She tried pushing the door shut, but one of the men threw his arm out, catching it before it could close. Instead of trying to go for her phone—knowing that she would not be able to call for help before they could get to her—Lauren reached for the vase, grabbing the neck of it and slamming it down on the man’s head closest to her, but there were too many of them for her to fight effectively.
She took off down the hall, stampeding feet echoing behind her. Just reaching the window in her bedroom, she wrenched it open, halfway out before someone grabbed her ponytail, yanking her back into the room.
A bag was thrown over her head, her wrists and ankles bound with ties. No matter her struggles, they were able to restrain her, carrying her down the flight of stairs to an unmarked van waiting at the curb.
Her heart was racing, but Lauren tried to stay calm. Her restraints were too tight for her to wiggle free, and the booted foot pressing against her back kept her from moving from her position on the floor of the van.
It felt like they traveled for hours though it was little more than thirty minutes. The sliding door was opened, the men around her climbing out, shaking the van. Someone grabbed her, tossing her over her shoulder, graveling crunching beneath their boots as they carried her into a building.
They went up a flight of stairs, the wood creaking beneath their feet. After about another minute, she was dropped down into a chair, her arms cut free momentarily before they were bound behind her back, her legs to the chair.
Then, footsteps receded.
She was left to her thoughts, the stillness around her causing more fear than the reality that she had been kidnapped. She couldn’t even say who had done it since she didn’t recognize any of the men.
She didn’t know how long she sat like that before she heard someone coming towards her and the bag was snatched from her head, making Lauren wince at the bright light from the windows around her. She was in a building, large holes in the ceiling pouring light onto the hardwood floors. She couldn’t see much, only what was directly in front of her since several men were currently moving around near the stairwell.
One was setting up a tripod some feet away from her, another fiddling with a camcorder. There was only one she thought she recognized and only after he turned to face her did she recognize who he was.
Brahim Besnik, Jetmir’s brother.
When he noticed Lauren’s attention on him, he smiled broadly, his eyes glinting with excitement as he stepped towards her, close enough that she could feel his breath on her face as he leaned forward.
“Good to see you’re awake.”
She couldn’t say much with the gag in his mouth. Laughing when he realized this, he yanked it from her mouth.
Not wasting her time, Lauren asked, “What do you want with me?”
“You? I want nothing from you, but I need something from that Russian of yours.”
“The diamond,” Lauren said. “He doesn’t have it.”
“And you know this? He would never share that with you even if he did, just to avoid a situation like this.”
“He—”
“Shut up. Now, this can be easy for you, or—” he reached out suddenly, wrapping his hand around her throat, squeezing just enough to cut off her air, “—I can make this one of the worst days of your life.”
When he finally released her, she coughed, breathing in deeply. Again, she asked, “What do you want?”
“How about a demonstration? You will read from there,”—he pointed to one of the men holding large cards—“and we will record a lovely video for the Bratva Captain.”
She looked from him to the other men that were waiting patiently, their smiles making fear course through her.
Without a doubt, she knew this was already the worst day of her life.
Mishca had waited at the drop for over an hour, but Naomi never showed. He tried calling her, but the disposable phone she had been using was disconnected.
“What are you going to do?” Vlad asked as they got back in the car.
“Set up a meeting with the Albanians, tell them what I know. I can’t risk protecting Naomi anymore.”
That was going to be harder than it sounded. His word was his bond, and now that he had neither the diamond nor Naomi to hand over to Jetmir, they would assume he was hiding her, no matter what he told them.
Digging out his phone, he called Lauren, wanting to tell her that she would need to get back to the safe house, but it went to voicemail.
He wasn’t looking forward to his next call.
“I wasn’t able to uphold my end of the deal,” Mishca said to Mikhail, tamping down his pride in asking his father for help. “What should I do?”
“Let’s not do business over the phone. I will meet you at your club.”
“See you then.”
Mishca had made it a habit never to involve his father in his business dealings, not just because he didn’t want his men to get the wrong impression of him, but because he sometimes felt like he lived in his father’s shadow and that was a place he didn’t want to be.
He tried her phone again, but when Mishca got no answer, he cursed, redialing before he could crush the electronic device.
It was just a feeling at first, something that was rubbing him the wrong way. From the moment he felt that budding anxiety in his chest, he’d called Lauren, just to hear her voice, but with each unanswered call, that anxiety grew.
When he reached her voicemail again, Mishca ended the call, looking around the room for his keys, at least until his phone rang.
Without looking at the caller id, he answered. “Lauren?”
“Mishca, this is Amber.”
The fear in her voice made him stand up straighter. “Amber? What’s wrong?”
“I need you to come to the apartment. Lauren’s gone.”
Amber was pacing the foyer when Mishca, Vlad, and Luka arrived. She barely gave his men a glance, focusing solely on Mishca.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said quickly, her eyes red from crying. “I came back and the apartment looked like this.”
There was broken porcelain on the floor, paintings strewn around the room, and the further Mishca entered the apartment, he saw the door to Lauren’s room.
It was open, but the frame on it was splintered, a large footprint on the door itself.
“Did you call the police?” Mishca asked.
He didn’t have time to deal with local law enforcement if she did, knowing that he would be the first person they went to after the ordeal with them.
“No,” Amber answered shooting a glance at Vlad. “Lauren told me about you.”
Mishca arched a brow, not bothering to question that at the moment.
“See that?” Luka asked in Russian, going over to crouch in Lauren’s doorway, picking up the butt of a cigarette.
“What do you want to do about her?” Vlad asked inclining his head in Amber’s direction.
“Is there somewhere you can go?” Mishca turned to Amber, trying his hardest not to panic.
She nodded.
“Stay there and wait for my call.” To Vlad and Luka, Mishca said, “Let’s go.”
They were back out the door as fast as they entered, Mishca already pulling out his phone to call one of his contacts.
“Mishca?”
He looked back to where Amber was standing looking down on him, her demeanor going from worry to serious.
“I encouraged her to go back to you, don’t let her get hurt because of that.”
With one phone call, every member of the Bratva that answered to Mishca were waiting for him inside his club, and even some that worked for Mikhail. He wasn’t there yet, but his presence wasn’t necessary. From wherever he was, Mikhail had made calls as well, and he had men scouring the streets in search of Lauren.
“Someone saw something!” Mishca shouted at them. “Find them.”
Only one had the audacity to scoff. If Mishca hadn’t been so wired, he might not have heard it, but
once he did, he spun around, finding the source of the noise.
Lyov.
His hand was still bandaged from Mishca’s last assault, but he still hadn’t seemed to learn his lesson.
“Strip him.”
That got everyone’s attention. There were only a select few in the Bratva that could order a person’s legacy to be removed from them.
Mishca was one of them.
Having Lyov ‘stripped’ was not as bad as it seemed, it was worse. Mishca watched as several of his men dragged Lyov away despite his protests.
In the next few hours, every tattoo he had dedicated to the Vory v Zakone would be sliced with an ‘X’, then torched, rendering the tattoos illegible.
“You are not sanctioned to do this!” Lyov growled at him, still being yanked away.
That much was true—Lyov wasn’t under Mishca’s command—but he would deal with the consequences of his actions later.
Twenty minutes passed and still nothing. After the first ten, Mishca had threatened to kill everyone in the room if they continued to just stand there—although he knew there were plenty more out checking around. Vlad had to force him into his office and block the door before he could threaten anyone else.
Through chaos, Vlad was the voice of reason. “Who do you think could have done this?”
A bitter laugh escaped Mishca as he buried his face in his hands. “The list is endless.”
He had more enemies than any man should, and probably more that he didn’t yet know about, but he could only think of two that were bold enough to act against him.
The Irish and the Albanians.
“Where’s Declan?”
“Last I heard, he was out of the country.”
Which didn’t ultimately mean that he was. “Verify that I’ll—”
“Boss?”
“What!” Mishca snapped at Luka’s intrusion.
“There’s something you should see.”
Luka’s tone made Mishca look away from his phone, up to where he stood with a young boy. The boy was nervous, constantly peeking up at Luka like he thought he might harm him. In his hand he held a video camera.
Trying to reign in his temper so as not to frighten the boy. “What is it?”
The boy looked from Luka to Mishca, his eyes moving to the stars on his chest. That put him on edge. People didn’t immediately look for the stars unless they knew where they were.
“Who are you?”
“He told me to give you this,” the boy said extending his arm, holding the camera out for Mishca to take.
If not for the accent, he might have excused this as one of his father’s attempts at being cloak and dagger, but he knew without a doubt this was another message from the Albanians.
“Send him off,” Mishca said in Russian, “and come right back.”
As Luka hurried off to do his bidding, Mishca turned the bulky camera over in his hands, trying to discern anything he could from the state of it. It was fairly new, with only a few scratches on it.
Pressing the button at the top, he switched the camera on, going to the gallery, locating the only file within it. Luka and Vlad walked around to his side as he pressed play on the video.
The screen was black before the picture abruptly started, views of a crumbling building coming into focus until it zeroed in on Lauren. Mishca’s legs dropped down from the desk as his fingers tightened around the camera.
She was bound to a chair, her eyes bloodshot, her cheeks streaked with tears. Gagged with a black cloth, she looked terrified.
A burly man appeared from behind the camera, walking over to her to rip the cloth from her mouth. She winced and the look of pain that lanced across her face made him want to hurl the camera across the room.
The man didn’t bother with a mask, knowing that Mishca wouldn’t go to the police with this…and because the Albanians were crazy enough not to care.
“Read it!”
“We k-know you have the d-diamond,” she started shakily, her voice breaking at the end.
Another tear fell as she looked to something past the camera. “Meet us at the Boneyard within the hour or,” her breath caught as she read the next line staring directly at him, “s-she dies.”
As soon as the video cut out, Mishca hurled the camera against the wall, watching pieces of it break off as he lurched to his feet. Neither Vlad nor Luka knew what to say, but they both wore similar expressions.
Vlad stepped out of the room, gong down to the floor to alert the others to what had happened. Mishca was back to pacing, his mind working frantically as he tried to think of his next move.
“This was him,” he muttered darkly, thinking of Jetmir. “Brahim wouldn’t be stupid enough to act against me without his authority.”
“Boss—”
“Who the fuck do they take me for? Huh?” Mishca wasn’t actually talking to Luka though he was still in the room.
He didn’t think the Bratva Captain even realized he was speaking aloud.
Mishca stormed over to one of the paintings on the wall, ripping it down as he punched in the combination to the safe hidden behind it. In it were stacks of cash and a few handguns, one Mishca pulled out. He withdrew a magazine as well, checking the clip before slamming it into place, loading a bullet into the chamber.
Luka stood watching him, seeing the manic gleam in his eye, so different from his own. While Luka’s reasons were his own, Mishca was more worried about saving another’s life than his own safety.
He also knew that this type of reaction would get him killed. He did the only thing he knew.
He slapped the back of his head, adding a little more force than necessary. Might as well make it worth it.
Mishca was so surprised by the hit that for a second he could only stare at Luka. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d done the same to him, so he wasn’t particularly upset by it.
“Be calm, brother,” Luka said.
“She’s…she’s everything to me.”
Even if he had never experienced the love Mishca had for Lauren, he could understand the fear he felt.
Luka patted his jeans’ pocket. “And we’ll kill them all to get her back.”
Rearing back, Luka kicked the door to the Albanians’ hideout off its hinges.
The five men sitting in front of the television all looked up in surprise, their hands automatically reaching for the guns at their belts, but with his already in hand, Mishca aimed and shot, killing two in seconds, Luka taking care of the others.
Jetmir was in the back bedroom, a woman on her knees before him, but when he heard the gunshots, he quickly shoved her away, jerking his pants up as he reached for the gun on the bedside table.
Luka kicked the door open, the frame splintering. The woman screamed, holding her hands up as though that would help her, but with a jerk of his head, Luka sent her fleeing from the room.
“How dare you!”
Mishca stormed into the room next, his eyes cold and furious. “Sit down.”
“You—”
Swinging his arm out he slugged Jetmir across the face with the handle of his gun, kicking his leg out to force him back on the bed.
“I said sit the fuck down!”
Jetmir’s nose was bleeding, but like he had never been hit, he simply brushed some of the blood away and glared at Mishca. “You are bold, Russian.”
“Where is she?” He demanded without preamble.
“If you mean your whore, I haven’t seen her.”
Even Vlad winced as Mishca punched the Albanian in the jaw, but it wasn’t enough for Mishca. He swung again, connecting with the left side of his face and felt the satisfying crack of bone.
Jetmir howled in pain, cursing Mishca, though his voice soon became quiet when it became too difficult to talk which made Mishca instantly annoyed.
Looking to Vlad, Mishca said, “Bring him.”
Vlad followed his orders and as they were making their way through the house, a man appeared in the doorway,
one that Mishca had seen just recently.
He spotted them at the same time, but before his brain could even form another thought, Luka tackled him, laughing as the man tried to fight back. Today was not a day when Mishca worried for his sanity.
Jetmir was hogtied and thrown into the trunk of the car, Vlad staying outside with him. The other man, one of Jetmir’s lieutenants was led to the back bedroom.
Grabbing the knife from Luka’s belt, Mishca thrust it down into the softest part of the man’s thigh, leaving it embedded there until he quieted.
“Hopefully that will stop whatever lie you can think of, yes?” Mishca gestured at himself. “You know who I am and you know that I saw your face on that tape. Either you die bloody or you take a bullet to the head.”
“U vas net shary—You don’t have the balls!” He spat angrily, tears in his eyes.
Without a word, Luka jerked the knife free from his leg, unfazed by another shout of pain. In one swift move, he cut through the front of the man’s shirt, baring his chest and the tattoos that decorated it.
Mishca stood back, watching with casual indifference as Luka kneeled before the man.
“You know of me, yes?” Luka asked. “No, look at me.” He tapped the tip of his blade against his forehead, drawing the man’s attention up.
When his eyes widened just slightly, Luka smiled.
“And you know what I’m capable of. Answer his questions.”
Mishca didn’t waste any time. “Where is she?
He stayed stubbornly silent and Mishca was getting edgier by the second. Before he could lunge at the man, and effectively ruin any chance he had of getting the information, Luka stuck his arm out, halting him.
“Give me five minutes.”
Four and a half minutes later, Luka came out, his hands and jeans covered in blood, yet he didn’t look ruffled in the slightest. Withdrawing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, Luka grabbed one, lighting it up, the blood on his hands staining it.
“I’ve got an address.”
Brahim was on the other side of the room, biting into an apple, laughing with the remaining two men that were left. Lauren had no idea when the one that had been watching her would return, but she didn’t have any time to waste.
Until the End Page 19
