But he’s here with me. His arms around me. And I feel safe for the first time today. “I found a private email server Zion set up for Elena.” Every time I close my eyes, I see the photo of those girls. Huddled together. Terrified. Abused.
“She found enough dirt on Kolya to put him away for life—if we were in the United States. Financial records. Payments from his organization to government officials. And…so much more.” Turning to grab my tablet, I press my thumb to the biometric scanner and type in my ten-digit password. “I made back-ups of everything. All encrypted.” The last email from Elena fills the screen, and Ryker swears under his breath. “When Kolya gets tired of one of his…girlfriends, he ships them off to God-knows-where. Sells them.”
Anger rolls off Ryker in waves, and he forces out a breath, purposefully loosening his grip on the tablet. “I can’t get in the building without help. Every inch of the exterior is covered by cameras. Two blocks away, a group of boys—probably about Zion’s age—hang out at a public fountain. They rotate on and off throughout the day. Three or four at any one time head out, come back two hours later and disappear inside. Thirty minutes later, they’re back at it again.”
“Selling drugs.” A cold weight settles in my chest, and I close my eyes, trying to slow my heart rate, even as the second Xanax threatens to knock me out completely. “Zion never talked a lot about what happened over here. Only that he worked for someone—helping with the guy’s accounting in exchange for drugs. He sold drugs too. Like those boys you saw today.”
“Kolya Yegorovich is a fucking asshole.” Ryker’s arms tighten around me, and I give in to the pull towards oblivion.
“I know.” My words slur a little now, and I sigh over the lump in my throat. After a minute, I shake my head, remembering the other email that sent my panic rising. “There’s more.”
I bring up another video—one I only found when I went looking through the deleted messages. On the screen, Elena huddles in a tiny, but pristine bathroom. Blood stains the side of her face, and she can only open one eye.
“Zion, Misha is dead. Kolya…he knows I convinced Misha to help you escape. And he was so angry with me. Even more than before. You have to get me out of here. He swears he will sell me if I go against him again. If he finds these messages… I do not want to end up like Sveta and Ilsa. Please. Hurry.”
“When did she send this?” Ryker asks.
“A week before Zion disappeared. Two days after the video I showed you in my apartment. Misha went from trusted employee to dead in forty-eight hours.” I swallow hard, then pull up another message. “This is Z’s reply.”
I’ll fix this, baby. I promise. I just need a little more information. Then…I can go to my sister. She’s brilliant. And she works with the baddest guys on the planet. By next week, I’ll tell her everything. Love, Z.
“Fuck.” Ryker pushes to his knees, sets the tablet on the couch, and punches the cushions with enough force the old sofa creaks. “He intercepted this somehow, didn’t he? Kolya?”
“I…I think so. And…maybe that’s why he came after me?”
Ryker’s brows draw together, and though I’m a little dizzy now, and my vision’s gone fuzzy from the meds, I can still see his mind working. His multi-hued eyes shift and darken when he thinks, and I’m mesmerized by his intensity.
“Wren?”
“Oh…sorry. I’m…”
“Half-comatose.” Easing me onto my back, he plays with a lock of my hair. “Sleep, sweetheart. We can finish this discussion in the morning.”
There’s something else I have to tell him. Something important. But I’m so tired. And I hate how the Xanax steals my focus. But his lips are on mine, and he tastes so good, feels so good, I don’t care. Until I close my eyes.
“She’s…his favorite,” I mumble against his chest. “Elena. She’s…Kolya’s favorite of all his…girls. And she…knows too much.”
Ryker’s voice rumbles under my ear. “He’ll kill her long before he’ll sell her.”
“Uh huh. We…have to…help her.”
Whatever he says in reply fades until all I can hear is a deep, comforting baritone, and I let myself slip under.
21
Ryker
I need help. How fast can you get to St. Petersburg?
The text message waits on the screen as my finger hovers over the send button. Against me, Wren sleeps soundly, and I press a kiss to the top of her head. My instinct is to get up and force myself through a punishing exercise set, but she needs me.
Jabbing send before I can change my mind, I throw my phone on the couch cushions. I hate asking anyone for anything. Let alone…this. I still think rescuing Elena and Semyon is a suicide mission, but we can’t leave her to Kolya and his goons. I keep replaying her last glance out the door in my head. Fear. Stark, naked, fear churning in her eyes. I know that feeling. Better than most people alive. I won’t leave anyone behind if there’s another option.
My phone vibrates, and the text message settles my nerves—at least a little.
Eighteen hours. How deep is the shit you’re in?
With a grimace, I thumb out a reply.
It’s the fucking Grand Canyon.
Honeysuckle floats in the air, and something soft tickles my cheek. Jerking awake, I try to make sense of my surroundings. A pale glow from a laptop. The rustle of a sleeping bag. And Wren. She sighs, almost a hum, in her sleep and shifts closer to me. I bury my face in her curls to center myself.
I haven’t woken up screaming once since I brought her to my bed back in Boston. Something about her soothes what’s broken inside me, but this can’t last. Soon, she’ll figure out I’m too fucked-up to be worth her time. Once we rescue Elena and Semyon, I’ll have to go back to Seattle, and her life is across the country. Mine isn’t. There’s nothing for me there anymore. Not after losing my brother, my parents, and any hope of a normal life.
“Stay,” she murmurs when I roll onto my back and slide my palm under my head. Sleep isn’t going to come for me anytime soon.
“Not going anywhere, sweetheart.”
Though her eyes don’t open, she drapes her arm over my chest and says, “Promise?”
That one word led us here. Halfway around the world. Too close to a veritable army with guns, drugs, and a penchant for murder and human trafficking. My every instinct screams at me to rub her back and coax her to sleep without answering, but instead, I brush a kiss to her lips. “Promise.”
“We don’t have any honey,” I say as I set a cup of instant coffee in front of her.
Wrapped up in the sleeping bag with her laptop balanced on her thighs, Wren smiles up at me. “I’m amazed we have coffee.”
Taking a seat next to her with my own mug, I take a sip of the bitter brew. “This isn’t coffee. It’s caffeinated swill.”
She snorts and covers her mouth, coughing as she tries not to let said swill shoot out her nose.
“That’s not funny.” I don’t understand why she’s laughing.
“It is the way you said it. Like you expected instant to taste like anything but flavored water. You’ve gone soft, soldier.”
“Soft?”
“Yes. Soft. Don’t you spend days in foreign countries all the time? You can’t tell me you have access to the good stuff there.”
“Actually…I do. West is responsible for the coffee. Frogman doesn’t go anywhere without his hand-roasted Guatemalan reserve.”
“Sounds like a smart guy. But…Frogman?” Wren presses her index finger to her laptop’s biometric sensor and then types in a ten-digit passcode while I wonder how I can feel so…comfortable around her now. Is this what normal people do? Have coffee together in the mornings and talk about their coworkers?
“Ry?” She touches my arm, her fingers warm from the mug. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.” Does she remember what she asked me last night? And my answer? “Sorry. Frogman is what guys like me—Special Forces—call a SEAL.”
“What does Wes
t call you?” she asks with a smile.
“Asshole, probably. Show me what else you found last night.”
Wren takes a deep breath, then blows the air out slowly. “Zion spent two years here. He kept a diary—kind of. I found it thanks to Inara’s translations. Every few days, he’d write me a letter. But he never sent them.” She shakes her head. “He knew I’d come for him.
“For a few months, he thought everything was great. He had a steady supply of heroin, but he wasn’t using so much he couldn’t function. Kolya likes to keep his runners sober at least half the time. He uses the drugs as…a carrot, I guess. Motivation. Sell enough and you get a present. A bonus. A few days off to shoot up and do nothing.”
A chill raises the hairs on the back of my neck. After long enough without any basic need—and to an addict, heroin is a basic need—you’ll do anything for it.
“By the time two years had passed, Z and his best friend Semyon were shooting up every day. They started stealing from Kolya. Keeping just a little bit of the take. It was easy for Z. He handled some of Kolya’s books. But then Kolya found out and he had two of his generals beat the crap out of them.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t just kill them.”
“Semyon is Elena’s brother. I think—well, Z thought—Elena begged Kolya to keep them both alive.”
“Kolya’s never going to let Elena walk out of there. If she’s that special to him, he’s going to kill her before he lets her go. But he might sell Semyon to teach her a lesson first.”
Wren shows me a few of the diary entries, and it’s obvious Zion was in a bad way. And completely in love with Elena.
By the time she’s done, the entire bleak picture spreads out like a frayed, old canvas. A megalomaniac with an empire built on fear and the desperate need for what he provides. A scared twenty-something girl hoping this American kid with connections can free her from an abusive boyfriend-slash-owner. Her drug-addict brother who may or may not still be alive.
“And she doesn’t know where her brother is?”
“Nope.” Wren pulls up the last message the girl sent Zion just a week ago.
I am scared, Z. Kolya will not let me see my brother. He brings in girls every few days. At the last auction, he sold five. He tells me every day if I do not behave, he will sell me too. Where are you? I have not heard from you in so long. Please do not leave me here.
Bringing up a spreadsheet, Wren shakes her head. “He’s not making enough money off the drugs anymore. I ran the numbers. He’s losing hundreds of thousands of rubles every month.” Wren shows me her calculations, and I ease the computer off her lap to scan through the various files.
“The human trafficking won’t be enough either. Not with this bottom line. He’ll be out of business—or dead—in six months.” Wren stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “I went to college, sweetheart. Got a minor in math.”
“I’m sorry…I didn’t mean—” Her cheeks flush with color, and she stares down at her hands, twisting in her lap as she plays with her bracelet.
Silencing her with a kiss, I savor the way she leans into me. How she stills, as if nothing can touch her when I’m around. And she’s right. I’ll protect her until my last breath.
22
Wren
Ryker starts slowly and methodically assembling the gear he’ll need for the day, and I sit with my arms wrapped around my knees. “Take me with you.”
“No.” He doesn’t spare me a glance as he picks up a second magazine and tucks it into a strap on his shoulder harness. “You’re safer here.”
“Physically, maybe. But I hate not knowing what’s going on. Please. I can’t take another day like yesterday. You might as well lock me in a closet for all the good I’ll be here alone.” Just the thought of needing another Xanax has my stomach twisting into a knot.
He stops, so still I’m not sure he’s breathing. The look in his eyes…for a split second, he’s not here, but then he shakes his head and sighs. “I have to plant at least eight cameras around Kolya’s fortress today, Wren. He has lookouts everywhere. I can’t watch out for them and for you.”
My lips twist into a frown. “You don’t have to ‘watch out for me.’ Set me up in a cafe and I can monitor the whole square.” Turning my tablet around, I show him the view I have from the three traffic cameras in range of the former hotel. “And as you bring the cameras online, I’ll have an even better view.”
“Too dangerous.”
“Is it? What’s worse? Me having coffee in a cafe with you on comms? Or me here, hopped up on Xanax? I hate taking them. They make me loopy. You saw me last night. What good would I have been if you’d been followed back here? None.” I stand, going chest-to-chest with him, but even throwing my shoulders as far back as I can and rising up onto my toes, the top of my head only reaches his chin.
I’ve got him, though. Even as messed up as I was last night, I understood how worried he was about me. About us. “I have anxiety, Ry. The meds I take every day help keep it manageable. But the panic attacks…they make me feel like I’m going to die. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. Let me help you. It’ll help me too.”
Dropping his head so our foreheads touch, he wraps his arms around me. “You need to do everything I tell you. No questions. No arguments. No hesitation.”
“I will.” Relief flows through me, loosening the knot working its way up to my heart. “I’ll stay put. I just want to be close.”
“If I tell you to run, you run.” He draws back and meets my gaze. “I don’t care what’s happening to me or anyone else. You run and you don’t stop until you get to the backup car. Then you drive yourself to the airport and get on a fucking plane to any friendly country you can find. You understand?”
“Yes. Western Europe, the US, Canada, or Japan.”
With a nod, he releases me and then reaches for my pack. “All right. Show me what you need to bring.”
An hour later, we walk into a little cafe half a mile from Kolya’s fortress. A black scarf hides my hair, and Ryker’s wearing coveralls, hoping he can pass as a sanitation worker. On the way here, he must have asked me twenty times if I had my tracker and my earbud.
“Stay here until I come back. If you have to leave for any reason, go to the restaurant I showed you. Order a meal. Read a book. Act—”
I rest my hand on his forearm and squeeze the tight, corded muscle. “Normal. I know, Ry. I’ll be fine. I’ll connect to the cameras and watch your back.”
“Keep off comms as much as you can.” The strain in his whispered words and the furrow in his brow make my heart hurt a little. As hard as staying back at the safe house would have been for me, this is just as hard for him.
“I will.” Cupping his neck, I pull him down for a slow, deep kiss. Luckily, we’re tucked back in the corner of the cafe. “Thank you.”
“For what?” His gaze takes a quick trip around the small space before returning to mine.
“For everything. For believing me.” The lump in my throat threatens to cut off my words, so I force a smile. “Be careful.”
With a nod, he’s gone.
Despite my complete ignorance of the Russian language, I manage to stumble through ordering a small lunch plate with strong coffee and pull out my tablet. The cellular data card gives me quick, encrypted internet access, and before my food arrives, I’ve brought up all three traffic cameras with views towards Kolya’s headquarters.
The kids he told me about—all Zion’s age or a little younger—gather around the fountain, laughing and roughhousing like kids do. They seem…happy. At least for the moment, and I hope Zion’s life here wasn’t all bad.
Bringing up another of his diary entries, I search his words for the barest hint of hope.
Sis, I wish I could talk to you. Semyon and I went out for dumplings last night. You’d love how they make them here. I tried to get Elena to go with us, but the boss wouldn’t let her come. She’s the reason I can’t just leave. I think I might love her. Maybe o
ne day you’ll meet her. I just need to figure out a way to get my passport back and get out of the country. Semyon said he’d help. I don’t know why I keep writing to you. I don’t want you to ever read these letters. But sometimes…they help keep me focused when I just want to escape from everything. Love you.
From all accounts, Semyon was Z’s best friend here. I bring up a photo of the young man I found when I poked around St. Petersburg’s prison records. He has that vacant, “I don’t care about anything” stare of an addict, bad teeth, and a smattering of pimples across his forehead. But otherwise, he’s a good-looking kid. Blond hair, blue eyes, full lips. Arrested for property damage—at a restaurant Kolya owns. Probably how he got trapped in this life in the first place.
Shifting my focus to the cameras, I search for Ryker. Anxiety twists my stomach until I find him. With a large rubber bin slung over his shoulder, he trudges along the edges of Kolya’s hotel-turned-stronghold, using a long pole with pincers to pick up trash in the gutters.
He slows, checks all around him, and then drops to his knees next to a tall set of windows covered with bars. I zoom in, mesmerized as he places something small and black on the side of one of the bars. A moment later, his voice rumbles in my ear. “Mic one. Set.”
I switch to the list of locations he sketched out early this morning and mark off the first one. Only ten more to go.
Three hours later, I start to worry the cafe owner will think I’m trying to take advantage of her warm, quiet shop, so I order two pastries and a soda. I don’t need any more caffeine—my anxiety is already through the roof, but I don’t know where else go to, and Ryker only has two mics and one camera left.
“Something’s happening,” he mutters in my ear. “North of the square. Get eyes over there.”
Cracker Jacks. My fingers tremble as I bring up both traffic cameras and the surveillance cams he planted earlier and try to find the disturbance. When I do, I gasp before clapping my hand over my mouth.
On His Six Page 13
