AFTER SACHA LEAVES, Evie tries to scramble out of the room.
“Stay where you are.”
Her shoulders tense, but she has the sense not to leave.
All her lies, all these lies… I tighten my grip on the files before I throw them down on the couch.
The impact isn’t loud, but Evie flinches.
“You looked afraid when you saw Sacha.”
Evie had been chewing her lip and now stops and shakes her head.
She’s afraid. I can see it. She’s also lying.
“The conversation you had with Igor, what exactly was it?” I ask her and step closer.
“I told you, I was in shock.”
“Try to remember, Evie,” I bark, stepping closer and clapping my hands once. Making her understand that she needs to focus.
Her eyes fall to the floor. She won’t look at me, and I stop walking. Irritation tightens my fists.
“If you don’t help me, I will never find those girls.” The moment Evie notices my clenched fists, I unclench them. “Right now, they could be raped.”
Denial has her shaking her head.
“Someone could be beating them. Torturing your sisters. I know what I would be doing.” I allow my gaze to drag across her frame.
Her jaw tightens, but her bottom lip still drags down.
“Or…” I open my hands wide. “They could be dead somewhere, and that would be on you.”
Her eyes widen and glaze over; she’s shaking her head repeatedly.
I can see her folding. I’m close to breaking her.
“You are preventing me from closing this case because you keep lying to me. So what did you tell Igor?” I ask.
She wavers before her hands dangle at her sides in defeat. I hate breaking her down like that or placing those images in her head, but she needs to start helping me.
“That I was sick in the bathroom, and when I returned to my room, everyone was gone, but I heard Leah screaming.” She blinks, and tears fall. Her shoulders are raised high like she can protect herself from the fear that’s closing in and clouding her blue eyes.
“Okay.” She’s telling the truth to me now, and that means she lied to Igor. I understand the fear I see growing in her gaze.
“So what were you really doing in the loading bay?” Was she there to draw the security away from their stations around the boat? Was she part of this? Her fear seemed legit, but her want to find the girls she grew up with was questionable.
She closes her eyes, and more tears fall. Her hands are curled into small fists.
Pavel is watching her like he wants to hug her. His eyes are filling with pity, and I want to strike him and tell him to man up.
He notices I’m staring at him, and some of the pity flees from his gaze, but not enough to satisfy me.
“Go do something useful,” I bark at him, and he leaves. Evie’s eyes snap open at my raised voice.
“I was trying to escape. I thought I could hide in one of the crates, but I couldn’t get it open.”
“That was stupid of you.” I’m moving closer. The anger at how close she would have come to death fuels my veins and propels me toward her. “You would never have gotten out of there unnoticed.”
“I had to try.” Each word is said with pain. “You must understand that. I was trapped.”
I had grown up in confinement, in a camp that trained us to be the best we could be. Most boys there didn’t want it. We all started at the age of six—most of us kids. I’d seen so many piss their trousers or call out for their mothers. I was glad to be trained by the best. I wanted to be an assassin. I wanted this life. That’s what made me the best. We were beaten when we didn’t perform up to their standards, but that’s what turned boys into men. Soon, the thumps were welcomed to see exactly what your body could tolerate.
The thought of Evie being beaten leaves a whole different feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Why? Were they hurting you?” I ask. It shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t be asking, but I need to know.
She flinches in confusion, and her brows drag down over her blue eyes. “No, but I didn’t belong there. They took me from my home.” Her lip trembles, and I don’t like how her words are making me feel.
She looks ready to burst out of her skin, and I move closer and click my fingers three times in front of her face. Her gaze focuses on my fingers. She steps backward at each harsh click.
“Stay focused,” I bark. “So you were hiding in the loading bay, then what?”
“One of the security was in there. I think just doing a routine check. His radio buzzed, and it was Sacha calling all security to the loading dock.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” I ask, but I already know she’s telling me the truth.
“Yes. He sent them there, and they all died.”
Evie appears exhausted at the confession. I can’t understand why I was being lied to or what Sacha could gain from this. Was it the girls?
“Did Sacha see you at all?”
She looks away from me and bites her lip while shaking her head. “No. But I saw him in the hallway. He called my name. He was looking for me.”
I’m being set up. Now the only person I can get information from just left the building.
“What are you going to do?” Evie’s words drag my attention back to her.
“Are you going to tell Igor?” Fear stretches her neck, the pull visible along her creamy skin.
I ignore her and turn to Michail, who has remained quiet the whole time, but I know he’s taking in every word, along with Pavel.
“This information never leaves this room.” I speak over my shoulder. My men are loyal, but this was way over my head. I had no idea how high up the deceit went. Igor couldn’t be involved. He wouldn’t risk his neck like that. I don’t think he would anyway.
I turn to Michail. “None of it.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Yes, boss,” Pavel echoes.
“Find out where Sacha is,” I tell Pavel, and he leaves at my request. I turn back to Evie, who watches me.
“Are you going to tell Igor?” she repeats.
I have no intention of telling Igor the truth. That isn’t required of me. The only job I have is to find the girls and return them. That’s all I would focus on. I push aside the fact that I’d hate to see anyone hurt Evie. I don’t even know her, but something about her calls to the beast inside me not to hurt her but to protect her.
“I don’t know,” I lie. “You could have made this a lot easier if you hadn’t lied so much.”
“You have no idea what happens to us.” She’s moving closer to me like we can share this moment.
It’s a dangerous thing for her to think, and I need to end it now. I grin at her, making her stop. “Once again, you have this notion that I care.”
Hurt flickers across her beautiful face. She looks up in Michail’s direction, and color enters her cheeks. She’s not just naïve sexually, but there’s such an innocence about how the world works in her eyes that it makes me care when I really shouldn’t.
She grows silent for a moment. “Can I go to my room?”
I don’t want her to be alone, but I also don’t want to be around her much longer. She’s forcing me to see her as more than a means to an end. An end that will come, and then what?
“Yes, go ahead.”
She leaves, and I watch her until she disappears into her room. I wait a beat more before I turn to Michail. “How long was Sacha here?”
“Five minutes max.”
“Did he ask any questions?” I enter the kitchen area and pour myself a drink. The vodka doesn’t help the unsettling feeling coursing through me. It’s one thing to give me a target. I would watch them, learn their movements, and remove them when least expected. That’s what I do. It could take me hours, days, or even weeks, but I never got impatient. This situation is making me unsettled.
“Yeah, he wanted to know if Evie was here.”
I nod. Of course he did. He must be afraid she saw something. I reopen the roster and go through the names. He isn’t on it. He had a part in all this, and I want to know exactly what it was. I have two more drinks before I return to the couch and go through the remaining files. The loading inventory is mundane and, once again, a fabrication of what the ship was really transporting.
I have no idea how much of the roster is true, apart from the fact there were ten security men dead. They were the only ones that I could say with certainty were on the ship that day. The rest I had to disqualify. As for the autopsy, Evie saw the darts, she said they were drugged, and I believe her. Each one had a prick mark on their necks.
I lay the fabricated files down beside me and finish my drink.
Pavel is quick to find out Sacha’s home address and forward it on to me. That’s where Sacha is now. He left my home and went straight to his own, which is perfect for me.
Leaving Evie makes me feel uneasy, but Michail won’t disappoint me again, and I’ve left him personally responsible for her. He knows if anything happens, I’ll have his head for it.
I don’t take the limo but my own personal vehicle. She hums to life, and I love the feel of the Astin Martin as I pull out of the underground car parking. I only use her for jobs, and she brings back a feeling I always have of contentment, and also, it’s a reminder of the purpose I have.
Going to Sacha’s will allow me to flex old muscles that feel abandoned.
I arrive at the address Pavel gave me. The house is like cubes stacked on top of each other. It’s all glass and steel. To some, it would be stylish. To me, it looks more like a cold box.
I get out of my car, which I’ve parked on the opposite side of the road. Most gates have cameras on them, and I don’t want Sacha to know it’s me. Keeping my head down, I jog across the road. The moment I reach the gate, I take my gun out. The overhead cameras have been shot out, the glass cracked, and no lights are blinking.
The gates are still sealed, but I scale the low wall easily and land in the front garden. I see three more cameras all shot out.
Fuck.
I move to the partially open front door, then push it fully open with my foot and wait a moment. There’s no sound, and I enter with my gun raised. The inside is as cold as the outside. Gray slates under my feet meet gray walls that I move alongside. There’s no furniture to obstruct my movements. I round the corner and come face-to-face with Sacha. He’s in a large armchair, his throat sliced from ear to ear. His white shirt is coated in a river of red. Whoever did this is most likely gone, but I do a sweep of the house to make sure I’m alone.
I am.
I check Sacha’s pockets for his phone, but it’s already gone. He has no wallet on him either. I check the side of his face for a red lump like I saw on the other security men, but there isn’t one there. They didn’t have to drug him to kill him. The fact his throat is slit tells me the same people who are keeping him silent are the ones that attacked the ship.
Movement out the back window catches my attention. The back lawn is scattered with trees, but among them, I see a flash of black. I withdraw my gun and move slowly to the back sliding door. The beauty of new homes means everything is soundless. The sliding door opens seamlessly, and I step out onto the manicured lawn. The black silhouette still hasn’t moved any further away. Four trees separate us, and I move quickly until I am at the opposite side of the tree he leans against.
“Target is down, but I think The Handler has arrived. Copy.” His words are deep in his throat, and I reach around and squeeze his esophagus before moving around the tree. I don’t let him go as the air is cut off from his lungs. His shock slowly wears off, and I bring the butt of the gun down on his head. Releasing him, he slides to the ground. I take the piece out of his ear.
I can hear someone breathing on the other side.
“Dima?”
“Dima?”
I listen to the background noise to see if I can hear others, but it’s just the one voice.
The line goes dead, and I glance down at Dima before I leave him lying on the ground and move silently from one tree to the next. I need to make sure that no one else is here.
No one else is here, but they will come soon. Whoever he was talking to would send men, especially now that they know it’s me. I return to Dima and drag him up off the ground before slinging him over my shoulder and carrying him to the wall.
I could slip inside and open the gates, but instead, I fling him over the small wall. He hits the ground hard, and a groan has me hopping the wall and picking him back up.
He fits into the trunk, and I slam it shut. I should check the cameras, but time is running out, and I hope to get some information out of this guy. That’s what I do, after all.
Leaving the cube house behind, I dial the penthouse—the phone rings. No one answers. I know something is wrong. I dial Michail’s private number, and it continues to ring. I ring both of them again, but still no answer.
Fuck.
Pushing my foot down on the peddle, I race back to the penthouse. I shouldn’t have left her. Not after her telling me that she recognized Sacha and he was a part of this. He must have made a final phone call saying she was with me before they killed him off. Whoever took all the other girls was tying up any loose ends.
I park in the underground basement and leave Dima in the trunk. He’s awake, banging loudly on the trunk. If I don’t shut him up, he’ll draw attention. I open the trunk; he’s ready to leap out. I slam my fist into his face several times, and he curls up to protect himself. But I don’t stop until his body stills. His chest still rises and falls, but I hope he stays silent for a while.
The ride up to the penthouse takes far longer than it ever has. I don’t take out my gun, but it’s ready for when I need it. Instead, I open the control box and disable the elevator once I arrive at the top floor. Whoever is here won’t be leaving. With that thought, the doors open.