Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Gregor

Iwas seething as I drove back to my apartment. The temperature was continuing to drop, my breath steaming in the air until the heater kicked on properly, but I couldn’t feel it. My whole body was burning with a mix of emotions I never thought I would feel.

The sexual frustration was only a small part of it. Getting the confirmation that Michelle was mine had broken a dam inside of me that I hadn’t known existed, and out of it had poured a kind of primal anger. I was always outraged and disgusted when someone hurt a kid. But somehow, learning that the kid in question was mine had me so stirred up that I almost made my way to that daycare in search of the Ivanovs right then and there.

I wanted to put a bullet in every single person responsible for that kiddie porn trafficking ring. I wanted to erase every last fucking one of them from the Earth in a way that served as a warning to every pedophile, snuff porn producer, and atrocity-addicted sack of shit.

It wasn’t just ideals fueling me now. Every man who wasn’t a total waste of skin hated child rapists and traffickers. The fact that this was now personal, that this was my child, had thrown gasoline on my fire.

It didn’t help that my child had been kidnapped, endangered, tormented, kept captive, and forced to witness atrocities until she couldn’t even fucking speak, by a family who up until very recently had been under bratva protection. They had done this under our knife, with our money. And if I had followed Vasily’s orders…

Thank God I had always had a stronger code of ethics than some of the men around me. Otherwise, I might have been like some of them, even Vasily maybe, and left my own kid to burn.

Just thinking about it made me want to punch Vasily in the teeth, but I couldn’t entirely blame him for what the Ivanovs had gotten away with. He should have checked where his money was going, but Vasily had dozens of such operations under his control. His attention was split a hundred ways just running things. He didn’t know what kind of porn the Ivanovs had been making there. He couldn’t have.

But Vasily, my brothers, and I, we were still culpable. For not only had one of our people taken Michelle, but we were also the reason why Alissa had to wait so long to get her daughter back.

The Chicago PD wasn’t incompetent by nature. Underfunded, undertrained, undermanned, all of that was certain. But their failure to find Michelle wasn’t on them. It was on us.

Vasily and our organization had a lot of pull with CPD. We had deals, treaties, agreements with the police brass and the mayor’s office. When some idealistic rookie screwup went against all of that in search of a justice that mostly existed in his head, it threw off the balance of things. Added a lot of tension and drama to what would otherwise be business as usual.

I hated that. Vasily had made it clear that he hated that. And I knew that I couldn’t let Alissa take on that role in search of her daughter. Her ideals were admirable, her courage was admirable, but the evidence she had gathered and given to me, had warned me that she was way too close to throwing a spotlight on a bratva-connected operation. If she hadn’t let me take this on for her, if she didn’t trust me…

I was as likely to murder the mother of my child and leave my child bereft as I was to lop off one of my own limbs. But Vasily would have ordered it if she had come to know too much and was not under our control.

So I had to make sure that she only found out as much as I allowed her, and that Vasily knew my personal matters would not interfere with my duties. Other men had married and had children, the old days of having no family were long gone.

But right now, I had to ask Vasily two favors at once, and I hated it. One was to let me keep Alissa in hand and make sure that both her safety and the organization’s were maintained. And the other I had decided in a flash of pure outrage the moment Alissa had told me Michelle was mine. The Ivanovs running the porn operation were dead and gone, and had deserved it. But their cousins who ran the daycare were still in business. Still alive.

My eyes narrowed as I drove. I had never asked permission to kill anyone before. I had always killed whoever Vasily pointed me at.

But I wanted the Ivanovs dead. Every last one of them who had been involved in this. I wanted to watch the light fade out of their eyes and know their evil had been erased from the world and that they would endanger no more children.

I had saved my little girl. I was going to reunite her with her mom and support them. But my child, my blood, deserved more than a rescue, safety, and a good life.

She deserved vindication.

And I was going to give it to her.

***

“What’s got you working this late, Gregor?” Vasily was in his smoking jacket, a silk antique from the Frank Sinatra days. Burgundy paisley edged in black velvet. He smelled of five-hundred-dollar cigars.

“It’s as much personal as it is business, or I could have waited. But I need to tell you something about the situation with the Ivanovs.”

He lifted an eyebrow as he handed me a brandy. “I thought I told you to put that matter out of your mind.”

“I am not in a situation where that is possible, sir.” My tone was tight. I took the drink and sniffed it, frowning slightly. It smelled of pears.

“What do you mean?” he asked as we settled into overstuffed chairs in his study. The fire crackled in the tiled fireplace between us, bathing our legs in its warmth.

“Without bringing up too many distasteful details, the Ivanovs’ racket has not been completely dismantled, and I want permission to do so.”

“Oh. I see. That’s…interesting. Please go on.”

His eyes never left my face. It was like being under a spotlight.

“The family you had me eliminate during that sweep and clear had a supplier. Probably several, but this one is notable. They use a daycare as a front. One of the cousins runs it with his wife. They have lost three children, all of which I was able to trace. One of them—”

“Oh, yes, that girl and her little fundraiser to try to find her daughter. You intercepted her, yes, kept her from sticking her nose too far into our affairs?”

“That is correct,” I said, wondering how he knew. Wondering if Sergei was discussing my life and loyalty with him over that same damn pear brandy. “She will not be looking further. I will be doing all of the investigation.”

“Well handled, but answer me this. What does that have to do with the Ivanovs? Did they take her child?”

I took a deep breath, prepared to give my pakhan the whole, unvarnished truth out of loyalty. But then something, some instinct I couldn’t place, made me hold back. “Yes. They did. That is why I could not let the Ivanov matter lie.”

“Why take it so personally?” He swirled his brandy in his glass as he stared at me.

“Her child is also my child.”

The swirling stopped. He sat back, blinking a few times, and set down his glass. “This woman was your lover. You’re certain the child is yours?”

“Until I find her, a DNA test cannot be conducted, but I am certain and have enough information to be confident about it. The woman had no reason to lie to me.”

I couldn’t entirely tell in the firelight, but he looked paler than I was used to seeing. I wondered if he was feeling well. “I see. And you want the blood of the ones who put their hands on your child.”

“They’re not going to stop trafficking just because they can’t sell to their relatives anymore. They are still doing it in your territory, against—”

“Yes. I’m aware of their transgressions, I don’t need them brought up again. You are correct in the need to remove both the Ivanov cousin and his wife. If this suits your need for revenge as well, so be it. I’ll pay you the same either way. As for the child. Where do you plan to look for her? You must be aware that she is likely either dead or out of the area.” He sounded nervous. Or was that my imagination?

“I plan to look for her at any property owned by the Ivanov family. I will ask Sergei to assist me if I get stuck, with your permission.” I was buying myself time, covering my own ass. Why wasn’t I all right with letting Vasily know I had already rescued the girl? Why had I hidden that fact from Sergei as well? This was the first time I had kept anything from the organization, but maybe it was that this time it was personal.

“Fine, fine. Hopefully, you’re able to find the girl, get her back to her mother, and stop all this extra drama. In the meantime, the Ivanovs are yours. I will let Sergei know that you may ask for his assistance.”

“Thank you, sir.” My heart was beating fast. For decades now, I had been completely loyal, with no doubts. But now doubts were creeping in, and I couldn’t stop them.

“You want my advice? Seduce the girl. Distract her.” His thumbnail rattled briefly against his glass as he reached for it, and I saw the shake in his hands. “Put another baby in her belly if you need to. Whether you get the kid back or not, we can’t afford to have some would-be martyr snooping around. You know that.”

I nodded. “Of course.” His callous words stung, but had no strength with the tremor in them. He almost sounded scared.

“Gregor…” he ventured. “When you did the sweep and clear at the Ivanov home, did you…find anyone besides the four on the list?”

Again, that damned instinct. “Just those four. There were a lot of rooms that were clearly meant for captives, but every last one of them was empty.”

He looked almost confused for a moment, and then relieved. “Good. Captives can be tricky to deal with. Is the child old enough to talk?”

“She’s four. Once I rescue her…here’s hoping she doesn’t remember any of it when she’s older.” I didn’t like the taste of the brandy. It had been pleasant last night with Sergei, but it paled next to this afternoon’s Laphroaig. Or maybe that was just the kiss that had followed it.

“Of course. Poor little thing. You can clearly tell why I wanted the Ivanovs dead.”

“Absolutely.” I saluted him with my glass and forced a swallow. “I’ll just finish the job and see what I can find out about my daughter.”

He almost choked on his brandy, but caught himself, swallowing hard. “Best of luck,” he said in his usual mild tone. But there was a fear in his eyes that I didn’t understand.

***

After my detour, I was a little calmer, but my head was full of questions, suspicions, and the need to get home to my daughter.

Ihated leaving her alone, the thought of leaving my daughter unprotected sickened me. But what choicedid I have? If I had used a sitter or a daycare, there would be witnesses to my suddenly having a child in my care. That would have gotten straight back to Vasily. And Iwas certain that would be a bad idea. Thank God nothing had happened yet. But I was suddenly wondering how long I could keep this up, security cameras and alerts were all well and good, but that traumatized little girl needed human company.

But I couldn’t stay home and still do my job. I knew what I had to do, I just didn’t know how I was going to explain it to Alissa or Vasily, if it got back to him. Which always seemed to happen. But my honor, my conscience, and the knowledge that this was my child wouldn’t let me do any less.

Not even if it went against the bratva. Which had allowed Alissa to be hurt so deeply, to go through so much.

I would deal with Vasily, his strange reactions tonight, and what I was going to tell him later on, once this was all over. Right now, my duty was to my daughter and her mother.

What was I going to tell Alissa? I felt that stab of guilt again, wishing I could be completely honest instead of building a collage for her out of chunks of truth pasted together with bullshit. In an ideal world, I would have. But we had to live in this one. I also worried about what Michelle would tell her mother, my little girl was too scared to speak, but she clearly understood everything. What if she told Alissa she’d been staying at mine for a few days? Would she understand the passing of time? Maybe I could just tell her it was a night or a few hours. Fuck. I had always prided myself on being calm in any situation, but I seemed to be fighting a losing battle here. The sooner Michelle was returned to her mother the better.

I took the stairs two at a time to my door to burn off some energy, I didn’t want to burst in and scare my daughter. I had always tried to be quieter with her, calmer, gentler, because she was a kid, and I was a foreboding-looking giant. Now, though, it seemed even more important.

I unlocked the door and went in, closing it carefully and looking around. Michelle looked up from her coloring. She seemed contented, and everything was as I’d left it. Until I noticed broken glass glittering in a pool of water on the kitchen tiles.

“Uh-oh.” I hurried over. She had clearly dropped her glass while trying to get more water, my heart was racing at the thought of what could have happened. My broom lay against the counter nearby. She knew what she should do but not how to do it.

I went to check on her. “Michelle?” I squatted next to her. She was calm, even smiling a little to see me now, and there were no signs of cuts on her. “I saw you dropped a glass. Are you hurt?”

She shook her head.

Holy shit. Okay. I was definitely making the right decision getting her back to her mom tonight.The relief felt like someone had just released a band across my chest.“Okay, sweetheart. Now, you listen to Da—” I had almost said Daddy. Shit. She wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready for it either, clearly. “Listen to me carefully, all right?”

She nodded, staring intently at me.

“If you drop something and it breaks, don’t try to clean it up yourself. Don’t touch it. Get me or your mom. Okay?”

She perked up at the mention of her mother. But then went back to her thoughtful look, and nodded.

“Okay, good. Glass is sharp when it breaks. It can cut you really easily.” At least she was wearing her shoes. “Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Good girl.”

I wanted to hug her, tell her I was her dad and I was sorry I wasn’t very good at it. But that was a stupid idea. I didn’t have the right, and it was way too early to do anything like that.

But it was past time to do something else that everyone needed.

She saw the conflict on my face and started patting me again.

I caught her hand and gave her a squeeze. “I’m okay. I’m just trying to figure out how much to tell your mom once we see her.”

That hopeful look again. She might have remembered things that had made her voice go silent, but she also remembered her mom. “Do you think you can speak to her if I call her on the phone?” I asked. I didn’t know what would do the trick, but I had to start trying.

She thought about it. But then she pressed her lips together, and her chin started trembling. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head violently, looking like she was about to start crying.

I put my hands on her little bird shoulders. “It’s okay,” I told her. “It’s okay, if you can’t yet, that’s fine. I know she just really wants to see you and know you’re safe.” I should have done this two days ago.But now I absolutely had to, and it was almost a relief. The choice was out of my hands.

I just hoped I was doing the right thing for everyone. It felt that way, but this situation was so strange and new to me that I couldn’t tell. I had already made one mistake with Michelle. I would not permit myself another.

“All right, sweetheart. I’m gonna call your mama now. I’m going to try to get her here tonight.”

Her eyes brightened again, and she nodded, then watched as I fished out my phone. I was way tenser than I ever got staring down a gun barrel as I called Alissa.

She answered on the second ring. “Gregor, hi. It’s late. Did you…have news?” The tentative hope in her voice hurt to hear.

“I do. I’d like you to come over to my apartment. As soon as possible. Can you make it?”

I heard her breathing pick up. “Do you have her?”

I hesitated.

“Gregor, do you have her?”

“Yes. She’s alive, she’s physically fine, she’s clean, she has clothes, and she’s got food in her tummy.”

She broke down in the middle of the list, and it took more effort than expected to keep talking, to keep reassuring her that Michelle was all right and waiting for her.

“This place is a lot more secure than yours. I—”

“Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be right over.” She was breathless, voice shaky, sounding like she might collapse with sheer relief.

“Are you safe to drive?”

“No, I can’t stop shaking, I’ll Uber over. It shouldn’t take long.” I heard the faint rattles and clicks that said she was messing with her phone. “What’s the address?”

I gave it. Then she said, “I want to talk to her.”

A chill ran through me. “I can put her on the phone, but you should know…she hasn’t said a word since I rescued her.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. There’s not a mark on her physically, but she isn’t speaking.”

Next to me, Michelle squirmed. She could tell we were talking about her. She looked up at me unhappily and her chin trembled again. “No, sweetheart, it’s not your fault,” I said to her hastily. She gulped and sniffled.

“Put her on the phone,” Alissa said in a firmer voice.

I nodded and put the phone to Michelle’s ear. “It’s your mama, sweetie.” With my free hand I hunted blindly in the side table drawer for my tissue box.

I heard Alissa’s voice go into Michelle’s ear, and suddenly Michelle’s face was crumpling, and next thing I knew both her eyes and her nose were going. Poor kid. I helped her mop up as best I could while her mother talked to her.

“It’s me, sweetie,” I heard Alissa say. “I’m coming to get you, okay?”

Both of them were sniffling. Alissa’s voice kept breaking. My throat was tight as I kept my hand on Michelle’s shoulder, and the phone to her little ear.

They stayed on the phone until Alissa’s Uber got there, and when she was on her way and had hung up, I kept my hand on Michelle’s shoulder. She looked up at me, and patted my arm, then leaned against me suddenly. I put my arm around her tentatively, marveling at how tiny and delicate she was.

How could anyone think to harm her? I couldn’t imagine being the sort of damned deviant who looked at that tiny face and saw something to use and destroy. I couldn’t understand what was missing from the souls of people like that.

I was a stone-cold killer. I had too many notches on my gun barrel to count. But what the Ivanovs had done was another layer of evil below mine…deep below.

They destroyed lives. I only ended them. As I would end the rest of the Ivanovs, soon enough, as punishment for what they had done.