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“Neither will hers,” Vasily answers. “I want you to think about what happened to Andrei. That was a fucking picnic compared to what I’m going to do to your precious fucking whore.”
Emotion chokes my voice, and it takes everything inside me to try to keep a rational head. “What do you want, Vasily? Quit playing games and tell me.”
“Is Gleb with you?” he asks.
“He’s in the hotel.”
“Show me,” Vasily orders. “Put yourself on video.”
I take the phone from my ear and pull up the video screen so he can see me, and within seconds, I’m met by his ugly, sneering face.
“Satisfied?” I show him the empty garage behind me.
“Get in your car and come to the address I text you. Come alone, and don’t fuck with me. I have eyes on you, Lev. If you tell Gleb, I’ll fucking kill her without a second thought. If you do what I say, then I’ll make you a deal. Your life for hers. So long as you get here in time.”
“I’ll come,” I tell him. “But you’ll leave her alone until I get there.”
“No deal.” Vasily shakes his head. “Do you think I don’t know you and Gleb murdered my son? Your little bitch gets the same. Every second you waste getting here is another second I’ll be torturing her. So quit fucking around and prepare to make peace with your maker. Because when I’m through with you today, there will be nothing left but scraps for the pigs.”
“Text me the goddamn address,” I snarl, yanking my keys from my pocket. “And think twice before you touch her, old man. Because this ends today. Me and you. Man to fucking man. Are we clear?”
The phone shifts a little, and Vasily’s face disappears from the screen before an image of Kat pops up. She’s bound to a chair, duct-taped across the mouth, blood coating her hair.
“Run, run,” Vasily taunts. “Time’s a-wasting.”
The call ends before I can say anything else, and I run to the SUV, firing it up just as the text with the address comes through. I plug it into my GPS on my way out of the garage, screeching out into New York City traffic.
My nerves are shot, and the time estimate on the phone isn’t doing me any favors. Vasily is ten miles away, but that could take me an hour in this clusterfuck.
“Fuck.” I slam my fist into the steering wheel as traffic comes to a crawl.
My phone rings again, and this time it’s Gleb. I stare at the screen for a few long seconds before I dismiss it. Traffic lurches forward again. The streets are a goddamn nightmare. Between traffic stops, I check alternate routes, subway timetables, and walking distance. Driving is still my best bet. I try to stay calm. Two more miles. My phone keeps ringing. Gleb sends me a text.
Where the fuck are you?
I concentrate on the road, my knuckles turning white beneath my grip on the steering wheel.
Kat’s alive.
The words play over and over in my mind like a mantra. I repeat them the entire way there. When I’m a block away, I find the first parking spot available and slip into it, jamming the SUV into gear and yanking the keys from the ignition.
Kat’s alive.
My feet slap against the pavement as I run to the warehouse, looking for a way in.
Kat’s alive.
The exit door in the back is cracked, and I slip inside. My phone rings again. The barrel of Vasily’s gun taps the back of my skull as he steps out from the shadows.
“Turn it off. Now.”
I turn off the phone and meet his gaze. “Where is she?”
A smile curls across his face as he points toward the shadows. A faint moan bleeds into my ears, and I lunge forward before Vasily yanks me back.
“This was the fucking deal!” I snarl.
“We had a deal too.” He spits into my face. “Loyalty? Do you remember that fucking word, you worthless sack of shit?”
“Let her go, and you can do whatever you want to me.”
“The only way she’s walking out of here alive is if you kill me.” His face mottles with red as he digs the barrel into my scalp. “And that’s not going to happen.”
Vasily shoves me forward, the gun finding a home in my shoulder blade as he prods me along. “Now take a fucking seat. You’re going to watch this show from the VIP section.”
He shoves me across the warehouse and orders me into a chair directly opposite of Kat. But I can’t fucking move. When my gaze locks onto her bruised and bloody body, my only instinct is to get to her. She’s barely conscious, her eye so swollen I don’t even know if she can see me.
“Kat.”
She moans, and Vasily slams the butt of his gun into the side of my head, dazing me.
