Page 77 of The Pakhan’s Heir

I just hope he doesn’t. I watch him across the monitors as he searches the house. Then he stops at the kitchen door and turns around, a sickening smile across his face.

“You stupid, stupid girl,” he says as he turns around, headed for the hallway leading to the parlor.

28

ALEX

This won’t be like the last time that we came to Slavik’s home. We’re not in disguise and we’re not about to handle things with any measure of stealth.

At the dock, Rikki handed me a gun as soon as I was in the passenger’s seat, while Kostya explained that reinforcements would meet us there.

“It’ll be tricky,” he said in the car, “being that he lives in a high-rise. He might even have his guys roaming the halls waiting for us to retaliate for your supposed ‘death’.”

Rikki scoffed. “I can’t wait to see his face when he sees that you’re still around. I hope it’s the last fucking thing he ever sees.”

Everything I’m being told is being filed away in an autonomous part of my mind. I know the layout of the hotel. I know how many men will be at my back when we do walk through those doors and I know that any one of them that stands in my way will be taken out. This is the part of my psyche that has been drilled into me. I know it like breathing.

It’s also the part that has to make the break through all the rage and pain so that I can do what needs to be done to save Nona.

The one thing I can’t let myself think or imagine is what she could be going through right now. Slavik’s sick missive to cut out our baby threatens to echo through my mind and if I let that take over, I’ll lose myself in my anger.

The most important part of all this is that I can’t allow myself to think that when we get there, we’ll be too late. Slavik is my target and before the dawn comes, either I will have his head or he will have mine.

Our car pulls up at the same time as my men do. Four or five cars stopping traffic and lining up in front of the high rise. I see the doorman’s eyes go wide as everyone starts stepping out and each of us holding . I can only imagine how it must have looked for all of to step out of these black cars, the rain coming down all around us.

“Can I… help you gentlemen?” he asks as we walk up.

“We’re here for a party,” I say. Behind me I hear footsteps and the cocking of semi-automatics. “Slavik Sokolov’s expecting us.”

He looks around at all of us, then his eyes settle on Rikki and get that much larger. I lean into him to get his attention.

“You really don’t want to hold us up,” I say to him. “That wouldn’t exactly be wise, would it?”

He shakes his head, his full cheeks jiggling with the movement.

“Good. You wouldn’t happen to know if any other party members are up in his apartment waiting for us, would you?”

He pauses, his eyes getting watery like he’s about to cry. “Um,” he says, “I didn’t see him come in tonight. B-But I have seen some of his people leave a little while ago.”

Hmm. He must have come in through the service elevator. That makes sense. Even the most jaded New Yorker would take notice of a bleeding man dragging a woman into an apartment building against her will. “I see,” I say to him. “Well, then, we’ll just go on up.”

He doesn’t move for a second, then, seeing the hard look in my eye, he steps to one side. We walk through the door, then I step back, getting back in his face. “By the way,” I say, “Should anybody like, say, the police come around asking about us, I can trust you’ll keep this under your hat, right” —I look down at his nametag— “Henry? See, there are a lot of us in New York and really, all over the country. We don’t want to have to have another conversation with you.”

“Of course,” he says. “I haven’t seen anything all night.”

I smack his face lightly. “Atta boy. Have a nice evening.”

Once we were in the lobby, I assigned two men to find security and take care of them and any surveillance that might be recording. The rest I posted by the elevators, including the service one and the door.

Rikki, Kostya, and I head to the elevators. While waiting for them to come, Rikki says, “Maybe we should take the stairs. Better odds that they don’t get the jump on us.”

Kostya snorts. “If you want to take a brisk jog up twenty-three floors, be my guest.”

One of my guys comes back through the back of the corridor and says, “Service elevator’s not responding.”

A chill runs up my spine and I tell him, “Keep your eye on it anyway. If it starts running and anybody comes out, handle them.”

He nods and slips back down the hallway. Kostya looks at me, reading my face. “It probably doesn’t mean anything.”