I spend the remainder of the ride screaming in vain against the duct tape while attempting to kick out the tail lights of the vehicle, hoping I might catch the attention of a passing driver at a stoplight or intersection. All I succeed in doing is wearing out my vocal chords and bashing my bare toes until they’re bruised and bleeding.
After a small eternity the brakes finally engage, slowing the vehicle to a stop. I flinch as I hear the sound of car doors opening, the crunch of boots on gravel as the Evanoffs make their way to the rear of the sedan. The trunk lid springs open and my eyes are immediately flooded by brilliant light from the sun blazing directly overhead. I blink away sunspots as I’m hauled out with all the gentleness of a farmhand tossing a bale of hay and slammed into a vertical position, the soles of my feet jolting hard against hot pavement.
My head is spinning and I’ve barely found my footing when a hand slams into the base of my spine. I careen forward like a rag doll, nearly face-planting onto the ground but catching myself at the last minute. For a second, I remain bent over as the world tilts around me — head bowed low, bound hands hanging by my knees. Hauling breaths through my nose in desperate puffs.
“Let’s go,” Lefty sneers, grabbing hold of my shirt collar and dragging me back into an upright position. “Now.”
“If you can’t walk, I’d be happy to drag you by your restraints,” Righty offers. I notice his accent is slightly thicker than his brother’s. Less polished. I wonder absently if he’s Viktor or Vladimir before a voice from the back of my befuddled brain reminds me it doesn’t matter.
They’re about to kill you, crazy pants. Who gives a crap what their names are?
They drag me away from the car, across the scorching hot pavement. I squint my eyes, trying to see where we are, but every time my head lifts one of them shoves me from behind again, sending me stumbling. I lose track of how many times I almost crash onto my face. They chuckle every time this happens, enjoying themselves quite a bit at my expense.
The little I can make out about my surroundings isn’t very helpful in narrowing down my location. I’m up on some kind of roof, judging by the flat expanse of poured concrete all around me.
The top level of a parking garage, perhaps?
No, that can’t be right. We’re not nearly high up enough for that. And there are no other cars anywhere in sight.
Where the hell are they taking me?
I’d ask, if not for the tape over my mouth. We reach a set of stairs and, evidently, even sociopaths have their limits when it comes to humiliation, because the Evanoffs stop playing their little Shove-the-Shelby game long enough for me to hobble down the steps. I keep my eyes on my feet to avoid falling face first down the flight, noticing belatedly that I’m leaving bloody footprints behind on the cement with each unsteady tread.
Funny. I can’t feel any pain at all.
At the bottom of the stairs we come to a shaded space, completely out of the hot sunshine. It takes me a moment to realize we’re now underground, standing in what appears to be the foundation of a large industrial building site. A project in the early stages of production, from the looks of it. Construction materials are littered everywhere, from cement mixers to excavation machinery to blasting explosives.
I guess this explains where they found the ingredients for their bomb…
Heavy steel beams lay in neat horizontal stacks, the bones of a building’s future skeleton. Fifty feet away, a half-poured elevator shaft rises upward out of the earth. I can’t help thinking it’s the picture perfect place to commit a murder.
No one around to hear your victim scream, and a pre-dug grave so deep no one will ever find the body.
A sudden sound from my left sends my head swiveling around— the sharp rap of approaching footsteps, echoing in the vast space like gunshots. My eyes drag from the source of the sound — a pair of ultra-shiny black shoes — up the navy suit, all the way to the heavily-bearded face of a man whose picture I have studied in so many case file photographs and FBI mugshots, I could probably draw it from memory.
He’s older than his pictures. His beard has gone gray, his dark eyes are slightly sunken in to his shrewd face. But it’s him. Of that, I have absolutely no doubt.
At my back, I hear both Evanoff brothers shifting on their feet, standing a bit straighter as their boss comes to a stop about ten feet away. His eyes are locked on my face, full of cold curiosity.
“Niece,” Alexei Petrov says in an empty voice.
I begin to shiver despite the hundred degree day. Of all the things I expected him to say to me, ‘niece’was not one of them. Hell, it wouldn’t rank even in the tophundredthings I expected him to say. (Mostly because I figured he’d pull out his gun and put a bullet in my head without sayinganything, but also because, last I checked, he wasn’t too pleased with either me or his nephew.)
His eyes move past me to the men standing at my back. “Why is she injured, Viktor?”
“Alexei…” Lefty sounds nervous. It freaks me out. I didn’t even think it waspossiblefor someone like him to get nervous. “We knew she would struggle when we removed her from the safe house. Rather than draw unnecessary attention… I thought it best we keep her silent for the journey.”
Alexei says nothing for a long time. He merely stares at Lefty — Viktor — as his nostrils flare with rage, until the man is practically squirming by my side. He physically flinches when Alexei takes a step forward.
“She is married to a Petrov,” he says in a searingly chilly voice. “You do not spill family blood without my permission.”
“I’m sorry, boss. After the beating you had us give her husband, I didn’t think you’d care if we roughed her up a bit…”
“My nephew is a separate matter. He stepped out of line and needed to be punished accordingly. However, I do not punish the innocent without cause.” Alexei’s eyes slide to mine. “I am not a monster.”
I could laugh.
Idon’t, since I value my life… But Icould.