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“Now, let’s get you inside. There’s much to discuss, Mallory Madison, and I can promise you this — I won’t lie to you.”
He pushed me ahead, and this time, I went.
4
KIRILL
“Iwant to know where he went as soon as he left the city, which direction, where did he stop. Pyotr, did you get the phone records?”
Pyotr shifted in the doorway, looking grim. “I did, but you won’t like it. It looks like he’s been using a burner. His phone has barely seen any action and is still at his place in the city.”
“Card activity,” I continued, running through my mental checklist. Thanks to the number of secrets I held over influential people, I could utilize as many resources into finding Mallory and Nikolai as a detective.
“Nothing. He’s using cash wherever he is, or he has some fake plastic,” Pyotr murmured.
I slammed my fist down on the table, making the array of old, used coffee cups jump. “He can’t just disappear. Why can’t we trace the car he stole?”
“We can, and we have. It was reported stolen and abandoned at a gas station about a hundred miles north of the city.”
“Well?” I continued, excitement surging in my veins.
“Well . . .?” Pyotr continued.
He was exhausted, and I was too. Ivan and Max were at the hospital, and I didn’t trust anyone else to help me trace Nikolai. I didn’t know who my men were and who were Nikolai’s inside the bratva.
I reminded myself that tired men made mistakes and to go easy on the last of my trusted men. “Were there any reports of other cars stolen from the gas station?”
Pyotr’s brow furrowed. “No, but there was one a few streets over. The only theft that day in that town.”
I reached for a cold cup of coffee and waited for his tired brain to catch up.
“Fuck me.” Pyotr scrubbed a hand over his face and made for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To find out if the second car was abandoned anywhere and what went missing next,” he called back.
I went to drink again, needing the fuel to stay awake.
Olga bustled in and plucked my freezing cup from my hands.“I’ll make you tea.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, I’ll make you tea,” she insisted with a steely hint of resolve I recognized well. It was nearly impossible to win an argument with Olga when she had set her mind on something.
“Fine. Thank you.” I leaned back in my chair, a raw ache in my chest. It had spread like poison across my torso since I discovered Mallory was gone. It was stark, unrelenting terror. I hadn’t felt it since the night I’d had my knee blown out and realized Mallory had left me. She hadn’t waited for me. Now, it seemed such a trivial thing to care about when faced with a future without her.
“She will be okay. If she doesn’t talk too much, he won’t hurt her,” Olga said in a way that was designed to be comforting but was anything but.
“And you think she’s not going to talk too much?” I asked the housekeeper.
She had her hands clasped tightly and was wringing her fingers slowly and methodically. “You’re worried about her? So, she’s gotten under your skin too.”
Olga frowned and tossed her head. “No. Caring for her is my job, and she is . . . endearing,” she finished after casting about for the right word.
“Yes, she is that.”
The older lady shocked me by laying her strong, meaty hand on top of mine. “She will be all right. She’s stronger than she looks and knows you will find her.”
