I go back to Tito’s kitchen and call Aleksio again. I need to hear his voice, to know he’s okay. I don’t like that he’s out in the open while he’s grieving. This is a dangerous time. He assures me Tito’s on the fringes managing security.
Tanechka is back with a duffel bag. “Sit.” She sets it on the floor.
I sit. “What’s in there?”
“A surprise.” She gives me a kind look.
The kind look makes me stupid, and I sit.
In a flash, she grabs my arms and cuffs them to the metal chair back. I stand, chair and all, swinging wildly, trying to wrench free. I succeed only in smashing cupboards. She and Nikki grab the chair. They anchor me to the floor with their combined weight. Nikki cuffs each of my ankles to each leg as the dog barks. Then she tapes me.
Wildly I look up, yanking at my restraints. “What are you doing?”
“We need to take those women out of the brothel.”
“We have a plan for them!” I say. “We’ll have them out within the week. You can’t go now. You can’t do this.”
“You have most of the pipeline shut down. I’ve heard you. I am weary of your words.”
“Don’t do it.”
“We’ll call the police after we have the women out,” she says.
Nikki hauls a semiautomatic from the duffel, dark hair swinging around her shoulders. “How do you use this?”
“You don’t.” Tanechka takes it from her. “No killing.”
“You’re going to take that place down without killing anybody?” I say. “Without me? No. You can’t.”
“We can,” she says. “All that time when I was in there, I could’ve broken out of that little room at any time. I should’ve pulled those girls out weeks ago. I didn’t remember, but I do now.” She turns to Nikki. “You know where Tito keeps his toolbox?”
“Basement utility room. Last door on the left,” Nikki says.
Tanechka takes a 9mm from the pack and hands it to Nikki. “Watch him. Yell if he tries to get free. The chair won’t hold him; it’ll only slow him down.” Tanechka strolls out.
“This is suicide,” I say to Nikki once we’re alone.
“No talking.” She stands across the kitchen from me and studies the black glittery nails of her non-gun hand, hair falling once again in her eyes.
After a while, I nod at the 9mm in her hand. “You know how to handle one of those, but how well?”
She snorts and looks away. A brave front. The shape of her brave front shows me she is frightened.
“You can’t do this, just you two,” I say. “Tanechka’s feeling fucked up. She’s not thinking straight—she does big things when she’s upset. You and her can’t do this alone.”
Nikki flicks her hair from her eyes. “I’m not worried. Tito told me all about her.”
“Who got you out of there? Me. Not her—me.”
She just shrugs. The cool little street urchin.
“You didn’t even like her before.”
“I sure like her now.”
“You need to hear me. You need to trust me.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says. “That would hold more weight if you hadn’t tried to cut off Mira’s finger and kill your girlfriend.”
Tanechka’s back. She slings an assault rifle around her shoulder. “Hurry. The switchover time is soon.”
“What’s switchover time?” I ask.
“You are not in this.”
“Let me be in it. Let me back you up. Let us be a team. Let me take the dangerous parts.”
Nikki heads for the door with the duffel bag. “Tell Tito yo for me and whatever you do, don’t let the dog out.”
“Let me kill for you,” I say. “I’ll take it all on myself, all the darkness. Let me take it all on for you.”
Tanechka turns back, eyes shining.
“Some part of you wants to trust me,” I say. “Trust me, Tanechka.”
Her words are a whisper—“Too late.” She walks out and leaves me.
Wildly I jerk my arms, jerking at the joints of the chair. I can’t let her go—she really isn’t thinking straight. The chair is metal, but it’s held together with little screws. I only have to be stronger than those screws. I have to get out. I focus my mind on getting out, and not on the bleak reality of everything.
Because if I look too hard, I see Konstantin, our guiding light, dead in his foyer.
I see one brother bereft. My other brother in grave danger.
I see our Russian allies turning on us, becoming dangerous enemies.
And I see the woman I love, walking into a fight she can’t win.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tanechka
Our raid on the virgin brothel starts out well.
We park the SUV in the back, keys in, doors unlocked. I hotwire a van and get it running.
We get there with five minutes to spare before the guards have their staff meeting at switchover time—in a windowless room with a door that can be bolted from the outside. It was converted from one of the women’s room. The bolt they keep taped open. It will be so easy to imprison them. They’ll see how it feels.
We wait in the bushes at the front of the place. The staff room is the second door in the front.
“We have this,” I tell her. “These guards are soft, sloppy.”