67. Radimir

67

RADIMIR

Midnight.

I pulled up right outside Spartak’s club, in the middle of a no parking zone. If by some miracle I survived the night, I’d happily pay for the parking ticket.

Spartak’s men were waiting for me and pounced immediately, dragging me over to the metal detector and pushing me through it. They seemed a little disappointed that I wasn’t trying to smuggle a gun or a knife in, and patted me down twice just to be sure. Then they walked me inside. Two of them had their hands on my shoulders, each with a gun pressed into my back. They weren’t taking any chances.

My eyes swept the crowd as they walked. Had Alexei made it in? For all I knew, he was still stuck in the line outside. And if that was the case, we were screwed.

We wound our way up through the club until we came to a glass-walled room right in the rafters. Spartak was waiting for us, along with four of his men. Liliya, Spartak’s wife, was standing nervously next to him. But where was?—

Then I saw her, lying on the floor, a sticky, glossy patch of blood next to her head. For a second, I thought she was dead and I just… collapsed inside. I wanted to fall to my knees and sob.

Then she moved and my heart started beating again. She lifted her head and looked at me, her eyes red from crying, and struggled to get to her feet. I started forward but Spartak’s men blocked me. “Are you okay?” I asked Bronwyn.

She nodded bravely.

“She’s fiiine,” Spartak drawled. “A cryer, though.” He scowled. “I don’t know how you have the patience.”

I turned and fixed him with a glare but said nothing. There were four of his men in front of me plus the two who’d walked me up here, plus Spartak himself. Seven against one and they were all armed, and I wasn’t.

I’d decided how I was going to handle this. If it looked like Spartak would keep his word and let Bronwyn go, I’d go through with the trade: my life for hers. It was the best way of keeping her safe. I’d made Gennadiy promise that he’d look after her, afterwards. He, Valentin and Mikhail had tried to talk me out of coming alone, but I’d been firm. If all of us show up, guns blazing, Spartak will kill her.

Besides, I wasn’t alone. I had my backup plan, waiting in the darkness. I hoped.

“I’m here,” I told Spartak. “Let her go.”

Spartak grinned and walked over to me. He nodded to the two guys behind me, and they grabbed me, wrenching my arms back behind me. Spartak put down the drink he was holding, stretched his shoulders, limbering up...and then he drove his fist into my stomach with every ounce of his strength.

I doubled over, pain radiating out in shuddering waves. It was a strange, silent kind of agony: all the air had been forced out of my lungs and they hurt too much to draw a breath. As I choked and wheezed, Spartak grabbed Bronwyn’s hand and pulled her over to us. “I’m a man of my word,” he told me. “I will let her go...once every one of my men has had a turn at her.”

The rage exploded in my chest. You’re not fit to touch her. So, it was the backup plan, then.

“It was him,” Bronwyn said quickly. “ He faked the phone call.”

I stared at her, still struggling to breathe. Suddenly, it all made sense. And now I knew there was no way Spartak would let her go. He’d kill her...or keep her forever.

The two men behind me forced me to my knees. Spartak took out his gun, then checked around. We were in the center of the room, which meant even with the glass walls, we were hidden from everyone below. He pressed the muzzle to my forehead.

I imagined Alexei, lying full length on a gantry somewhere, up in the lighting rig above us, watching for my signal through his sniper scope.

I imagined Gabriella, sitting in a car out in the alley, her face lit by the glow of her laptop screen, waiting for the radio message from Alexei. Her finger hovering over the key that would change one digit in one database and make the power company think the club hadn’t paid its power bill in over a decade.

I nodded twice.

And every light in the club went out.