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“At any point in time, do you remember going for a small surgical procedure as a child? It could’ve been when you were fairly young or even when you were older,” Ruslan speaks, and I think I know where he’s going with this. He’s trying to figure out if there’s another way to track Eset, one that maybe Lom and Ruslan don’t have access to. I’ve heard rumors about multiple ways that families have kept track of their children and wives. Some involve tracking chips under their skin or hidden ones in a tooth that needs to be replaced. When it comes to families in the criminal world, there’s not one avenue we’re not willing to go down to protect those we love.
Nazyr thinks long and hard for a moment, then finally speaks. “I remember my father took Eset and me to a doctor when we were very young. They said they were removing a mole on the back of our arms, but I never remembered a mole being there. I thought I was just young and didn’t know any better. Why? What are you thinking?”
“I think Anzor might have had tracking devices implanted in you and Eset. I’m praying he did because if he did, it means we have a better chance at finding Eset before anything terrible happens to her. It’s been three days since she’s been gone, and while the car they were in blew up in flames, I don’t believe they were in it. The bodies couldn’t be found, so you know what that looks like.”
“A coverup,” Amelia adds, and her husband nods.
“A tracker, huh? Sounds like something Anzor would have done. I’m not sure if I have one, but is there a way for you to check?” Nazyr asks Ruslan, who then looks over to Lom.
Lom pulls out some sort of chunky device from his suit jacket and brings it over to Nazyr. He taps a button, and it makes a sound, likely indicating it’s on, and then he runs it along the back of Nazyr’s arm. After a few seconds, there’s a beeping sound, and Lom starts typing a number into his phone.
“Fucking hell, Ruslan. You think Eset has it too?” I look over to Ruslan, knowing this is the best chance we have.
“If Nazyr has it, it would make sense that Eset would have something similar. Now, we don’t know the number for her ID, but the hope is that it’s the number before or after Nazyr’s. Lom, can you type Nazyr’s into a system to see if it’s accurate, then type in the number before and after to see if we can, by chance, get a hit?”
“I sure can,” Lom says as he goes to the breakfast table and flips open his laptop. He begins typing away, and the tension in the room grows tenser by the moment. We’re all anxious to figure out where Eset is and to get to her before anything bad happens. Fuck, something terrible could’ve already happened. We just have to pray that we aren’t too late.
“Nazyr’s is still working. His coordinates are accurate, directing me to this very location,” Lom speaks up, clear as day.
“Perfect,” Ruslan says, his eyes turning to Lom as he awaits some good news. We’re all anxiously awaiting Lom to type in the next pair of numbers.
“The number after Nazyr’s isn’t active,” Lom comments, and he furrows his brows as he begins typing in the next code. Then, his eyes widen. “This one is good. It’s pointing to a small town outside of Prague. I’m looking into the coordinates further, one second.” Lom moves his head closer to the laptop and begins typing away, quickly scanning the data in front of him.
“The coordinates show a small house on a rural property. I… I don’t know if this is Eset, but you’d think if it wasn’t, this would report to a different location, not one in the Czech Republic,” Lom points out, and without saying anything else, everyone here is in agreement with him. This has to be Eset.
If it isn’t. I don’t know what we’re going to do.
***
We’ve just boarded Ruslan’s private jet, and I know the next few hours are going to pass by incredibly slowly. Danill and Ludvik headed to Grozny with Amelia, Karim, Emily, and Sierra. Lom and Ruslan didn’t want to leave them alone, especially with how things had gone the past couple of days, and I couldn’t blame them in the slightest. Who knows if I’ll ever let Eset out of my sight when I see her again.
I’m sitting on the most comfortable jet seat I’ve ever been on, but I can’t seem to relax the slightest bit. Lom and Nazyr are sitting across from each other, speaking about something a few feet away, while Ruslan is sitting across from me. His eyes are glued to me, and I feel like he’s about to say something.
“It’s only going to be a couple more hours until we’re on the ground. We’re going to get to her, Santos.”
Ruslan’s trying to calm my nerves, but he has no idea what I’m going through right now. “She could be dead already. Who knows if Goran was behind this or if it was someone else. There are so many things going through my mind right now.” And I’m not lying. There are so many threats between my family and his. My father is going to lose his shit when he finds out that I have pledged myself to Alejandro. I don’t know how he hasn’t caught wind of it yet, but when he does, I know he will bring hell down upon us.
But it won’t even be about that, either. He’s bound to find out someday that Eset killed Lu right in front of me and that when he approached me at my wedding, I already knew about it. Add in the fact that the Umarovas have an entire so-called army coming after them, ready to pluck them from the power their family has held for over a century, and we’re being hit at every single end.
“We’re going to find out sooner rather than later. I do have to say, I’m surprised at how much you care for my sister. She agreed to marry you because you helped our position. She put aside her own ventures to marry you, and in turn, you’ve… grown to care for my sister after you’ve seen the type of woman she is. That’s my thoughts on the matter, at least.”
“Your sister is unlike any woman I’ve ever been with before. She’s unique, yes, but there’s this part of Eset that not everyone really gets to see. She’s ruthless on the outside and as intimidating as a woman can get… but on the inside, she has the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. She might act like she doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone, but she cares. She cares about people very deeply.”
Ruslan smiles. “She tries to not let everyone see that part about her. When Eset shows that she actually gives a damn, people tend to try and walk all over her. It’s why she developed this badass attitude about her. It’s only there because of what people have done to her in the past, and then our mother fucked with her head quite a bit.”
“I heard stories about her art studio at your ancestral home being destroyed by your mother. Eset even told me about it.” I shake my head, not understanding how a mother could destroy everything important to their child. “How could she do such a thing?”
“It’s simple. My mother never viewed us as her children. We were only bargaining chips for her to be able to play the game longer and ensure she had protection, money, and status. I will guarantee you that if she had been given an opportunity to not have any children, she would’ve jumped on it without question. She didn’t care about us, not really anyway.”
“How sad is that? Mothers should want their children, and if they never wanted children, then they shouldn’t have them in the first place.”
“I don’t disagree with you there. Since Amelia and I had Karim, I’ve seen things from a completely different side. I always thought my mother was just a bit callous, but after witnessing Amelia with our son… I know my mother never wanted to be around us. She would’ve rather been off doing something else.”
“That’s just sad.” My relationship with my own mother wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t as bad as their relationship with theirs.
“It is, but there isn’t anything we can do about it now. Thankfully, we’re all adults and see it for what it is. She doesn’t actually give a flying fuck about us. Not like we thought anyway.”
I nod, and my thoughts drift back to my wife. I need her to be okay because I don’t know what I’m going to do if she isn’t. I never thought I’d fucking care about Eset this way, and I’m over here worried beyond belief about her.
