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Moscow, Russia
Thursday, 28 January, 7:03 a.m.
––––––––
A local operative met us at Sheremetyevo Airport. He had coffee and food waiting for us as we got into the Dartz Black Stallion Type-C. The vehicle didn't disappoint inside or out, and I wondered about the price tag, as it comes standard with bulletproof opulence.
"What is this?" I asked staring at the food in my hands.
"Pirozkhi," Aidan said. "You'll love it. It's like bread stuffed with a delicious savoury filling. Pirozkhi is considered a comfort food in Russian culture."
"I'm not even going to try to pronounce it." Aidan finished his breakfast as he sat to my right, Liam to my left, and Rowan riding shotgun. "Can you buy me a Dartz? We haven't discussed my fee for this job."
Aidan choked; me being a good wife, I patted his back. "It's going to take more than one job for you to earn this."
"If you were a loving husband, you would've bought me one instead of altering my new G-Class. A military grade civilian vehicle with this interior? Dude, do you not love me?" I downed my coffee, knowing I sounded like a brat.
Aidan patted my knee, wiped his mouth and drank his coffee. "We operate behind the scenes. A G-Class won't draw too much attention to you, whereas something like this, will. There aren't any in Marcel, or on our continent. I love you enough to make you appear normal when you're anything but."
I turned to face him as much as possible, pressing my back against Liam's shoulder. Liam didn't say a word. "Who are you to say what is or isn't normal? The concept of normality isn't measurable."
"Calm down, Miss Doctorates-In-Criminal-Psychology. I meant it as a compliment. If this is how you want to play, Williams-Walker, then let's do it. Is it, in your professional opinion, normal to look forward to torturing someone? Is it normal to not have stopped smiling since you opened your eyes? The first words you spoke were, and I quote, 'I'm going to do a blood eagle today'."
I felt my back against the ropes and remembered it was just Liam. If anyone can take on Aidan, it's me. "Is it normal to have shot a vehicle's tyre because you couldn't take the sight of your wife gathering valuable information? Will you consider it an everyday occurrence watching your wife flay the back of a paedophile? When I hold his lungs in my hands, will that be normal? And the best part is – I don't know who will enjoy it more, you or me. I saw you check the vials of adrenaline and whatnot in your backpack."
Aidan opened his mouth, but Rowan spoke first. "Bro, let it go. She's going to keep on schooling you, and it's no mystery why we all love Fin as much as we do. She's a mixture of a bloodthirsty beauty, filled with vengeance, and she has bigger balls than most of the men we've served with."
I grabbed the driver and passenger seats and lifted my bum into the air. Rowan turned to look at me and I planted a big kiss on his mouth. "I love you too." I fell back in the seat and patted Aidan's leg. "How far to Grandpa Jefferson's house?"
"Forty-five minutes," the local operative said. His name? Dmitry.
I glanced at the temperature display – minus twelve degrees Celsius. This, by far the coldest weather I've ever experienced, but also the most beautiful, especially as we drove out of the city centre. "Do you have enough adrenaline to shoot both of us up? And Jefferson? I think performing a blood eagle in the snow will be spectacular. Imagine the steam rising from his body as I slice him open. Blood droplets freezing even before it hits the snow-covered ground." I pictured it. Bliss.
Dmitry cleared his throat. "You're the one taking over from Heather?"
"Da. Why?" It surprised me how many basic words I knew in different languages. I even learned a few Polish words the night before. Ones I hoped to never use again. It would remind me of Piotr thrusting against me. Nausea threatened to overwhelm me, so I took a deep breath and focused on the snow-covered-everything outside the vehicle.
"Ryan warned me to never get on your bad side and instructed me to have food and coffee waiting when you arrive."
I laughed and patted Dmitry's shoulder. "Thank you again for breakfast and caffeine. Hangry and tired me isn't anyone's friend. Not that I'm feeling friendly today."
"You sound happy to me."
Rowan glanced at me over his shoulder. "Torture excites her. Aidan married his mother."
I punched his shoulder but took it as a compliment to be compared to the great Heather Walker. Ainsley couldn't be in better hands until Aidan and I returned to her.
Today I would avenge all the children who were preyed upon by the monster who hid behind the name Oleg Petrov. How long before Jefferson squealed? How much pain would it take before he told me how he had met Cora Fontanilla? The woman connected to the victims in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Da Nang. An art collector, philanthropist, and one of the wealthiest women in the world thanks to her late husband's estate. They never had children of their own.
Fontanilla's husband was pictured with Jefferson a few months before the latter's arrest in the USA. Cora had visited Moscow in December, a few days before Christmas. Eli found a photo of her and Oleg Petrov on her private Mybook social media account. Nothing is private, and people who think it is, are idiots.
A triangle formed. Cora Fontanilla's husband had been accused of molesting several children at an orphanage they built in Thailand. Bill Fontanilla and Max Jefferson were far more than mere acquaintances. They shared the same depravity. The same evil festered in both of them.
Bill had stopped breathing days after the authorities dropped their case against him. The police report states Cora found him hanging from a necktie, tied to the bathroom door's handle in the Bangkok hotel they had stayed in. A man his height couldn't have hung himself from a door handle or broken nine of his ribs in the process. Aidan had read the autopsy report and confirmed my suspicion. The medical examiner may have ruled it a suicide, but we knew better.
Perhaps Jefferson had made a run for it before he suffered Fontanilla's fate. Bill got off easy compared to what I planned for Jefferson. I will huff, I will puff, and I will blow them up. The C-4 loaded in the back of the vehicle would help with the blowing up part. My lungs ached after the previous night's cigarette.
"Control your breathing, Fin. Where did your mind go?" Aidan took both my hands in his and pressed his lips to my temple.
"It's a spider web. They're all connected. If not directly, there's a thin thread linking them. What if we can find evidence proving more of them are paedophiles? Destroyers of children who hand over victims to our killer, because our killer knows what they are." I shook my head. "Ivana gave birth to Piotr while she served in the BSS. The birth record Eli found has his place of birth as Poland. Who is his father? Why did Ivana train him? Or did his father train him?"
I wanted to scream. I needed to get out of the vehicle and shoot something, anything. The darkness flapped her wings with so much force, my thoughts were nothing more than leaves in an EF5 tornado.
Aidan glanced down at his mobile phone. "The question as to who Piotr's father is, is no longer a mystery. He's here, in Russia, staying at the Black Dolphin."
"Ivar?" Rowan asked. "Makes sense they would hide him since they weren't allowed to get married or have children. Who raised him then?"
"Eli is still digging. I told him to ask someone in his department to help. This is turning into much more than a serial killer who murders across borders, continents, and time zones."
"How did our killer find out they're paedophiles? I doubt he is a friend of theirs." I leaned my head against Aidan's shoulder and waited for his presence to calm the destructive storm raging inside me. We still didn't know how the killer got his hands on the victims in Malta, Budapest, Vienna, or Zurich.
I grabbed my phone and searched on the internet for Luciana Hernandez. The woman linked to the victims in Mexico and Argentina. "Something else is at play here. Luciana Hernandez's husband died a week after Jefferson disappeared."
Aidan removed his laptop from the backpack at his feet and handed it to me. I did what Eli does best. Five minutes later, more questions plagued me.
I stared at the autopsy report, shaking my head. A week after Jefferson disappeared, his criminal defence attorney died. The police investigated and compiled a list of potential suspects, only to delete it later from the case file. It's standard practise that all suspicious deaths are investigated, but why delete the information after the medical examiner had ruled it a suicide? A better question – why did the medical examiner rule it a suicide when Hernandez was a lefty and the gun had lain in his right hand?
I called Eli; I needed his help. He had taught me well, but I wasn't close to being at his level. In the time it would take me to slice, dice, and crack Jefferson, Eli could find the answers. For the time being, I didn't voice my suspicions.
The spider web kept getting bigger.