Chapter 34: Chapter 34

I pull out my phone and glance at the blank screen.

It’s been two hours since we talked, and Taylor still hasn’t texted me back. It’s not entirely about not getting a picture of her pretty little pussy, which I’m sorely missing right now—though I do want her to send that.

It’s that I haven’t heard from her at all.

Okay, she’s just come home from a long day. She needs to shower and relax—maybe even take a bath. Probably pour herself a glass of wine. And maybe she wants to…primp a little before she takes that picture for me, not that I’d give a solitary shit if she sent me those types of shots with her covered in dirt after spending a week in the woods.

Still, two hours is…odd.

Feeling like a complete idiot, I text Milos anyway, asking him to check in with the men on duty at the penthouse. He sends me a quick thumbs up emoji back, and I exhale into the darkness.

I put the phone away, making sure it’s still on silent before I glance over the top of the Jeep at the farmhouse set back from the country road. It’s always weird for me to be back in Serbia. I don’t hate it, but I don’t particularly enjoy the memories of war that come with it. I know Milos feels the same way—Zoran, too. He was also involved in those conflicts, though our paths never crossed then.

The farmhouse is where our intel has Vadik hiding out. I had every intention of storming in there myself. But Zoran—probably wisely—suggested I hang back and let him and his men do the initial breach. Just in case.

They’d better not kill the sneaky little shit hiding in the house, though.

My earpiece squawks.

“Boss,” Zoran mutters quietly in his heavy accent. “We’re ready.”

I can’t see them, because they’re in all black. But Zoran and three of my guys are right by the front and back doors to the farmhouse, ready to go in guns blazing.

“Just remember,” I growl. “I want him alive, Zoran.”

“Understood.”

I nod, peering into the darkness. It’s almost four in the morning, but the lights are still on inside the farmhouse. Our intel said Vadik was hiding out with only three of his men. They’re all dead in a ditch behind me from when we first snuck up on them.

“Okay,” I grunt into the mic. “Go.”

There’s a bang and a flood of light as Zoran and the guy by the front door kick it open and surge inside. I hear a crash, then the unexpected shriek of a woman’s scream.

There’s another crashing sound, and I start to run toward the house.

“Boss,” Zoran sighs in my earpiece. “I got good news and bad.”

Shit.

“Yes?”

“The good news is, he’s here. The bad news is, he’s fucking dead.”

My teeth grit as I close the distance to the house. “Goddammit, Zoran⁠—”

“It wasn’t us, boss.”

I frown. “What?”

“You can come on in. She’s unarmed.”

“He’s in the cellar,” Zoran grunts as I walk through the door to the farmhouse.

I nod, glancing around at the frankly breathtaking amount of blood everywhere. My gaze swivels to the blonde girl sitting on the couch in the living room, a blanket around her shoulders and one of my guys standing watch.

Polina. The girl who was there at the house the night Vadik drugged Taylor and me, and tortured me. I scowl at her, before remembering Taylor telling me how this poor young woman tried to help when everything was going down. How she tried to free Taylor before Vadik came back and dragged her away.

How she had clearly been abused by that fuck. The bruises Taylor saw when Polina’s foundation smudged.

Vadik’s body is downstairs in the basement. According to Zoran, it doesn’t look like he died recently. Maybe a day ago.

It also doesn’t look like he died…quickly.

But Polina doesn’t look horrified, like she’s witnessed a gruesome murder. She sits calmly and without emotion on the couch, staring straight ahead.

“Did she say anything?”

Zoran shakes his head. “Only ‘Don’t shoot. I already killed him’,” he says with a wry smile.

I turn back to Polina and walk over. I nod for my man beside her to leave us. Then I crouch down in front of her, meeting her gaze.

“Do you remember me?”

She nods. She looks tired and worn out. But otherwise, not bad.

“Of course,” she says quietly. “I’m so sorry about⁠—”

“You don’t have to apologize for anything,” I growl. “I know what happened. I also know you were as much a prisoner at that house as my wife and I were.” My eyes soften slightly. “She told me you tried to help her. You have my thanks for that.”

Polina smiles a little wider as she finally truly focuses on me.

“How is she?” she asks softly. “Your wife, I mean.”

I nod. “She’s fine. She’s good.” I clear my throat. “Polina, do you want to tell me what happened here? I’m not angry. In fact, you’ve arguably done me a favor.”

Not really. I would have vastly preferred to have taken Vadik to a hole somewhere and drawn out his suffering via drugs and painful but manageable infections and amputations over the course of months.

But it is what it is.

Polina frowns, turning to look over at the closed basement door.

“He liked to hit me,” she says quietly. “And hurt me. Your wife, Annika…” she swivels her gaze back to me, smiling a little. “She told me I shouldn’t let a man treat me that way. That I deserved to be respected.”

I smile to myself.

Yeah, that sounds like Taylor.

“So this time, when he hit me…I hit him back,” she says coldly. Her head turns, looking into the next room. Zoran found a bloodied metal spatula there—the kind you flip fucking pancakes with—lying on the floor.

“With the pancake thing,” she says. “In his throat.”

My brows lift as I glance around. It’s caked and dried now, but the blood is everywhere—splattered over the walls, windows, and ceiling. Soaked into the furniture and rugs. Pooled on the floor under smeared, bloody handprints on doorframes.

“He didn’t die right away,” Polina says quietly. “He…ran around a lot.” Her face darkens. “Like a chicken with its head cut off,” she spits. “I couldn’t get near him to cut him again. But when he ran past the basement door, I…” She looks away. “I pushed him down the stairs.”

“I hope the fall didn’t kill him,” I growl.

She shakes her head. “It didn’t.”

Good. Maybe I didn’t get to torture and skin him alive over the course of months. But at least the fucker didn’t get a quick death. He bled out slowly, probably with shattered bones, breathing in fear and darkness in a dank root cellar.

Rot in hell, Vadik.

Polina looks up at me with concern, like something’s just occurred to her.

“Am I going to get in trouble with the police for this?” she asks nervously.

I shake my head. “No. In fact, if it’s okay, for your own safety, I’m going to claim responsibility for what happened here. If anyone has a problem with Vadik’s death, they’ll come to me, not you.”

She nods, swallowing. “Thank you.”

“My wife tells me you’re a dancer.”

She smiles weakly. “I was. Before him,” she spits.

“I might be able to help, if you want to get back to it.”

Kir has connections with the Zakharova Ballet in New York. I fully intend to ask him to do what he can there.

“Polina, could you wait here a moment?”

She nods.

“Do you need anything? Coffee? Water?”

She smiles wryly. “A shower. I…” She glances at the basement door. “It happened almost a day ago. I was frozen and not sure what to do until your men surprised me.”

I nod. “Go. Shower upstairs. Take all the time you need. My men will stay down here.”

“Thank you,” she says softly, smiling at me. “She’s lucky to have you. Your wife.”

“I think it might be the other way around.”

After Polina disappears upstairs, Zoran walks over.

“What do you want to do with her, boss?”

“Set her up for life,” I grunt. “I still haven’t heard back from Milos. But get in touch with him and ask him to arrange for the purchase of an apartment in New York. Big, but not gaudy. On the park, maybe. Near the ballet at Lincoln Center.”

He nods. “On it.”

“And have him open an account in her name and transfer ten…” I frown. “Twenty million dollars into it.”

Zoran nods, unfazed. He pulls out his phone and walks out the back door. My other men set up a perimeter around the house and move the cars from the road to behind the barn.

I check on Vadik’s corpse. I always make sure those who I think are dead are actually dead. After all, that was this asshole’s second mistake after deciding to slaughter my family.

He thought I was dead, too.

But Vadik is indeed very, very dead. The insane amount of blood around him and the broken bones from his tumble down the stairs protruding out in places, not to mention the vacant look in his staring eyes, make it pretty obvious he’s not going to be seeking revenge.

I stalk through the rest of the ground floor of the farmhouse, looking for anything I might be able to use. There’s a laptop and tablet I have my guys scoop up for Dimitri to crack into later. There are a few business papers in a laptop bag in the home office, but nothing remarkable. I find cash, a few guns, and an amusing amount of Viagra stashed in a kitchen cupboard above the fridge.

But when I walk into the downstairs bathroom, I see a phone with bloody fingerprints all over it.

Interesting.

The phone is obviously Vadik’s. And from the pattern of the fingerprints, I’m guessing he was trying to unlock it to call for help as he was dying ingloriously from a spatula wound to the neck. He must have failed, and the phone locked after multiple failed attempts. But those fingerprints…

I peer closely to see what numbers he hit, then bring the phone out to the kitchen. There’s a pen in one of the drawers, and I take everything over to the kitchen table, writing zero-one-two-eight on the surface and then staring at it.

That’s his four digits, but I don’t know the order. And not even Dimitri can hack an iPhone.

I’m staring at the numbers as I hear Polina come downstairs from her shower. She walks into the kitchen dressed in jeans and a hoodie, a towel wrapped around her hair.

“I don’t suppose you know that asshole’s phone password, do you?” I grunt hopefully.

Polina shakes her head. “Sorry.”

Fuck.

I stare at the numbers, considering what I know about Vadik. He’s…sorry-not-sorry, was…a prick. Loud. Obnoxious. Not to mention rude and lazy…

I freeze.

Lazy.

I’ve already tried zero-one-two-eight. I’m guessing Vadik’s laziness would stop him from adding more than the four numbers required to set a password.

Jesus, he can’t have been THAT stupid…

“Polina, what was Vadik’s birthday?”

She scowls. “August sometime. I remember that.”

Maybe he was that stupid.

“Would it have been the twelfth?”

She shakes her head. “No, I have a cousin with that birthday. I would have remembered if they were the same.”

“How about the twenty-first.”

She thinks for a second. “I…maybe?”

Worth trying.

I mean, it’s been a day now. The lockout timer must have reset by now. I pick up the phone and tap in zero-eight for August, and two-one for the day.

Fucking. Bingo.

The phone unlocks.

I check his calls first, to make sure help isn’t on the way. But it looks like even if he did get the phone unlocked as he was bleeding out, he never dialed anyone. I make sure there aren’t any remote access apps installed to delete the phone in case of theft. Then I change the password just to be sure, so when I give it to Dimitri to look at, there’s no chance of anyone else getting access and locking us out of any information.

Then, I check his texts.

Jesus Christ, Vadik…

The first few text exchanges are clearly with women and involve Vadik sending photos of his comically sad “penis” and offers of money. There are a few other business exchanges with various of his men. But there’s one that gives me pause.

The contact name is Svin’ya; “pig” in Russian. It even has a little pig emoji included in the contact name.

The KGB, Russia’s secret police, used to call traitors “pigs”, and Vadik was once a KGB officer, before he turned criminal.

Who the fuck is his traitor?

And who or what are they a traitor to?

I tap on the conversation, which looks to be from just before Polina attacked Vadik.

ME

Timeline?

An hour later, Vadik texted this “pig” again.

ME

Answer me. I’m stuck here until you secure the insurance, and I’m tired of being cooped up with this dumb bitch

SVIN’YA

Relax. It’s all going to plan. When he comes to you, that’s when I’ll take the insurance.

ME

You’d better. I’m paying you a fortune for this.

SVIN’YA

You’ll get what you want. I promise.

I exhale, scrolling. This is bullshit. I don’t need to know about whatever scam or heroin deal Vadik was trying to pull while hiding from me. I just⁠—

My entire being goes still as my eyes drop to the next line.

SVIN’YA

Drazen still thinks you’re in Slovenia. I’ll make my move when he leaves.

Oh fuck.

It’s me. This person is a traitor to me.

I yank out my phone and call Milos so he can start locking everything down. Clearly, we have a mole. And furthermore, Vadik and this mole were after something of mine. For “insurance” of some kind.

Milos’ phone goes to fucking voicemail, though.

“Answer your goddamn phone, asshole,” I hiss, leaving him a message before I hang up and redial. Voicemail again.

I drag my eyes back to Vadik’s text exchange with the traitor.

ME

Good. Call immediately once it’s done

SVIN’YA

Of course

ME

Don’t fuck up

SVIN’YA

Look, it will go EXACTLY as I told you. He trusts me with his life. That’s why he left me to watch her. And when he’s gone, that’s when I’ll grab Annika and deliver her to you

My world goes sideways. The air leaves my lungs as my brain screeches to a halt, trying to force this upside-down reality I’m staring at into something that makes sense.

But it refuses to. I refuse to accept the reality staring me in the face.

Then, suddenly, I understand why Milos isn’t answering my calls.

And, more alarmingly, why Taylor hasn’t texted me back.

I’m barely aware of Zoran and my other men shouting my name and running after me as I jump behind the wheel of one of the SUVs. Just as I start the engine, my phone rings with a call from a blocked number.

“Who is this,” I snarl as I roar away from the farm back toward the airfield.

“Drazen,” a young Russian voice grunts. “It’s Dimitri.”

The fuck. Dimitri, as a hacker, never uses phones. He’s that paranoid about security and surveillance.

Yet here he is, calling me.

“Dimitri—”

“I gotta keep this quick,” he blurts. “But I found something you should know about. Something huge.”

My pulse speeds up as I tear down the road.

“Tell me everything.”