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They’d narrowed the field by making note of the increased activity surrounding the theater, the hospital, and the West Town entrance to the tunnels.
Nothing was certain, mostly because they had no context for the activity: no one had been paying those locations any notice before Lyon was taken.
But of all the places in West Town, they seemed to have the most unusual foot traffic — men in suits, some in leather jackets that appeared to bulge with weapons, all of them coming and going at odd hours, none of them members of the Antonov bratva.
“Is it time to send in the men?” Her heart raced at the thought. They’d held off showing their hand by launching an attack. They were already spread too thin to send the kind of army they would need to save Lyon, let alone three armies to three different locations.
“Not quite yet,” Alek said as they made their way down the metal stairs to the factory floor below. “Let’s give it a couple more days.”
“But Lyon…” She couldn’t say it, didn’t want to release the words to the air, as if doing so might turn them into reality instead of her darkest nightmares.
“I know,” Alek said.
They both thought about what was happening to Lyon. Kira knew it from the darkness that crept into Alek’s blue eyes when they spoke of her husband, the way he too stopped himself from speaking certain words aloud.
Lyon was being tortured. There was no doubt about that. Kira couldn’t allow herself to think about the things they might be doing to him, the torture tactics pulled from the KGB playbook, tactics her father had only told her about when she was old enough to bear the horror of it.
Thinking about Lyon — her Lyon — being subjected to such atrocities brought her perilously close to taking the pills stashed in her bathroom. The doctor had said they were safe for the baby, but Kira didn’t want to take any chances, and she’d promised herself she would only use them if she truly couldn’t bear it.
“Kira…” Alek’s voice was low and soft through the darkness of the factory floor, the old machines still covered in drop cloths, unused since Lyon’s purchase of the warehouse as a headquarters, back when he’d been lining up the pieces of his bid to take over the bratva.
She’d been one of those pieces then — a mafia princess with no power, with nothing but a name and knowledge known to no one but her and her father.
She stopped walking and looked up at Alek.
“I know it’s hard,” he said. “But it’s going to get harder. I hate to tell you that, but it’s true.” She could tell from his voice that he was telling the truth, and she wondered if it was because, like the other men, she’d gained his respect by leading one of the armed gunmen at their wedding away from the other wives and their children, or if it was because she’d stepped into Lyon’s role in spite of her pregnancy, because she was determined to bring him home alive. “What we do next will be very important. We can’t afford to make a mistake.”
She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. He was right. Being closer to finding Lyon might make them reckless. They couldn’t afford that.
Lyon couldn’t afford it.
“I know,” she said. “You’re right. I just can’t bear to think about him…”
She couldn’t say the words, didn’t want to imbue the images that woke her up screaming in the night with any more power than they already had.
“I know,” he said. “But we’re going to get him back.”
She nodded and started again across the warehouse floor.
She fought against the urge to beg Alek to promise Lyon would be alive when they brought him home. To promise he would be whole. That he would still be her Lyon.
It was in irrational impulse. The truth was, no one knew what condition Lyon would be in when they finally found him.
One thing she did know was that they were running out of time. She felt it like a ticking clock in her bones. She didn’t know why Vadim would keep Lyon alive this long, but she knew with certainty that every day brought him one step closer to death.
They had to make a move. And soon.
“Alek,” she said. He stopped with his hand on the door. “Five days. We can’t wait any longer. Lyon can’t wait any longer.”
His face was obscured in shadow, but she heard his resigned sigh, saw him nod. “Five days.”
Kira waited while he murmured a few words to the guard stationed outside the warehouse, then she stepped through the door and headed toward the black Rover parked there.
She would be reasonable, give Alek a little more time to confirm Lyon’s location.
But if they couldn’t, if it didn’t happen in five days, she would turn the city upside down to bring him home.
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