Chapter 24 - Aleksandr

I walked to my office window on the thirtieth floor of the building where I did most of my legitimate business and peeled back the blinds to see the bright sky shining with the early morning sunshine trying to break through the smog.

My eyes felt like they had been taken out and rolled in sand. I rubbed at them as I turned back to look out through the open door to the outer office, where several men were glued to computer screens. I had a dozen more out on the streets trying to find Katie's missing delivery man the old-fashioned way, while the ones here were scouring CCTV footage and hacking into hospital and police databases for any mention of him.

I was exhausted from staying awake through the night, but I was also on edge and wired from too much caffeine. My men urged me to rest throughout the night while they monitored, but there was no way I could close my eyes until I knew what was going on. If the man had decided he was no longer interested in being in the Bratva and turned up on the Canadian border, I would have been relieved rather than outraged. Right now that was the best possible outcome as far as I was concerned.

More hours passed, and one of the guys thought he might have picked him up on a camera out by the beach. If it was him, it would have put him in that location several hours ago. He could be anywhere else by now, but I sat and pored over the footage, clicking frame by frame. Due to the angle, I couldn't be positive it was him, either.

Katie's guard called, telling me she wanted to deliver some meals to the charity office, because one of her delivery men didn't show up. The way he spoke in a falsely cheerful manner, feigning ignorance to the situation, made me believe that Katie was in hearing range, waiting for my answer.

At least a dozen times during the night, I took out my phone to call her to make amends. Normally, in a situation like this, I maintained laser focus, but last night my mind was split between the search and Katie. My heart was wholly with her.

I wanted to try to explain why I'd come unhinged, maybe even spill everything. But I'd already been a complete ass. Waking her out of a sound slumber on top of it would have made things worse, and it was cowardly to do it over the phone.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Sergei to keep her locked down in the house. The night man had already let me know she'd noticed the extra security I'd assigned until this was settled, and how she'd appeared upset, or at least confused by it. I'd ordered them to stay out of sight so things appeared normal, and now Katie wanted to go about her business as if things really were.

I told Sergei to hang on, and peered at the camera footage near the beach. We were about fifty-fifty on whether or not it was our guy, and I already had Lev out there with his crew. What if this was all a misunderstanding, and once again, I was overreacting?

With a sigh, I got back on the line with Sergei. "It's fine," I said. "Stay on her. I don't care if she balks, actually, go into the place with her this time. Other than that, keep trying to act like nothing's wrong."

There might be nothing wrong. That was what I kept telling myself. What I needed to believe.

Until Lev called me, telling me to get to Santa Monica, not far from the place where we thought we'd spotted our guy on video.

"What have you found?" I asked.

"Just get out here," he told me, refusing to say anything else.

My brother knew what was going on, but he still sounded much too calm. If he wasn't taking this search seriously, I was going to knock some sense into his head until he did. Thanks to traffic, it took me much longer than I would have liked to arrive at the seedy location. About six blocks from the beach, Lev and a few other guys were standing around outside a corner store, sipping coffee from paper cups.

A woman in the shop paced back and forth just inside the door, though she had a sign in the window saying the place was closed. She had the frantic look in her eyes like she might break at any moment and one of Lev's men appeared at her side, leading her away from the glass as he tried to calm her down.

As soon as Lev noticed me, he waved me into the alley between the corner shop and a restaurant that looked like it was permanently closed, with half the windows boarded up. As soon as I saw my brother's face, I knew that he was taking things completely seriously and had just been keeping a forced calm over the phone.

I followed him to the back of the alley, where he pointed to the wall separating the building behind the store. "Other side of the dumpster," he said tersely.

A few more steps led me to a body lying half-covered by a scattered bag of trash.

"The woman who works the morning shift at the store was trying to put her garbage out and found him. Freaked out pretty bad, but her uncle owns the place and has ties with Dimitry, so he called us before the cops. I've got someone keeping her quiet for the moment, but we don't have long."

Nudging the trash out of the way with my toe, I leaned over to try to make out any identifying features. The height and build were correct, but his face was nearly beaten to a pulp and completely unrecognizable. The twisted way his body lay indicated more than a few broken bones. I edged up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a colorful tattoo of the Mad Hatter, something he had sheepishly admitted he got in high school and rather regretted.

We always cataloged distinctive tattoos on anyone who worked for us, in case they fell into such an unfortunate position. I double-checked the database on my phone to make sure, but the image of that once tough young man blushing over a regrettable tattoo was fresh in my mind. He'd been eager to do this special job for me, excited to work his way up in the Bratva. That was one of the main reasons I never thought he'd tried to run.

"It's him," I said, stepping away and running my fingers through my hair until it practically stood on end. Panic rose in my throat, and I blew out a harsh breath, looking around wildly for something to smash to make this right. "It's Katie's delivery, man."

"We don't know this is related to us," Lev said, trying to calm me down. "He had cash on him, right?"

"He's miles from his route," I snapped, then pointed to him, little more than a bloody pile of broken bones. "Does this look like a mugging to you?"

"Okay," Lev said slowly. "But we're in the middle of some shit right now. This is just the other side escalating again."

I shook my head, stalking from one side of the alley to the other. "You don't get it," I told him. "This particular guy is brand new. There are no ties at all to us, so there is nothing to tie us to Katie. That's why I hired him. He shouldn't have been targeted at all, but he was."

Lev furrowed his brow. "Let's say this was the Armenians. There's no way he would have talked, right?"

I stormed back over to the body and leaned over, pulling up the shirt so that Lev could see the cuts and bruises. I waved my hand at the battered face. "Most people who've been with us for years would break during an interrogation like this. This kid never stood a chance of staying silent."

Lev grumbled, starting to get it. "Fuck," he muttered. "If that's the case, then maybe they left us a message on him."

"I'm sure he's the message," I snapped. "Isn't it loud and clear? They must know about Katie."

He still valiantly tried to calm me down. "For all they know, she's an employee, nothing more. And there's still nothing to prove they didn't just see this guy with others tied to us and put two and two together."

I wanted to believe him, but then he uncurled the dead man's fist and pulled out a scrap of paper. I recognized it at once, and it was as if the Pacific Ocean somehow reached me, crashing an icy wave over me and freezing me in place.

It was a piece of one of the white bakery boxes Katie packed her lunches in with such pride and care. Part of the cheerful label was still affixed to the cardboard. Only the top half remained, revealing her name in block letters.

"It's just her name," Lev said, still not regaining his color as he gripped my arm. "And her old one at that. Katie Brixton, not Katie Fokin."

I still wanted to believe. Everything he said to reassure me could have been true, and the fact they'd targeted the delivery guy might have been a coincidence. The piece of sticker left behind on its own was cryptic enough that it really could have been nothing.

But why torture the man if they weren't angling for specific information?

"That's the message," I said raggedly, fumbling for my phone in my pocket. "The other half of that sticker…"

I cursed myself a hundred times for this oversight. Something so simple as getting her to change her packaging to be more discreet. It was the secrecy that kept me from doing it. Not having a reasonable excuse to make the request. This was all on me. I blindly swiped, trying to get to my contacts. Desperate to hear her voice.

"What?" Lev asked, my panic seeping over to infect him. "What's on the rest of the sticker?"

I looked at him as the call went through to Katie, almost crushing my phone in the urgent need to hear her voice. Lev recoiled at whatever was shining from my eyes as I answered his question.

"My wife's phone number."