by K. J. Dahlen
Zeta was stunned. She hadn’t seen the man in question for years. As far as she knew, Anya had never seen him. “When did you see him baby?”
“When I-I was… lost,” Anya told her in a hoarse voice. “A-a man took my hand and took me away from you. He said I…I couldn’t speak if I didn’t want him to hurt you. He told me his name was Ivan and someday— he would come back for me when I was a little older.”
Zeta gasped as tears filled her eyes and she slumped back in her seat, stunned. “Oh, my god!” she whispered in panic. She looked over at Misha. “He’s been here. He found us and he threatened my daughter?”
“Is that why you wouldn’t speak?” Misha asked.
Anya nodded as tears still rolled down along her cherub like cheeks.
“Oh, my god! If he was here over a year ago he might have followed me back to the compound.” Zeta panicked. “I have to warn Maxim and the others.” She got up and ran for the door.
“Wait, you don’t even know their room numbers,” Misha called out.
Zeta stopped and turned to him. Tears washed her cheeks and she was wringing her hands together. This was too horrible to contemplate. Ivan had taken her daughter and she never even knew! He could be lurking around right this minute to take her again. And her brother! Oh…“Please help me? I can’t let him hurt my brother or the others. He’s hurt them enough.”
Anya began crying along with her mother.
Misha didn’t know which one to soothe first. It broke his heart to see their fear and anxiety. He never cared about any woman in a long time, except for Raven And she had already met her mate who’d protected her.
Finally, he texted his father and then carried Anya over to where Zeta was standing and wrapped his arms around both of them.
A few minutes later, his door opened.
His father and Nikoli walked in, followed by Maxim and the others.
“What the hell is going on here?” Maxim shouted as he stomped his way over to his sister and niece. He tried to grab Anya from Misha’s arms.
She screamed and fought him wrapping her tiny arms around Misha’s neck.
Maxim frowned and taking a step back, he stared at the scene in front of him. “What is going on here?”
Zeta turned to her brother. “Do you remember that time when Anya went missing for a couple of hours?”
“Da, we searched the entire city for her.” He looked at his niece and back to Zeta again. “What are you saying here?”
“She told us Ivan grabbed her that day,” Zeta informed them. “She was little more than a baby and he took her. He told her that if she told anyone he’d seen her he would come back and hurt me.” She looked at her brother. “That’s why she hasn’t spoken since.”
Maxim swung his stunned gaze over to Anya. “Is that true baby?”
Anya nodded.
“What made her talk about this morning then?” Dima asked.
“Zeta and I were talking about some news I’d gotten earlier. News about Ivan and when she heard the name, she began crying,” Misha informed the group. “We didn’t know about the rest of it until we began asking questions.”
“Ivan’s plane was found about an hour from the city,” Sergi explained. “He was gone but the crew said he just left them there. We have no idea where he is, but we have everyone we know looking for him.”
Zeta nodded as fear filled her face. “Then I remembered after we found Anya we went back to the compound. What if he followed us back?” She turned and asked her brother, “What if he’s known where we are this whole time?”
“Honey, if he did that, he wouldn’t have had Lonnie looking for us all this time,” Dima told her. “He would have just come for us and shut us down already, by fair means or foul.”
Maxim shook his head. “I’m going to warn the men still there. We can at least give them a head’s up, just in case.” He walked away to make the call.
Sergi looked over at his son and studied the man carefully. Misha was holding Anya in his arms and he looked so natural. He gazed between Misha and his woman and he began to grin, then he paused. “Wait a moment here,” Sergi paused. “You said you lost your daughter for a few hours, over a year ago. Where exactly were you when she disappeared?”
“We were shopping, one moment she was there and the next she was just gone… why?” Zeta asked.
“I realize that.” Sergi shook his head. “Children wander away from their parents all the time. You were very lucky, you found her at all.”
“But now we know she just didn’t wander away as you said.” Zeta was getting upset. His words made her feel as if she wasn’t a good mother. “Ivan took her.”
“If that was the case, I’m surprised he brought her back at all,” Dima grumbled to the group. “He’s not exactly known for being generous.”
“You are missing the point I’m trying to make here.” Sergi growled impatiently. “Where in the city were you shopping?”
“What do you mean?” she frowned.
“Were you on Fifth avenue, Little Italy? Chinatown?” He named a few well known places known in New York City. Places, it would be easy to misplace a child.
Zeta frowned as she tried to remember exactly where they had been that day. “We were at the farmer’s market down by the docks that day. We were having a family BBQ that night and Anya wanted sweet corn to go with everything else. I was reaching for another bag of corn. I turned to tell her they would have enough to feed everyone and she wasn’t there.” She glanced over at her daughter in Misha’s arms. “We searched the area for a couple of hours and then she just showed up, safe and sound.”
“She may have been safe and sound but she was also dirty and she smelled of fish,” Dima informed the group. She also was covered in bruises. Her wrist carried those bruises for days.”
Misha looked down at the little girl in his arms and found she was looking back at him with a dazed look. “Do you remember what happened that day, sweetheart?”
Anya nodded and started to talk in a soft whisper, “A-a man grabbed me and pulled me away from my mom. Then h-he took me out to a boat on… the water?” She looked down at the rabbit in her arms. “I-I kept crying for my mom and I don’t think—he liked it. He said I would have to grow up more before he could take me again. I couldn’t tell anyone or he would come back and hurt my mommy.”
“Did he ask you any questions, Anya?” Dima asked.
Anya nodded. “He asked if I knew you, Maxim and Grisha and Sasha. He asked where we lived and I told him in a house. I think he wanted to hurt me…”
Zeta looked at her brother and Dima then back at Misha. Wrapping her arms around her belly, she wandered toward the windows overlooking the city. From this point, you could see the busy city below but you could also see the edge of the water too. It wasn’t quite the Atlantic Ocean but it was close. The Hudson River separated New York City from New Jersey and was a direct link to the Atlantic Ocean.
Chapter Eight
Misha looked down at Anya again. “What do you remember from the boat? Anything?”
Anya frowned as she thought about that time.
“My goodness Misha, she was only two years old,” Zeta told him from her place by the windows. “Kids that young don’t remember all that much.”
“On the contrary my dear sister,” Maxim called her out. He came to stand behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulled her close to him.
Misha growled at the contact and Maxim snapped his head around to stare at the other man in shock.
Misha glared at him and finally, Maxim got the idea. He loosened his hold and took a half a step back.
Zeta turned in her brother’s arms and looked at him. Seeing the expression on his face she too turned and saw Misha’s face. He was staring at her brother but even she got the message that Maxim was too close to her.
Zeta stepped back but then changed her mind. She walked over to Misha and laid her hand on his arm.
Without a word from her at all, Misha seemed to cal
m down.
Zeta turned back to her brother and asked, “What do you mean but what you said?”
“I was saying…” Maxim raised an eyebrow. “…Anya is remembering quite a bit from a short visit a year ago. It is possible she knows more than she’s telling us.”
Zeta turned to her daughter, “Do you remember anything else baby?”
Anya nodded. “He said he named his boat after you, mommy. He laughed when he told me its name. He said it was Zeta’s Pride and Folly. I didn’t know what that means but I didn’t like the way he laughed when he said it.”
Zeta felt weak in the knees and would have dropped to the ground if Sergi hadn’t held her up.
Misha looked at his father and Sergi nodded as he helped Zeta over to the sofa.
Misha and Anya followed him over. As they all sat down, Zeta reached for her daughter and when Anya went to her, Misha wrapped his big arms around them both.
Maxim came over and knelt in front of his sister and the other brothers in the MC gathered around her.
Zeta reached out and took Maxim’s hand.
Misha didn’t like it but he also didn’t stop it. Maxim was her brother after all and he and the others had suffered on her behalf. They shared a bond that was separate from any he had with Zeta.
“Oh Maxim, what more can that bastard do to us?” she whispered brokenly. “He took our parents, he took our home, he took you and threw you in prison for nothing. He chased us out of the place where we were born and now he hunts us like rats.”
“I know sis.” Maxim squeezed her hand. “But he won’t take any more away from us,” Her brother vowed.
“But maybe there is a way we can start taking things he cares about away from him,” Nikoli spoke up for the first time since they arrived.
“What do you mean?” Sergi turned to his friend.
“I know we have our best men tracking him down and trying to find the links to bring down this slavery ring he has going and while we’re making progress on it we aren’t making enough progress. I might know of someone who can work faster and go deeper than we can.”
“Who might that be?” Sergi asked. “I would like to meet this person.”
“That’s might be a problem.” Nikoli shrugged. “This person doesn’t want anyone to find her. I mean I don’t even know her but she has helped us before. Mostly going through Yuri and his group. But as you have a connection through Yuri…” He shrugged. “It might be worth a shot.”
Sergi reached for his phone and placed the call. He spoke to Yuri and told him of the situation they were dealing with and while Yuri listened, he didn’t make any promises.
When Sergi returned to the group he looked over at Misha. “Yuri said he would make the call but he couldn’t make any promises either. He doesn’t know these people all that well and they have no reason to step up and help us but that he would try.”
“In the meantime, I can get our people hunting down Ivan’s boat,” Nikoli suggested. “That might very well be where he is at right now. If the boat is nearby then he could be using it as a temporary home base for now.” Nikoli called down to his security room and got the ball rolling on the boat. Then he called the restaurant downstairs and ordered a buffet to be sent up. He felt the cold spot in his belly growing. He always hated that feeling. He’d always felt it when something big was coming.
Then he got another idea. Picking up his phone, he called his son. Nicky was almost as good as The Phantom and he was closer. Maybe, just maybe he could pick up Ivan’s trail quickly and quietly. Quickly explaining the situation, Nicky agreed with him. Maybe between the two of them they could find out exactly what Ivan had been up to for the last fifteen years.
When the food arrived, no one was all that hungry but they ate anyway.
Sitting down at the table, Zeta tried to get Anya to sit on the chair beside her but Anya wouldn’t leave her mother’s lap. Zeta didn’t push it because she wanted to hold on to her anyway.
One of Maxim’s men sat back in his chair and spoke, “I am Zhora, so you know. Ad there is something I don’t understand about all of this.” Zhora stated. “If Ivan was Bratva why didn’t you people know what he was doing sooner than this? How could one man fool you for this long without anyone becoming suspicious of his actions?”
Nikoli stared at the man. Then looked over at Sergi. This he couldn’t wait to see. Sergi Constantine was no man’s fool.
Sergi sat back in his own chair and glared at the man posing the question. Misha growled but Sergi held up his hand. “No son, it is a fair question and I think these men deserve an answer. It may not be an answer they or we like, but that’s not the point.” Sergi leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. Folding his fingers together, he looked at each and every man at the table. He found and held their eyes for a moment before moving on to the next man. “When I was a young man just starting out, trying to make my way, the Bratva in our country was a whole other identity then it is today. The old school of thinking was very much in place. There was corruption and money deals under the table all the time. The people were afraid of us and had very good reason to be. That Bratva liked to push the boundaries and give justice only to those who could pay richly for it. Then Russia began to change and the Bratva took notice. Some of us tried new ideas and began working for the people. We could see what corruption had done to our government and was still doing to the people who couldn’t afford to pay the right politicians. I think there came a time when even our government knew its time was running out. The Bratva was gaining popularity and we were standing our ground for the people of our nation. We began slowly turning things around and the people began to have hope again. Mostly this was in Moscow and the surrounding areas though. I think Ivan has been doing things on the side for a number of years before he was accepted into the Bratva. We have managed to trace his operations back to when his father was in charge of it. His entire family worked this slavery ring at some point. Ivan has just taken it one step further than they did. He bought the old prison and began his own dynasty. We didn’t know it because everything he told us was a lie from day one. When we checked him out, he had a safety net in place and we didn’t check him out deep enough to find it was all a lie until now.” He sat back and eyed them all again. “We now have protocols in place so something like this will never happen again. The High Council is seizing all of Ivan’s assets and freezing all his bank accounts but that takes time as well. Time we might not have.”
Maxim’s men looked at each other. They all had more questions to ask but no one wanted to ask the most obvious question. Finally, Maxim looked at man at the head of the table and asked, “What about us? What will happen to us when this is over?”
Sergi sighed deeply. “I don’t have an answer for you there. The High Council is working on Ivan right now. After he’s settled, they will look at each of your cases individually.”
“Some of us have family back home,” the man they called Wolf spoke up. “Will we be able to go back to Russia ever?”
“I would hope so, someday.” Sergi shrugged. “I guess that all depends on the results of what the Council finds.”
“But we don’t have our papers,” Zeta reminded them all. “We had to find false papers to get out of the country and get to America and then we had to flee before the authorities could check us out here. We’ve been in hiding now for the last five years. No one here really knows who we are either. If they do find us, they would deport us back under guard and we would more than likely be arrested once we got back to Russian soil anyway.”
“Perhaps.,” Sergi agreed.
“Well I for one am not going back a prisoner.” Zhora snarled. “I would rather die here in this country than go back for nothing more than a cell in a Russian prison.”
Discontent spread from person to person sitting at the table.
Anya felt it and looked afraid. She clung to her mother and began weeping.
Misha saw it and slammed his hand down on the table to ge
t everyone’s attention. “Silence!” he roared. “It is too early to possibly say what will happen yet. All this talk of prisons and such are upsetting the ladies. Let’s deal with one thing at a time, shall we?”
Zeta got up and moved away from the table.
Misha stood to follow her but she looked at him and shook her head. He sat back down and glared at the men sitting next to him. A moment later, they all heard a door close from the other side of the suite.
Misha grabbed his coffee cup so hard that he snapped the handle off. Coffee and broken ceramic spilled on the table staining the white table cloth.
Sergi reached over and grabbed another cup then filled it for him. Then he turned to the men sitting there. “I know this is very hard for all of you. You lived in hell under Ivan’s thumb but if we are going to stop him, we need as much information from you as possible. We need to know and understand him as well as you did, during your time in his prison.”
“What do you mean?” Maxim asked. “What are you asking of us?”
“You knew him as a bastard and a jailer. We did not.” Sergi shrugged. “Tell us what kind of man he was when he was with you. What were his habits, his likes and dislikes. Anything we can use to find out what kind of man he really was.”
One of the men snorted. “I can tell you one thing, he liked to cause others pain. Every night we laid there in the dark and listened to the screams of the others. Most nights we were just happy it wasn’t us doing the screaming.”
“He prefers little girls to grown women.” Maxim snarled. Turning his head he looked at the route his sister had taken from the table. “She was only nine when he wanted to drag her away with him.”
Misha had to close his eyes at the thought of how helpless she had been as a child. He hated the thought of any child going through what she had gone through. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on Ivan Kolvastan. When he did, the man would rue the day he took his first breath.
“We might have Phantom looking into his movements but I also asked Nicky to run him down too,” Nikoli announced.