29
Options
Colleen
Colleen heard a phone ring, but it wasn’t her ringtone so she stayed burrowed under the covers.
Tristan muttered into his phone for a moment, and then he threw the covers off and sat up. “What’s going on?”
At his serious tone, Colleen opened her eyes. Summer desert sunlight streamed through the wide hotel window, drawing bright lines across the rumpled king-size bed they’d slept in.
Tristan rubbed the side of his face and held up his hand to signal that she should not speak. “Let me talk to him.”
Colleen pushed herself up.
“Don’t hurt them, Sergey. We can make a deal. We can solve this.”
The person on the other end of the line, presumably Sergey, the Butorin henchman, spoke rapidly.
Colleen’s fingers gathered the sheet and crumpled it in her fist.
“Just don’t hurt them,” Tristan said, his low voice calm but serious. “I can get everything you want within a few hours. I assume your friends have left Colleen’s apartment?” He paused. “Good, because I’ll need to work on that computer in that apartment. I don’t want to see your guys anywhere when we go back there. That’s part of the deal.” He listened for a moment longer and then hung up.
Colleen said, “We can’t go back to my apartment. After you said that, they’re sure to be waiting there for us.”
“Of course, they will be. We’re not going back to your apartment, but they’ll have to station at least five guys there to wait for us, which will deplete their forces.”
Terrified energy zinged over her nerves. “Who were you telling them not to hurt?”
Tristan crawled around on the bed so that he was facing her and took both of her hands in his. “Jian called me from his phone. It looks like the Butorins sent their goons to The Boulders, where he’d checked into our suite. They’re holding Jian hostage.”
“Oh, no. We have to call the police. How much ransom money are they asking for?”
“They don’t want money, and considering the two officers who met the plane at Sky Harbor, I don’t think calling the police is our best bet right now. And there’s more.”
“Jesus, did they get one of your laptops with all of your programs on it?”
“No.” His mouth was a grim line. “They want the Anonymity program as the ransom. The problem is that when they broke into the hotel room, your friend Anjali was there with Jian.”
Her heart seized. “No.”
“The Butorins have Anjali.”
30
Proof of Life
Colleen
“Those assholes.”
Rage flashed through Colleen under her skin, and the extraordinary urge to dig her fingernails into Sergey and his band of dumbasses and claw away handfuls of their flesh assailed her.
Seriously, how dare those criminal assholes touch one hair on Anjali’s head?
She ranted, “Those assholes. What the hell do they think they’re doing, kidnapping innocent bystanders like Jian and Anjali? I swear to God, I swear to God and all the angels, that I will annihilate those Butorin jackasses.”
Tristan nodded. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but they probably outnumber and outgun us. I think it’s time to consider giving them the Anonymity Plus program.”
“But you said that would be devastating, that they would have a lot more power. It’s a bad thing when criminal organizations get more power.”
“But they have Jian, and I guess now they have your friend Anjali, too. My patience with my own morality is wearing thin. I’m not going to sacrifice Jian and Anjali because I want to keep my hands clean.”
Colleen swallowed hard and asked him, “Do we know they’re still alive?”
Tristan showed her his phone. A picture of Jian and Anjali sitting on the end of a bed in a nice bedroom showed on the screen. Behind them, the dark wood and red ornamental stone of the presidential suite at The Boulders filled the room.
In the picture, Jian held up four fingers, and Anjali held up two. “I specified the number of fingers I wanted them to be holding up as proof of life. So they just took that photo.”
Colleen shook her head. “Proof of life. That sounds like we’re in a stupid movie.”
Anjali’s already anime-character-sized eyes were wide with terror in the photo, and mascara streaked her face. A bruise, rich with purples and reds, engulfed Jian’s left eye, and it was almost swollen shut.
Colleen said, “I swear to God, I’m going to kill Sergey and all his asshole buddies. I am a country girl. I grew up hunting deer and wild turkeys. I used to go over to my friend Doba Chee’s ranch to help with the sheep cull. I can slaughter and gut a sheep in five minutes.”
Tristan raised his eyebrows. “I’m glad I didn’t have the occasion to learn that the hard way.”
“I may not be on speaking terms with my family, but I grew up on the Mogollon Rim. There are thousands of acres of prime hunting ground that I have traipsed all over and know every stick and rock back there. If we need to bury ten bodies, I know where we can bury ten bodies that the authorities will never, ever find.”
“While I sympathize with your inclination to make this right by eliminating those who did wrong, again, we are heavily outmanned and outgunned.”
“This is Phoenix. There has to be a gun show going on somewhere in the Valley today where I can buy a high-power sniper rifle over the counter right now.”
“Again, I understand the attraction of hunting varmints. I also used to put down coyotes who were going after the calves and chickens. However, I don’t think there’s any way to do that and keep Jian and Anjali safe.”
Tears drew hot stripes down Colleen’s face. “If I plan violence, I won’t be so terrified for her. I don’t want to think about what they might be doing to her right now. Sergey bought himself a trafficked teenager to rape, and I helped her escape. If he hurts Anjali in revenge for that, I will hunt him down forever. I don’t care if I die. I don’t care if I go to jail. I will hunt him down forever.”
Tristan wrapped his arms around her, pressing the side of her face against his chest where she could hear his heart beating. “If he hurts Anjali or Jian, I’ll hunt him and all of his bratva down with you. But for right now, if we can get them out safely, that has to be our first priority.”
An iron fist crushed her heart. “When he kidnapped us, I could figure out how to plan and get away. I hate that he has Anjali. I hate that I’m not there to smash him in the face or jump in front of her. She picked me up when my parents tried to sabotage my college and helped me put a plan together. She helped me study and pass differential equations. She just happened to have leftovers and brought them over for me when I got sick and had to buy a prescription and didn’t have enough money for food. She’s been my sister when my family turned their backs on me. I can’t let anything happen to her.”
“Nothing will happen to Anjali,” Tristan said, rocking Colleen as they sat on the bed. “I won’t let anything happen to her, no matter what it takes.”