“That’s enough talking. You should save your strength. You’ll need it later.”
“Just tell me,” she begged, ashamed of the way her voice gave away her fear. “I just need to know. What did you do to him? Where is his body?”
“Gone. That’s all you need to know.”
“No. Please tell me. Why can’t you just tell me? You’re going to kill me anyway. Did you kill him the night he disappeared?”
“Yes.”
Grief, new and raw, ripped open all the old scars. A sob brought her bound hands to her mouth. All those days she waited for him in the hotel . . . he was already dead.
“He begged us to leave you alone,” the man said. “It was actually kind of touching. He told us you knew nothing, that he never told you anything. But then you couldn’t leave it alone, could you? You had to start digging just like him. I actually think he’d be proud of you in a weird way. He loved you. I don’t know if that’s any consolation, but he did.”
Grief became an unbearable pain. Tears burned her eyes, clogged her throat, hacked her breathing. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out but agonized air, a silent sob that ended with a violent cough.
Her father had begged for her protection. Before he died, he’d been thinking of her.
“Would you like some water?” the man asked.
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“I can understand that. Try to relax. We are almost there.”
Be calm, Elena. Be calm. He father’s voice came to her again. She tried to slow her breathing and rein in her thoughts. She had to think. She had to get out of here. He said they were almost there. So, they were still in Nashville. They had to be. If she’d only been unconscious for a few minutes, then they couldn’t have gotten far. Maybe she could make a run for it as soon as he opened the door. It was her best option, but she would have to surprise him, maybe even overpower him, first. She had to be ready to pounce, but she had no idea which side he would open to get her out.
In the front seat, the man’s phone rang. He laughed and hit the speaker button. “I assume this is for you.”
A familiar voice filled the car and turned her blood to ice. “Hello, Elena. I hear you’re not cooperating.”
No. It couldn’t be true.
“You really are too much like your father. He didn’t know when to quit, and neither do you.”
Not him. Not Yevgeny. He couldn’t be part of this.
He chuckled. “I thought that by hiring you, I could keep an eye on you, but you were even further along than I ever dreamed you’d get. That’s the sad irony of this. You’re a hell of a good journalist, Elena. You could have had a wonderful career, but your fatal flaw was the same as his. You trusted the wrong people.”
She wanted to scream, claw, spit, and fight, but she couldn’t. Grief had stolen everything she had left . . .
“You were my father’s friend.”
“And that made it harder than you can ever know to have to stop him the way we did. But he got too close, just like you.”
“Too close to what?”
“To unmasking me.”
“You’re Strazh.” She was dizzy with the rush of rage.
“I am. Nice to meet you.”
“You won’t get away with this.”
“I already have, Elena. More times than you know.”
“You have daughters. How can you do the things you do and not see their faces every single time?”
“By not bothering myself with the details. I make money. That’s all it is.”
“Please,” she choked. “I don’t care what you do to me. Just, please, leave Vlad alone. He knew nothing about this. Okay? You have to believe me. I never told him anything. Please don’t hurt him. Please.”
Yevgeny laughed. Loud and openly, as if she’d just told the funniest joke in the world. “Do you want to know the last thing your father said?”
Snot and tears mixed together on her face.
“He said, Don’t hurt my little girl. She doesn’t know anything. You two are so alike.”
She didn’t try to fight or argue anymore. The pain this time was overwhelming.
“I promised him I would look after you. And I tried. I really tried. I’ve known all along where you were, Elena. Every step you’ve taken since that moment, I’ve known where you were. But you just couldn’t leave things alone. You couldn’t have just married that rich hockey player of yours and moved to America and lived a life as a bored hockey wife, could you? You just had to be as much of a pain in the ass as your father.”
“What did you do to him?” she whispered.
“Does it matter?” Yevgeny paused. “I’m sorry, Elena. I really am.”
He hung up.
Her father was dead. He had died trying to right the wrongs of the world, a noble cause, but he’d left her alone because of it. He’d left her alone with no details on what happened to him. What if she disappeared just like her father and Vlad never knew what happened to her? She had to get back to him. She wasn’t going to leave Vlad with the same unanswered questions, the same guilt and grief, that she’d lived with for so many years. She wasn’t going to let a fruitless quest steal what really mattered from her. Him. It had always been him. She’d just been too blind to see it.
She wasn’t going to do that to Vlad. The cycle ended here. She had to find a way to escape.
Elena turned onto her side on the small seat to look around the car again for a weapon, anything.
“What’re you doing back there?”
She adopted a pained voice. “Trying to get comfortable. My head hurts.”
“It won’t be much longer.”
A chill stole over her body at the double meaning in his words.
She shifted again.
And that’s when she felt it.
In her front pocket.
The burner phone. He hadn’t found the burner phone. Maybe he hadn’t even thought to check. He would have been in a hurry to get her body into the car before anyone saw them.
Heart racing, her eyes darted to the rearview mirror. He was still staring at the road ahead, but if he so much as glanced back, he would see what she was doing.
Elena rolled onto her other side to hide her front from his view.
Facing away from him, she angled her hands toward her pocket and worked her two pointer fingers inside. It took several slippery tries with her sweat-soaked skin to ease the phone out inch by inch. It fell onto the seat with a quiet thud, but it might as well have been as loud as a gunshot. She held her breath for his reaction, but . . . nothing. She picked up the phone between her bound hands and pondered another problem. How was she going to hide the light from the screen when she turned it on? Faking a moan, she curled into a tight ball to surround the phone as she hit the home screen button.
It lit up, and she shoved it facedown on the seat.
“I really am sorry about your head,” the man said. “I do not like to hit women.”
Right. He just kidnapped them and trafficked them.
Elena eased the phone onto its side, cupping it close to her body. Fumbling, she found the button to turn down the brightness. Then she flipped the tiny button on the side to silence it.
Acting as fast as she could, she hit the icon for messages and thumbed in Vlad’s number by memory. Another lesson from her father. Never rely on technology to remember phone numbers.
With fat, clumsy fingers, she typed a single word.
Sparrow.
* * *
* * *
Vlad clenched the phone in his hand. The word swam in his vision. Turned and twisted and floated as his brain tried to push it away. He sank against the island in his kitchen, and his crutches fell with a crash.
“What’s wrong, man?” Colton looked down at the text message. “
What is sparrow?”
Vlad’s knees gave out. Colton wrapped his arms around Vlad’s chest just in time. “Jesus. What the fuck. Vlad, what is going on?”
Vlad choked on his own voice. “Call the police.”
“What?”
“Call the fucking police!”
“Why? What the fuck is going on?”
Vlad grabbed the front of Colton’s shirt. “She’s been taken. Elena has been kidnapped.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Elena curled into a ball and made a noise like she was crying.
“Please do not do that,” the man said. “I cannot stand to hear a woman cry.”
The sonofabitch. Men like him got off on making women cry. She was going to enjoy making him pay. With her body shielding the light and sound, she hit the button for 911 and then quickly muted it so he wouldn’t hear the dispatcher answer. She just hoped the dispatcher could hear them.
Elena moaned again for effect. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“You know why,” the man said.
“Just tell me where you’re taking me.”
“You’ll see soon enough.”
Sweat ran down her face. Could the dispatcher hear his answers or only her questions? “Why not just kill me when you had the chance? Why are you torturing me like this?”
“Because we need you alive for a while.”
Elena made her voice wobbly and scared, which wasn’t a stretch. She was terrified. “I need you to do something for me.”
The man laughed. “Right.”
“Will you at least tell my husband where my body is? Please. Do you know who my husband is? He’s a very gentle man, and this will destroy him. His name is Vlad Konnikov. Do you know him? He’s a hockey player, but he’s not like most hockey players. He is sweet and kind, and it will destroy him if you kill me and leave him with no answers.”
She glanced down at the phone. The dispatcher was still there. Still listening.
But in the front seat, so was someone else. His voice grew cold. “What are you doing?”
“I’m begging you to have mercy on my husband.”
He suddenly jerked the wheel as he whipped his head around to look over his shoulder. “You bitch! Do you have a phone?”
“No—”
He jerked the wheel again, and this time she crashed onto the floor. The phone flew under the front seat, out of her reach.
All she had left was to scream. “My name is Elena Konnikova! I have been kidnapped! I am in my husband’s car. A Cadillac Escalade, license plate NBT-413.”
Another lesson from her father. Always know your license plate number.
The car rocked to the right as the man whipped off the road. Her face whacked against the floorboard of the back seat, sending spots before her eyes and blood into her mouth.
“Fuck!” The man beat his hands on the steering wheel. “You fucking bitch!”
Beneath his seat, the phone was facedown. She had no idea if the dispatcher heard her scream for help. The man suddenly threw open his door and got out of the car. Elena scrambled to sit up, but she was trapped between the seats. He stormed around to the passenger side, the side where her feet were. Good. She could struggle better that way. She could kick and make it impossible for him to pull her out of the car.
Elena drew her knees up.
He wrenched open the door and leaned in.
She kicked with all her strength.
Her feet connected with his face. There was a disgusting crunch as blood spurted from his nose. He stumbled backward, and Elena hoisted herself to a sitting position. He lunged for her again and managed to grab one of her ankles.
Elena screamed and kicked again as she twisted toward the front. She wrapped her bound arms around the console between the front seats and used the leverage to haul her body up. Her leg slipped from his grasp, and this time he fell.
Elena threw herself forward, scrambling into the front seat. The car was still running.
She looked over her shoulder as he lunged toward the open door. She bent and used both her hands to put the car into drive. Then, without looking, she jammed her foot on the gas pedal.
The SUV lurched, and Elena looked back just in time to see him fall again. With a jerk of the wheel, Elena hit the gas again and whipped out into traffic.
And right into the path of an oncoming car.
There was a scream. A crash. The crunch of metal on metal.
And the world went black again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Vlad was going to be sick. He stumbled just in time to the bathroom and heaved into the toilet.
Colton came running. “Everyone’s here, man. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to find her.”
“It’s my fault. I should have stayed here. I shouldn’t have let her go.”
Malcolm, Mack, Noah, and fucking Cheese Man crowded around the bathroom door. “It’s not your fault,” Mack said. “You couldn’t have known.”
Vlad sagged against the wall. His leg throbbed, but he barely felt it. “How could I just leave? Why didn’t I stay?”
“Vlad! Get out here!” Michelle’s voice was a high-pitched panic.
Malcolm and Mack each grabbed an arm, hauled him up, and helped him back into the hallway. Michelle stood at the front door.
“A cop is here,” Michelle said, her hands coiled into a tense ball against her stomach. Neighbor Dog woofed and began to wag his tail.
Noah strode forward and opened the door. Just in time, Colton grabbed Neighbor Dog’s collar to stop him from launching himself at the cop’s chest as he walked in. The officer introduced himself as Lt. Zamir Hammadi.
“My wife,” Vlad sobbed, fear turning his muscles to useless rubber.
“Sir, is your wife’s name Elena Konnikova?”
Another sob broke free from his mouth. “Yes. Yes. Someone has taken her. She’s a journalist and—”
“Sir, please listen to me. Your wife has been found.”
His knees gave out, and once again, the guys had to grab him to keep him from falling. “Where? Is she okay? Is she hurt? Who had her?”
The officer raised a hand. “Sir, I need you to calm down so I can answer all your questions.”
“Vlad, let him talk,” Colton said. But even he was biting his nails.
“What I can tell you is that she was involved in a car accident—”
Vlad swayed again.
“—but her injuries do not appear life-threatening. She has been taken to Nashville Memorial.”
Vlad looked at Colton, who was already digging his keys out of his pocket. “Let’s go.”
The officer sighed. “I’ll drive you.”
“The rest of us will follow,” Colton said.
Vlad ignored the pain in his leg and ran to the police cruiser parked in the driveway. As soon as the doors were shut and belts buckled, Vlad turned his best defenseman face to the police officer and said, “Tell me everything you know.”
The details made his stomach clench again, and he was afraid he’d have to lean out the window and puke on the way to the hospital. A man had taken her from the parking lot of a hotel where she’d just checked in. She’d managed to secretly call 911 after texting him, and dispatchers heard everything. Including when she saved herself. And when the car crashed.
“Your wife is incredibly brave,” Lt. Hammadi said.
“I know,” he groaned. And he’d tried to make her feel guilty for it. He’d told her she was chasing a ghost, a lost cause. He’d pushed her away and straight into their trap.
“Put your head between your legs, man,” Lt. Hammadi said. Vlad must’ve had gonna boot soon written all over his face. He obeyed, and a calming hand squeezed his shoulder.
“She’s okay. She’s okay.”
“She has to be. She’s the b
est thing that ever happened to me.”
“Make sure she knows it.”
As they ate up the road, he vowed that he would. From this point forward, he would spend every minute of the rest of their lives making it up to her.
“The driver of the car has been arrested. That’s all I know.”
“He didn’t do this alone. She was working on a story. There were other people.”
“And investigators will find them. You just focus on your wife.”
They sped into the ER bay, and Vlad was out the door before the car had barely stopped. Behind them, Colton’s car screeched to a stop. He ran to catch up. “Everyone is behind me.”
The officer joined him in a brisk jog. Which was good, because no one stopped them when they ran in. Vlad slammed his hands against the swinging automatic doors that stood between the waiting room and the ER beds. They eked open, and he swore at every millisecond it took before he could run through.
“Elena!” He shouted her name, and he ran. He ran because it was grand gesture, and he was going to drop dead if he didn’t get to her.
He shouted again. “Elena!”
Ahead, a woman in a gown stepped out from behind a curtain. She had blood on her face and ice on her wrist.
Elena.
“Vlad.”
He ran toward her.
He tripped.
And fell at her feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It’s all fun and games until you’re flat on your back in an emergency room and your wife starts yelling at you in Russian.
Elena towered over him, hands on her hips, and a fierce look on her face. He’d never been so in love in his entire life.
“I cannot believe you,” she shouted. “What are you doing? Were you running? Where are your crutches?”
“I— We always run for grand gesture,” Vlad panted.
Colton winced as he offered a hand to help him up. “Dude, I may not speak Russian, but pissed-off wife is a universal language. I don’t think she appreciated the grand gesture.”
Isn't It Bromantic? Page 28
