Chapter 52 Ransome
RANSOME
“We’ve got a fucking problem,” I bark into my phone.
I’m in the bathroom at my estate, washing blood off my hands, my shirt, my face, and pretty much everywhere else it sprayed after I shot Igor in the face. I always forget just how messy point-blank headshots are.
“Don’t tell me we offend the wrong guy,” Maverick says.
“What’s up, boss?” Baron joins in.
I shut off the water and dry my hands. “I’m at the estate and Amara is not here.”
“Phone?” Maverick asks.
“Also not here.”
“Tracker?” Baron asks.
“Off. Either it’s dead or gone.”
“Security cameras?” Baron asks.
“Checked them. Electra came over, they sat on the couch for a while, went to sleep, then they both left around 2 A.M.”
“So maybe they went to Electra’s house?” Mav asks.
But I shake my head, making my way into my office. “Not likely. The footage I have of Electra banging on the front door shows her face bruised and messy. Someone beat her up pretty bad. I’ve been connecting dots, and I think I figured out what’s been going on with Electra’s shady boyfriend.”
“He’s a piece of shit from Brooklyn that can smell sex?” Maverick asks.
I wish it were that fucking simple. But that’s not it. If I hadn’t been so distracted, I would have put it together sooner. Electra’s boy drama wasn’t just a coincidence. It was by design.
It was a fucking trap.
And we all fell for it.
As usual, Baron speaks what’s in my mind. “This has Tristan written all over it.”
“Bingo.”
“Shit.” Mav curses under his breath in Russian. “So now what?”
“I need you guys on backup. We need to find Tristan. I’d put my money on it that he has the girls.”
“You got it,” Baron says, and I hang up.
Then I look around the room for clues.
Anything at all that would tell me where they could be.
But other than a couple of half-finished mugs of cold tea and a pile of blood and snot-stained tissues, I don’t see anything.
Amara’s purse is gone, which tells me she left on purpose.
The car is also gone, which tells me she drove somewhere with Electra.
But where?
I punch in the code for my other estate and march straight into the master bedroom, flipping all the lights on.
“What the—” Jenica bolts upright and rips off her satin sleep mask. Then she rolls her eyes in annoyance. “You really don’t care about my sleep schedule, do you?”
“Get up. I need your help.”
“Again? Let me guess, Igor was a hot mess and you shot him before he cracked.” She pulls her mask back over her eyes and lays back down. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
I walk over to the bed and rip the mask off.
“Hey!”
“I got what I needed before I shot him. But Amara is gone.”
“What does that have to do with Igor?”
“It means that Tristan is onto us, and while I was interrogating the guy you suggested, he was in the process of kidnapping Amara and my child!” I snap.
“Jesus.” She finally throws the blankets off and sits up. “Any idea where they went?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be standing here. Where does Tristan take people?”
“What kinds of people?” she asks. “People he wants to work for him? People he wants to fuck? People he wants to kill? Be specific.”
I’m shaking at this point. With rage, powerlessness, but most of all, a bone-deep dread that I’m never going to see them again. Not Amara, not our child. “Do not make me answer that question.”
Jenica takes in a deep breath and lets it back out.
“Tristan has a string of underground bars that he hangs out at. Places that either look too seedy for high-class Bratva affiliation, which is kind of the M.O., or places that you can’t see from the street.
Hole-in-the-wall places. You’ll never find them if you don’t know where they are.
” She rakes a hand through her hair. “He also has warehouses out of the lower docks by the shut-down fish hatchery where he does production. He chose the location because people tend to stay away from it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Hello? Fish hatchery?” She snorts. “It stinks to high heaven.”
An old fish hatchery. It would be the perfect place to lie low. The ideal spot to keep two women you’ve kidnapped and have no one get nosy about it.
“Where is it?”
“I told you. By the old fish—”
“I need exact location,” I snap.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know the exact location!” she snaps back. “Women aren’t exactly a part of the day-to-day wheeling and dealing. Everything I know is from eavesdropping at family dinners and parties. And I’m telling you everything I know.”
I wipe my hand down my face. It’s not all I was hoping for, but for now, it’ll have to be enough. “Fine.”
“Can I go back to sleep now?”
“No. I’m not done with you.”
“Fine. But I’m going to need a cup of coffee if I have to work this late. Or early.”
I’m too wired to argue with that. God knows I need a hot mug in my hands, too.
Medium Americano. Splash of cream. No sugar.
I clench my fists and force myself not to think of Amara. If I let myself panic, it’s over. For all of us. She needs me to be lucid, and I won’t let her down by having a pointless freakout while there’s still something to be done.
I will get her back. I will get our child back.
As we make our way into the kitchen, my phone buzzes.
“What is it?” Jenica asks.
Then she looks at my screen.
It’s a text from an unknown number. A text containing a photo.
My guts twist as I look at it. Amara is on a cement floor. Her hands are bound and her face is twisted.
UNKNOWN: Looking for something?
I don’t have to wonder whose number it is.
Tristan fucking Chadovich.
“Jesus,” Jenica lets out. I can’t say she’s ever been a fan of Amara, but a sigh like that would make anyone’s stomach lurch. God knows the things it’s doing to mine. “Okay, now what?”
I chew my lip hard enough to bite it off. I am fuming. Livid to the point of my vision blurring. But I’m not going to lose it.
If I lose it, I won’t find her.
If I lose it, I can’t save her
If I lose it, she dies.
And so does our baby.
Once I’ve regained one-hundred percent of my composure, I dial Tristan’s number and wait.
He answers on the second ring. I can tell by the echo that I am on speaker phone.
“Speak of the devil,” he says.
“I’m going to kill her,” I answer back.
“Kill who exactly?” Tristan asks. And my eyes drag up to Jenica who waits. “You forget that I am the one with the girl. Your girl.”
“Someone you love. You should know who I’m talking about.”
But Tristan only sounds bored. “I don’t love a lot of people, Rozanov. It’s why I don’t care about the Bratva. All that talk of family and sacrifice just makes my dick go limp.”
“Of course,” I say. “That would mean you’d have to give a shit about loyalty. About rules. Which, clearly, you never have. But I don’t think your heart is that black. I think Jenica means something to you.”
“Not that much,” he says, but I can hear the nerves in his voice. Whether or not they are close, they grew up together.
“I think it’s fair. An eye for an eye. You know, since you don’t have any siblings.
She’s the only one who ever actually loved you.
Though I think it’s safe to say that feeling is past tense.
Or it will be, once I put a bullet in her pretty little head.
It’s a shame, really. All that Botox gone to waste. ”
Jenica rolls her eyes and flips me off.
“You’re lying,” he spits out.
“Am I? Because Igor thought the same thing before I sprayed my office with his brain matter.”
There’s a beat of silence on the other end. Then, “Prove it.”
“Hold. This mouth gag is pretty tight.”
I look at Jenica. At first she seems confused, but then she catches on.
After a moment that I swear had to be rehearsed, she lets out a blood-curdling cry.
“Tristan! Tristan, you have to stop him!” she wails and gasps. Her ability to turn on the fake panic and waterworks is impeccable.
“Where the fuck are you?” Tristan snaps.
“He beat the shit out of me, Tristan. He says he’s going to kill me! Please…”
“Alright, that’s enough,” I say, pretending to gag her again. “Well?”
“Yeah, alright, you made your point. What do you want, Rozanov?”
“I want to know that Amara is alive.” After a beat, I add, “And her friend.”
“They are.”
“Prove it.”
“Fine.” I can hear mumbling. Something about not telling me where they are or Electra dies.
Then I hear her voice.
“Ransome…” she whispers, and all it takes is that one word for relief to rush over me like a biblical flood. “I love you,” she says. “And I’m scared.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her as calmly as possible. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“I…” she stutters. And then her voice is calm. Collected. “I miss you.”
“I know. And it’s okay.”
“I can’t stop thinking about you. About the time we spent together.” She gives a smile that I know is forced. “Remember that time we went up north by the water trying to find that seafood restaurant?”
I have no fucking clue what she’s talking about, but I say, “Yeah.”
“And remember how I kept playing Bohemian Rhapsody?”
“You and that fucking song,” Tristan says, but Amara keeps going.
“I played it over and over,” she says.
Finally, I realize what’s going on. “Yeah, you did. Jesus. I was about to throw your phone out the window.”
She laughs. And while I know it’s staged, it makes my chest tight all the same. “I think I must’ve played it nine times, give or take. Before we figured out where we were going.”
“Yeah. Forty-five minutes of Freddie Mercury whining,” I mutter. Words that ordinarily would never leave my mouth, because I fucking love Queen, and Amara knows it.
Just like she knows I love her.
Amara nods. “Give or take.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Tristan says. “If you ever want to see your girl again—alive, that is—you’re going to meet with me. For a little… negotiation.”
The call ends and Jenica looks up at me.
“That was good,” she says.
“You were good,” I am willing to admit.
Jenica shrugs, taking a sip of her coffee. “It’s all the Real Housewives. I’ve perfected the fake cry.”
With that, I head out the door, almost smiling.
Amara gave me a clue. A vital clue. She told me how many times she played Bohemian Rhapsody on the way to wherever they are.
And while I don’t know where they started off, she mentioned seafood, and that can’t have been a coincidence.
Not with Jenica telling me all that stuff about the old fish hatchery.
Wherever she is, it’s forty-five minutes out of somewhere, and it reeks of fish.
And I’m going to get her out no matter what.