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The guy rises from his crouch in front of one of the girls to bring a folded piece of paper to his captain. Gleb takes it and dismisses Lev with a nod before passing the paper to Pyotr.
I glimpse the contents of the letter, written in Cyrillic, as Pyotr scans it quickly.
“It’s the Zhivoder,” he states flatly, thrusting the note toward me to read for myself.
I skim the threatening note.
“That was my thought as well,” Gleb agrees. “‘Eye for an eye’ and all that? And this happened within weeks of us taking that shipment of girls. We hit their pocket books pretty hard. I’m sure they weren’t happy. This looks like they want us to know it’s retaliation.”
Pyotr nods.
“What do they mean about ‘compensation for the inventory we took’?” I ask, frowning.
Even if they took two hundred kilos of coke, that wouldn’t put a dent in the money they lost when we took those girls they intended to sell.
“My guess? They took the strippers to make a point. Probably to replace the girls they had planned to sell. I’m sure Mikhail’s clients weren’t happy to learn their new supply of pussy was stolen and returned home,” Gleb scoffs. “And even if none of the girls here were as young or inexperienced as the ones we intercepted, they’ll still fetch a reasonable price.”
“Blyat,” I cuss, echoing Pyotr.
Gleb gives a slow nod.
Rage boils up inside me when I think about the battered women that had filled this same room a few short weeks ago. It turns my stomach to think that the girls who dance at Satine, girls we swore to protect, are in those same violent hands.
Worse, they’re probably already distributed to Mikhail’s safe houses around town—undisclosed locations where he keeps his girls until he can auction them to the dirty political figures and wealthy businessmen willing to drop half a million on a night with a young virgin of their choosing.
And now the Zhivoder have enough cocaine to keep the girls they took complacent until they’re dropped off at their final destinations.
Pyotr’s hands ball into fists and the tendons pop in his jaw as he grinds his teeth. “Those girls were my responsibility,” he rasps.
His words echo my same deep-seated guilt. We should have seen this coming. In truth, we knew the Zhivoder would get more aggressive about targeting our supply. But they’ve never been so bold as to take something from us right in the middle of the city before.
Mikhail’s MO is to maintain a pristine public image and keep the dirty work as far from his backyard as possible. We doubled security on our trucks and our street distributors. We got the word out to expect pushback after our big play.
But we did not anticipate this.
Turning his gaze to Gleb, Pyotr growls, “Find the girls. All of them. Before anything happens to them, if you can.”
Gleb gives a single nod and jumps into action, barking orders at his men. They respond without hesitation, gathering for a hunt, a fine-tuned pack ready to coordinate an attack, anticipation shining in their eyes. Because no one fucks with the Veles and gets away with it.
And if anyone can find those girls, it’s Gleb. He might be a pretty boy and young for such a high rank in mypakhan’s Bratva, but I’ve never seen a better tracker, a more persistent hunter. And I have yet to see Gleb Lycaon fail a mission.
Pyotr heads over to speak with Dima, the club manager, and I follow, keeping one ear on the man’s account of the robbery as I scan the room. I try to see if I can recognize any of the girls who went missing. But I can’t.
I’ve never spent much time watching the girls, and they all wear enough makeup—sometimes even wigs—that it’s difficult to say what they might look like from day to day. None of them look familiar to me, with dark rings of eyeliner smudging their faces.
They do seem to have calmed down enough now that most have stopped crying, but it seems none are willing to leave the room, probably afraid they might be snatched from the streets on their way home. I can hardly blame them.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we lose another handful of girls who won’t want to come back to work. Not if their lives are at risk.
As Pyotr works on damage control, Val and I secure the building, ensuring no one can enter without finding the barrel of a gun pointed at their chest. And we don’t leave until all the girls have been escorted safely home, the rest of the supply moved to a new location.
It’s after eight in the evening when we get back to the Veles house. The night guard is already there, working double duty to keep an eye on Silvia while Val and I are with Pyotr at the club. I’ll need to be back early in the morning to relieve them.
Looking spent, Pyotr turns to Val and me as soon as we step through the front door of his brownstone mansion. “Go home. Get some rest. I’m sure I’ll have plenty more for us to do in the morning,” he says tiredly.
“Gospidin.” I give him a respectful nod and follow Val back outside.
What a day. My body aching from the tension of walking into the bullet-ridden strip club; I’m too wound tight to just go home and sleep. I need something to release the dark violence raging inside me.
