The idea was preposterous to Royal. “Oh, I can’t sleep,” she said with dark circles under her blood shot eyes. “I have to stay up and take care of the boys. I mean, look at what all of this has done to them. What kind of homecoming is this? And me… I’m so stressed out and absent…they deserve more than this.” Flustered, she put her hands on her face and wiped the tears now freely flowing.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Renee said, standing up. “Come on. We’ll listen on the monitors. If they wake up while we’re tending to you then one of us will take care of them.”
“I don’t know,” Royal said concerned.
“Trust us,” Briggy begged.
Just then, the house phone rang loud throughout the house. Dmitry had it hooked up to an intercom assuming that the kidnappers would be most likely to call it.
All three women went deathly still.
Running to the phone, Royal picked it up and clicked the talk button.
“Hello…hello,” she answered, voice quivering.
A man’s voice dubbed over a machine responded. “Let’s not act surprised. You know who this is. Where is Dmitry Medlov?”
Royal’s heart nearly exploded out of her chest. Looking over at Renee, who clasped her hands to her mouth, she felt herself nearly collapse. “Where is my daughter? Where is my baby?”
“This is Dmitry,” Dmitry answered on the other phone. His voice was rough and curt, and sounded like he felt, ready to kill. He stood in the war room with his men while they tried to track the call.
“Tell your bitch to hang up now; otherwise, we send your a darling little finger in a box,” the voice said devilishly.
Chills zipped down Royal’s spine. Hanging up before Dmitry could speak, she headed out of the room towards the war room to hear the call with the others. Renee ran after her while Briggy stayed behind to watch the twins.
More in control of his feelings, at least on the outside, Dmitry looked over at his men and cupped the phone tighter to his ear. “She’s off the phone. Now talk,” he said, refusing to give the man an ounce of respect.
“Got your affairs in order over there?” The man asked with a grin in his voice.
“Just waiting on a call from you to tell me what you want to get my daughter back,” Dmitry said, taking a notepad to write down anything that he could hear in the background.
“Here are the rules. You answer the phone by the second ring every time that we call or you cost your daughter a digit, a limb, an eye, whatever we feel like cutting off of her. Only you answer the phone. We’ll contact you regarding what we want, how we want it and when we want it. Anything funny and the girl dies.”
“Understood,” Dmitry answered with a growl.
“No police involved. Otherwise, the girl dies.”
“Understood,” Dmitry answered again.
“And liquidate everything. Your first payment will be due the day after tomorrow in the amount of 250 million in U.S. dollars to an account that will be specified in the morning. Then we’ll give you another 48 hours to come up with the other $250 million. That’s a total of $500 million in the next four days. Be grateful that we’re giving you that much time, but we’re not ignorant. We know how hard it is to funnel that much cash.”
The money didn’t bother Dmitry. He just wanted his daughter back. “I need proof of life. Let me hear her voice,” Dmitry demanded.
“I don’t think that you’re in a place to negotiate,” the voice taunted.
“You’re not dealing with my wife. I know how these things go. You let me hear my daughter or the deal’s off.”
“Fine. You can hear your daughter, but the price just went up to $260 million day after tomorrow.”
“For an additional ten fucking million, I want to talk to her now,” Dmitry growled. His men eyed him carefully, not expecting his outburst and afraid of what the outcome would yield, but Dmitry did not back down. He walked over to the window and regained his composure. “Look, if you think that you have me by the balls, then I assure you, you’re wrong. I want to hear her fucking voice right now or the deal is off before it can start. Do I make myself clear?”
“It just went up to $260 million,” the man snarled.
“Why don’t we make it a cool $300 million so you can stop jerking my dick around? Put my fucking daughter on the phone. Now!”
Abruptly, there was silence on the line.
Dmitry waited silently, still looking out of the window and waiting. He knew that they would do as he asked. They had no choice.
Anya’s voice was clear as a bell when she came to the phone. “Daddy,” she said crying. “Is that you? I want to come home!” she begged.
“Anya,” Dmitry said, holding back tears. “Everything is going to be alright, baby. Are you untouched? Are you near anything that you recognize?”
“Yes, I’m okay. I’m just scared,” she answered. “It’s sunny here,” she said right before the man snatched the phone.
Pushing Anya to the ground, Balthazar pointed at her. “One more little move like that you little smart shit, and I’ll slice that pretty little face of yours.”
Dmitry could hear their interaction, but he still would not give the man the satisfaction of crying out for her.
“You still there chief?” the voice asked, surprised that Dmitry didn’t lose his cool.
Dmitry’s voice was even and low, hiding his true hysteria. “Still here. $300 million. Done. When do I get my daughter back?”
“When you meet all of our demands,” the voice snapped. “And if you’re thinking of doing anything stupid, don’t bother. Your daughter is far way and could be sold or killed in seconds. Tread carefully or get prepared to hold a vigil in her memory.”
Dmitry wanted to threaten the man, but he kept quietly only by biting into his tongue. The blood ran down the side of his lip as he willed himself to control his ramping anger.
“I understand,” Dmitry finally said, face blank.
“Good. Then wait for the next call to tell you where to wire the money. And if I were you, I wouldn’t sleep. You wouldn’t want to miss our call.”
With that, the man hung up the phone. After a second, Dmitry set his phone back on the receiver right as Royal came running towards him.
“Dmitry!” she screamed when she saw that she had missed the entire call. “What did they say? Is she alright?”
Anatoly went to Royal before she could get to Dmitry and held her. “Let him think,” he whispered softly in her ear. He felt Royal holding him tightly to keep from falling. She clenched his sides as she cried. It was painful, even for him. “Renee, please take her back upstairs,” Anatoly said, reaching for his girlfriend. “She doesn’t…she doesn’t need to see this shit.”
Renee went quickly to her. “Come on, Royal. Let’s get you upstairs.”
“Go back upstairs my ass! Dmitry what did that motherfucker say about my baby?” Royal screamed as she snatched away. “Answer me!” Her hair fell down out of its clamp onto her shoulders. Eyes red from tears, she shook apart. “Dmitry!”
“She’s okay, baby. Go back upstairs,” Dmitry said, trying to control his feelings. He bit down harder on his bleeding tongue.
Gabriel watched on knowing that his uncle was about to boil over. He could see it about to happen. The man was close to losing his control over the situation. He had just heard his daughter hit and threatened; she was being held captive by kidnappers and there wasn’t a damn thing that he could do about it but pay. It was enough to make him boil over. “Renee, please,” Gabriel urged also. “Take her upstairs.” It was just too hard to watch.
“Dmitry talk to me!” Royal demanded. Her voice shrieked in pain. “Talk to me, dammit!”
Snapping out of his daze, Dmitry looked across the room at Royal and took a deep breath. As calmly as he could, he asked again. “Royal, please go upstairs with Renee now,” he said gripping the table. The whites of his knuckles showed as he quietly broke the end of the table off.
Hyst
erical, Royal screamed out in frustration. “Where is my baby? Where is she? Why aren’t you people doing anything? Why are you here instead of out there looking for her? What the fuck are you doing to get her back?” She sobbed profusely, breaking down in front of everyone.
The sound of her voice seemed to dig into Dmitry’s temples. Everyone saw the explosion about to happen but no one knew how to stop it.
Anatoly finally walked over and picked Royal up, forcefully carrying her out of the room. With her arms around his neck, she nuzzled her head into his shoulder and cried aloud.
“Just fucking let it out,” Anatoly said, holding the back of her head as she cried. “Let it out.”
Unable to do anything but, she did let it out. Crying hard and loud, she collapsed in her stepson’s arms as Renee followed, unable to do anything but helplessly watch with tears in her own eyes.
As soon as she was out of sight, Dmitry turned, breathing heavily and looked around the room with a dangerous hysteria in his icy eyes. Unable to control himself, he picked up the long dining table covered with papers and threw it as hard as he could across the room. The heavy oak went flying through the air, hitting the wall and split into, leaving a dent in the wall and knocking down the priceless framed art.
Men dove out of the table’s path from both sides to keep from getting hit. They stood amazed at the man’s strength and his hidden anger.
“Was the call traceable?” Dmitry finally asked when he could speak again. He looked down at his hands that were shaking and clammy from anger. Clasping them together, clenched down on his jaw and breathed out through his nostrils to calm himself.
“It’s a bouncer, but according to this, it has to be within…” the man at the computer typed in a few calculations and hit ENTER. “It’s within Europe or the far western part of the eastern bloc,” he answered quickly.
“That doesn’t narrow down shit,” Liv said, looking at the monitor in frustration.
“No, it does,” Dmitry said with a glimmer of hope, pulling a piece of paper from his small notepad. Marking off two names from the list, he passed it to Gabriel – his hands trembled as did his voice. “Start on this list. I have two serious enemies within 500 miles of Prague. I want them and all their men dead in the next three hours.”
Gabriel took the handwritten list and looked over at Liv, who came quickly to assist him.
“I can pinpoint and get accurate maps with easy access,” Liv said to Gabriel as he walked over to his computer.
Dmitry’s mind was spinning quickly. Sucking his teeth, he ran his finger over the bridge of his nose. “She said it’s sunny. She remembered what I taught her. That’s good. She’s thinking. She’s a survivor.” He took another deep breath. “Isolate the parts of earth that are dark right now. Eight hours of difference or more. Then get with Gabriel and go through that list. Pinpoint the remaining seven organized crime families and prepare to hit them all in the next eight hours.”
“Seven families in eight hours?” Liv asked.
“Did I fucking stutter?” Dmitry screamed, pulling out his gun. “Yes, kill them. All of them. Get your teams on rotation. Only leave one team here, instead of the original plan. Send the others out with the rest of your men. Gabriel will take his own team and hit the two I just gave him with Anatoly and his men. And I will stay here on this fucking phone and get my daughter back.”
“Yes, sir,” Liv answered quickly.
Chapter 11
The phone call had ended too abruptly for Balthazar’s taste. Frustrated and feeling the loss of his control over the situation, he violently knocked the glass of water and pitcher from the small working table in the corner on the hardwood floor only inches away from Anya, who sat shaking in the corner with her legs curled up to her chest.
“I want my daddy,” she cried.
“You want your daddy?” Balthazar taunted the girl loudly. “Well, you can’t have him until he pays!” he stood over her screaming to the top of his lungs.
Tears ran down Anya’s eyes as he stood ready to flog her for her insolence. But the blonde woman, Manon, quickly stood in his way towering over the both of them.
“What the fuck do you think that you’re doing?” she asked, pointing her long finger at his chest. The tip of her ruby red nail indented his shirt with force, egging him on to make a move so that she could forcefully have him put in his place.
“That little bitch knew what she was doing!” he yelled, backing off just a bit. “She could have given away our location!”
Manon pushed him in his chest hard with her long fingernail. “How is that? She doesn’t know where she is. All she said was that it was sunny. We could be anywhere for goodness sake. Get a hold of fucking yourself.” She looked back at the girl and snapped her fingers. “Take her back to her room. Now!” Running her hands over her hair, she threw her hands up. “You’re unbelievable. She’s a child. You’re a grown man. Can you please act professional?”
“Professional? She should have never been allowed to talk to him. That was your choice and it could have cost everyone everything!”
“Well, she didn’t! Look, I run this. Not you!”
“Correction, Vladimir runs this and where is he? Huh? Where the fuck is he?” Balthazar screamed.
The bodyguards quickly picked Anya up and carried her away and threw her back into the darkness of the dank little room housed off from the kitchen. Crying, she banged on the door for a moment and then went over to the dirty mattress in the corner to lie down.
Manon closed her eyes as she listened to the girl cry. This was going to drive her crazy, she could tell. It seemed easier on paper to plot revenge than to take it out on an innocent girl in real life. Suddenly, she wanted to back out. Suddenly none of this made sense and she found herself asking what the hell what she thinking dragging an innocent child into her twisted story…her niece no less.
“No more talking for her. He’s had his fucking proof of life now,” Balthazar said when Anya was gone. Straightening his glasses, he rolled his eyes and waltzed over to the refrigerator to retrieve something else to drink. He needed something stronger than water and went for the chilled Chardonnay in the back of the ice box.
“She is a child, Balthazar. If you can’t handle a child, then I’ve picked the wrong man for this job,” Manon said, disgusted by his quick temper.
“Picked the wrong man?” Balthazar repeated in disgust. “You would have never been able to pull this off without me. Don’t get any fucking ideas,” he threatened. “I know how flinty you types are. You’ve never worked hard for a damned thing your entire life, so you think that you’re entitled to every fucking thing and when things don’t go your way, you run. Well this is one situation that you nor your fucking boyfriend can fucking run from!”
The woman’s temper flared at his insinuation, and she quickly put him in his place. “First of all, I let you in on this, so don’t you get any grandiose ideas. This is still a three-way deal, and Vladimir and I only let you in on this because we thought that you could control yourself. And I don’t run. Let’s not forget that I am a Smirnov and Vladimir is still a fucking Sidorov. You on the other hand are just playing the part, but you are fucking with real Vor and real royalty, so I suggest that you play your part well or you will regret the day that you ever laid eyes on me!”
“Oh, it’s a little more than that, dear. You also need my men and my resources. And don’t you forget it. And you still haven’t answered my question about where Vladimir is,” Balthazar said, slamming the steel refrigerator door closed.
“He’s doing his part as we discussed. He has to stay out of sight for obvious reasons, but without him none of this would be possible, or do I really need to remind you of that fact?” Her nostrils flared as she talked. Pushing a strand of blonde hair from her face, she sat down and calmed her ramping frustration. “We’ve made contact. Once Vladimir calls us and verifies that he is in position, we call Dmitry back and give him the account number and require the next pa
yment. Things are still going as planned.”
“He doesn’t sound as eager as you’d thought he’d be. What happened to taking him down a few pegs? Sounds to me like you’ve only pissed him off. And you don’t piss a man like this off unless you have something to back it up,” Balthazar said, pouring a glass of wine.
“Oh, he’s eager alright. He’s just not showing it,” she said coolly. She grabbed the bottle and poured herself a glass. “Leave the thinking to me. You just get ready for the next step. Trust me. He’s going to tear down his walls around him before it’s all over and our revenge will be sweet.”
“You and your boyfriend are in it for revenge. I’m in it for the millions, and no matter what, my plan will work,” Balthazar reminded as he stormed out of the room.
With her hands on her hips, she stood watching him as he stormed off. Breathing hard, she turned and shook her head. Balthazar was going to be a problem. It was evident now, but she had to figure out a way to fix things before they got out of control. And quietly and undetected, she had to get her own emotions in check.
Drinking the wine alone in the room, she closed her eyes and tried to focus.
Chapter 12
Gabriel only had a few minutes to say goodbye to Briggy before he and Anatoly headed out on the chopper, so he had to find her quickly. Running up the stairs to the second floor as fast as his feet would take him, he found her watching over the twins quietly in the nursery alone.
She looked up at him startled when she saw that he had changed into black fatigues and wore a vest and guns.
“What is this?” she asked, standing up from the rocking chair. Her eyes were wide with concern.
Gabriel moved to her and bent to kiss her forehead. “Don’t get worried now. Everything is going to be fine. I just have to go with Anatoly to take care of something. I’ll be back in a few hours.” He tried desperately in his explanation not to lie and at the same time worry her.
But Briggy could clearly hear the anxiety in his voice. Reaching up to touch his face, she let a tear fall to her cheek. “Liar,” she said, resting her head on his lower chest. “Dmitry brought you hear to send you away, didn’t he?”
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