I find Josh sitting by the door, drinking a milkshake just like they said.
“Can we go swimming now?” he asks, eyes shining up at me with an innocence that shatters my fucking soul.
“Soon, buddy.” I force myself to smile for him. “There’s something I have to take care of. But Maxim is going to go with you to Gleb’s house, okay? Then I’ll be there just as soon as I can.”
“What about Mommy?” he asks.
I choke on the lies I don’t want to tell him, but Gleb saves me, kneeling beside me. “She’ll be there just as soon as she can, little soldier. Don’t you worry, okay? Now you go to my house. You tell the housekeeper anything you want, and she will make it for you. It’s better than Disneyland, I promise.”
Josh smiles and nods. “Okay.”
I pick him up and squeeze him tight before handing him off to Maxim, our eyes locking with unspoken understanding.
“Take care of my boy.”
“Pause it there.” Gleb squints at the screen, examining the man on the hotel’s security footage. The guy operating it looks scared shitless, but Gleb threw a few hundred bucks his way, and we’ve been staring at this goddamn thing for far too long trying to find Vasily. So far, nothing has panned out, and this could take all fucking day at this rate.
“I’m going to do another walk around,” I tell him. I need to dispel some of this nervous energy building up in me like a bomb, and I can’t just stand here twiddling my fucking thumbs. I know it’s unlikely that Kat is still in the hotel, but right now, it’s all I can do.
Gleb waves me off, and I head into the parking garage again, ransacking my mind for any ideas of where Vasily would take her. I know all of his haunts, but he’s a wanted man now. His friends, his soldiers, they’ve all cut ties with him after Gleb ordered a bounty on his head. He’s backed into a fucking corner, and he’s grieving, and he could be anywhere right now.
I scan the cars again, looking for something Vasily would drive. I check for tire marks, or some other sign that Kat was here. Anything that could help. Desperation claws at me, scorching every nerve in my body. I want to slam my fist into the brick wall. I want to cut Vasily’s dick off and shove it down his throat until he chokes, and then I want to bring him back to life and do it all over again.
“Come on, Kat,” I whisper. “Give me a sign. Anything, baby. Please.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and when I check the screen, it’s a New York number. The organ in my chest that’s merely keeping me alive right now works overtime pumping blood into my veins at a frantic pace when I slide my finger across the screen to answer.
“How does it feel?” Vasily’s voice slithers across the line. “How does it fucking feel, Lev?”
“Where is she?” I growl. “Where the fuck is she?”
“Right now?” He sneers. “She’s bleeding out on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. Can you guess which one? There are a lot in this city. Maybe you can still make it here in time.”
“I’ll fucking destroy you.” My fingers grip the phone so hard it almost snaps in half. “I’ll cut every appendage from your body and make you beg for death. It won’t be quick. It won’t be easy—”
“Neither will hers,” Vasily answers. “I want you to think about what happened to Andrei. That was a fucking picnic compared to what I’m going to do to your precious fucking whore.”
Emotion chokes my voice, and it takes everything inside me to try to keep a rational head. “What do you want, Vasily? Quit playing games and tell me.”
“Is Gleb with you?” he asks.
“He’s in the hotel.”
“Show me,” Vasily orders. “Put yourself on video.”
I take the phone from my ear and pull up the video screen so he can see me, and within seconds, I’m met by his ugly, sneering face.
“Satisfied?” I show him the empty garage behind me.
“Get in your car and come to the address I text you. Come alone, and don’t fuck with me. I have eyes on you, Lev. If you tell Gleb, I’ll fucking kill her without a second thought. If you do what I say, then I’ll make you a deal. Your life for hers. So long as you get here in time.”
“I’ll come,” I tell him. “But you’ll leave her alone until I get there.”
“No deal.” Vasily shakes his head. “Do you think I don’t know you and Gleb murdered my son? Your little bitch gets the same. Every second you waste getting here is another second I’ll be torturing her. So quit fucking around and prepare to make peace with your maker. Because when I’m through with you today, there will be nothing left but scraps for the pigs.”
“Text me the goddamn address,” I snarl, yanking my keys from my pocket. “And think twice before you touch her, old man. Because this ends today. Me and you. Man to fucking man. Are we clear?”
The phone shifts a little, and Vasily’s face disappears from the screen before an image of Kat pops up. She’s bound to a chair, duct-taped across the mouth, blood coating her hair.
“Run, run,” Vasily taunts. “Time’s a-wasting.”
The call ends before I can say anything else, and I run to the SUV, firing it up just as the text with the address comes through. I plug it into my GPS on my way out of the garage, screeching out into New York City traffic.
My nerves are shot, and the time estimate on the phone isn’t doing me any favors. Vasily is ten miles away, but that could take me an hour in this clusterfuck.
“Fuck.” I slam my fist into the steering wheel as traffic comes to a crawl.
My phone rings again, and this time it’s Gleb. I stare at the screen for a few long seconds before I dismiss it. Traffic lurches forward again. The streets are a goddamn nightmare. Between traffic stops, I check alternate routes, subway timetables, and walking distance. Driving is still my best bet. I try to stay calm. Two more miles. My phone keeps ringing. Gleb sends me a text.
Where the fuck are you?
I concentrate on the road, my knuckles turning white beneath my grip on the steering wheel.
Kat’s alive.
The words play over and over in my mind like a mantra. I repeat them the entire way there. When I’m a block away, I find the first parking spot available and slip into it, jamming the SUV into gear and yanking the keys from the ignition.
Kat’s alive.
My feet slap against the pavement as I run to the warehouse, looking for a way in.
Kat’s alive.
The exit door in the back is cracked, and I slip inside. My phone rings again. The barrel of Vasily’s gun taps the back of my skull as he steps out from the shadows.
“Turn it off. Now.”
I turn off the phone and meet his gaze. “Where is she?”
A smile curls across his face as he points toward the shadows. A faint moan bleeds into my ears, and I lunge forward before Vasily yanks me back.
“This was the fucking deal!” I snarl.
“We had a deal too.” He spits into my face. “Loyalty? Do you remember that fucking word, you worthless sack of shit?”
“Let her go, and you can do whatever you want to me.”
“The only way she’s walking out of here alive is if you kill me.” His face mottles with red as he digs the barrel into my scalp. “And that’s not going to happen.”