“You kidnapped her?” the man called Rafael asked.
“Yes?” Pompadour suddenly sounded less confident than before.
There was another pause, longer than the last, and the tension mounted. Through the speaker, I could hear someone slowly exhaling, as though processing catastrophic stupidity in real time. I was somewhat of an expert on those, having been on the receiving end more than once.
“Do you have any idea who that is?”
“The Russian’s girl?” Angry Chihuahua repeated uncertainly.
The voice on the phone made a sound somewhere between a groan and a prayer. I winced in sympathy.
“You absolute morons,” he whisper-yelled. “Madre de Dios.”
The kidnappers shifted nervously around me.
“You kidnapped the woman belonging to one of the most dangerous men on this island,” the voice continued.
“But … You’rethemost dangerous man on this island,” Pompadour interjected, clearly confused.
“Oneof the most dangerous men and guess who’s right fucking up there with me, huh? I can’t believe this!”
Nobody spoke. Angry Chihuahua swallowed audibly and they exchanged nervous glances.
I leaned a little closer to the phone.
“In their defense,” I offered helpfully, “they seem a bit new at this but they’ve been doing good.”
The man on the other end ignored me completely.
“You’re going to fucking die,” he said flatly, “if we don’t find a solution to this right the fuck now. I’m not going to cover your ass.”
Chapter 35
Sasha
Thewarehousesmelledofsalt and diesel, with a faint hint of rusted steel. Pallets stacked high cast long shadows across the concrete floor. Sunlight slipped through the corrugated skylights, pooling in thin, dusty beams.
Usually, the scent of salt and machinery would ground me. Today, however, it felt like a cage.
I tapped the screen of my phone and Nikolai’s face appeared instantly, his eyes sharp and his features hard. The pakhan didn’t bother with small talk.
“Sasha,” he said, his voice clipped and precise. “Status?”
I leaned back in the creaking chair, the metal frame groaning beneath me. “Shipments are delayed again. Whoever’s doing this knows our rhythms, and it’s not random.”
Nikolai’s jaw tightened. “The local familia?”
“They’ve been probing us,” I said. “Testing weaknesses, delaying deliveries.”
He exhaled sharply. “I warned them not to provoke us. And yet, here we are.”
I didn’t argue. “Direct confrontation would be reckless. There are too many variables. We’d lose ground before we even started.”
“Then what?” he asked. “Tell me your plan.”
“We tighten security on the incoming routes. We’ll use secondary containers disguised as unimportant shipments. Rotate drivers. Monitor communications and leverage local contacts. Isolate their interference points without revealing ourselves.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “Risk?”