Dammit.
I try calling again. When she still doesn’t answer, I lose my shit. I swerve to drive with two wheels up on the sidewalk, forcing pedestrians to scatter for their lives.
Cars honk. People scream. I don’t give a fuck.
I skid around the corner, finally making it to the street Chelle’s building is on. I scan the sidewalk in front as I cut up onto the curb.
She’s not fucking there.
She’s not here, and my tracker says she is.
Blyad’!
I throw the car in park and leap out, racing to the sidewalk, dialing Chelle again as I follow the tracker to the corner.
I hear the phone ring faintly beneath my feet.
I swallow the bile in my throat as I slowly look down to see the faint glow of her phone beneath the bars of the storm drain.
Goddamnit. Chyort voz’mi!
I jog back to the Tesla to the serenade of a dozen car horns and get in. I’ve never been particularly violent, but in this moment, I turn deadly. I will fucking kill every last one of those zhopas who touched Chelle.
She belongs to me and no one fucking touches what’s mine.
I call Dima first, even though he’s not here.
“They fucking took her!” I bellow.
“Blyad’. What happened?” His voice is low and urgent to match mine.
“Her phone is in the storm drain in front of her office. There was a jam-up on her street, and I couldn’t get through. They probably caused the delay on purpose to stake her out.”
“Fuck. Okay, I’m hacking the phone records to get both Chelle’s and Zane’s last calls and texts. It will just be a minute. While I do that, I’m going to connect in Ravil,” he says smoothly, which is probably good thinking, but I hate our pakhan witnessing my total combustion. “Hang on one second.”
A moment later he comes back. “I have Ravil and Maxim on the line too.”
“Where are you, Nikolai?” Ravil asks.
“Driving to Zane’s dorm. I’ve already been there today, as well as to Chelle’s to check on the new locks and make sure the place wasn’t being watched, but I didn’t find anything.”
“I’ll send some guys to stay at Chelle’s,” Ravil says. “Text me the address.”
“I have their last texts,” Dima interrupts. “Chelle’s was to you at 5:34 p.m. Zane’s was to Chelle at 7:42 p.m. last night. He sent no other texts or calls before his phone went dark at 9:03 p.m. Do you want me to try to retrieve the contents of Zane’s texts?”
Fuck. I doubt they have anything useful, but I mutter, “Da,” anyway.
“Stand by.”
“Let’s talk this through,” Maxim says. “If Zane owes this drug dealer money, he’s going to use Chelle for leverage, no?”
I want to scream, no shit, but I manage to say, “Yes,” through gritted teeth.
“He won’t keep Zane once he has her. If he even has him now.”
“Probably true,” I grunt.
“Zane won’t run if they have his sister, right?”
“No. He’s a coward, but he wouldn’t do that to her.”
“This is good,” Dima says. “Zane’s phone stores everything in the cloud. I’m going to activate a new phone with his data, and it will be like having a duplicate. We can see everything—everywhere he’s been, who he’s talked to, all of it.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. Thank fuck for Dima and his super powers.
“Last text was from Chelle. She said… mm.”
“She said what?” I shout at my dashboard as I double park in front of Zane’s dorm. This is no fucking time to hold back shit from me.
“She said you would pay his debt and that you’re good to her,” Dima says quietly, and I suddenly understand his discretion.
My heart cinches up so tight I fear it will pop. I can’t breathe, and it feels like my eyeballs are on fire.
“That was the last text?” I croak. I don’t know why I’m suddenly so broken.
“Yes.”
My brain stops. I can’t think my way out of the car, much less out of this situation.
Fortunately, Maxim still has a functioning cortex. “Then Zane will come to you if and when he can,” he reasons.
The thought brings me a small measure of relief. “Yes. He would come to me,” I agree.
“I’ll let Maykl know to be on the lookout,” Maxim says.
“All right, let’s dig into his locations,” Dima says. “How far back should I go?” He starts reading off locations.
“Hold on,” Maxim says. “What was that last one?”
Dima repeats it.
“That’s close to where we met the Devil Dawgs to buy the women,” Maxim says. “You think his drug dealers are the same assholes keeping slaves?”
“A coincidence, yes, but that would fit,” I say. “He said he had a deal going, but it went wrong. The Devil Dawgs would be the kind to go in heavy.”
“Since when is Zane a drug dealer?” Maxim asks. “I thought he was just a recreational coke user.”
“I imagine he was trying to clear his debt with us,” I grumble. I throw the Tesla into drive and pull back out. “I’m going to that warehouse. I know where it is.”
“Not without us, you’re not,” Ravil snaps with an authority he doesn’t often use.
When I don’t answer, Maxim says, “We’ll meet you there. Do not go in until we arrive.”
I still don’t answer because there’s no fucking way I will sit and wait outside a warehouse for backup if I think Chelle is inside suffering.
“Nikolai, I will bring cash to pay off the debt. No one has to die,” Maxim reasons. “If you go walking into their lair alone and get yourself killed, Chelle will be no better off.”
“I’ll wait,” I grudgingly agree. “Make it fast.”
“We’ve got your back. Just hold tight.”
20
Chelle
Turns out, Zane wasn’t in the van they threw me in, but he is in their warehouse. When the three guys from the van drag me and my aching head into some kind of warehouse, I see him curled up on the painted concrete floor. He has fresh bruising and blood all over his swollen face. His lip is cut, and it looks like the fingers of one hand have been broken.
The place is set up like a clubhouse. A makeshift bar stretches along one side. Empty beer bottles litter the tables. There’s a pool table and dart boards set up, but also giant motorcycles parked inside. They’re some kind of motorcycle club, I think.
Russian mafiya and motorcycle gangs. My brother really knows how to pick his business partners.
“We got the sister,” the guy who grabbed me outside my building announces.
With the three guys who brought me, there’s seven guys total. They’re dressed in leather vests and covered in facial hair and tattoos.
“You hear that, boy? We found your big sister.”
“You mean little sister,” another one snickers. “I’ll bet she’s real tight.”
“Don’t hurt her.” Zane struggles to his feet with great effort, wheezing at the pain. “I’ll get your money right now.”