by Beth Abbott
“Is that even possible?” Logan asked.
“Probably. Yes… hopefully.” Hannah blushed. “I mean they exist, unofficially, and I’m negotiating to get hold of them, but it’s slow going, and I need to sweet-talk the right people.”
“Who are you negotiating with?” Yuri frowned. “Hopefully, not the Russians!”
Hannah grinned and chuckled.
“No way! If it was the Russians who had this technology, I have a friend in the Kremlin who could have gotten me a dozen or more of these devices a couple of days ago.”
“Then who…?” Logan began.
“Just a friend of a friend…” Hannah said mysteriously. “Someone who’ll owe me a big favour if I can pull off what they want in return.”
Kellen leaned forward, wondering what the hell the woman was involved in.
“What are you bargaining with that will get you access to such hi-tech equipment? What do you have that is so important?” He asked.
Hannah blushed.
“My mom.” She admitted. “The Chinese want her to go out there and do a concert for a friend of the President.”
“You’ve gotta be shitting me.” Hollywood laughed. “You’re exchanging communications devices for your mom to do a concert for some Chinese big-cheese?”
“Hell, no.” Hannah chuckled. “By the time we agree a date, I’ll have got a helluva lot more out of them than that. Which is why everything’s so tricky to arrange, and the timing couldn’t have been shittier. I need to get them to agree to all my demands before my mom signs up to perform, and yet I need the comms and tracking equipment by Sunday before you ship out.”
“Does your mom often do concerts for gadgets?” Evan asked.
“She’s done a couple, although we’re quite careful who we do business with.” Hannah admitted. “But they usually come with a big chunk of money which goes directly to one of her charities. So, while she gains nothing personally from the deals, a lot of her favourite causes benefit. Win-win really.”
“And I thought Gregor had a lot of contacts.” Yuri shook his head.
“Honey, Gregor is just one of dozens of billionaires in the world.” Hannah smiled cheekily. “What y’all will come to appreciate, is that there’s only one Hannah Simons.”
Kellen stared at the little pixie in admiration.
He was already starting to believe she was right.
Chapter 8 – Niko
Niko stood in the shower enjoying the feel of the strong water jets pounding on her aching shoulder muscles. She’d been up until four o’clock in the morning, supervising the arrival of the latest shipment, and after less than three hours of sleep, was up and getting ready for another day of planning.
She let her head drop onto the shower wall, and banged her forehead against the tiles, over and over, hard enough to know she’d done it, but not so hard as to leave a mark.
She hated her life.
Hated, hated, hated, almost every second of every day of her life.
She felt the tears prick the back of her eyes, completely unconnected to the pain she’d caused herself.
All those women she’d watched last night, being dragged from the back of one truck and loaded into the back of another, had been shocked to see a woman giving directions, ordering the men around, and making sure nobody started taking liberties with the cargo.
Most of the women had understandably been frightened, crying, or trying to stay huddled together for comfort.
The few that had dared to look up had spotted Niko instantly, and the stares of contempt and pure hatred she’d received had cut through her like a knife.
If only they’d known that the woman giving the orders was every bit as much a prisoner as they were. But they would never have believed it.
Niko added shampoo to her golden hair and using her nails on her scalp, scrubbed hard, as though by scraping her skin raw, she could wash away the filth she felt crawling all over her.
Eventually she needed to wash off the soap, so she tilted her head back to allow the water to hit her straight in the face, washing away the last of her tears. At least this would revitalise her skin, and stop her eyes looking quite so blotchy after her cry.
Grabbing the towel, she shut off the water, and looked at the bathroom floor before stepping out.
Her brother had this obsession with using these shithole apartments or crappy hotels wherever they went, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d climbed out of the shower only to step onto a cockroach.
With the floor looking as clean as could be expected, she gingerly stepped out, wrapping one scratchy towel around her as she grabbed another one to dry herself off. She’d locked the bolt on the bathroom door, small as it was, but she wouldn’t have felt safe even if she’d had a deadbolt and padlock.
Her brother’s men were pigs, but as long as they followed his orders, which meant they could look as long as they didn’t touch, they could damn near walk in on her naked, and her brother wouldn’t lift a finger to either stop or punish them.
Niko hastily pulled on her underwear, covering herself quickly with a pair of jeans and a high neck t-shirt. The last thing she wanted to do was to give the men a view of her breasts, as they’d apparently been the subject of many a male fantasy since they’d started developing when she was just thirteen.
Which meant that for most of the last ten years, she’d been keeping them hidden.
That wasn’t the most comfortable thing to have to do, especially in the summer when the temperature in southern Europe could head up into the high thirties, but it was absolutely necessary if she wanted to blend in as much as possible with the men, and separate herself from the women they trafficked.
“Mama! Mama!” The banging on the bathroom door made her jump. “Pee now, mama!”
Tears instantly forgotten, Niko turned quickly and unlocked the door to allow her three-year-old son to rush to the toilet.
He was speaking to her in English as he almost always did, and it was funny to think Roman was already fluent in two languages at such a young age.
Roman was her absolute favourite person in the whole world, and the only one she loved without reservation.
“Come here, baby.” She picked him up and rushed him to the toilet. “Let me get your pants off before you wet them.”
Niko pulled Roman’s pants down a split second before he started peeing into the toilet, and she wasn’t entirely sure which one of them was more relieved.
“Mama, I’m not a baby anymore.” Roman insisted, patiently waiting for his bladder to empty. “I’m a big boy now. Noni says so.”
Ignoring the ‘Noni’ reference, Niko waited for him to finish.
“You are a big boy, Roman.” She ruffled his golden curls, the exact same shade as her own. “But even when you’re a grown man, bigger than Uncle Ilya, you’ll still be mama’s ‘baby’, so you’d just better get used to it.”
Obviously still too sleepy to argue, Roman just shrugged and headed for the door.
“Hey, buster! Get over here and wash your hands.” She scolded. “And while you’re about it, you may as well get those teeth brushed at the same time.”
As she supervised his hand-washing, and helped him brush his teeth, Niko’s stomach was churning with the thought that she’d have to leave her son behind again, this time for more than a week, while they got the latest shipment over to Rotterdam, to where the ‘auction’ would be held to sell the women to the highest bidders.
Normally these trips only lasted three or four days, but with new players in the game, Ilya had decided that they wouldn’t follow the normal routes but would take a number of detours along the way. He wanted to make sure they didn’t give up the whereabouts of the safe-houses they had worked so long to secure, should anything go wrong with their new partners.
That meant leaving her son with Noni again.
Noni had been with the family all of Niko’s life, originally working for Niko’s parents, helping run the house and care for Nik
o and her older brother Ilya, and her younger sister Valentina.
When Niko’s parents and sister had been killed in a car crash when Niko was just thirteen, Ilya had kept Noni on the payroll to take care of Niko, while he took care of business.
As distraught as she’d been about the loss of her family, and the total chaos that followed it, Niko had never been under any illusion that Noni was there for her.
Noni was there for Ilya, working for him and reporting back to him everything Niko had ever said or done.
That was how Ilya had found out that Niko had her first crush on a guy.
She hadn’t exactly been a naive teenager the first time she’d met Vasili, so it wasn’t as though she was under the impression that it would be all flowers and chocolates. But Vasili was the first guy she’d met that didn’t work for her brother, and that alone made him a million times more attractive than anyone she’d ever known.
They’d met in secret, in between classes at the university where she was completing her studies, and for six glorious weeks, she’d been in love and happy.
Then Noni had found out.
Which meant that Ilya found out.
And Vasili disappeared.
Not just from her life, but from the university, and according to his distraught parents, from his home too.
Niko had been completely devastated, sick to her stomach thinking about what Ilya might have done with Vasili. By the time she’d realised she was pregnant, Niko was almost six months along, and even then, she wasn’t prepared to tell anyone.
She’d lost so much weight after Vasili disappeared, that everyone simply thought she was getting over him when she regained what she’d lost, and even added a few pounds.
She’d feared what Ilya’s reaction would be, once he knew that she was pregnant, and being under no illusion as to what her brother’s business was about, and the reputation he had for being violent and volatile, Niko had expected him to go ballistic.
Instead, he’d surprised her by taking to Roman from the first time he laid eyes on the child, and now the only thing worse than hearing her son quote his wonderful ‘Noni’ as though her word was gospel, was when Roman told her about all the fun things he’d done with Uncle Ilya, whenever her brother took him out for a few hours.
The only difference to Niko’s life following Roman’s birth, was that whereas when she was a teenager she’d been obliged to do as her brother instructed as he had sole guardianship of her, holding the purse-strings to the money their parents had left behind, now he had total control over her, simply having to threaten her son for Niko to do anything he wished.
Which brought her thoughts back full circle to the women she’d seen staring at her this morning, looking like they wished she would spontaneously combust where she stood.
They obviously didn’t understand that she was only involved in Ilya’s business because she had no choice.
Ilya had warned her that if she didn’t do exactly what he said, when he said it, he would hurt the only thing she loved in this world. And her big brother didn’t joke about these things. He had no sense of humour.
“Mama? Look, I’ve finished.” Roman lifted his face to hers, his lips opened wide as he showed off his beautiful white baby-teeth.
“Wow!” Niko pretended to shield her eyes from the glare. “They’re so shiny and clean. Good job, sweetheart.”
She picked up a towel and wiped the toothpaste from the corner of his smile.
“Come on, let’s get an early breakfast, hmm?” Niko smiled. “Just the two of us.”
“Ok, mama. Can I go in my pyjamas?” Roman grinned up at her.
“No, baby, you can’t go in your pyjamas.” She smiled. “But if you get dressed for me really quickly, I’ll see if they have chocolate milk for you. Ok?”
Roman was out of the bathroom so fast, Niko couldn’t help but smile.
If only she could just pick up her son, walk out of the hotel and disappear. Go somewhere Ilya would never find her. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
“Mama, mama! Uncle Ilya is here to take us to breakfast.” Roman’s voice was excited, as it always was when her brother was around.
Niko’s heart sank.
Great! Suffering through a meal with Ilya would make living in hell feel like a week at a luxury holiday destination.
Niko took a deep breath before walking back into the bedroom.
Smile, she thought. Your life really might just depend on it.
Chapter 9 – Hollywood
Hollywood sat in the Guardian’s conference room with his team-mates and Hannah, going over what information Hannah had collected on the Russians.
He’d long since concluded that Hannah was some sort of genius, as she seemed to know so much about an organisation that the police and Interpol still hadn’t been able to identify.
As Hannah passed out half a dozen tablets, she pointed to the screen behind her.
“This good-looking fella is Ilya Federov.” She smiled, obviously aware that the scar down the side of the guy’s face made him look hideous and scary as fuck. “He’s thirty-eight, originally from Moscow, and the most ruthless bastard you’ll ever meet. He’s the head of the organisation we’re trying to take down. He spent ten years living in London, before returning to Russia, so his spoken English is perfect, and he has a lot of underworld contacts here.”
Hollywood stared at the picture and tried to remember whether he’d ever seen anyone as scary looking. Probably not since he was about six and had answered the door to some trick-or-treaters!
It was nothing to do with the close cropped golden-blond hair, or the tall, heavy-set build.
It was all about the scar.
It started at the corner of his eye, just beneath his eyebrow, ran straight down his cheek-bone and under his chin, and left Hollywood wondering exactly how Ilya Federov had come by it.
More amazingly, how had he received the scar without losing the sight in his left eye?
Hollywood turned the photo over to look at the next one in the pile. The asshole was carrying a kid and walking alongside him was a goddess.
“Holy shit!” He spluttered even before his brain became engaged. “How the fuck did an ugly asshole like Federov get himself a woman like that?”
“Or more to the point, what did a poor woman like that do to get herself saddled with a troll like him?” Kellen grinned, but his eyes hadn’t left the picture.
“She isn’t Ilya’s woman.” Hannah chuckled. “She’s his baby sister, Nikita Federova. And that’s her kid, not his. He doesn’t have a wife or kids, just a string of women.”
“I don’t suppose it’s easy in his line of work to maintain a fulfilling relationship.” Evan pointed out, earning a few strange looks from his team-mates. “Probably easier to keep a bunch of women willing to do whatever you want them to.”
“Or to use one of the women they traffic.” Logan growled. “Someone who won’t tell you how ugly you are.”
“What do we know about the sister?” Hollywood wondered. “Who’s the kid’s father?”
“We know very little about her.” Hannah admitted. “All our contact has told us is that she’s twenty-four, and a single mother to Roman, who’s just turned three. Ilya seems to have something of a soft-spot for the kid, but probably because it helps him control the mother.”
“Is she part of the business?” Yuri asked, glancing through the remaining pictures. “Looking through these, she does seem to be quite active.”
“She’s in charge of watching over the women while they’re being moved.” Hannah explained. “She makes sure they’re fed, that they don’t get sick, and that they don’t get beaten or raped by the men.”
“She saves their virtue for the pigs who’re going to buy and rape them, hmm?” Logan growled. “Nice woman.”
“Like I said, I haven’t got the complete picture of what she’s doing there, but if I was one of those women, I think I’d rather be spared being raped by Ilya’s men on a daily basi
s, even if what lies ahead isn’t going to be any better.” Hannah said quietly. “And for this batch of women, at least, if we do manage to rescue them, they will have been spared on both counts.”
Hollywood glanced around his team-mates.
“Women from that part of the world rarely get a choice in what they do.” He commented. “Their role is to do what they’re told, when they’re told to do it. The fathers rule with a rod of iron. Presumably, in this instance, Nikita is ruled by her brother.”
“Their parents and younger sister were killed in a car crash, ten years ago.” Hannah said quietly. “Ilya was Nikita’s sole surviving relative, so she had no choice but to be raised by him. There’s a considerable age difference, so it would appear that Ilya had already embarked on his career path by the time she went to live with him.”
“It didn’t take long for him to get her involved in the family business.” Logan pointed out, and Hollywood could hear the bitterness in his voice.
“I’ve been through all the information I could find, and the first pictures I can trace of Nikita are when she was in university about five years ago. She studied English in Moscow.” Hannah flicked the screen to display a grainy picture. “From what I can tell, the man standing next to her may have been the child’s father, as I tracked down two photos of her on his social media page. Their relationship seems to have been short lived, however, as he seems to have disappeared by the time they graduated, two months later. His parents launched an appeal, with a reward for information leading to the discovery of his whereabouts, but he was never traced.”
Hollywood looked at the image on the screen and noticed the difference between the younger, happier, almost carefree girl she’d been a few years earlier, and the thinner, nervous looking, unhappy woman in the recent picture.
“She looks like she’s aged a decade in the last few years.” Evan pointed out. “I doubt if motherhood alone would have aged her quite that much.”
“No, but hard-living and partying with her brother would account for the bags under her eyes.” Logan sneered. “She’s probably got an au pair to look after the kid, and a housekeeper to clean and pick up after her. I bet she spends all her free time lying on a yacht in the Mediterranean.”