And he does.
Somewhere between his whispered promise and the way he grazes his hand over my arm, I fall asleep. At first, there’s nothing but sweet oblivion. Exactly what I needed.
But then the nightmares come.
They all end the same way. With both Lev and Polly being yanked away from me. They’re dragged into the shadows by faceless hands and two Russian beasts emerge in their places. Their voices crackle like the wind and cast shadow monsters that seem to get bigger and bigger as they mutter a word that’s too low and indistinct for me to make out.
“No!” I scream but my voice is lost in the shadows. “No!”
“Alyssa.”
“Get away from me!”
“Hey, now. It’s okay. Shh.”
“Give them back to me! Please, God, just—”
“Alyssa.”
I gasp, my eyes springing open as those huge, talon-tipped shadow hands grab hold of me. No—not shadow hands. Uri’s hands.
His face hangs over me in the gloom, eyes bright, teeth white. “It’s okay. You were just having a nightmare.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t a nightmare. It actually happened to me,” I whisper gasp, holding on to him tight. “Those men… I remember them now… the ones who took Polly…”
Uri’s eyes go wide. “What do you remember, Alyssa?”
My heart is racing. There was something specific I remembered. Something I know is important. But it’s slipping away fast.
What word were they saying? They said it again and again in a voice like thunder, low and rumbling and so deep I felt it in my bones. Ommm… Dommm…
“Dominik!” I blurt suddenly. “They mentioned a name when they dragged her away. Dominik. That’s what they said.”
Uri’s expression is unreadable but the urgency on his face is evident enough—this is the breakthrough we needed.
He nods once, presses a kiss to my forehead and gets off the bed.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
He starts pulling on his clothes in a frenzy. Instead of answering me, he leans in again and catches my lips with his. It’s a hard kiss—forceful, passionate, full of promise. When he breaks away from me, his eyes are bright. “I’ll be back, okay?”
And with that, he’s gone.
26
URI
The door bursts open and Nikolai sweeps in. “Anything from Kruger yet?”
I’m staring down at my phone waiting for it to ring. “Nothing yet.”
He walks over to my desk but doesn’t sit down. His eyebrows are arched and his skin looks pale. “How did you get the name?”
“Alyssa. She had a dream a few hours ago and when I woke her up, she had that name on her lips.”
“No last name, though?”
“No, but I’m hoping this will be enough. Sit down.”
“I can’t sit,” Nikolai complains, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll self-combust if I sit still.” He goes to the window instead and looks out over the lawn. Apart from the recessed garden lights, everything is shrouded in darkness.
Ring-ring. Ring-ring.
I grab the phone and put it on speaker for Nikolai’s benefit. “Kruger?”
“I got two hits, boss,” he says breathlessly. “The first one is Dominik Drozdov. No one you’d have any reason to know. He’s a small-time hitman and gun for hire who’s been known to dabble in the rings from time to time.”
My teeth gnash together. “And the second hit?”
“Dominik Evanoff.”
I glance towards Nikolai, whose eyes are wide with surprise. “As in the pahkan of the Evanoff Bratva?”
“That’s the one, boss.”
My gut stirs uncomfortably. “Dig up whatever you can find about both men. I need to be sure which one we’re after.” After I hang up, I twist my swivel chair towards Nikolai who’s still by the window. “We’ve never had a problem with the Evanoffs.”
Nikolai nods in agreement. “They’ve always been happy to function on a lower scale, defer to you as the alpha.”
“Unless something has changed…?”
Nikolai shakes his head. “The Evanoffs do most of their work out of Russia. They’d never challenge us Stateside like this. That’d be ludicrous. Straight-up suicide.”
“I agree. But we need to make sure.” I pick up my phone and dial in a Russian number that I haven’t called since before Alyssa made an appearance on my fence.
“Privet, cousin,” Dimiv answers. “It’s been a while.”
“Unfortunately, this is not a social call.”
“I didn’t think so. Isn’t it the middle of the night in your neck of the woods?”
“Sleep is for the weak, dvoyurodnyy brat.”
“Tell me what is the matter. I will do whatever I can to help from here.”
“I need you to look into the Evanoffs.”
I hear the rustle of him moving in surprise. “Have they crossed you?”
No, but Nikolai crossing the room again and again will drive me insane long before the Evanoffs will drive me into an early grave. I breathe out and remind myself to focus. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Before I make my move, I need to be sure.”
“I’ll ask around. It will be handled; do not worry. If I may ask, what is it you think they’ve done?”
If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t have been willing to share. But Dimiv is more than a cousin; he’s been an ally through adventures thick and thin. “Polly’s been taken. She’s been sold into the rings.”
Another sharp intake of breath. “Fuck.”
“I have reason to believe she was sold to a man named ‘Dominik’ and now, I need to figure out which one.”
“What crazy mudak would have sold her to the rings?”
I rub my temples against the incoming headache. “Boris Sobakin.”
“That cunt?” Dimiv exclaims in shock. “Didn’t know he had the balls.”
“He’s got something better—a lack of weaknesses.”
“Everyone has weaknesses, cousin. It may not be obvious but there’s always one.”
His confidence is catching, which is good, because the initial excitement of Alyssa remembering the name is quickly fading away. I just feel fucking tired again. “Do me a favor and dig up whatever you can about Sobakin, too. Whatever you think might help me.”
“Got it. I’ll get to work immediately.”
He hangs up and Nikolai finally stops pacing, thank fuck. His dark undereye circles are getting to be as bad as mine are. “Is this it? Is that what brings her back to us?”
“I hope so,” I mutter. “If not, I might just have to kill that motherfucker in the shed.”
I notice the bruise on Nikolai’s neck from when I grabbed him earlier. We’ve given each other our fair share of wounds over the years. But we always come together at the end of the day when the stakes get high enough.
Blood is thicker than water. That matters now more than ever.
The sun is slowly creeping out of the sky as I get to my feet. “You need to get some sleep,” I tell Nikolai, slapping him on the back. It’s as close to an apology as either of us will ever get.
He eyes me for a while before he sighs and eases. “I will when you do.”
He heads back to his place and I take a detour to the kitchen to make a tray before going to Alyssa’s room. I walk in quietly, hoping not to wake her, but she’s conscious and sitting up in bed, clearly waiting for me.