tati and I had become.
And what was that, exactly?
The fear that I might never know propelled me out of the house, armed at last with Riku’s last known location.
Thankfully, the fear was overwhelmed with rage that someone might be hurting her while I was stuck in fucking traffic.
Skidding past the lineup of cars, I sped along the shoulder until I reached an exit, making my confused GPS system give me a better route.
Not fast enough. What if I didn’t get there in time? What if it wasn’t the right place?
All I could do was grip the wheel and let the fire inside me keep me going. She was mine. No one was keeping her from me. And if anyone had harmed her, they’d see what wrath really meant.