by Em Petrova
Too much to deal with before her first coffee of the day. Plus, the bouncers were looking at her expectantly. She could almost hear their stomachs rumbling for breakfast.
“Abby, find Jenicka. She’s cooking today.”
Abby nodded before disappearing from the top of the stairs. Ruby turned to the bar. Too often, she was tempted to drink away her cares with one of the twenty bottles there. But all she still had left of her sanity was her ability to think straight, so she went for the coffee in the kitchen instead.
When she heard the bouncers talking in the low rumble of their native Russian she couldn’t stand listening to, she switched on a transistor radio and drowned them out in old pop music.
She barely had two sips of coffee in her before one of the bouncers, Maxim, poked his head in. He went by Max on US soil, as if anyone would ever mistake him for anything but the overgrown badass Russian he was.
“You forgot to put the menu up in the window, Ruby.”
Her stomach cramped. God, how had she gotten distracted enough by a soiled mattress to forget that part of her job?
“I’m coming.”
She gathered the menu placards she taped in the glass of the front door each day. What day was it? Friday? Saturday? It was easy to lose track in this place, but it mattered what day it was.
Shipments came in on Fridays.
It was definitely Friday.
With her stomach churning now, she carried the menu and tape to the front of the restaurant and carefully taped the menus to face out on the right side of the glass. Right was coming, left going. It made a massive difference.
With her job complete, she stepped away. After she gave the signal, it wouldn’t be long before she expected the truck to arrive.
“Keep it cool, Ruby,” Max said.
She turned for the kitchen. “Gonna finish my coffee.”
As soon as she reached the kitchen, though, she leaned against the counter, breathing hard. All it would take was a single slip and her whole world would come crashing down on her. She’d be arrested for crimes she was watching be committed but she wasn’t truly taking part in.
And the men who held her father could decide that she wasn’t working off his debt fast enough, and things would go up in flames.
“Ruby.” This time the other bouncer, Mikhail, who the girls called Big Mike, entered her sanctuary and broke through what peace she’d tried to scrape up for herself.
She threw him a glare.
“You know what you have to do.”
She set a hand on her hip. “Shouldn’t it at least look like you work for me?” She slammed her mug down on the counter and rushed past Big Mike to the front even as he went to the rear to allow another kind of shipment in.
Ruby’s heart wouldn’t stop racing until late tonight, after it was all over.
Through the glass on the door, she could see people decked out in fishing gear reading the menu.
She opened the door for them. They kept their heads down as they filed in, their slickers with their hoods up disguising them as fishermen just coming in off the water with their shipments of crab to sell.
Four of them walked by her, and then five. She peered out. “That’s all?” she asked Max, who watched them enter.
He gave her a nod. Sometimes there were upward of a dozen “fishermen” entering Ruby’s Place.
The newcomers stood in the middle of the room, waiting for her to give them the next command.
Holding her head high, she said in some of the crude Russian she’d learned over the past year in this business, “Come with me,” and led them into the kitchen. As she entered, she heard the telltale click of the back door, where the rest of the shipment had been delivered. The scent of the wood barrels of “beer” filled her stomach with dread, but she worked through it and took charge. There was much to do.
She held open a door off the kitchen, and the five fishermen entered. “Take off your gear,” she said in clear Russian. “Stow your garments in here.” She pointed to a large wooden trunk that would be locked up and loaded onto a ship headed to Russia to be reused.
Piece by piece, the raingear, hoods and thick pants that concealed womanly curves were stripped off until five young, frightened women who didn’t know what was coming to them stood before her.
“Welcome. I’m Ruby, and I’ll tell you the rules.”
Ruby glanced from face to face and though she didn’t show it, her shoulders wanted to droop. Most of these girls hadn’t yet lost hope in the false promise they’d been brought to America under.
They still believed, and that crushed her spirit most of all.
Half a dozen men sat in a row with their backs to the wall, their wrists and ankles bound. Several bore the tattoos of monasteries and cathedrals on the backs of their hands as well as any other exposed skin. Also, Gasper noticed a few thieves’ stars, which were important status symbols in prison.
And every man had a glare of hatred for the Xtreme Ops team.
Penn paced before them, interrogating them in Russian. All his questions went unanswered, though a man on the end dropped his head.
Gasper flicked his jaw to Broshears, who stood closest. When Broshears tipped his head to hear what he had to say, Gasper pointed. “That’s our man. He’s the one who will talk in the end.”
Broshears eyed Gasper. “Penn thinks there are a lot more women they got out when we burst in. We don’t have much time to stop them. You’re the member of this team who talks down the hostages and everybody in between. Maybe you should speak to him.”
“Not yet. Penn’s breaking them down, I can see it.”
Just then, Penn jerked his head up and gestured to the team to each take a man.
Gasper strode forward and grabbed the first guy by the wrist bonds, pulling him to a stand. “Follow me,” he said in the distinctive accent of Ukraine.
He hauled the man across the room to a chair and pushed him into it. The number of cupolas on the cathedral of the Russian’s tattoo indicated the times he’d been to prison for stealing.
“Four times, eh?” he switched to English just to see if the man indicated he understood. In his experience, foreigners typically spoke fluent English but pretended otherwise, especially during questioning.
His eyes shifted to Gasper’s face, and he didn’t look away. Neither did Gasper.
“Where are the drugs going after you deliver them?” he asked.
The man remained silent, eyes roaming over Gasper as if picking out his vulnerable spots. But he already knew the Russian’s—the eyes, throat, stomach and balls. Hit any of those, and the man would double over, screaming.
He continued to try to pump information from the man, and around them, the Xtreme Ops team did the same to the rest of the Russians. No one was getting anywhere.
One Russian man sporting a bald head spat a glob of mucus at Lipton.
“Oh shit,” he said under his breath just as Lipton leaped forward and grabbed the Russian by the throat. He shook him, screaming obscenities in Russian, English and…
“Is that Latvian?” Hepburn, called Shadow, drawled in question.
“If you don’t answer me, you’ll regret it. Comply now and you might only be shipped home,” Penn barked at another.
Gasper switched his attention from the man sitting in front of him and again latched his focus on the man at the end, who Broshears was firing questions at.
They weren’t going to learn jack shit from these guys unless they tried a different tactic. And while Lipton had released his prisoner and cooled off a measure, this wasn’t what the Xtreme Ops team stood for. They were elite.
Leaving his prisoner, Gasper walked over to Penn. His captain turned his head aside to hear what he had to say.
“Let me at that one. I can make him talk,” he murmured.
Penn side-eyed him. “You sure about that, Special Operative? I don’t think they’d talk if they were waterboarded.”
“Somethin’ about that guy—hell, he’s
still a kid—makes me think I can squeeze more from him. And I’ll need a map.”
Penn didn’t indicate any surprise when he nodded. “Broshears, swap with Gasper.”
Broshears stood to switch prisoners.
“Sullivan!” Penn called out.
Cora stood across the room from Penn. She’d medevacked Paxton to the nearest hospital with a trauma unit and hurried back to the rest of the team, but she still appeared shaken.
She snapped to attention at her husband calling her by their shared last name.
“Gasper needs a map.”
She nodded.
When Gasper drew the kid to his feet and led him in baby steps, because of his bound feet, across the room to a table, he pointed to the chair. The kid dropped into it and set his elbows on the surface, his ink on full display. For a person so young, he was deep in the mafia life.
They sat assessing each other until a minute later, when Cora approached with a map. She spread it on the table and stood back, arms crossed, watching.
Gasper crooked his finger at her to come closer. She did, bracing a hand on the table to lean in.
“Where do you think the drugs were supposed to go?” he asked Cora in Russian so the prisoner couldn’t claim not to understand.
She studied the map of Alaska for a minute. Tracing a finger along the path of a well-known route in the drug trade, she ended on a small city.
Gasper noted her movement from the corner of his eye—his attention was on the prisoner. “There’s plenty of smuggling going on in the north, though. They could be headed to a small commercial fishing town. They’d retrieve more per gram up here.” Gasper pointed to a location on the map but tracked the prisoner’s eyes.
He stared at the map but didn’t move while Gasper and Cora talked over the situation and made guesses.
Then Gasper caught the kid’s eyes slanting to the south of Alaska.
Cora stilled. She’d seen it too.
To make sure, Gasper continued the conversation, discussing shipments the DEA regularly intercepted. Again, the kid glanced at the south and then away.
“Captain, a word please,” Gasper called out.
Penn stopped midsentence in his questioning and strode over. Gasper met him in the center of the room to have a private word.
“My prisoner’s indicated twice that the shipment could be going south.”
“Anchorage?”
“Possibly. I’ll continue to drill him, but I doubt any of them will give us a town name. I’ll draw a circle around the region of the map that his eyes went to and start digging from there. The guys can raise the question of Anchorage and everywhere within a hundred miles and see if any of the prisoners crack.”
“I doubt they fucking will,” Penn growled. “They’re tough motherfuckers.”
“How many runs would you guess they’re making a month?” Gasper asked.
“Hard to say. Ships are fast; they’re probably hitting our shores with shipments several times a month. I’ll get with the DEA in Anchorage and see what they know.”
“I’m sure they’re bringing more than heroin on those ships. We know what these assholes are typically trading.”
Penn exchanged a look with Gasper that told him he was right. “Take the map, and you and Cora form a plan to search that area. We’ll drop these assholes into the hands of the FBI and then head out.”
“Yes, sir.” Gasper pivoted, but Penn stopped him with a wave of his hand.
“Good job, Jack. We’ll add reading body language to your list of skills.”
He was always humbled when his brothers referred to him as the jack-of-all-trades. He didn’t nearly deserve such deference to his skills when they all had plenty between them.
He responded with a dip of his head. Before Penn turned away, he said, “Captain?”
Penn gave him his attention.
“What did that guy say to Lipton to heat him up?”
“He said he will have his friends hunt down Lip’s family.”
“Goddamn.”
“It’s no wonder he reacted. I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same.” With a glance at Cora, Penn took off across the room again.
As soon as Gasper and Cora were alone with the map spread between them, he felt the woman relax.
“You good?” he asked.
She sighed. “Something about these guys has me a little freaked out.”
He examined her. “It takes a lot to shake you. You’ve survived two plane crashes, for God’s sake.”
“I can’t put my finger on the reason. It’s like they’re all joined in silence because they know something else is coming.”
Gasper grinned. “I think we can officially call you a special operative now, Cora. Your gut instincts have kicked in.”
“Do they accompany a sense of doom and feeling as if you’re walking into a trap?” she quipped in return.
“That’s the one.”
“And here I thought that taco ration didn’t sit well with me.”
His laugh further broke the tension, and both of them relaxed enough to turn their focus to the map. He grabbed two pens and withdrew a shoelace from his pocket.
“You’re more prepared than the others,” Cora said.
He grunted. “Never know when a little bit of string will come in handy. Like this.” He tied it around both pens, set one upright over Anchorage and drew a circle around the area with the string to guide the other pen in a makeshift compass.
Cora stood back, eyes fastened on the map. “To the north, we’ve got some trails and wilderness. East is Prince William Sound.”
“A good port to ship from.”
“I’m wondering about this.” He tapped Moose Pass, Alaska, to the south. “We already know a lot of drugs trickle down through small towns to bigger ones. And there isn’t a hell of a lot to do there, which is when people start getting creative.”
“Such as speedballs of coke and heroin?”
“Exactly. Problem is, this is a lot of ground for us to cover. We know where the drugs are coming in, and approximately where they could be going, but it’s going to take a while to put a stop to it.”
“My concern is with their other trade. Where are the girls ending up?”
“Good point—check into all the previous busts for trafficking we’ve seen over the past year, and we’ll start there. And it’s a good idea to dig deeper, find some brothels.” They’d located several barrels containing drugs from that bunker and managed to win three women out of the deal too.
“Those will be more difficult. It’s not as if we’re Vegas.”
“We might still wring some intel from the Russians.” Gasper listened for sounds of raised voices but heard nothing. All yelling had come to a halt, and Lipton must have regained his temper.
“Doubt it.” Cora brushed a strand of blonde hair off her forehead. “But you found us a place to start. Guess that’s why we call you jack-of-all-trades—you keep on surprising us with your skills.”
Chapter Two
Ruby’s grandmother always told her that working in low light would ruin her eyes. But here she was, hunched over the desk at two in the morning, poring over the books.
Five new girls meant five new mouths to feed. Sixteen girls total.
Too many to justify not letting a few go.
Her guts churned. She didn’t have any responsibility to them once they walked out, but the only other placement for them in this country left her veins iced over with dread. Not a single girl under her roof deserved that fate.
It was bad enough they were selling their bodies right over her head. Her grandmother would roll in her grave if she could see what had become of her bar.
The scratch of pencil on paper was the only sound in the room as Ruby ran through the numbers over and over. Though it was unlikely, she had to try to unearth an extra zero that would keep her girls here with her a little longer. But doing so meant she’d have the impossible task of soothing the Russian mafia. The group also known as
the Bratva wanted to push the girls through her establishment a lot faster, but lately Ruby had been trying to slow that process.
Their rule said no more than ten girls could remain under her roof at once. As of yesterday, she had eleven. The girls would be taken away, and she’d never know what happened to them or if they were happy…
Of course they weren’t happy. Who the hell was in this world? The black weight of despair smothered her, and she sat back, rubbing her eyes.
When the heavy footstep sounded at her threshold, she dropped her hands and glared at Max, but that didn’t deter the man from taking a seat in the chair across from her.
She sighed and picked up her pencil again. Having the men breathing down her neck at all hours of the day was bad enough, but seeing the pistol tucked into Max’s waistband in plain sight had her even more on edge.
Plus, he liked to leer at her. Lately she’d taken to sleeping with a knife under her pillow and a chair stuffed against the handle of her locked bedroom door. Between the bouncers and the men entertained upstairs, she couldn’t be too careful.
Shooting a glance at the cold, hard steel cradled against Max’s body made her hand slip on the pencil. What would it take for him to shoot her? Or worse, the man she was doing this all for—her father?
She gulped down her fear and forced her breathing to calm. Outthinking Max or Big Mike wasn’t difficult—it was outwitting the men who gave them orders that was dangerous.
“Have you finished recording the new shipment yet?” he asked her.
She didn’t glance up. “Yes. It hasn’t all dropped yet.”
He twitched his hand in a manner that drew her attention to the movement. Her heart thundered. It would take one twitch and she’d be dead. That might be a blessing, honestly, but she couldn’t leave her father out in the cold. He’d gotten them into this horrible situation, but dammit, she was smart enough to get them both out. She had to be—she just hadn’t figured out how to do it yet.
