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He nods. “Dad will come for us.” Leo’s voice is filled with complete confidence in Nick.
It cuts through the panic crushing my chest. Because I know he’s right.
Unfortunately, Dmitriy hears Leo too.
He reappears to look at us with a leer that makes my skin crawl. “I’m counting on it, kid.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
NICK
Irub my forehead, trying to ignore the headache forming. I got a paltry few hours of sleep last night, going over everything that happened with Lyla in my head while she slept beside me.
She’s leaving.
I’m staying.
I’ve known those two facts all along, but they’ve become harder and harder to accept with each kiss. Every conversation.
“What about next Thursday?” Dean Wilkerson asks.
He’s one of the managing partners at Wilkerson, Thompson & Owens LLP, the big-shot law firm that handles all my legal business in the States. Ever since my last trip to New York was cut short, he’s been trying to pin me down on a date to deal with the remaining paperwork.
“I’ll see—” I stop talking when Roman bursts into my office. “I’ll call you back,” I say, then end the call and stand. “What is it?”
Two things concern me. For one, Roman—everyone—knows not to enter my warehouse office when the door is closed. And secondly, Roman was the one who came to Philadelphia to let me know my brothers and father were murdered. It was sensitive information to share by any other means, and he offered to be the one to tell me. I can still picture the look on his face, grave and furious.
All I see now is fear.
“What?” I bark.
Roman swallows, looking like he’d rather be waterboarded than tell me whatever he rushed in here to say. “He hit them on the school route. Valentin and Lev are dead, and he took—”
I’m already out the door and heading down the hall. I enter the basement code into the keypad and take the stairs two at a time. Damp mustiness and the scent of chemical cleaner, heavy and bitter. Panic attacks me like a thousand paper cuts, barely visible but destructive.
My pulse thunders in my ears as I stride across the cement, scan my fingerprint, and yank the cell door open.
Maxim is lounging on the cot, staring up at the ceiling like it’s the fucking Sistine Chapel.
His head turns when I enter the cell.
His body tenses as I approach.
He’s a trained killer, same as me. It takes a lot for us to react, and the fact that he did is a testament to whatever expression the rage and terror rushing through me is displaying.
I grab the torn shirt he’s wearing and jerk him upward. “Where did he take them?”
A smile slowly unfurls across Maxim’s mouth. “So, he actually—”
“You’ve barely been rotting in this cell, but you’ve had time to imagine what was going to happen to you.” I barely recognize the sound of my own voice. “Imagination can be a man’s worst enemy. The unknown, his worst nightmare. But I’ll swear to you one thing, Golubev. Whatever you thought I might do to you, it will be worse. I’ll cut out your tongue. Snip off your balls. Strip all your nails. Burn your skin. Carve your flesh. And then? I’ll call a doctor and get you stitched up. Hook you up to a feeding tube, let you heal, and start all over again. There are a lot of ways to maim and not kill. To push someone to the brink and then yank them back. You know that as well as anyone. I’ll save you and ship you back to Dmitriy, piece by piece. He’ll know exactly where you are, and he won’t save you because it would be a suicide mission, and the only person Dmitriy cares about is himself.”
I grab my gun out of its hip holster and press it to his temple.
“Tell me where they are, and this ends now. You’ll die either way. It’s a fate you chose when you disrespected the oath you swore. You’ll die when I want and how I want. The only decision left iswhenyou die, Maxim. And this is your one and only chance. You knew he was planning to take them, which makes me think you know where he took them. Whenever you talk—and youwilltalk—I’ll make sure you suffer until death sounds like the best option. Or you can talk now, and it ends quickly. Ten seconds to decide.”
I start counting down.
Maxim’s eyes dart around the cell, looking for a way out. But there isn’t one. There’s just me and him and the rage that takes up all of the surrounding space, suffocating us both.
