Chapter 32 - Aleksandr

It had been more than two hours since I'd been at the office building, wrangling with the police. There had been no more information from them, but Lev's team had managed to get to the initial location where the car the kidnappers had stuffed Katie into had gone. Max and Dimitry were out trying to convince anyone to speak to them. Ivan and Nikolai were hacking every camera in the surrounding area to hopefully pick them up again, but it was slow going, having only grainy images of the car to go on.

I hadn't told Mila yet, not wanting to worry her since she was in San Francisco, easing some new tensions that had recently arisen up there. As for me, I was beyond worry. I paced between the computer stations Lev's people had set up in my vast library to the bar across the room. The crystal decanters glistened in the sunlight, still streaming through the windows, but time was ticking away.

The thought of her being somewhere with those animals after dark was impossible. We had to find her before then, to prevent her from being even more scared. If she was hurt in any way, nothing would stop me from unleashing hell on every last person who was involved.

"They're not that stupid," Lev told me when I stalked past him. "I can tell what you're thinking from the look on your face, and there's no way they're idiotic enough to really hurt her."

I glared at him. He hadn't seen the surveillance footage of one of those assholes punching her. Or the way she'd been roughly dragged away out of view. Her broken necklace was in my pocket, and I slid my hand in to wrap my fingers around the delicate gold heart. It would be repaired and placed around her neck again.

"They've hurt her enough," I snapped, then looked at the people poring over their screens or tapping at their keyboards, working their technological magic to try to find her. "How much longer?" I asked no one in particular.

Impatience was easier to deal with than the devastating fear we might be too late.

"Like I said, they're not dumb enough to kill her." Lev gripped my shoulder and called Max for an update on the ground crew.

How quickly he'd gone from assuring me they wouldn't hurt her to wouldn't kill her. It was hardly an assurance at all.

A moment later, my phone rang for the first time since I told my brothers to use Lev as our contact in order to leave my number free in case the kidnappers wanted to make their demands. It was a number I didn't recognize, and I answered it before the second ring.

At first, there was only a rough coughing noise, then a whispered voice that made my heart soar. "Aleks, it's me."

The line went dead, and I shouted for the computer specialists. "I've got her. She just called."

Lev made a whoop of victory, but it was short-lived when I called back, and the phone was turned off.

"Why would they let her call if they weren't going to give us instructions?" he asked.

"Maybe she got one of their phones somehow," one of the computer team suggested.

I nodded at her. "Katie would have taken an opportunity if she saw one." My mind reeled. I was proud of her for trying to save herself but hoped they wouldn't harm her for it. It was clear that if she'd called without them knowing, they knew now.

"It keeps going straight to voicemail," I said, about to scream in frustration.

"Doesn't matter," another of the specialists said. "We can still track the last cellphone tower that number pinged off of. We'll have a location soon."

Back to pacing for what seemed like hours but was probably only ten minutes, and she shouted that they had found the tower. I gathered around the computer as she honed in on a point on the map. It was miles out in the desert, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but when she zoomed in as far as the satellite image would allow, there appeared to be a small building of some sort.

"Now we've really got her," Lev said, already on the phone to send our brothers and their guys in that direction.

We'd been deceived by the initial direction the car had turned and by someone mistaking them on another CCTV camera, so they were all heading too far north to get there any sooner than us. Lev and I had our cars already loaded up with weapons, so we chose our best-trained men and headed out.

We had two SUVs full of guns, ammo, and various explosives, along with surveillance gear if it looked like we needed to use stealth once we arrived. It all depended on how heavily our enemies had Katie guarded, something we wouldn't know until we were practically right on top of them. Lev drove one vehicle with two highly trained snipers, I was barreling down the highway in another with three guys who were good with explosives as well as their fists, and Max had met up with our convoy with some of his best shooters and more firearms.

As we raced toward our destination, I received a text message from an unknown number, different from the one Katie had called on. I clicked on it, glad I had let Lev talk me into not driving, though my driver wasn't going nearly as fast as I would have liked. My brother thought we'd get there sooner if none of us were stopped for speeding violations since the desert roads were rife with traffic stops.

The message opened to reveal a picture, and my hand tightened around the phone.

I took slow breaths as I looked at Katie's bruised face, her body curled up in a corner on a filthy concrete floor. For a moment, the rage that coursed through me was a welcome distraction compared to the fear that quickly followed. Was she still alive? Were they taunting me with her lifeless body?

They wouldn't dare.

Before I could let out the primal roar that was building in my throat, the phone rang with the same number. I answered it immediately in a voice anyone sane would have cowered upon hearing.

"Your wife is still alive, Fokin."

It was the head of the Armenian organization, sounding far too smug. "That should be a given if you want to survive this night," I told him.

"I don't think you're in a position to be giving threats," he said. "Not if you want to see her again."

It occurred to me that he was operating under the assumption that I had no clue about where they were keeping her. That I wasn't already halfway there.

"Tell me where she is, and we can forget this ever happened," I said, testing my theory.

He laughed. "Not so fast. First, you have to agree to a few things."

I held back my own laugh. He must have thought I was still at home biting my fingernails. "Tell me what you want," I said, pretending to go along with him.

"Meet me in three hours, or else you'll never see her again." He paused, letting out a sinister chuckle that made me want to twist his head off his neck. "I'm not saying we'll kill her, but I guarantee you she won't be having a good time. Every minute you're late is a minute she'll be suffering."

I muted the call and asked the driver what our estimated arrival time was. We had already eaten up a good distance and he answered that we'd be there in less than an hour. I unmuted the call.

"Fine, Send me the location," I said.

I finished by telling him I'd agree to whatever he wanted to keep him thinking we didn't know anything, all while imagining his painful demise at my hands. I stayed silent as he taunted me some more and threatened Katie's life again if I didn't show up, then ended the call thinking I was good and cowed. I told my driver to go faster now that we had a ticking clock to get there and rescue her before the meeting. We would arrive with time to spare, but we still had no idea what was waiting for us.

Lev called me from his car, to tell me that he had someone looking at maps of the area.

"There's no tactical way to get close to the house without them knowing we're coming. It's at the end of a long stretch of road."

"We'll have to go in hot," I said.

"Blind as well," he replied. "It's a risk since we don't know what they're working with. But there's a turn off before the main road. It'd be less than a mile on foot to come up to the back of the place."

"I'll do it," I said.

He didn't bother arguing as there was no point. In cases like this, it was usually Lev, my second in command, who'd scope out the severity of such situations. I was the head of the organization—protect the king was the underlying thought, at least until we knew what we were up against. But it was Katie this time. I didn't spare a single thought for anything but getting her out of there. No one could be trusted to care as much as me.

Our three vehicles pulled off at the meeting point where the road split, and I got out and armed myself with two guns, a knife strapped to my ankle, and a couple smoke grenades.

"Give me fifteen minutes," I said. "If you don't hear from me by then, go in with all you've got."

Lev and Max solemnly clapped my shoulders, Lev, with muttered words of good luck, and Max looked pissed that I wouldn't let him go with me. He had been pissed his whole life that I was a much faster runner than him. Now was not the time to be slowed down, no matter how well-meaning he was in wanting to help rescue Katie.

"I want to actually meet this girl who's got you twisted inside out," he said.

I nodded and took off running flat out down the scrub trail, silently promising both of us that it would happen. I only slowed my pace when the roof of a shack came in view, then crept up behind it. It was little more than a tool shed, and looked like a stiff wind could blow it over. There had been no one on the trail, and as far as I could tell, there was no one at the end of the driveway leading to the road my brothers and their men would be racing toward in the next few minutes.

I still had no idea what our enemies had set up on the road, though, and didn't want my brothers getting bombed to smithereens. I sent Lev a message to add five more minutes to my allotted time. Not bothering to wait for his reply, I snuck back around and pressed my ear to the rough wood walls. Moving silently, I listened for any sign of life inside. At one corner, I heard Katie moan in pain, and then, pressing my ear close to a crack between the slats, I heard men's voices. At least two. The place was tiny. It couldn't have been more than that.

I tapped twice at the corner where I heard her and waited with my breath trapped in my lungs. I tapped again, hoping she'd hear and respond. If she could. She might be barely conscious. I was pulling out one of my smoke grenades, ready to clear the shed that way, when I heard her speak.

"I'm going to be sick again," she said frantically. "Please, it's urgent." She made retching noises, pleading with them to help her up.

A moment later, I heard the door slam open. I hurried to the side to see one of them tossing her out front. She landed on her knees, catching herself with cuffed hands as if she was a pro at falling out of sheds by then. No sooner had she hit the gravel drive, than I jumped out of my hiding spot and dragged her behind the shed.

There was no time to make sure she was all right, or even to see if she recognized it was me. I rushed back around and kicked open the door, taking the one who was leaning against the inside of the frame out at the knees. Another was sitting at a table a foot or so away, and I landed a kick to the back of his head, knocking his face into the flimsy table and collapsing it. The first one reached for his gun, but I already had mine aimed at his forehead, and I could hear my brothers' vehicles storming down the road.

"Better not," I said, pressing the end of the gun barrel between his eyes.

Lev, Max, and their men had the place surrounded within the next minute, and I left them to disarm and tie up Katie's kidnappers.

"Keep them alive for now," I said, making sure they heard me emphasize that they were now operating on borrowed time. "A simple bullet is too easy for them."

I raced to where I'd dropped Katie, finding her sitting in a pile of tumbleweeds, her hands wrapped around her knees and her face hidden. I lightly touched her shoulder, and she scrambled away.

"It's me," I said.

She stopped and looked up with big eyes. The bruise on the side of her face was already purple and swollen, and her hair fell in tangles against her ripped jacket. With a sob, she lunged at me, wrapping her cuffed hands around my neck.

My arms circled her waist and pulled her close. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head against my shoulder. "Not too much." Then she burst into tears. "Oh my God, you found me. You really found me."

"Of course," I said, calling for someone to find me the keys to her cuffs. "That was brilliant, pretending to be sick to get out."

She nodded once, then shoved away from me, leaning over to heave her guts out for real. "I might have a concussion," she said when she was finished. She wiped away her tears and made a sour face. I promised her there was cold water in the car as I searched her for signs of other injuries.

Lev came out with the handcuff keys, and I got them off of her, tossing them as far as I could. She smiled weakly and cradled her wrist, which was also bruised and swelling pretty badly. I was rethinking my decision not to kill the two men right away, but she put her arms around me again, snuggling in close.

"I was dreaming that you'd come, and for a second, when I heard the tap, I thought it was my imagination. I'm so glad it's really you."

"It's really me. Now, let's get you out of here and checked out at a hospital," I said.

"No, I don't think anything's broken," she told me shakily. "I just want to go home."

"Then that's what we'll do," I told her, gently kissing her unbruised cheek. "I'll have my private physician come look you over, though. No arguments."

She sniffled, and I stood, reaching down to help her get to her feet. Her legs wobbled, and she swayed against me. After two steps toward the cars circling the shed, she went down like a stone.

"Katie," I shouted, dropping beside her to check for a pulse. I patted her cheeks, and she groaned but didn't open her eyes. I shouted again, but couldn't wake her.

Just when I thought it was over, it was getting worse. I picked her up and ran for one of the cars, yelling for someone to get us to the nearest hospital. Loading her carefully into the backseat, I climbed in with her to cradle her head on my lap.

"You're going to be fine," I whispered to her.

Lev jumped into the car and careened back down the long, empty road to find someone to save Katie while I held her close to keep her from being jostled. All thoughts of revenge were far from my mind as I silently commanded her to stay with me.