Page 8 of The Bratva’s Captive Flame

"You don't cook, Milaya. You're of no use to me…" Demin says those words, but his eyes linger on me with a haze of lust over his face. I can see how useful I'd be, just not for what he wants.

"I thought you'd be different," I hiss, clawing at Mishka's arm. "I thought you'd have a fucking heart."

When he laughs, I shudder. "My heart is harder than stone, blacker than coal, and your pleas for help will never crack it." Then he looks to Miskha. "Lock her up. Give her some time to think now that she's had food."

The guard crates me out of the room kicking and screaming, and I swear I leave his arm a bloody mess. I'm going to have no choice but to give this fucker what he wants and pray there is a way we can escape from him more easily than we could Solano if I have any hope of seeing my father again.

6

DEMIN

Ihave Danya clear the breakfast dishes early and tell Mishka to bring the girl down to my office, and by the time she's standing in the doorway, I've already got everything spread across the desk. Satellite images, the printed blueprints my contact pulled from the planning office in Madrid, the handful of overheads I paid far too much for. It's all laid out flat under the lamp, weighted down at the corners with whatever I had handy.

When Bart brings her in, she stops halfway across the room with her arms folded over her chest and a glare on her face. I've been pushing for a few days with no success, but I know she understands what it comes down to. She has no choice and yet she wants her father out of there so desperately. My guess is, she's afraid of them killing him and she'll cave. It's the reason I'm at it this morning again so early.

"Sit," I tell her, gesturing at the chair across from me.

She comes around and lowers herself into it slowly, still favoring her ribs, but the bruising on her face has started to yellow at the edges instead of that deep purple, so she's healing. She doesn't say good morning and neither do I. We're past pretending this is anything other than what it is.

"You know this place better than any blueprint can show me," I say, turning one of the lights so it illuminates the blueprints better. "So you're going to walk me through it. Where your father sleeps, where the lab is, how the guards move at night. Start with the buildings."

She leans forward, wincing as she does, and studies the image for a long moment. I half expect her to refuse outright, to fold her arms and give me that look she's so fond of, but instead, she lifts a finger and taps the photo.

"This building here, the long one. That's where we live, in the back corner. Last door." She has no idea how my heart is tossing around inside my chest with excitement over this. My God, the profit we'll rake in now… "The lab's in the second building, the one with no windows on this side. They keep it locked and cold."

"How many ways in?" My mind is already formulating a plan for how I'll move in, how many men we'll need. It's not going to be an easy snatch, because Solano's men will be armed well. But with these schematics, it makes it at least possible.

"Two that I know of." She slides her finger across to the far edge. "The bay doors here, for trucks, and a side door on the water side. The side door stays locked unless they're moving product."

I make a note on the pad beside me. She watches my hand move and scowls. I know she hates every word she's giving me, but she has finally come to her senses, showing me how much she wants the old man out of there.

"The guards," I say, lifting my tone in a question. She glowers up at me then sits back, resuming her stiff posture. There's something attractive about her absolute defiant nature which I don’t take time to examine, but the second I do, believe me—I'll indulge.

"Two at the main gate. They trade off around two in the morning, and the ones coming on are always slow about it." I'd put money on the fact that she's studied those guards well enough to know exactly when to try escaping. "There's a man on the water side, but he doesn't really walk it. He sits on a crate by the dock and smokes most of the night. There are more inside, but I don't know how many. I'm not allowed in the warehouse."

"But you've seen them come and go."

"I've seen six, maybe eight, on the busy nights." She shifts in the chair and looks at me. "I'm not a soldier, Mr. Roshin. I wait tables. I'm telling you what I see from a window."

It's more than enough, and she knows it. The picture she's drawing for me is a sloppy operation run by men who've gotten comfortable, and comfortable men are easy to take. Solano's grown fat and lazy down there, and his crew have caught the same disease—that's good news for me.

"Your father," I say, tapping the long building on the schematic again. "Walk me through his day. When he goes to the lab, when he comes back, who moves him."

She's quiet for a second, and I watch her decide whether to answer, and then she does.

"Mornings, around eight. One of Solano's men walks him over and stays at the door while he works. He doesn't come back until they're done with him, sometimes late afternoon, sometimes after dark if there's a shipment going out." Her hands curl in her lap. "He's never alone on the way to and from that room—not once, in years. They walk him there and back every single day, and if he's slow, they shove him."

Her bottom lip quivers as she says that. It sounds like Solano keeps tight control on his chemist, which means he's very valuable to the organization. And it looks to me like she's not so pleased with that.

"And the man who walks him. Always the same one?"

"Usually. A bald one, big, with a scar through his eyebrow." She touches her own brow without seeming to notice she's doing it. "He's the one who likes hurting people."

I make several good notes about what she's saying. She's given me good intelligence and I think she's finally come around to seeing it my way. But the second she opens her mouth, I realize that's not the case. Fire erupts from her mouth like steam from a volcano.

"Even if you manage to get him out," she snarls, "I won't help you force him to work for you. He's already been someone's prisoner for years. He deserves freedom, not your harassment."

I lean back in my chair and bring my fingers together in front of me, looking at her over them. She's sitting there with half her body the color of a thunderhead, chained to my mercy, and she thinks she can tell me what to do.