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Mikhail simply gave me that shark-eyed stare. “How determined are you to get rid of Armstrong?”
My hands gripped the arms of the chair with such ferocity, I briefly feared my fingers would puncture the leather. I dreaded Mikhail might make this exact demand. “Are you saying that you will only support a move on Armstrong if I go back to Russia?”
“I think I’ve made my position clear.”
Shit, I had been afraid of this.
My head felt like the spinning wheels of a slot machine as I considered options and variables and tried to work out a way where we got rid of Armstrong, and I still got to stay in Chicago. As my brain scrambled to find an answer, there was a buzzing in my pocket I realized was my phone.
I pulled it out and saw it was a text from Emmy. I almost put the phone away again, thinking she was just checking in, but seeing the first part of her message had horror spiraling through me.
I opened her message, adrenaline causing my fingers to shake.
Emmy: Had to go with Armstrong. He kidnapped my mom. No time to call you. Please track him down and find me!!! I love you.
Fuck. FUCK.
Ivan: Emmy, do NOT go with him. I don’t care who the fuck he has with him, you stay there.
Even as I typed it, I knew it was unlikely that she would even get this and even more unlikely that she would ignore that her mother’s life was at risk.
My heart pounded in my chest as I considered the reasons why Armstrong would make such a big move. Why the fuck had he taken her now? Why hadn’t I planted that fucking GPS on her like I’d planned. It was going to be the first fucking thing I did when I got her back—and I was definitely going to get her back.
Without saying a word to Mikhail, I stormed to the door and flung it open.
“Ivan!” Mikhail hollered, but I ignored him. Panic was surging through me and the need to get to Emmy overpowered every other instinct. I needed to know why Armstrong took her and there was only one person who would know why he’d done it now.
I saw Maxim as I entered the storage area of the warehouse. “Where’s Orlov?” I demanded.
Orlov had been kept here, under lock and key. Considering he told us that the trade-off for Emmy was happening on Tuesday, and it was fucking Friday night did not bode well for the reliability of Orlov’s information. Either Armstrong had moved things up, or Orlov lied.
It didn’t matter, he was dead after this conversation.
“Same place,” he replied, gesturing to one of the torture rooms. Maxim was quick to pick up that something was very wrong. “What happened?”
“Armstrong took Emmy.”
“The fuck?” he replied in disbelief. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started texting.
“Contact Nikolai and find out why the fuck he let her go with Armstrong.” If Nikolai had been standing in front of me, my hands would be wrapped around his throat for not protecting her.
“Got it,” Maxim said.
Drago barreled into the room with Mikhail, both clearly having been notified of what was going on by Maxim. “What the fuck, Ivan? How did he get her?”
“He used her mom to lure her out of the apartment. I need to find out what I can from Orlov then shoot him in the face about forty-five fucking times.”
Drago’s jaw tightened. “Let’s go,” he said ominously as we walked to the room containing Orlov’s battered body.
He was curled on the floor, blood—old and new—covering his face. He cracked a swollen eye in my direction. “What the fuck do you want?”
I jerked him off the ground and slammed him into the folding chair in the center of the room. I wanted to start pounding on him to get out some of this murderous aggression and fear, but I needed him coherent enough to talk. “Armstrong has Emmy, you fuck. Why did he take her today when the drop is supposed to be Tuesday?”
Orlov cracked a painful looking half smile. “Fuck you, Petrov.”
I succumbed to my need for violence by smashing my fist against his already bruised face. “You better start talking, or we’ll start methodically breaking every fucking bone in your body until you do. We won’t let you pass out and we won’t fucking stop. Why the fuck did he take her tonight?”
Orlov’s face contorted with pain and hostility. I could tell he didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to give us the information. “Because tonight is when he’s supposed to do the trade with Martinez.”
