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Despite how much I want to meet the bastard who potentially fucked our girl and got away with it, I’m forced to be careful as I exit Valentina’s home. I keep an eye out for any stalkers or people armed with either weapons or cameras. Someone will likely be casing each of these addresses, since they’ve been professionally detailed.
Would Katya have gone to such lengths to hide her whereabouts? Is she paranoid that we’ll drag her back to Harlin Heights if we find her? Or is she trying to protect Valentina?
I wouldn’t put it past the woman to cover her own tracks where she lives, but to move an entire business just because Valentina worked there? It doesn’t add up.
Unless the business was already moving, and you just happened to come by afterward. But there was no sign of a recent move, and that’s a bad business practice for anyone trying to keep their clientele.
I hang on to the hope that Liam’s address will put more pieces of the puzzle together.
If I return home without concrete details about Valentina’s whereabouts and activities these past five years, Andrei will be livid.
The GPS brings up an apartment complex, and as luck would have it, the bastard lives on the top floor. It’s six flights of stairs to his number, and I jog halfway up to get my cardio going. I might be tired from not getting enough sleep, but there’s no way I’m getting beat down in a fight, if it comes to that.
Unlike Valentina’s workplace or home, this building has security, and a key card is required to access any of the floors from the stairwell. I pull up the app we recently had developed for these kinds of inconveniences, and after a few seconds, the lock clicks open with a beep.
If only we had these when I was kid.
I don’t have the physical key to Liam’s apartment, but a quick, hard twist to the doorknob breaks the lock and lets me inside. Floor-to-ceiling windows give a perfect view of the city below—not as large as my home city of Harlin Heights, but large enough to feel familiar. I recognize a camera in the corner of each room and make a mental note to check for its receiver. If the man’s smart, it’s connected to his personal devices, but it won’t hurt to check for the security system setup in the closet.
I go through the mail, send Andrei and Mikhail a quick text of Liam’s full name, and start casing the property.
My blood chills as I start finding empty rooms. Empty closets. Empty bathrooms.
The master suite has a made bed with two matching nightstands on either side. I cross to the framed photograph sitting out and recognize Valentina’s smile in a heartbeat. Picking up the frame, I stare at her picture. There’s no one with her, just Valentina posing alone in front of a Christmas tree. I pry open the back and find neat handwriting dating the picture as last year, with the words moya zhena tagged beneath the date.
My wife in Russian.
I snap a picture of the front and back and send them to the group text with Mikhail and Andrei. Neither of them has seen any of my messages. Andrei has an excuse, but Mikhail doesn’t. What the fuck is he doing? Someone who knows Russian took this picture of Valentina and had the sick fucking humor to call her his wife.
My skin crawls, and I have the need to cut into someone’s flesh, preferably Valentina’s “boyfriend’s.”
I pocket the photograph and flip the mattress over, pulling all the blankets off before overturning the nightstands. Other than a red wine stain on the comforter, nothing else stands out, and the nightstands are empty.
The closet is my next target.
I pull open the door and flick on the light.
Against the back wall are dozens of printed photographs, some curled at the edges, like they’ve been there a while, others crisp and bright and new. I scan the closet for traps, then check behind me and do one more sweep of the entire apartment.
Every room is empty, except for this one.
My phone vibrates against my thigh as I receive a text, likely from one of the guys, and I dig it out to take a video. “The place is fucking empty. They are all empty,” I growl, practically running back to the master bedroom closet. “Except one. Look here.” I hold the phone up to the wall of photographs, my blood boiling.
This sick display was left for us to find.
Valentina is the centerpiece of each photograph, some with her looking at the camera, others taken without her realizing. There are pictures of her at lunch, in the bookstore, in the green bohemian bedroom at the other house. She sits at her desk, a pencil in hand as she sketches one of the drawings I saw pinned to her bedroom wall.
One of the newest photographs catches my attention, and I pluck it from the rest. The white bedspread has a distinct wine stain on it, the empty glass lying on its side nearby. Valentina’s dark curls lay spread across the plush pillow as she sleeps, and in the glass picture frame hanging over the bed, I can see the silhouette of the person taking the picture.
A man’s figure, but that’s all I can see. Holding up a cell phone. Taking a picture of our girl.
I pocket the photo before I can tear the thing to shreds.
Either Valentina has kept a big fucking secret about marrying some Russian bastard, or she has a stalker who she thinks she can trust.
Who’s probably been lying to her for the past five years.
I end the video and quickly send it to the boys. Mikhail has texted back while I’ve been filming.
