“Let me help,” I said quietly. “Is there a ladder?”
“Hello.” Solange’s mother smiled. “I am Nadia.”
“Hi, Nadia. I’m Axel.”
“My husband, he is Samuel.”
I nodded at him. “I’ll board this up. Why don’t you two get some rest? You’ll want to see your son in the morning.”
“Kostya, he is okay?” Nadia asked softly.
“He’s in surgery. He’s going to be okay.” I didn’t know that, of course, but what else could I say?
They only had a handful of four-by-eight slats of plywood, but I boarded everything up as well as I could and then helped Nadia bag up the worst of the mess. Samuel probably needed to see a doctor but he shook his head when I mentioned it and did his best to sweep the floors. Not that it would make much difference. The place was destroyed and I wasn’t sure what else I could do. I had a feeling Sandor would find a way to help, but that wasn’t my problem.
I slept for a few hours in Kostya’s bed, but it was too small and I didn’t rest very well. I’d brought in my duffel with a change of clothes, so I took a quick shower and headed downstairs. To my surprise, most of the early morning regulars were there, along with Nadia and Samuel, serving coffee out of industrial-sized urns. Something smelled fantastic and Nadia held out a basket of something to me.
“Good morning. You are hungry?”
“Thank you. Did you actually get up and bake?” I asked her, taking a soft, warm roll that smelled of cardamom.
“We have customers, they go to work in the factories, they are hungry.” She smiled. “Is okay.”
“Can I do anything?”
“You will go to Solange?” She held out a separate basket and a thermos.
“I…” Shit. I had a dozen things to do today that didn’t include stopping in at the hospital, but how could I say no? “Yes, of course. I will.”
She poured me a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup. “You go.”
“Thanks.” I took everything and headed out to my truck.
And all four goddamn tires were flat.
This had been intentional, of course, and I slowly turned, sweeping the area. If the thugs who’d trashed the café had done this for revenge, they’d be watching for my reaction. I pulled out my phone and called Sandor, not giving them the satisfaction of reacting much at all.
“Looks like our neighborhood mafiosos think they’re tough,” I told him. “They trashed the tires on the SUV.”
“Okay, I’ve had about enough of these shitheads,” Sandor grumbled. “Let’s handle this situation today.”
“Mr. Axel!” Nadia was running out into the street, waving something.
“Give me a minute.” I disconnected and turned to her.
She put a ring of keys in my hand and pointed to an old pickup truck that had seen better days, parked across the street. “You take.”
“I’ll bring it back,” I told her. “Thank you.”
I sped off to the hospital, trying to figure out which way this day was going to go.
I’d been sent up here to the northern part of Limaj to handle a tedious, monotonous job that no one else on the team wanted to do. Granted, I’d made a big mistake a few months ago that had gotten Princess Elen kidnapped, but how the hell had I known the psycho who’d been after her would shoot me with a tranquilizer dart? Apparently, two had been needed to take me down, which made me feel a little better, but I was still stuck doing this stupid recon mission that no one else wanted to do because she’d been taken on my watch. They’d also killed her driver, but I’d been in charge that day, so I’d been getting some shit about it even though there’d been no way to prepare for a dart gun filled with horse tranquilizer.
On the plus side, I was going to see Solange again in a minute.
I walked into the hospital and took the elevator up to the third floor, where Kostya had ended up after surgery. Sandor and Xander met me in the hallway.
“How is he?” I asked.
“Doing better,” Xander replied. “Surgery went well and he had a good night.”
“Did Solange get any sleep?”
“She’s still sleeping,” Sandor said. “I arranged for a private room for him with an extra bed so she could rest a little.”
“I’m glad. She had a rough day yesterday.” I held up the thermos. “Her mother sent her breakfast.”
“Those are some seriously resilient people,” Xander said softly, shaking his head.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked Sandor. “Do I go back to my regular mission up in Braksa or do we handle this situation with this local gang or whatever the hell they are?”
“I made some calls,” Sandor said. “Looks like this Bojovnik Brat group fancies themselves the new neighborhood protection group. Here in Vinake, up in Braksa, and a few of the other little towns.”
“There’s nothing in Braksa,” I protested. “I’ve been making the rounds between here and there and up at Dickhead’s compound, and it’s deader than dead.” We called Elen’s kidnapper Dickhead. The compound where he’d held her was just outside of Braksa, which was about ninety miles from here, and I knew the area well. If these guys were looking to make money, that wasn’t going to happen around here.
“There are seven shops in Braksa,” Sandor said. “As well as three factories. There are a total of ten shops and six factories between Braksa and Vinake and there are about a dozen shops here, not to mention a few extremely profitable factories. All told, taking ten percent a week, I’m thinking they probably brought in—”
“Twenty percent.”
The voice came from behind us and we all turned to see Solange standing there.
3
Solange
I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but I seemed to know a lot more than they did about this situation.
“Good morning.” Axel turned to me with a thermos in his hand. “Your mother sent you breakfast.”
I smiled, taking the thermos from him. “Good morning. And thank you.” I turned to Sandor. “They’ve been taking twenty percent from the shops, and twenty-five from the factories. Mr. Lafelle has breakfast at the café on Saturdays and he told us his rate has gone up to twenty-five percent in the last ninety days. He owns the textile factory just up the street. The wheat mill outside of town is on the verge of closing down. They can’t survive at that rate and the family said they would rather close than give everything to the Bojovnik Brat.”
“Does a particular man or group of men usually collect from you?” Sandor asked me.
I nodded. “I don’t know their names, but it wasn’t any of the men who attacked us last night. Apparently, they sent others to do their dirty work.”
“When do they come? The same day every week?”
“Yes. Mondays. Usually in the late morning, before Kostya and I get in, though I see them since I live there as well.”
“Do you think you could surreptitiously call a meeting of the local shop and factory owners?” Sandor asked me.