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The nervous shop girl nodded. “Da. I am so sorry. I never wanted to be a part of this, but those horrible men forced me,” she said bitterly. “They said they would hurt mybabushkaif I didn’t do what they said.”
“Fucking bastards,” Mikhail snarled. “Threatening a young girl and her grandmother.”
“Where is yourbabushkanow?” asked Luka, stepping forward.
Agata’s chin trembled and tears dripped down her cheeks. “I don’t know for certain. They kept her in the back room while I stayed out front to work the counter. They said they would hurt her if I didn’t play along. They gave me a notepad to confirm that it was Miss Polina and her daughter, write down how many bodyguards they had with them, and show it to the security camera behind me at the counter so the men in the back would know how and when to… to attack.”
“What happened next?” asked Andrei. “Where did they take Inessa?”
“I watched from inside the store. As soon as Miss Polina and Inessa got into their car, those two men came out from the back room. They told me to stay put or they would break my grandmother’s legs. She already has arthritis.” Agata sniffled.
“You’re doing great. Go on,” Annika urged her softly.
“The men ran outside and got into two separate vehicles. I watched them ram into Miss Polina’s car; first with one car, then with the other. There was a lot of smoke. I heard a really loud bang, maybe a gunshot. One of the bodyguards fell to the ground. I saw those men drag Inessa into one of the vehicles. Then they peeled off. As soon as I was sure they were gone, I ran straight out to the parking lot to see if Miss Polina and her bodyguards were okay. I-I didn’t even stop to check on mybabushkain the back room first,” she admitted, starting to hyperventilate.
“That’s okay. You had to make a split-second decision,” said Andrei.
“Miss Polina’s face was all bloody and she wouldn’t wake up. I thought she was dead,” Agata recounted with horror. “One of the bodyguards was on the ground. The other was in the front seat, slumped over the steering wheel. I assumed the worst.”
“I woke up to Agata calling my name,” Polina picked up. “I was confused and my head hurt so badly. I tasted blood in my mouth. And then I noticed that Inessa was gone.”
Both women erupted into sobs all over again.
“That’s when Polina called me,” said Andrei grimly. “She was hysterical, understandably. I went straight there to pick them up and bring them here.”
“What can you tell us about the men who did this to you?” Luka asked the women.
Polina said, “I remember a few digits from one of the license plates. R-F-W. It was a black car. That’s all I have.”
“One of the men was older, with gray hair and a pointy beard. He looked like the devil,” Agata said. “The other man was younger, maybe in his late twenties. He was skinny, wearing a beanie on his head. Their faces looked kind of similar, like maybe they were related.”
“Good observation,” said Luka. “While they were in the store with you, did they show you any weapons? Did they give you their names?”
“They didn’t introduce themselves, but I heard the younger guy calling the older man ‘Uncle’ something that started with a D, I think. Don? David?”
“Dasha?” Andrei suggested.
Agata lit up and nodded fervently. “Yes! That’s the one.”
“Fuck,” Andrei swore.
“Are we talking about Dasha Turgenev?” asked Mikhail. “That lowlife you brought down back in Russia before I summoned you here?”
“Yes,” Andrei said. “He’s a piece of work. Sex trafficker, liar, thief, bully; he terrorized my region of the country before I swarmed his warehouse and destroyed him. Or so I thought. For years, I assumed the bastard was dead. He had no power left, no followers to support him. I came to America and never heard of him again… until a couple months ago.”
He paused, looking slightly reluctant to continue.
Andrei sighed. “The night of Annika’s baby shower, Turgenev showed up. He fired at Inessa and me. Clearly, he missed the mark, but I got a good look at him before he drove off. He wanted me to know it was him. I should’ve known he wasn’t finished with us yet.”
“This happenedhere?At our goddamn baby shower?” Mikhail fumed.
“The fucker is bold,” Luka said. “Or stupid.”
“Trust me, it’s both,” Andrei quipped. “Which means Inessa is in imminent danger. Agata, we have to figure out where they took her. What do you remember? Anything else?”
Agata screwed up her face like she was racking her brain. “The cars headed south when they left the parking lot. Most of what they said was in Russian, and they talked too fast for me to translate in my head. But the younger man said something to his uncle about a ‘roach’ in English multiple times… that’s all I can remember,” she lamented.
“A roach? Maybe they’re staying in some fleabag hotel,” suggested Rad.
