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I shrug. “Looks like I am.”
We go back to staring at each other for a while. Finally, he gives a curt nod.
“Tasha goes free. I want one of your men, not Dimitri’s, to take her to Sean. When I get a call from him or one of his men, that she’s safe, I will tell you everything I know.”
“What motivation will I have to keep you alive after that?” he muses. The drumming on the desktop has resumed.
“None.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t care if you live or die, child?”
I shake my head. “I care very much. But I care about other things more.” My voice squeaks slightly at the end. I blink rapidly and look out the window, waiting for the tears to subside.
More drumming. More staring.
Finally, he shouts in Russian. The goon appears, listens to a spell of rapid fire Russian, and leaves. A few minutes later, I see Tasha being escorted into one of the sedans that arrived earlier.
I turn my attention back to Volkov.
“Now, we wait,” he says. He pulls a bottle of vodka out from a liquor cabinet. He fills his glass, tosses it back, then pours me a glass over ice. Reasonably sure that it’s not likely to be poisoned, and absolutely fucking positive I don’t want to die sober, I toss it back, then hold the glass out for a refill. This one I sip, my duct-taped hands making it a bit of a ridiculous show each time I raise the glass for a drink. Watching me, Volkov finally comes around the desk and peels the tape off.
“Thank you,” I tell him honestly.
We sit in uneasy silence, sipping vodka and watching the horses frolic. Then the phone rings. He answers in Russian, before putting it on speaker and placing it on the desk.
“Roxanne?” I recognize the thick accent.Declan.
“I’m here. Is Tasha ok?”
“Aye, she’s in one piece. Worried about you.”
“I’ll be ok. Declan?”
“Aye?”
“Will you tell Sean I love him?”
Declan doesn’t respond for several long seconds. It might as well be hours. “Tell him yourself.”
I sniffle. My voice squeaks. I don’t care. “Please, Declan.”
Another pause. “Aye, lass, I will.”
Volkov ends the call. “Now, speak.”
So I do. Every moment, from the beginning, minus most of the details about Sean, Tasha, and Pierre. At least an hour and one more vodka later, I’m done. He regards me for a while.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any proof, would you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, really?” He makes an exaggerated show of looking me up and down, as if to say “Where, exactly?”
“Yes. All I need is a computer. It’s in my cloud.”
He shouts in Russian. A young man comes in with a laptop. “You will tell him. He will access it. If you lie or try to trick him, he will know. Then I’ll give you back to Dimitri.”
I nod. I give the young Russian my username and password, as well as the address to the Dropbox. He hands the computer over to Volkov and leaves. For the next several minutes, I’m silent while he reads over my notes and photos. He begins to ask clarifying questions, which I answer. He doesn’t comment on the obviously made up source names. My real sources will be locked away forever in my brain.
