With This Ring

“Maxim’s missing,” he said.

Obviously he did not know more than me. “I know. I saw a picture of him. He was lying on a concrete floor with a knife in him, but he was still alive… then.”

“What?” Levan gasped, shocked.

“They wanted me to go with them. They said he would be killed if I didn’t go, but I knew they were only keeping him alive to get me to go with them. They needed me.”

Levan fell heavily into his chair and shook his head. “I don’t understand it. We had a clear plan. We had everything in place. Why did he tell his men to stand down and deliberately leave himself vulnerable to his captors?”

“For the same reason I was almost going to go with them,” I whispered. My knees began to wobble, but I couldn’t even think of sitting down. “So what do we do now?”

He stared at me, with a frown on his face.

“Levan, what do we do?”

“I don’t know. Maxim has a ring with a GPS tracker on it.”

I knew the exact ring he was talking about. “The one with an anchor a cross and a heart that he wears on his little finger?”

“Yes, that one.”

“Well?” I tried to control my tone before impatience got the better of me.

“There’s a problem. It shows its location as a hostel down in Harlem. We’ve sent our people, but he’s not being held there. The ring and his watch were inside a mattress on the fourth floor.”

“They were stolen?”

“More likely taken off him after he was captured. So we put it back and left. What we need now is to find the owner of that bed. No doubt he won’t leave things as precious as that there for too long. The moment he comes back for it, we will be able to capture him and make him lead us to Maxim. He is probably one of the hands that was hired to capture him.”

“What? So we just wait like sitting ducks?” I asked desperately.

“That’s all we can do,” Levan replied heavily.

I could feel my heart begin to sink.

Levan stood and began to pace the floor. “They probably wanted to use you to blackmail him.”

“To do what?”

“He’s probably been tortured, severely, but he has refused to do whatever they wanted so they came for you.”

I got up then, unable to contain my frustration. “Levan, what are you talking about? What do they want from him?”

“We already suspect who is behind this,” he said quietly, his face strangely hard. “If it is him then he would be looking for revenge or exoneration. With our influence we would be able to give him all the exoneration in the world he desires, but what good would that be to him if we will still have the power to hunt him down as soon as Maxim is free again?”

“That means…”

Levan’s face was black with fury. “He wants us to destroy ourselves. With our own hands. And after that he will kill Maxim.”

Someone burst into the office. He went to Levan’s side and whispered in such low, but rapid Russian that I could pick out only three words.

Found him. Shop.

“The man has returned to the mattress to pick up his items,” Levan explained to the room. “They have him captured now. I’ll head over immediately and get him to talk.”

I started to go with him but he turned and stopped me. “No, Freya. It’ll get gruesome.”

“That’s not a pro—”

“No, Maxim wouldn’t want that. It is better you remain here. The moment we find out where he is, I’ll let you know.”

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Maxim

I was on the floor leaning against the wall to keep myself upright, keeping my hands hidden when he returned. Their mistake was letting the chair I was tied to break. Once I freed myself from the chair I was playing a completely different game. What these fools didn’t know was plastic ties can easily be broken with a simple technique that a child can execute. A quick Google search would have told them.

Boris was so furious he almost took the door down. Two men followed him in. My mind automatically clocked the absence of the Albanian and wondered where he was.

“Ivanov,” he roared, but when he spotted me he burst out into hysterical laughter. “Your woman is quite the soldier. Better than you. The idiots I hired couldn’t get her.”

For the first time since I got that phone call, I breathed easy, even though it now meant that his focus would solely be on me. I would probably be killed any moment now. It didn’t matter much to me. As long as she was safe, and Levan kept her that way.

Boris grabbed the chair he had flung aside earlier and swung it at me. The impact seemed to knock the last bit of life out of me, but I knew enough to pretend my hands were still tied behind my back.