by Bella Rose
“I think you might be right.”
Anne glanced up at the clock. “Go right now. I’ll cover for you for ten minutes. You look like you could use a few extra minutes of R and R.”
“Thank you,” Katie said earnestly. “I promise I’ll be more myself tomorrow.”
“I know you will be.” Anne waved her off. “We all get caught up sometimes.”
Katie waved to Anne on her way out the door and hustled home to change clothes, get Max, and head to the park. She’d never been so eager for her daily walk before in her life. It felt so good to be outside in the late afternoon sunlight. She started to relax almost immediately.
Max was feeling good too. He fetched the ball so many times she thought his tongue was going to start dragging on the ground. She laughed as she watched him struggle with whether he wanted to take a little nap in the grass or have her throw the ball just one more time.
“Okay, enough!” she told him. “I’m making the call because you’ve completely worn yourself out and you need a break!”
The dog flopped into the grass and rolled onto his back. He waved his legs in the air and twisted his body to scratch his back. She was just laughing about his antics when someone walked up. She expected Viktor, and even had a little speech prepared. But it wasn’t him.
“Sasha.” Katie nodded with forced cordiality. “I hope your tooth is feeling better.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m fine now. Or I suppose I’m mostly fine.”
“Oh?” She fidgeted uncomfortably. “Then maybe you should call the office and make another appointment.”
“I don’t need another appointment.” Sasha was looking at her in a very odd way. “I need some insurance.”
“Dental insurance?” She couldn’t even be certain they were talking about the same thing.
Sasha muttered something in Russian that Katie couldn’t understand. Max was staring at him as though the dog couldn’t decide if the stupid human was a threat or not. Then Sasha held up his hand and two more men sprinted out of the trees a few yards away.
Max leaped to his feet, barking, but he was tuckered out and slow. One of the men slipped the loop of a dog-handling pole around Max’s neck. Katie screamed. Max fought the man, snarling and spinning at the end of the pole. It didn’t do any good.
“Leave him alone!” she shouted.
Some of the mothers over by the playground equipment were starting to take notice. Katie screamed again, trying to reach her dog. Sasha’s second companion grabbed her around the waist. These were not the same men who had come with him to her home the night before. She didn’t know these two.
Katie could see one of the mothers dialing her phone. She pointed to the Good Samaritan. “The cops will be here any second! You’d better leave me alone and go away before they arrest you.”
Sasha shrugged. “We’ll be long gone by then.”
Sending an arrogant wave to the mothers, Sasha motioned to his two accomplices. They fell into step behind him with Katie and Max in tow. Katie beat on her captor’s back, but the guy was like a block of wood. Her hands actually hurt from the contact.
“Igor isn’t going to be bothered by your squirming around,” Sasha informed Katie. “So you might as well stop.”
“At least he’s aptly named,” she snapped. “What is your problem?” she asked Sasha. “Your uncle told you to leave me alone.”
“My uncle also told me to take care of a little problem. And since my problem involves Viktor, you’re really the best insurance policy for that purpose.”
“So let my dog go, please?” she begged.
They were approaching yet another SUV. It was like a bad movie all over again. Sasha seemed to be considering her request. She was shoved unceremoniously into the back of the SUV. Then Sasha pointed to the dog.
“Kill him, I guess.”
“No!” Katie shrieked, feeling her eyes tearing up. “Don’t hurt him! Don’t! I’ll give you anything you want, just don’t hurt him!”
“That’s ridiculous,” Sasha said derisively. “It’s a fucking dog. Have some pride.”
“He’s a better man than you are.” She struggled valiantly, trying to get out.
Then the man holding the snarling, biting Max said something to Sasha in rapid Russian. Sasha answered back and they proceeded to have what sounded like an argument. Finally the man dropped the pole and got into the front passenger seat of the SUV. The vehicle spun gravel as it left the parking lot, but Max was still alive as they left him behind
Chapter Twelve
Viktor cursed beneath his breath when he saw Sasha pull his SUV into a spot in the rear lot of the park. Viktor couldn’t think of someone he would like to see less than Sasha. The man was already getting out of his vehicle with a smug smile in place as if he hadn’t been half drunk and begging tearfully for Viktor to help him out just the night before.
“What do you want?” Viktor muttered as Sasha approached.
Something about Sasha’s smile was off. “Looking for your girlfriend?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not going to find her here.” Sasha glanced around. “At least not right now. She was here earlier with that rabid pet of hers.”
“What did you do?” Viktor asked through clenched teeth.
“I took out an insurance policy.” Sasha pulled out a pack of cigarettes and removed one from the package. He put it in his mouth and lit it. “I wanted to be sure that you would be properly motivated to find my missing cargo.”
“So you kidnapped Katie in order to gain my cooperation?” Viktor balled his hands into fists. “Are you insane? I’m more likely to beat your face in until you squeal and tell me where she is.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“Oh? And why not?”
Sasha took a long drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke into Viktor’s face. “Because if you do anything to me”—Sasha waved to another man on the far side of the park—“my associate there will make one phone call and your bitch of a girlfriend will die.”
“What do you think this gets you?” Viktor asked. “I told you already that I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I even agreed to look for your missing cargo. But I told you if they’d been picked up by social services, then that was it. What am I supposed to do? Magically make a bunch of women appear out of thin air?”
“No. But I guess I’ll at least have one.”
“Excuse me?” Viktor felt icy rage taking over his body. “What are you saying?”
“Only that if you don’t get me what I want, I’m going to have to substitute your girlfriend for the rest of those women. She’s not exactly pliable, but there are men who like a little fight in a girl that they buy.”
Viktor started toward Sasha, but he held up his hand, waving his finger in front of Viktor’s face. “Ah, ah, ah! No touching or she dies!”
“You’re not doing yourself any favors,” Viktor told him. “I was already going to help you.”
“Now you’ll be more motivated.”
Viktor snorted. “Or I’ll just be motivated to murder you.”
“And have fun finding that mutt of hers too.”
“What?”
Sasha’s lips curved into a cruel smile. “Well we had to do something with him, so we put a pole on him to keep him from ripping us apart while we put Katie in the truck. Then we just sort of left him here. So who knows? Maybe he got run over by a car, or maybe he got taken to the pound. There’s not really a way to know, is there?”
Sasha turned around and stalked back toward his SUV.
“You said you want those women back,” Viktor called. “When?”
“You have twenty-four hours. Meet me right here or I’ll send you a postcard from wherever she goes.”
“Fuck you, Sasha,” Viktor growled. “You’re going to regret this. In fact, you’re going to live to regret this.”
There was a brief shadow that passed over Sasha’s face as though he might have
had enough sense to realize he’d just made a really bad choice. Then it was gone and the arrogant mask was firmly back in place.
Viktor watched Sasha drive away. He glanced around, wondering if there was any way to find out what had happened to Max. Would the dog have hidden when the cops inevitably showed up? Would he have run away?
A yip caught Viktor’s attention, making him turn toward the forested area of the park. He wanted to find Katie. Yet he knew that she would also want him to at least look around for Max. She loved that dog. Her first worry would have been for the animal and not herself. It was silly and softhearted, but it was one of the reasons why he loved her so much.
Viktor trotted toward the woods, skipping the path and taking the most direct route. If the dog had been running, he would have done the same. The shadows were getting longer as the evening wore on.
Then Viktor heard another high-pitched yip. This one ended in a whine. Viktor ducked beneath a few low-hanging branches and went deeper into the forest. Finally he saw that the ground here was all churned up as though something had been struggling.
“Max?” Viktor called softly.
The dog gave one sharp bark. It was enough for Viktor to locate him.
“Wow, you’re really in a mess, aren’t you?”
Viktor stood back and tried to figure out the best way to extract the long-haired dog from the mess of thorns, thickets, brush, and tree branches that he had apparently dragged along until he could go no farther. And in the center of the mess, Max lay with his side heaving as though he’d been fighting every second since the loop had first touched his neck.
Viktor knelt, slow and easy, afraid the dog would be surprised and try to bite him. But when Viktor reached out, Max licked his hand. Apparently they were friends. Viktor smoothed his hand over the dog’s tangled fur. “Now we just have to find your owner.”
***
Katie no longer cared if she pissed off her captors or not. As far as she was concerned, Sasha was an asshole who needed someone to take him down a few pegs. Of course, he was also stupid. He had actually brought her to his own home to serve out her apparent captivity.
“You do realize that Viktor is going to rip you apart when he finds you, right?” Katie kept her tone almost conversational. It seemed to make Sasha far more uncomfortable.
He snarled something to his remaining companion, trying to ignore Katie. The other guy—Igor—rolled his eyes at Sasha, but nevertheless left the room to do his bidding.
“Even your minions know you’re an idiot,” Katie muttered. “Did you learn your bad guys skills from the cartoons or something?”
“Would you shut up?”
Katie frowned. “Why would I do that? You’re holding me hostage for some reason you still won’t even talk about, and I swear you’re more afraid of something than I am. I have no reason to shut up. You’re not intimidating enough to make me.”
Sasha grabbed a wooden spoon from the kitchen counter and slammed it on the table so hard that it broke in half. “Is that what you want?” he shouted. “Will that scare you into silence?”
“I think not,” Katie said with deliberate dismissiveness. “If someone had used that spoon on your butt when you were a child, we wouldn’t even be needing to have this conversation.”
Sasha grabbed a kitchen towel and stomped over to Katie. He pried her mouth open by pushing on her cheeks until her back teeth cut into her flesh. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she refused to let him see her cry. Then he shoved the towel into her mouth. With her hands tied, she couldn’t pull it out. So she began working at it with her tongue, a task made difficult because the towel soaked up all the moisture in her mouth and made her tongue feel big and clumsy.
“Finally!” Sasha moaned.
Boris Karkoff lumbered into the kitchen from the direction of the front door. He looked first at Katie tied to a chair, then at Sasha nearly about to wet himself from anxiety, and began to curse in low, emphatic Russian.
“Uncle, I can explain!” Sasha said quickly.
“Really?” Karkoff looked pissed. “I hope you realize that I am not the one you need to explain to. I made peace with Viktor just last night all because you kidnapped this woman. I smoothed things over and calmed him down.” Karkoff stabbed a finger in Katie’s direction. “And now you go and do it again? For what purpose, I ask you! Why would you do this thing?”
“I’m telling you, Uncle,” Sasha said insistently. “Viktor knows what happened to those women. He did it! He’s the one who let them escape. So he should be the one responsible for getting them back!”
“Do you honestly believe anyone would be able to get them back?” Karkoff looked bewildered. “I am pissed that the shipment went missing. But I have handled it with the supplier. We are working on a solution. One that does not include kidnapping random women and holding them hostage!”
“Viktor must pay for disrespecting us,” Sasha insisted. “You cannot let him get away with this, Uncle. He is making you look weak.”
Boris Karkoff drew his hand back and let it fly once again. The blow nearly knocked Sasha to his knees. This time, though, his nephew came up swinging. His fist connected with the old man’s jaw. His head rocked back on his spine, the sound loud in the close confines of the kitchen.
Katie gasped behind her gag as she realized that the impotent rage Sasha felt was completely out of control. Karkoff fell backwards, landing on his bottom. Sasha dove after him. Landing on top of his uncle, Sasha grabbed the man by his sparse gray hair and began pounding his head down onto the tile floor.
“You don’t get to treat me like that!” Sasha bellowed. “You don’t! You don’t!”
Soon a bloody smear appeared on the tile. Katie started screaming as a panting Sasha finally stopped beating on his uncle. Igor came running in from the other room. He saw the scene in the kitchen and started yelling furiously in Russian. Katie couldn’t tell whose side Igor was on.
Igor and Sasha screamed at each other for several moments. Igor gesticulated wildly toward the floor and Sasha leapt up, getting right in the other man’s face. Then Igor took a swing, and Sasha went down.
Katie felt horribly exposed there in the chair as the two men grappled like bulls. Then she saw Sasha roll toward his uncle’s prone body. He grabbed the butt of Karkoff’s weapon and pulled the gun out from beneath his uncle’s suit jacket.
Before Katie could even attempt to scream a warning, the booming sound of gunfire deafened her almost totally. Her ears rang and her eyes watered as she saw the red stain bloom on the front of Igor’s chest. The man just sort of stopped moving. He sank to his knees, raising his hands and touching the blood pouring out of his body with his fingertips. Then he collapsed to the floor and was still.
Sasha was almost inconsolable. He threw the gun down and started ranting in a combination of Russian and English that was too disjointed for Katie to understand. He was tearing and ripping at his hair as he paced wildly about the kitchen. It was as if he had completely lost his mind.
Katie struggled against her bonds. She knew it was time to go. Sasha had just murdered two men in front of her. Getting out alive was the only thing that mattered.
Then Sasha glanced at her and started laughing. He gave her a long, disdainful look. “Tell me, Katie, are you afraid of me now?”
Chapter Thirteen
Viktor banged on the front door of Karkoff’s house until someone finally answered. It was dark now and the house was lit up as if there were a party going on inside. Karkoff’s man Denis answered the door, looking harried.
“Where’s Karkoff?” Viktor demanded, not even bothering with the niceties.
Denis narrowed his gaze, his big beefy shoulders rolling as he stood in a very threatening manner. Obviously he hadn’t forgotten Viktor’s throat chop from the night before. Then he looked down and spotted Max standing beside Viktor.
“What’s with the dog?” Denis demanded.
“He and I share a common goal for the moment,” Viktor offer
ed. “Now where’s your boss?”
“I was hoping you might be able to answer that question.”
“Me?” Viktor’s mind started spinning. “Why?”
“Because the boss left about an hour ago and hasn’t come back.” Denis called to someone over his shoulder in Russian. There was an answer, and then Denis frowned. “The boss was bitching and complaining about you when he left.”
“And that means I must have something to do with his disappearance?” Viktor snorted. “I hate to tell you, but your logic is flawed. I haven’t seen Karkoff since I left here last night. And while I’ll admit that I had a confrontation with him when I was here, when I left things were settled.”
One of Karkoff’s other oversized enforcers crowded the entry. “Sasha is gone too. I thought the boss went to settle something with him, not Viktor.”
Viktor shut his eyes, wishing he could be wrong and fearing that he was not. “Has anyone seen Sasha?”
“No.” Denis shook his head.
“Does he live nearby?”
Denis shrugged. “A few miles.”
“Has anyone thought to look for Karkoff there?” Viktor felt as though he were talking to children. Did these guys ever do anything without Karkoff’s say-so?
It was obvious from Denis’s expression that he hadn’t thought of that. He turned and barked an order to several of his men. Viktor wasn’t surprised when he heard them pulling out weapons and checking clips. Something had made these men uneasy. Viktor felt it too.
“I’ll come along if you don’t mind,” Viktor told Denis.
“And if I do mind?”
“My friend Katie is missing again,” Viktor said tersely. “Sasha claims he picked her up to hold her as insurance.”
“For what?” Denis was frowning.
“Something about that last shipment going missing,” Viktor said vaguely. “He’s afraid he’s being blamed for it, and he seems to think I know where the missing cargo is.”
“Do you?” Something in Denis’s voice suggested that he thought that was a safe bet too.
“Does it matter at this point?” Viktor waved his hand. “The cargo is long gone by now, and your boss is now the one who’s missing.”
