Chapter 27

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

LAINEY

F or what felt like the hundredth time, I checked my watch. Bodhi and Milo took care of the shop, while we made some payments to deal with the CCTV. Fletcher couldn't be here, but Vienna had a number of connections. So did Bodhi.

We used all of them.

Three hours after clearing the scene at the print shop, we were back at the apartment. Bodhi had poured me a drink but I didn't want the alcohol. I couldn't sit still.

It was like someone had dropped me into a bell and then struck the side of it. Everything under my skin vibrated. The trembling kept translating to my hands unless I kept moving.

So rather than sit there and stare at the photo of Andrea, I paced. The photo itself was in a plastic bag on the table. Face up.

Each time I made a pass, I looked at her beautiful face and the gong rang again. Every single time.

"Mayhem," Pretty Boy tried. He'd stopped asking me to sit down. But he had made me change. It was a compromise. They wanted my bloodied clothes and I wanted to be ready to leave as soon as Adam and Ezra were back.

"How much longer?" I asked, glancing at my watch, though it hadn't changed in the twenty seconds since I last looked at it.

"They're close," Bodhi answered. He stood with his hands braced on the back of the sofa. Since arriving to help us with the body, he'd been steady as hell. I'd killed before. Katerina was not my first.

When I poisoned King and slit Wallace Graham's throat, it had been thought out ahead of time. Planned. Well, to be fair the slitting of Graham's throat had been a bit more of an impulse for how we would kill him. Killing him had been at the top of the list since I learned what he'd done to Ezra.

However, those impulses had been tempered by planning and foreknowledge. When we went to the print shop today, I'd been more curious than anything. So far, every avenue we'd taken to find Andrea found us at an impasse.

What could a print shop possibly have to do with anything? The woman had sputtered a bunch of half-formed lies when she found us inside. The fact that her gaze kept sliding off and she went from defensive to belligerent back to defensive told me a lot.

Grandfather once stressed that finding the truth meant listening to more than just the content of what was being said. Observe how it was being spoken. How direct were the speaker's actions. Did they make eye contact?

Beyond the physical cues, there were also the nonverbal, verbal adjacent cues found in tone and word choice. Liars tended to use far more hyperbole. They cursed more, used distracting word choices, and hedge words.

Nothing was ever their fault. A dozen different explanations. Conversely, when that didn't work, go on the offense. Attack the interrogator. The strangest part of it all… Liars tended to use far longer, more convoluted sentences than people telling you the truth.

Katerina had checked off every single box. Evasive. Abusive. Pleading. When she finally gave me the name of a school, it had been more in terror and pain than anything else.

The realization that I'd pulled out all of her nails without hesitation began to sink in. When I would have retreated, taken a breath, she'd taunted that I was probably too late anyway. There was a huge auction coming and little virgin westerners were very popular.

Rage spilled into my veins. Without an ounce of cool contemplation or remorse, I'd swung the wooden brace I'd been holding. Not once, but twice.

The first time had been a reaction. The second? Pure action. Both had come from the frenzy of pure fury. Selling people in the first place was disgusting. The fact she'd actually participated in getting my sister here just?—

No, Katerina needed to die. We'd wrapped the body in shrink wrap from one of her many machines. A crew would come to deal with the scene, while another took care of the body. It had all gone surprisingly smooth.

On some level, it should likely trouble me that we could make people disappear like this. Not only could we, we had been. One by one, we scratched off from the list of who had wronged us.

Harper.

Karagiani.

Wallace.

King.

Katerina.

There were more. There would be more. As unsettled as I was following the interaction, I wouldn't hesitate to line the streets with bodies if we had to. I wasn't leaving without Andrea.

Bodhi's phone vibrated, as did Milo's. Mine was on the table, so maybe it did as well. Less than a minute later, the front door to our rental opened. Adam was the first one through.

Pivoting, I went straight to him. He opened his arms and wrapped me up tight. "Lainey," he murmured, the name a hug and chastisement in one. The trembling increased, even as I fisted the back of his jacket. He squeezed me to him, lifting me right off the floor as he moved us back into the apartment.

Ezra closed the door and followed. Half of me was aware of him. The worry rolled off him in waves. It rippled through the room, colliding with the concern coming off Milo and Bodhi.

"I've got you," Adam said, his arm around my middle a steel band. I squeezed him tighter. Tucking my face against his neck, I let him do the carrying right now. "Where's the photo?"

"Table," I murmured even as Pretty Boy echoed the same word in a much clearer tone. Not letting me go, Adam moved toward the table. When he sat down and settled me in his lap, I finally lifted my head.

The shaking was worse. But Bodhi was already holding the photo out so Adam could see it. His harsh exhale echoed the one that ripped through me at the shop.

It felt like centuries since the last time we'd seen her. I drank in the image, studying the way her hair was styled, the light cosmetics on her face, and the absolutely wrong shade of lipstick she loved to wear.

I'd told her once that shade of pink was too much. She'd laughed and said she wore it because she liked it. My heart crushed as if someone were balling it up like paper to discard.

The pink was just a little too bright. A little too pastel. A little too… pink. Yet, Andrea liked it. I wanted to trace over the lines with my fingers, but I couldn't look away from it.

"She looks older," Adam said, the hushed observation adding to the unsettled feelings in my soul. "Am I imagining that?"

"No," I said with a sigh, forcing my gaze up and off of her. "You're not. It feels like forever since we saw her. Too long."

Since we saw her.

Since we spoke to her.

Since I'd hugged her.

Adam pressed his lips to my temple. The firm grip of his hands coupled with the way he balanced me on his lap and didn't press me to do more or think anything else—helped.

It helped tremendously. I could pass this burden off to any of them. Adam had been trying to shoulder it for me, for years. Ezra always wanted to make things easier. Pretty Boy and Bodhi? All I had to do was ask.

Neither would just take it from me. It had taken Adam and Ezra time to learn that I needed to handle things my way. Right now? I wanted to be reckless and out of control. I wanted to storm the dance school, interrogate every single person there, and find our sister.

Could we do that? Could we do it safely? If we tipped our hand too early, they could disappear with her. Our leads could dry up. Anything could go wrong really.

Anything.

Ezra sat on the sofa next to us, settling one hand on my knee as if to remind me he was there. I summoned a smile for him. Bit by bit, it wasn't so impossible right now. Everyone was here.

"Brief us," Bodhi said gently. "From the top."

I'd told Pretty Boy and Bodhi a good chunk already while I texted Fletcher with the name. He promised to get back to me as soon as possible.

"She's a Czech citizen, the print shop is a family business. It's struggling." That had been sprinkled throughout her babbled explanations. She kept changing her story, repeatedly. "She took on too many projects over the past few years, failed to meet her deadlines and then had to refund deposits and more."

Hemorrhaging money.

Licking my lips, I shifted against Adam and he lifted me to resettle me in his lap with my back to his chest. Ezra put his hand back on my knee and I leaned my head to Adam's shoulder. Lifting my gaze, I glanced from Bodhi to Pretty Boy and then back.

"The financial loss apparently crippled her." Not that I gave a damn. "So, she went back to work she's done on and off over the years…"

I touched my tongue to my teeth. I was so angry. She discussed going to other countries, like Germany , and picking up girls of all ages, and nationalities. Her licenses and business let her bypass a lot of border checks.

The girls never protested. They never complained. That was the argument she tried to make, justifying her participation. Her excuse.

Bitch.

I cleared my throat and Bodhi shifted, he crossed back to the bar and returned with water. I still hadn't knocked back the whiskey, but it was waiting for me. If I couldn't get the trembling under control, I'd do it.

Everything being equal, however, I didn't want anything to compromise my judgment or my reactions. I took a long drink of water. It helped.

It helped a lot.

"Anyway, she picked up Andrea and this other girl. She didn't have a name for either of them. So either she didn't want to know, or she was lying. Her job is to pick them up, bring them into Prague, then deliver them to a school."

"A school?" Adam repeated, testing the word as if examining it for veracity, "She picks up girls from other countries and brings them to a school. No questions asked?"

"I wondered if she was just playing dumb or didn't want to know. Desperate times." Probably far too generous on my part. "Then she screamed something about us being too late. There was a huge sale coming, an auction, and she'd fetch a lot of money."

Adam's fingers dug into my hip. "The name of the school?"

"Radoslav-Tanzakademie," I said, before translating the German. "Radoslav Dance Academy." The name wasn't easily found in the local information directories. "I sent the information to Fletcher." Guilt assailed me. "I should have checked before I finished with her."

As much as I hated to admit it, she'd pushed me too far. The impulse to strike her had been right there and I hadn't fought it.

Now she wasn't available for further questioning.

"It's a name," Adam said. "If it's attached to anything real, Fletcher will find it. We can also do a little looking of our own."

I twisted to look at him. "How?"

"The Mikhailovskaya head has agreed to take a meeting." Ezra said, drawing my attention. "We just got the all clear from his people when you sent the message. It will be dinner tonight, we need to go formal and bring a gift."

Chewing on my lower lip, I considered him and then glanced at Bodhi and Milo before returning to Ezra. "How long do we have?"

Bodhi nodded once. "And how do you want to play it?"

Just like that, the shaking left me as we tackled planning. We were closer. Not close enough, but closer.

We weren't stopping until we found her.