The last time Dimiv had been in the States was for the funerals. He brought his wife, Dagmara, who was pregnant with their oldest at the time.
“I can’t,” I admit. “Eight years. Fuck.” I glance towards him. “I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch more.”
He waves away my apology. “Fuck that. We don’t need to keep in touch. We’re family.”
I smile. Dimiv has always had my uncle’s sense of loyalty, fierce and unapologetic. It was a bitter loss when he announced to us that he was moving to Russia.
“When are you coming back?”
Dimiv rolls his eyes. “Not this again.”
“You’re needed here. Nikolai and I could really use a man like you.”
“Clearly—I’m a catch, man. But I’ve got a good life in Moscow. The wife’s happy living near her folks. And the boys… Russia is the only home they’ve ever known.”
“If they ever get curious about the States, send them over. I’ll take care of them.”
Dimiv nods. “How about first, we take care of the motherfucker who took Polina?”
My jaw clenches in agreement. “I like the sound of that.”
“Fair warning: based on the dirt I dug up about this Drozdov fucker, he’s nothing but a middleman. He buys girls in the rings and then sells them to wealthy foreign fucks. It’s likely that Polly isn’t at this location. But I’m hoping that there may be someone there who can tell us who Drozdov sold her to.”
“She’s there,” I growl. “I can feel it.”
From my peripheral vision, I can see Dimiv looking at me with a sympathetic expression. I know I probably sound delusional, but blind hope is all I have at the moment.
It’s all any of us have.
The minutes tick past and soon, we’re pulling off the highway. My body is tight with tension. I’m holding the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles have turned white.
“How’s Lev?” asks Dimiv.
“Trying to distract me?”
“Yes. I do genuinely want to know. But yes, I’m trying to distract you.”
I chuckle quietly. “It’s a long story. Same as always in many ways: same hardships, same breakdowns. The nightmares, the paranoia. But in other ways, he’s doing better. Mostly because of Alyssa.”
“Could this be the girl you’ve been seen out and about with?”
I glance at him with raised eyebrows. “You’ve heard of her?”
He nods with a wry grin teasing up one corner of his mouth. “News carries fast and far when you’re the pahkan of a powerful Bratva, cousin. You being seen with her more than once put her on the map. And I keep my ears to the ground.” He rubs a hand across his unshaved chin. “I’m assuming she’s well protected?”
“Nikolai is with her.” I redouble my grip on the steering wheel. “You should know… she’s pregnant. Twins.”
Dimiv’s jaw flops open. “Fuck.” He punches my arm. “Congratulations, man! That’s great news. You are the father, right? You’re not shooting blanks?”
I throw him a dirty look. “Of course.”
“Just checking. We have to celebrate.”
I glance at the GPS. One more minute and we’ll be at our destination. “We will. As soon as we get Polly back.”
29
URI
It’s over almost before it even began.
I’m embarrassed for them.
We storm the two-story house from all four sides. A tide of Bratva force, bristling with black market weapons and the kind of violent bloodlust that only my soldiers know how to wield. Doors fall, men scream, blood spills.
We’re thirty-two strong and Drozdov has only a paltry dozen to defend his life, so scarcely five minutes after we launch the assault, he’s backed into a corner of the house, barricaded behind the corpses of the men who died to protect him, not that it did them any good.
I step over an oozing body and look down at the quivering coward.
“W-what do you want from me?” he stammers. His knees give way after he asks the question and he slides to the floor, limp and unresisting.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. “Answer the question, Drozdov. Because I know who you are.”
He trembles violently, his lips going as white as the rest of him. “I… I d-don’t know. Please just let me go.”
“I can’t do that. But what I can do is introduce myself.” I squat down so that I’m at eye level with him. “My name is Uri Bugrov.”
His eyes go wide, his face pale, and I smell the putrid stench of piss as the man’s pants darken in front. It just makes me crinkle my nose in disgust. “For someone who likes to buy and sell little girls, I’d have thought you’d be made of stronger stuff.”
“Listen—”
“No, you listen. You sold my sister. Polina Bugrov. Remember her?” When he doesn’t respond, I pull out a gun and press it to the center of his forehead. “I said, ‘Remember her’?”
“Y-yes. Yes! I remember. Please, God, don’t shoot.”
“Describe her to me.”
“G-g-ginger hair. H-hazel eyes. Freckles across the b-b-bridge of her n-nose.”
“And young,” I snap. “Don’t forget that. Who did you sell her to?”
“If I tell you, will you l-let me live?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you know and we’ll find out?” I press the gun harder to his forehead and he shivers as the cold metal grinds into his skin. Sweat beads around the tip like a little crown of diamonds.
“Oleg Agapov!” he gasps quickly. “P-please don’t shoot. I’ll d-do anything.”
“Oleg Agapov,” I repeat. The name sounds familiar.
“He came to me,” Drozdov says, talking fast. “Word got around that I had the girl and he entered the bidding war.”
“Bidding war?”
Drozdov’s eyes flit around the room. He’s the last one left. Every single one of his men lies dead or dying around him. “I s-sometimes like to draw out the bidding process. Take a week or two to drive up the price. Y-your sister was p-popular.”
“When was she sold to Agapov?”
“Y-yesterday.”
“Thanks for your cooperation.”
I lower the gun and he sighs in relief. But it’s short-lived—the sigh dies on his lips when I headbutt him so hard that his eyes go glassy before rolling back in their sockets.
Disgusted, I mop his sweat off my forehead as I rise back to my feet. “Gag and chain him. Load him up into one of the jeeps. He can join Alan and Sobakin in the shed for now. Where’s Dimiv?”
“Downstairs, boss,” Stepan answers, pointing me in his direction. “We found a hatch door leading to the basement. Dimiv was exploring.”
I walk down and make a left. A grimy carpet is rolled up to one side, revealing an open hatch door. I shimmy down through the narrow opening and descend the stairs to the space below. I have to crouch to move beneath the low ceiling.
“Dimiv? You down here?”
“‘Round the corner,” he calls back.