Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kirill
“Yulian, what the fuck is going on?” I snap as I answer the call.
It’s nine p.m., and I’m exhausted and burned out on rage when the call comes in. A familiar name flashes on my screen- a name that has never called me directly before. A name I’ve been searching for.
It’s been almost twenty-four hours to the second since Annika was taken from me. As I had done with Pyotr’s phone, I’ve been calling Yulian almost nonstop, but up until now, it went straight to voicemail.
Edik and Yana’s heads shoot straight up from their computers. They haven’t left my side since their last sweep of the city. Even after the other body guards were dismissed to catch some rest, they refused to leave. Refused to stop trying to get me my wife back.
Speaker, Edik mouths, and plugs a little device into my charger port. It’s an amplifier, something that can help track the call location if needed. Not that I think it’s necessary. I have a feeling Yulian is about tell us exactly where to go.
“Dobryy vecher, Pakhan,” Yulian replies.
“Don’t fucking ‘good evening’ me, Yulian, and tell me what the fuck is going on. Where the fuck is my wife!?”
“She’s safe,” Yulian answers. “And will be, as long as you do as I say.”
“Is she a part of this?” Edik demands, and I shoot him a deadly glare.
He answers it with equal hostility, but I press my lips together. Now’s not the time to argue.
The line is quiet for several moments, and I feel my body tense. Even if I don’t want to believe it it’s still possible that-
“No,” Yulian answers, then sound of a hard hit erupts in the background, and I hear Yulian grunt in pain.
Relief pours through me and I feel my body release a small bit of its tension. It sucks that Yulian received retribution for his answer, but it means that what he said is true. Mydevochkais innocent in all of this.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask, calmer now as I put the phone on speaker.
“Come to my house,” Yulian replies. “We’re ready for you now, but you need to come alone. I don’t want any of your men skulking about. I know they’ve been here twice, trying to get in.”
Edik meets my eyes with an apologetic expression. He was there himself both times to conduct the sweeps, and both times he assured me the house was empty and locked up tight. Even the infrared heat seekers hadn’t found any movement inside.
“I’ll meet you,” I tell Yulian. “As long as you can promise me Annika is still alive. Put her on the phone. Let me hear her voice.”
There’s another moment of silence on Yulian’s end that stretches far too long.
“I can’t do that,” Yulian says eventually. “You’ll have to trust me.”
“Yulian,” I start to warn, but he cuts me off, his voice void of emotion.
“Be here by ten. Alone. And we can finally end this.”
Then the line goes dead.
“Alright,” Edik says, standing up. “I’ll go wake the men. We’ll do this in teams. I’ll lead the first team that goes to the front, Yana leads the one in the back-”
“No,” I say calmly.
Edik lets out a growl of frustration as he glares at me.
“This is a trap, Kirill, and you know it!”
I do know that. Nothing could be more obvious. But Yulian- and whoever it is he’s working with- has my wife.
“You don’t get a say in this, Edik,” I say, rising from my chair.
