"I should have questioned it," she says, red-eyed. "I should've wondered why she was leaving so early, you know? She said something weird, though."
"What?"
"She said if I was having trouble with anything I should reach out to Maureen over in the Women and Children's shelter. It's just one door down, she's the director there."
"Why is that weird?" I ask, feeling my patience beginning to fray.
"Well, why wouldn't she just tell me to ask Larry?" Jones says. "I mean, he is the shelter's Assistant Director."
"Is he here?" I'm gripping the countertop and the cheap wood is beginning to crack.
She hitches her shoulder towards the hallway. "Last time I saw him, he was in Violet's office."
I stride down the hall, Misha intercepts me, looking grim. "Boss, we found Ioann."
He's been shoved into the storage closet next to Violet's office, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. His eyes are still open, and I brush my hand over his eyelids, closing them before dropping my head. Ioann has been a proud Morozov Bratva man for over fifteen years.
"Make sure he's taken care of," I say. "Call our recovery crew. Have you seen Larry here anywhere?"
"Her blue-haired friend?" Misha shakes his head. "No, but I know he came in around the same time as Miss Monroe did today."
In Violet's office, I look around. No Larry. Her little jar of paper clips and pencils is still neatly settled on the right side of her desk, a stack of paperwork in the file on the left. Everything looks undisturbed until I look at her window. Her beloved orchids have all fallen from the windowsill. They're on the chipped linoleum floor, pots smashed and the blooms already beginning to wilt.
I lace my hands over my head. I rein in everything; the fury, the terror for Violet and her sisters. I rein it in and I unfold each step in the constellation of Violet as I see it. I search each piece of action, of everyone who could be involved and then my head tilts slightly.
One piece that didn't come into play yet. Or maybe it had.
I called Dmitri. "Brother, she's gone."
His voice sharpens. "Does she have a tracking implant?"
"No, goddamn it." I run my hand through my hair, gripping the ends. "I should have chipped her when I had the chance. Fuck this body autonomy bullshit!"
"Take a breath," he says. "You have an army behind you."
"Yeah." I close my eyes for a moment. "Kolya is going through traffic camera feeds around the shelter, she's been gone about twenty minutes and traffic is especially shitty today. It had to slow them down."
We both know that twenty minutes could mean she's been taken away by helicopter. She could be a few minutes away from a private airfield, or put on a boat waiting at the harbor.
"What do you need," he says, sharp and certain. I look at Violet's wilting purple and white orchids, forlorn in the smashed ceramic.
"Tell Father that I need his favor."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In which the Corporate Retreat is so much worse than Violet feared.
Violet…
Despite my prayers at every traffic-snarled intersection, we're not slowed down much. Roy and his creepy friends get us to a private airfield where a jet is waiting. It's mid-sized, a gleaming white withPinnacle Ventureson the side in bold blue lettering. Dragging my feet, trying to slow down their abduction does absolutely nothing. Roy loses patience and throws me over his shoulder, racing up the jet stairs, my ribs bouncing painfully against his shoulder. He straps me into a seat and handcuffs my left wrist to the padded leather arm. Iris and Rose are across the aisle.
"Where are you taking us?"
Roy, of course, ignores me. He and George sit in the front of the cabin, talking in low tones. They occasionally glance back at us, as if I might have managed to unbolt my seat from the floor to use it as a battering ram. Pressing my forehead to the window as the plane takes off, I watch the city, my last connection to Roman get smaller until it disappears.
It's not a long flight, which is lucky because we weren't given any complementary beverages or snacks, much less a trip to the ladies’ room. I tried to track the jet's progress, I know we went north. We spent about an hour in the air. I think we might have landed in New Hampshire, but most likely, Maine. The car passes a sign for Bar Harbor, so my guess is correct.
The Range Rover leaves the main road and makes its way towards the coast. Maine's stark beauty is especially powerful here, the waves crashing ferociously against granite cliffs, the tall pines looming eagerly toward the road, as if ready to take it back.
