Bogdan takes advantage of their distraction and sends both his elbows slamming into the men on either side of him.
One lurches forward. The other crumples back.
He spins around and gets to his feet, stealing the gun off the man on his right and ending them both with one clean shot.
“Where is she?” I yell as the crack of gunfire rings in my ears.
“I’m sorry, Isaak,” Bogdan says, looking ashamed. “They came in through the back. There were five or six of them.”
I quickly glance behind him. The waiters are all clustered together at the door to the kitchen. The blonde boy with the stutter is slumped against a wall, bleeding from a shot in the thigh.
The others looked shell-shocked, though uninjured.
But they’re all here. All left behind.
Which means they came after her specifically.
And I know why.
“Which way did they go?” I demand. “Bogdan, which fucking way did they go?”
“That way,” he sighs, pointing to the delivery entrance. His voice crackles with failure. The kind we were both taught never to accept.
I don’t waste any time. But when I burst out into the trash-strewn alleyway behind the restaurant, I know I’m too late.
The car at the mouth of the alley revs its engine. Tires squeal. And then it’s gone, ripping away into the night.
At the very edge of my perception, I could swear I hear a woman’s scream.
“Fuck,” I yell over the sound of incoming sirens. “Fuck!”
Vlad appears at the steps of the restaurant. “We gotta get outta here, boss,” he says urgently. “The cops will be here soon.”
I bite back my fury. But he’s right—we have to go.
As I run back to my G-Wagon and peel off into the night, it takes everything I have not to go fucking apoplectic.
Maxim doesn’t realize what he’s started now. He doesn’t realize the doom he’s unleashed on his own head.
In taking her, he’s just signed his own death warrant.
Isaak Vorobev does not forget.
5
Camila
I hear something being dragged across the floor. It pierces my ears like nails on a chalkboard.
I wriggle around on my back, trying to find a comfortable position without any real hope. The mattress is too thin. It reeks like rotten cabbage and decay.
I swallow hard against the dryness of my throat. It’s been hours since I was last offered water. The tall glass I’d chugged felt more like a thimble.
And food… When was the last time I ate? The dull gnawing in my stomach has turned from painful to desperate.
The only consolation is that I don’t need to use the toilet. Because the odor emanating from the forlorn commode in the corner of the cell makes the mattress scent seem like perfume.
Who knows how much longer that little holdout will last, though? It’s been at least a day and a half since I was dragged out of the restaurant by armed thugs. The only way I can track the passage of time is through the tiny slit at the upper corner of the cell. I’ve watched the sun come up and then die twice now, with no one interrupting my solitude.
No matter how much I scream.
I’m still wearing the black dress I’d picked for my date with Reggie. I almost want to laugh when his name pops up in my head. It feels like another lifetime, a half-forgotten dream. I thought I had problems then? Hilarious. Ridiculous. Depressing.
I close my eyes and rest my head on my forearms. The blur of light and shadow on the back of my eyelids takes shape.
And of course, it forms him.
Blue eyes. Broad shoulders. Dark, tousled hair.
It makes me angry. Did the man who got me here have to be so fucking sexy?
The crank of a lock sends me bolting upright. But the sudden movement makes my head whirl. I’m forced to put my face back in my hands and wait for the dizziness to pass.
I hear a shuffle of movement. There’s the faint click-click-click of heels on tile.
I raise my gaze and try to blink through the dizzy spell, but the morning light is making everything blurry. Or maybe each of my senses is giving up on me one by one.
“You don’t look great.”
I freeze at the unexpected voice. Not a man’s. But a woman, with an exaggerated sense of calm.
“W… who are you?” I stammer. I can make out her vague, distorted outline.
“A friend,” she answers mildly. “Goodness, it stinks in here.”
She stays pressed against the back wall as far away from me and the stench of the disgusting toilet as she can get. I’m blinking away the last of the dark spots in my vision when she wraps a silk scarf around her face to ward off the stench.
My stomach gives a rumble so loud that she hears it, too. “You must be hungry,” she remarks with a chuckle. Despite my best efforts, I start to hope. Is she here to help me? “Thirsty, too, I imagine?”
But even if it weren’t for the sunlight filtering through the slatted opening, she’s too far back, hidden among the shadows, and the scarf is tucked around her face. All I can see are her eyes.
She’s wearing a flowing blouse in a soft lavender. Her pants are dark, but they too flow like silk. The overall impression is someone refined, someone wealthy.
One thing I know for sure: she doesn’t belong here.
But then again, neither do I.
“Please,” I whisper, licking my cracked lips. I taste blood, but I ignore that. “Please let me go.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
My heart plummets even though I’d been preparing for that answer.
“I can, however, offer you something to eat and drink.”
It’s not freedom. But it’s not death, either. I’ll take it.
“Please,” I say with a desperate nod. “Please…”
“I’ll get those things for you in a moment,” she says. Her voice grows cold. “But first, I’d like to have a little conversation with you.” She must notice me shrink back, because she adds, “You don’t have to be scared.”
“Look at me,” I tell her, feeling my anger spark despite my fatigue. “Look at where I am. Of course I’m scared.”
“I won’t hurt you. I just have a few questions.”
If answering a few questions is all it takes to get me out of here, then I’ll answer as many as she wants to ask.
“Good girl,” she says when I nod and relax slightly. Her voice is soft, almost maternal. And yet it fills me with dread. Some vaguely inhuman quality skimming just beneath the surface.
“Do you remember what happened the night you were brought here?”
I bark out ironic laughter. “Yes,” I say. “I’ll never be able to forget it.”
For more reasons than one.
“Good. The man you were having dinner with. What was his name?”
“Isaak Vorobev,” I say instinctively, knowing his name will forever be imprinted on the inside of my brain.
“The two of you make a beautiful couple.”
I frown, but I don’t even think to correct her. I’m concentrating only on getting into her good graces so that I can drink a gallon of water and put out the fire in my parched throat.
“Sure. Thanks.”