Chapter 23

Chapter 23ViktorIburied myself in paperwork after my goodbye call to Olivia, trying my best to distract myself from the hollow ache inside me. Olivia. Best lover I had ever had, brave enough to risk her life to help save mine. Dedicated mother to my son. Could she really be the one betraying me?She didn’t know enough to explain all the problems that had cropped up. Just the details about the auctions. She could still be involved, but someone else had been leaking intel as well.Who knew my schedule, my methods and plans? Who knew that I was seeing Olivia, or that she’d already borne my son?The questions nagged at me as I went through the copy of Mischka’s autopsy I had ordered.No signs of foul play. No toxin residues, no injuries. Death by natural causes. At least I didn’t have to avenge him too. Not like Ivan.Ivan, whose murder had turned this from a cold war to a hot one. A murder right under Boris’s nose.…Boris.A nagging suspicion tugged at me faintly. He certainly knew all of my schedule, my plans, my habits. He knew about Olivia, and about Michael. He had known about the auction.He knew everything that I knew.Could that Maria woman possibly have pumped him for that much information during their drunken night together? Or…?Boris was acting bizarrely lately, and he had bungled guarding Ivan and then bungled again catching the assassin. I had wondered if my long-term friend was becoming an alcoholic, that the years of heavy drinking were starting to take their toll. But what if there was more to it? What if he did it deliberately?Frowning, I picked up my phone and called our contact in the Cambridge PD to see if they had gotten anything on Maria, or on Boris. I still didn’t want to believe that he had anything to do with the efforts against me, but whatever the truth was, I had to face it.Detective Jorgensen answered immediately. “Evening, sir.”“Yes, good evening. I need to follow up with you on the whole Boris and Maria matter.” I tried to keep my voice as calm and breezy as usual.“Well, I had a couple of things come in from the webcrawler, including some CCTV stills. Your man has definitely been hanging out with some unsavory characters, but there aren’t any women among them.”My frown deepened. “Who, then?”“I’ll send you an email with the photos attached, check your junk mail as I’ll use an anonymous address. Expect it within a few minutes, I want to make sure I have them all.”“Fine, fine,” I said impatiently. “Can you give me the basics?”“Hispanic, maybe Puerto Rican, good looking, around five nine, curly dark hair, epic mustache.”“A Puerto Rican…man?” My mind was already racing. What was going on? Had Boris forgotten the Bratva and our friendship, and taken bribes from the other side?“That’s right, sir. No ID on him yet. I’ll let you know as soon as that changes.”“Yes, do that. And send everything over that you have immediately.”Once he was off the phone, I called Boris. The phone rang several times before he picked up. “So. Finally decided to speak with me again, huh?”“Don’t start with me,” I snapped, more annoyed than I thought possible at the way I heard him scoff in response.“I’m a little bit busy, boss, can I call you back?”“No,” I insisted. “This will not wait. I have marching orders for you and your men. Get back here so I can brief you.”“Boss, seriously—”“You have twenty minutes, Boris. After that, I send men out to look for you. Is that clear?”The annoyance fled his voice. He sounded wary, suddenly, and placating. “Yeah. Boss, I get it. I’ll get the guys together and come over.”“Good. We’re going to war, Boris. I want you and your boys fully informed before I send you out against Luis.”For some reason, this cheered him. “You’re finally going after that guy? Sounds good. I’ll be right behind you.”The question is, will you be back there planning to plunge a knife in my back?We hung up and I got on my laptop to wait for the delivery of photos and stills. But before it could arrive, my phone rang again. It was Olivia, I was about to reject the call, but I found that I couldn’t.I picked it up. “Hello, Olivia, what do you want?” I asked a little warily.“Is this Viktor?” The voice was female, very scared but determined, with a light Puerto Rican accent.I lifted an eyebrow. “Yes, it is. And you are?”“My name’s Anna. I’m Olivia’s best friend.”I scowled. “If you’re here to scold me over breaking Olivia’s heart, I really don’t have time—”“Someone’s taken her,” she said shakily, and I stopped dead.“What?”“A man with a Russian accent. He took her and Michael. I overheard the kidnapping because I was on the phone with her at the time. I went over to her apartment to check and the back window’s broken into and they’re…they’re gone. Her phone was on Michael’s bedroom floor. I found your number in there.”A cold jolt of adrenaline rushed through me. But then I remembered who I was talking to. “You claim a Russian man took her? Not, say, your brother?”“My brother is in my house babysitting my baby daughter, damn it! It’s one of your guys who’s got Olivia.”I frowned, skeptical but very worried for Olivia and my boy. “If this is some kind of trick—”“You’re worried about me tricking you? I thought you were the one who had her kidnapped!” She struggled audibly with her temper, breathing ragged. “If you are who my brother says, you have to know every Russian mobster in town. You’re our only chance of finding and rescuing her. So if you know something—”“Wait. You and Luis intended to rescue her from me?”“She’s family! Of course we’re not going to leave her to die! She might not be that way by blood, but there’s no way either one of us is going to let her or her little boy get hurt just because she fell in love with you!”I sat back in my chair, having to digest this for several seconds. “This isn’t the conversation I thought I would be having with Luis’s family. For the record, I don’t have her, and I would never harm her. But it seems that we need to work together and figure out who has her, what their aim is, and how to rescue her and Michael. I already have my suspicions.” I checked my email again, and saw the bundle of images had arrived from my informant. “One moment.”I started opening the images, and my eyes widened. There was Boris in a bar, all right, drinking and chatting with a handsome Puerto Rican man with curly hair and a very nice mustache. They looked chummy. A quick look-through of the images showed that they had gotten together several times.“I definitely know one of the men who took Olivia. I suspect your brother will know the other. I can forward you the photographs, or bring them with me, if you’ll tell me where to meet you.”“Olivia’s place. I’ll stay here until you arrive, it’ll be quicker if you come somewhere you know. I’ll ask Luis to join us.”“I just have one question. Will your brother accept a truce, at least for the moment so we can get this done?”She let out her breath in a whoosh. “You’re saying you want to help rescue her, not just supply information? Why? I thought you were done with her.”“No,” I said simply. “Our parting company was for safety reasons, but now I realize it was a mistake. You’re not the only one who loves her, Miss Anna. Now please, convey my message. It seems that you, your brother, and I have a lot to talk about.”***I had spent months trying to get a meeting with Luis. Ironic that it should finally happen now, when my woman and my son were both in peril. But as I knocked on the door to Olivia’s apartment and Anna answered, I realized I was just glad to get it over with.I inclined my head to her, noting her baby daughter in a sling across her chest. “Ma’am.”She appeared to be relieved at the sight of me, calm and cordial and, best of all, cooperative. I’m not sure what she was expecting. “He’s in there.”Luis was the same height as I, all lean energy as he levered himself off the couch and came to shake my hand. I could tell he was packing under his leather jacket. So was I. But our hands stayed empty.“You’re a hard man to get in touch with,” I said, and he nodded solemnly.“I didn’t get the impression you would want to talk. Not with your body count recently.”“Yes, well, with one exception, I was defending myself. These assassination attempts weren’t your idea?”“No. I only heard about both of them after the fact. I didn’t even know the guy in the hospital was one of ours until Miguel brought the news. He says you killed him.”“Incorrect. That was Boris. I thought it was a bumbling mistake at the time, but now I realize he likely killed the man to keep him from talking.”“Miguel led the attack on the auction house,” Luis said. “I suspect he sent the hitter to the hospital too.”“Why would they want to foment a war? Worse, why would they work together to make sure we wanted to fight?”“We can ask them when we catch them,” Luis replied grimly. “But I can guess. If we’re in the middle of a bloody war with a high body count, it won’t look too strange if we both get killed in the fighting. Just one stray bullet for each of us. Then guess who figures they’ll take over?”I winced and pinched the bridge of my nose. Damn you, Boris. Boris had been incredibly jealous when I had become Mischka’s protege instead of him. But that had been twenty years ago. I had always expected him to grow out of his envy of me, especially when I gave him more trust and power than anyone else. But apparently, he simply never had. “That sounds alarmingly plausible.”“So how do you find out where they’ve taken her?” Anna asked, her face pale and creased with worry.I pulled out my phone. “All of the cars in my motor pool are fitted with two GPS locators. If one is disabled, then the tracker under the seat should still be active. Even Boris does not know this. I’ll just check their locations and see which one swung by here, and where it is now. Then we can call in some reinforcements and get down there.”“Anna, you stay here with Gina, I’ll get one of my men to keep an eye on the house, in case anyone comes back. I’ll let you know when we’ve rescued her.” Her brother said firmly.She smiled weakly, but there was a faint gleam of hope in her eyes. I started checking the car locations, while Luis started calling all the men he felt he could trust. Soon, I would be doing the same.We would rescue Olivia and my son, and we would end not only this wasteful war, but the traitors who had fomented it.