With This Secret

With shaking hands, I pressed the play button.

A sharp command was being given in Russian. Then two men began to march towards the girl.

“Don’t come near! Don’t fucking touch me!” she screamed in English.

My jaw dropped and my heart seized. Aldie … Jesus Christ. The bound girl with the bag on her head was my Aldie!

One of the men pulled the bag away from her head and like a striking snake, she threw herself forward and sunk her teeth into him. He roared with pain and fury. What followed was a slap so heavy it flung her across the floor. She screamed, and the sound went right through me. I had never heard her scream before. My hand reached out to the screen in despair as I watched her lay there, unmoving while my other hand rushed to cover my mouth.

What if that brute had broken her neck?

Then I saw her move and a whimpering sound rose from her prone body. The man came back and grabbed Aldie roughly by her hair. He jerked her head up mercilessly and held her in place whilst the camera began to move. All the men were masked so I couldn’t see any of their faces but hers.

Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.

Rapid Russian was blasted out along with wild, unrestrained laughter of the other men in the room.

Then the screen went black.

Oh, God! Aldie.

23

Levan

“Do we need to visit the hospital?” Yuri asked, as we reached the gates.

I met his gaze in the rearview mirror. Removing the blood-soaked face towel from my nose, I noted the way it was swollen and quickly becoming blue-black, but I was so hyped up I didn’t feel any pain at all. “I’m fine,” I said and leaned back.

Alex in the passenger seat beside Yuri turned, concern in his gaze. “Your nose is definitely broken. Let’s make a quick stop.”

“No! What we need is to find Bogdan now. He’s confident that Aldie is more than enough leverage, but what he doesn’t know is that Maxim is on his trail and he doesn’t give a shit about her. If Maxim gets to him before we do … Aldie will become collateral damage.”

“We’ve been searching for Bogdan since he took the child and we’ve had no luck,” Yuri said. “And anytime we get a lead, he seems to somehow slip out of our sight again, the fucking bastard.” Yuri looked ashamed to make this admission.

“Maxim has eyes on everybody that needs to be monitored,” I reminded my men. “Unless Bogdan is a ghost, Maxim will be able to locate him within the hour.”

The silence in the air grew suddenly heavy and I immediately understood why. It was perhaps even harder to find my brother unless he wanted to be found.

“How do we find the boss?” Alex asked quietly.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and searched through it for my brother’s tracker. We had had enough scares as a family over the years, and after my last near death dance with bullets, he had put trackers on all of us. Everyone in our family wore a ring with our family insignia of a cross, an anchor, and a heart engraved into it. It was also equipped with a homing device.

“Greenwich Village,” I said. “106 Macdougal Street.”

“Got it,” Yuri said as the gates closed behind us.

As the car sped on, I looked at the address again. It was quite familiar, but I couldn’t place why. I lifted my head and looked at my men. “Do any of you know this place?”

“I do,” Yuri answered. “It’s Arturo’s Mexican restaurant, El Parador.”

“Arturo Guzman?”

“Yes,” Yuri replied. “He has an underground hideout there for any dealings which Maxim ensures stays off grid.”

I scowled. “New York is my jurisdiction. Why am I just hearing about this?”

“It all happened way before you officially joined operations. When we were still on the streets with Gennady. Then Arturo and I used to work for Maxim. Arturo took a bullet for him once and Maxim has helped him out ever since then.”

In half an hour, we arrived at the street. Yuri slowed down a few yards away from the Mexican restaurant. Despite the ungodly hour of 2:53 a.m., the streets were still bursting with people in the neighborhood. Jazz bars and comedy venues still welcomed patrons while prostitutes both male and female casually strolled down the street.

“Don’t go too close,” I warned.

“No, boss,” Alex said, stopping near a Mongolian bakery.

“Arturo has spies almost everywhere in the country,” Yuri said. “If anyone can find Bogdan, it’ll be him.”

A few minutes later a few figures appeared from behind the Mexican grill and I instantly recognized the tall erect figure of my brother. In his expensive dark suit and buzz haircut, he stood out in this scummy neighborhood.

He spoke quickly to the shorter man whom I assumed was Arturo, while the other group of three men went ahead and jumped into the waiting SUV. Maxim ended his brief chat and got into the car.