I rush out of the detention center, fidgeting my way through security, and burst out into the desert sunshine. I jog across the parking lot and fiddle with the car keys to unlock the driver’s side door, my hands trembling so badly I can hardly stick the key in the hole.
“Fuck,” I mutter to myself, annoyed at how my body’s nervousness is betraying me right now, when I need to move quickly. Finally, I manage to open the door and slide behind the wheel, jamming the key into the ignition. I have a terrible ache in the pit of my stomach as I peel out of the parking lot and back onto the dusty highway. I turn off the music and stare straight ahead down the flat road, watching the little blurry mirage of water dancing in the distance.
It makes me think of long car rides with my family as a little girl. Sam and I used to point out the watery mirage shimmering down the road and tell our parents they were going to drive through a big puddle, only to watch with awe and disappointment when we got closer and the shimmer disappeared.
It was an almost magical phenomenon to me as a little girl. Sam and I could never quite figure out why such an illusion could occur, but we didn’t question it too much. Life was amazing back then, and the idea of a magical illusion dancing along on the open desert road wasn’t too hard to believe in.
Nowadays, I find it hard to believe in any kind of miracle. Life is hard, and the magic has more or less been power washed away by the harsh reality of adulthood. I work twice as hard to get half the recognition as my male colleagues. I throw every ounce of effort and energy into my job, so that at the end of the day, there’s nothing left for myself. And for the most part, I have accepted that without too much issue. After all, I have convinced myself that my line of work is important, that I help make the world a better place. A safer place.
But right now, I feel completely fucking helpless. I couldn’t even protect my own sister from something terrible happening.
I know in my heart Sam didn’t just get up and leave of her own accord. She may be a free spirit, considerably less of a workaholic than I am, but she’s not reckless or irresponsible. She loves her classes and her friends. She pays her own bills, even though I pay her tuition and send her extra money to help out when I can. Samantha isn’t some empty-headed drifter who would just drop everything and abandon her life in San Francisco.
No.
If she’s missing… it’s because somebody took her.
And that is why I am driving to the airport.
If there is one thing in this world I care about more than my career, it’s family. And right now, the only family I have is Samantha. She’s the only person in this world who truly cares about me, and I’ll be damned if I just sit back and watch the San Francisco police department treat her like a runaway case.
“She wouldn’t do that,” I murmur under my breath. “Sam isn’t a runaway.”
I don’t have a solid plan. Not yet. All I can think to do is buy a plane ticket, whatever it costs, and fly out to California to start investigating this case myself. I may be a cop, and that may mean that I should put my trust in other police departments to handle cases on their own.
But instead, it’s just made me more suspicious and wary of other departments. How do I know that the San Fran PD is going to actually look into Sam’s case properly? It sounds like they’ve already dismissed her case as a simple runaway scenario. Strike one against them. I can’t trust them to do this right. Nobody cares about her the way I do, and that means nobody will investigate her whereabouts as thoroughly as I can.
I throw the car into the next gear and floor it. At this point, I don’t even care if I’m speeding like a bat out of hell. This is my baby sister we’re talking about. I need to be on the next flight out of town. I need to get there as soon as possible.
My phone starts ringing at top volume and I nearly jump out of my skin.
“Holy shit,” I swear, glancing over at the cell phone buzzing on the passenger seat. I grab it and answer hastily, pressing the phone against my ear.
“Hello? Is this the San Francisco police department? Do you have more information about my sister?” I rattle off, my voice shaking.
There’s a crackling sound through the phone and I frown in confusion. There’s a clicking. Like the call is being recorded. What the hell? I worry that maybe I just don’t have very good reception out here in the desert.
“Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?” I ask impatiently.
“Nicole Burns,” growls a rough voice. It’s soft and gravelly, with that crackling noise overlaid. The voice sounds muffled, as though someone is holding their hand over the phone while they speak.
“Yes. That’s me. Who the hell is this?” I demand.
“The answer to your question,” the man replies. There’s a slight accent to his words, and it’s almost familiar, but not quite. It’s infuriating.
“Excuse me? Is this a prank call? I don’t have time for this right now,” I retort, about to hang up and toss the phone in the back seat. But before I do, the voice says something that makes my blood run cold.
“Where is Samantha?” hisses the voice.
I nearly run the car off the road, struggling to regain composure.
“What did you just say? Who is this?” I ask breathlessly.
“That is your question, yea?”
“What do you know about my sister? Who’s calling? What the hell is going on?” I reply, tears starting to sting in my eyes.
“I am the answer,” he continues on, just as calmly as before. “I know where she is.”
“Then tell me, you fucking asshole! Where is my sister?” I shout into the phone.
“Patience, Officer.”
“Screw patience, what did you do with Samantha?” I snap.
“Nothing. Yet.”
The yet gives me pause and makes my stomach churn.
“Are you… are you threatening her? What is this? What do you want from me?” I ask tearfully. I can hear what sounds like another voice in the background, a more familiar one, though I can’t place how.
“Money,” is the simple reply.
“Money,” I repeat in a whisper. “You want money. How much money? How much do you want?”
I can barely get the words out now. It feels like all the air has been kicked out of my lungs. Has someone really kidnapped my little sister for ransom? There is no way this can be happening to me.
“Four million dollars,” answers the man coolly.
“Four million. Are you fucking kidding me?” I shoot back. “You seem to know I’m an officer, yes? So you know I don’t get paid anywhere near enough to have that kind of money.”
“Hmm. Perhaps,” he replies.
I’m stunned into silence for a moment, a thousand thoughts ricocheting around in my head. He doesn’t even seem worried about the fact that I don’t have the money. It dawns on me that it isn’t actually money he’s after. It’s something else.
But what, I don’t know.
“Is there anything else I can do? I don’t have the money. You know I don’t. But please, please, don’t hurt her. I’ll do anything,” I beg of him.
“You love your sister, hm?”
“Yes! Of course, I love my sister. Don’t you lay a hand on her! Oh god. Put her on the line. I need to hear her voice and know that she’s okay. Please. Just let me talk to her for a second,” I whimper, the tears rolling down my cheeks.
“You will do anything to save her?”
“Obviously, yes. She’s my baby sister. Shit, just let me hear her voice,” I beg.
“You don’t have the money.”
“No. I don’t. But I can give you something else,” I protest, unable to think clearly.
“What would you give?” he asks calmly.
I wrack my brain for an answer, but come up empty.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, please, please... I can’t think of anything right now, but there’s got to be something—”
“If you want to see your sister again,” he begins flatly, wi
th a second voice chattering in the background, “You will find something. And Nicole… no cops.”
Click.
“No. No, no, no,” I mutter, looking at the phone screen. Call ended, it reads.
“No!” I scream, desperately thumbing over to my recent call log to check the number. It was a blocked number, no way to call back or track it. Gone, without a trace. I’m no closer to finding out what’s happened to my sister. I immediately start to dial the number for the San Francisco police department, but then I stop myself, remembering the man’s final words.
No cops.
I’m on my own.
And it occurs to me that the accent I struggled to place sounded awfully close to Russian. And it wasn’t ‘yea’, he’d said... It was da.
I slam on the brakes and whip the car around in a massive U-turn, hurtling back in the direction I came from. Toward the detention center. Where the only man I think might be able to help me is sitting behind bars.
Because I put him there.
Misha
Keeping business under control from behind bars is a delicate ordeal.
I lift my torso up, feeling the burn in my abs as I do a full sit-up while hanging by my legs from one of the bars in the exercise yard. My handful of Russians are standing nearby me, another of them working out while the rest stand watch. Exercise keeps me centered while I’m here. It also gives me time to think without looking suspicious.
It isn’t just the guards I have to be mindful of while I’m in here.
This detention center houses enough Russians that we can all stand in one corner and know each other on a first-name basis. On top of that, I’m an outsider, even if I command respect among my men. In a state prison or federal penitentiary, there are long-term inmates, set channels and hierarchy, and groups that don’t move around very quickly.
This is nothing like that.
Most people are only here for a short time. Misdemeanors get out with a fine. Everyone else gets transferred out within forty-six days. That means that the jail population of about four thousand is constantly changing, and after just a month and a half, the entire population has changed, by and large.
I’m part of a snapshot of life in here that will be out from under me before I know it.
There are some advantages to that. Less than two months isn’t enough time for people to really get their clout set in stone and well known.
Sure, there are gangs. About a tenth of the inmates are gang members, most of them divided along ethnic lines. There are black, white, and Hispanic gangs, and then there are the skinheads, who even the other white gangs won’t touch. Most everyone is a repeat offender. The stories are usually similar. They got caught up in all this when they were teenagers, and prison pipeline just does its dark magic to keep them behind bars.
The Russians weren’t a gang before I got here, but now that I’m here and in charge, it’s starting to look a lot like one. If that’s the way the men want it, though, we’re not going to act like a gang. We are the bratva. We have standards.
Each time I finish a rep on the bar, I catch a glimpse of the various people in the rec yard, some watching us, most minding their business. A couple of the skinheads are sporting black eyes thanks to me and my men.
We got a decent bit of information from them about the state of things in here over a few days. I’ve been here a short time, but I already know who the rats are, which guards are sympathetic to the skinheads, which are on the take from some of the gangs on the outside, and more importantly, how to safely keep in contact with the outside.
From there, it’s just been a matter of staying in touch with my people to keep things running smoothly.
Between that and making one of the skinheads’ toughest young fighters look like an angry brat on my first week here, I’ve made some waves in this detention center, for better or worse. Nobody has tried to come after us, but everyone’s watching for their chance. It feels like being on the outside again.
This Nicole Burns, she intrigues me. I find myself thinking back to our meeting over and over again, thinking over each word that came from those pretty lips. Getting a second meeting is on my to-do list, but I have a feeling I am going to have trouble getting a leash on this one, much less keeping it there. She’s wily and not to be underestimated. That’s a mistake I made, and it’s one I am sure my comrades will make without me out there guiding them.
I also know desire when I see it. It is written all over her face, in her eyes like a mirror looking back at me. She wants me, but I don’t think for a second that she is naive enough to let that get the better of her.
And given her... personal problems, it may be harder to pin her down again.
Time will tell whether or not she sees reason and decides to do the right thing at my hearing.
A lot is riding on that hearing. More than I would like. If I don’t end up at Ely State Prison, then I will be transferred to a federal prison out of state. That will make things a lot harder to run from inside, but I don’t plan on losing Vegas so easily. Besides, in a federal prison, I’ll be able to pull strings and set up alliances that I could not do even from the outside.
As I finish my reps, I see one of the other Russians making his way toward me. I get down from the bar and shake my arms out as I nod to him.
“Comrade,” I say simply.
“I have a lead on getting word out to your estate, sir,” he says, standing close enough to me that we won’t be overheard. “If all goes well, we can get a request for bail to your subordinates within a week or so, as you requested.”
“Good,” I say, clapping him on the arm. “Keep me updated. Your service will be rewarded.”
“Thank you, sir,” he says with a respectful nod. The guards are eyeing us from across the yard. I only make brief eye contact with them, but enough to let them know I do not fear them.
Get bail, get out, and tie up loose ends. Those are my immediate goals. My assets have been frozen, though, and I can’t access a penny of my own money. I have to rely on those under me, and if there is a chance someone is planning to move against me, that is not a good position to be in.
If I were an ambitious young man trying to climb the ranks swiftly, this would be the time I would strike, while the pakhan is behind bars and working through darker shadows than ever.
I watch the other men train for some time, guiding them and keeping them focused. Playing personal trainer for each other is how we bond when we are not watching our backs or focusing on business. It builds loyalty in a way only a prison can foster.
Exercise time ends at the usual time, and we start filing back indoors to get to our cells. Once I’m inside mine and settled, a guard approaches my cell door holding a stack of envelopes.
“Chaykovsky,” the guard grunts, and he slips some mail into my cell. I raise my eyebrows. I was not expecting anything so soon, but without acknowledging the guard, I pick up the envelope and turn it over.
It has obviously been opened. All mail that comes to prisoners gets read and examined for suspicious content by censors, and it is very common for mail or items to get confiscated without notice to either the sender or the prisoner.
And indeed, the envelope is much bigger than necessary for how few items are in it, which tells me some things have been removed. It is addressed from Moscow. I find a few letters inside first, written in Russian, and at a glance, they look like simple personal letters from a family friend. I also find photographs—not actual photographs, since those are not allowed, but scanned and printed copies of real images.
The photos are of landscapes. There is a mountain in one, a quiet village in another, and a fox laying in the forest in the third.
This is code.
Reading over the letters themselves confirms this. The first of them is simple and short:
Dearest brother,
The mountain that we hiked for my fortieth birthday still stands strong, and the river that runs from it runs faster and colder than ever. I wen
t there again with our cousins and found the same coins that we left in offering near the top. It is beautiful, and the hike went well. Our cousin’s sister stayed behind to camp longer, and she loves the outdoors. We find rabbits that run fast in the burrows under the mountain. No fox can catch them. We love you very much and hope that the ground will not freeze this winter.
The other letters are much like it, just short and nonsensical personal letters that would never catch the attention of some underpaid censor among the guards. I doubt they even have someone who speaks Russian on their team, and if they do, glancing over this message wouldn’t get attention.
I read over the others carefully, my eyes flitting over to the pictures with each line. Everything corresponds perfectly. The art of getting messages through prison censors is one we Russians know all too well.
By the end of the message, my eyebrows are raised. I cannot show too much emotion, or I might attract unwanted attention.
I fold the letters up and put them back into the envelope.
This is all a very interesting set of developments.
Time for dinner rolls around, and before we even get in line, I catch up with one of my most trusted associates and pull him aside.
“We need to discuss some news I’ve received,” I say. “Some strings need to be pulled. Now.”
Nicole
I have never hated a city more than I currently hate San Francisco. I am starting to really regret flying out here. Two days ago, when I first found out that my sister is missing and has been kidnapped for some kind of ransom, my initial impulse was to go straight back to the jail and demand to see Misha Chaykovsky again. That faint lilt of a Russian accent in the voice of my sister’s kidnapper on the phone was the hint I needed to push me in that direction.
I swiveled around in the middle of the road and drove back several miles before it occurred to me how fruitless a conversation with Misha would be.
I have nothing to offer him in exchange for his help. It is because of me that the man is sitting behind bars right now. I am the one who brought him down and ruined his life.
Vegas Boss: A Mafia Hitman Romance Page 7
