With This ring

by Le Carre, Georgia

  He held out the phone to me “Are you ready to speak to him?”

  I looked him in the eye, and managed a crooked smile. If he asked, no doubt Levan would do whatever was required to save my life. Even to the extent of harming himself and the conglomerate we had given our whole lives to. But after all that I would still not be spared. Because they all knew I would not coexist in the same world with someone who debased me to this extent. I had no interest in life if that was the cost.

  At that moment I knew my time in this world was nearly over. I refused to go out cowering like a dog. I evoked the spit from the base of my throat and shot it at his face. It splattered against his eyes and he shut his lids closed and jerked away.

  “You must be out of your mind,” I muttered. “Since the day I was born, I’ve been at the top of Death’s list. You must… indeed be a great… fool to think that threatening… to kill me would have any effect on me. Go ahead. Set me on fire. Right now.”

  I shut my eyes, and dropped my head, resigned to my fate … and all I could see was her. She was the only regret I had. The only thing that made me want to save myself by any means necessary, even if I had to grovel.

  For the chance of one last glimpse of her… to look into her eyes, to taste her lips, and to sheathe myself in her bliss. She was the heaven I’d been granted in the midst of the hell on earth.

  I smiled.

  I had truly been blessed… to know her for a period, to own her heart and body, for the period I did. I wondered if after I was gone, if she would realize her feelings for me? I sighed and allowed the tears to pool in my eyes, but never to fall.

  Never.

  Boris rose from his chair, and once again picked it up. With a jarring shout, he swung it into the air and I was once again flung to the ground, broken and battered beyond belief.

  “Alright,” he said. “It seems that you need greater incentive. Since you don’t value your life, then let’s go for the next best thing. Fedorov’s daughter. Did you really think you could save her?”

  My heart slammed into my chest.

  He laughed. “Do you really think your men got to her in time?”

  I stared at him in horror.

  “Yes, that’s right. I have her.” He was gloating. Finally, he had me. “What if I bring her here and set her on fire, right in front of you? No, I’ll fuck the bitch first. In the ass. While you watch. She has a good ass on her.” He grabbed his crotch and moaned aloud.

  It made me sick to my stomach.

  “And if that’s not enough motivation for you to speak, then we can put her on a grill, start burning off parts of her while you watch.”

  He turned to his men. “Keep him here until I get the girl.”

  With those chilling words he stormed out of the room. My mind was blank with shock. I could not even begin to…There was absolutely no way… Not that animal… Not Freya… Nooooo… Oh God… Please…

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Freya

  I was concentrating on a design and totally lost to the world when the doorbell rang. I knew Britney was expecting some samples so I quickly went to the door. Sure enough a man in a UPS uniform was standing outside holding a package. I quickly opened the door, but something made the hair on my body stand to attention.

  I recognized the alarm from years of ingrained caution from being around my father’s circles. He handed me the package. On the top was a photo of Maxim, he was lying on a concrete floor with a knife sticking out of his prone body. My mouth dropped open in shock. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I just stared stupidly at the photo in my hand.

  “No, he’s not dead. At least not yet,” the man said.

  I nearly fainted with relief. My knees went and I landed in a heap at my doorstep.

  “But he will be if… you do not come with me willingly.”

  As soon as I heard the words strength poured back into my body. I rose up and said. “Let’s go.”

  “Do you often go out in your dressing gown?” he mocked.

  I looked down. For a second I felt a confused, then I threw it off me. Underneath I had a little T-shirt and leggings. I pulled a coat from the coat rack and turned to him. “I’m ready.”

  “You’re going to walk out of this building as if nothing is wrong. Anybody watching you will think you are going out to the shops to get a pint of milk. You will see a woman wearing a blue coat when you get out. Follow her. When you see a dirty white van on the curb around the block on the way to the convenience store you will get in quietly. If you even look to your left or right, or try to call for help at anytime, your man will die. Look normal. If you trigger suspicion in your security detail and they start to follow you he will die. If you try something clever, he will die. If you try to pass a message on to someone he will die. Basically, his life depends on your good behavior. Do you understand me?”

  I nodded quickly.

  “Good. Start walking.”

  Blankly, I began to walk. Down the stairs I went like a zombie. He followed behind. As if he had nothing to do with me. When I got on the street outside, he turned and went in the opposite direction of the woman in the blue coat. The woman never looked at me. I began to follow her. All I could see in my head was the image of Maxim on the ground. A knife in him. The knife quite close to where I had shot him.

  Around the block I saw the white van parked by the curb half hidden behind a news kiosk. The side door was half-open and once I disappeared into it, it would drive off and my security detail would not know until they realized I did not appear from behind the kiosk. That would give the driver of the van precious time to get away.

  In the side mirror I could see the reflection of a man on the passenger seat, I imagined there must be at least one man at the back, and of course, there must be a driver. Just seeing the van snapped me out of my zombie-like state.

  My heart began to pound furiously in my chest.

  I realized that if I got into that van and went with them, Maxim was a dead man. If they wanted to kill him they already would have done so. They needed me to go with them. I knew Maxim was as tough as they come, but the only reason he was still alive was because whatever they wanted him to do for them, he had not yet done. The thought came to me crystal clear. They were going to use me as leverage to get him to do something.

  I slowed my pace as I tried to formulate a plan in my head. My hands were shaking, but I forced myself to calm down. This was not the time to be paralyzed with fear.

  The side door of the van opened all the way and a man with black hair looked out of it. Our eyes met. “Hurry up,” he urged harshly.

  I was only a few feet away from him. A thought circled in my mind and it was dangerous, extremely so. It could cost me my life and Maxim’s if I calculated wrong. The other option was letting myself get captured and become their leverage over Maxim. Right now, I had some advantage. I was still free on a busy street and in sight of my security detail. The man must have seen the hesitation in my face, because he said urgently. “Come on.”

  I dropped to my knees and simply, but very loudly, began to bawl.

  My voice was loud and piercing, my words indecipherable. It was enough to confuse and get the attention of anyone within a mile from where I was. The man panicked and rushed over to try to pull me up forcibly. Whoever he worked for hadn’t told him to be careful of me. That I was Igor Fedorov’s daughter and was taught to fight since I could stand.

  The moment his hand closed around my arm, I had him.

  Immediately, I struck his neck, right on the Adam’s apple, and it instantly had him howling. With one hand he held the source of his agony, but with the other he reached for his gun. A vicious kick to his gut and he was on the ground. He lost his grip on the gun and I dove for it.

  I spun around on the floor and had it on him before he could even think about rising.

  I glanced quickly at the door to see that his friends had gotten down from the van and were advancing. From the other direction my father’s o
r Maxim’s security detail were running towards me.

  As if on cue, the sound of sirens blared in the distance. I saw the terror and panic in his eyes. “Fuck,” he cursed. “You fucking bitch!” He scrambled upright and stumbled towards his friends and in seconds they had zoomed away.

  Even before my security team reached me I had pulled the phone out of my pocket and dialed Levan’s number.

  It was picked up even before the first ring was over.

  “Freya, I was just about to call you. Are you alright?”

  “Levan? What’s going on. Where’s Maxim? Is he alright?”

  The silence that followed almost knocked out my knees.

  “Levan, what’s going on?”

  “Get into the SUV. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Freya

  I remained in terrified silence until we arrived at an old warehouse. I jumped out and was escorted through the cavernous space to an office. It had about ten members of their security team in it. Levan stood when I came in.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Levan, my heart in my throat. I tried my very hardest to keep my composure, but I was a nervous wreck. All I wanted to know was that he was alive.

  “Maxim’s missing,” he said.

  Obviously he did not know more than me. “I know. I saw a picture of him. He was lying on a concrete floor with a knife in him, but he was still alive… then.”

  “What?” Levan gasped, shocked.

  “They wanted me to go with them. They said he would be killed if I didn’t go, but I knew they were only keeping him alive to get me to go with them. They needed me.”

  Levan fell heavily into his chair and shook his head. “I don’t understand it. We had a clear plan. We had everything in place. Why did he tell his men to stand down and deliberately leave himself vulnerable to his captors?”

  “For the same reason I was almost going to go with them,” I whispered. My knees began to wobble, but I couldn’t even think of sitting down. “So what do we do now?”

  He stared at me, with a frown on his face.

  “Levan, what do we do?”

  “I don’t know. Maxim has a ring with a GPS tracker on it.”

  I knew the exact ring he was talking about. “The one with an anchor a cross and a heart that he wears on his little finger?”

  “Yes, that one.”

  “Well?” I tried to control my tone before impatience got the better of me.

  “There’s a problem. It shows its location as a hostel down in Harlem. We’ve sent our people, but he’s not being held there. The ring and his watch were inside a mattress on the fourth floor.”

  “They were stolen?”

  “More likely taken off him after he was captured. So we put it back and left. What we need now is to find the owner of that bed. No doubt he won’t leave things as precious as that there for too long. The moment he comes back for it, we will be able to capture him and make him lead us to Maxim. He is probably one of the hands that was hired to capture him.”

  “What? So we just wait like sitting ducks?” I asked desperately.

  “That’s all we can do,” Levan replied heavily.

  I could feel my heart begin to sink.

  Levan stood and began to pace the floor. “They probably wanted to use you to blackmail him.”

  “To do what?”

  “He’s probably been tortured, severely, but he has refused to do whatever they wanted so they came for you.”

  I got up then, unable to contain my frustration. “Levan, what are you talking about? What do they want from him?”

  “We already suspect who is behind this,” he said quietly, his face strangely hard. “If it is him then he would be looking for revenge or exoneration. With our influence we would be able to give him all the exoneration in the world he desires, but what good would that be to him if we will still have the power to hunt him down as soon as Maxim is free again?”

  “That means…”

  Levan’s face was black with fury. “He wants us to destroy ourselves. With our own hands. And after that he will kill Maxim.”

  Someone burst into the office. He went to Levan’s side and whispered in such low, but rapid Russian that I could pick out only three words.

  Found him. Shop.

  “The man has returned to the mattress to pick up his items,” Levan explained to the room. “They have him captured now. I’ll head over immediately and get him to talk.”

  I started to go with him but he turned and stopped me. “No, Freya. It’ll get gruesome.”

  “That’s not a pro—”

  “No, Maxim wouldn’t want that. It is better you remain here. The moment we find out where he is, I’ll let you know.”

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Maxim

  I was on the floor leaning against the wall to keep myself upright, keeping my hands hidden when he returned. Their mistake was letting the chair I was tied to break. Once I freed myself from the chair I was playing a completely different game. What these fools didn’t know was plastic ties can easily be broken with a simple technique that a child can execute. A quick Google search would have told them.

  Boris was so furious he almost took the door down. Two men followed him in. My mind automatically clocked the absence of the Albanian and wondered where he was.

  “Ivanov,” he roared, but when he spotted me he burst out into hysterical laughter. “Your woman is quite the soldier. Better than you. The idiots I hired couldn’t get her.”

  For the first time since I got that phone call, I breathed easy, even though it now meant that his focus would solely be on me. I would probably be killed any moment now. It didn’t matter much to me. As long as she was safe, and Levan kept her that way.

  Boris grabbed the chair he had flung aside earlier and swung it at me. The impact seemed to knock the last bit of life out of me, but I knew enough to pretend my hands were still tied behind my back.

  “Look at you,” he jeered. “You’re no better than a disease infested, dirty little rat living in a sewer. I should just fucking end you right now!”

  As I fought to recover, he stood watching me, his chest heaving in frustration that Freya had thwarted his best laid plans.

  “Well, looks like I’ll have to work with just you then,” he said. “There’s pain and there’s pain. At a certain point every man breaks and if he doesn’t those that love him will. I’m going to start burning up parts of you. We’ll start with your legs, and then when that is crisp, we’ll put the fire out, and send the video to your brother. I’ll use that to start the negotiation.”

  “Marlow,” he roared again. “Get an extinguisher and a fucking lighter. The rest of you get in here and secure him back to the chair. And someone bring a fucking phone.”

  There was a flurry of activity, two of the men ran out to do his bidding. I was left with just him and I understood that it was either now or never. My only hope was I would have enough strength to completely decimate him. He looked thick and healthy, but I had desperation on my side. I had one chance and only one. I raised my head and looked him in the eye.

  He lit a cigarette and took a long draw. “One of the things I hate the most about you is the way you look at people, like right now. As though they are all beneath you. Your life is literally in the palm of my hands and yet you would rather die than to plead with me. I am so going to enjoy killing you.”

  It was now or never. I had already loosened my gasoline soaked pants, I kicked them off me as far away as possible. Then I threw away my shirt and began to rise in my underpants, slowly. I saw the expression in his eyes change.

  With my face twisted, and my mouth open and screaming like a mad man, I ran towards him, but before I could ram into his bulk, the sound of a gun exploding shook the walls of the room.

  I couldn’t stop my momentum and I slammed into him. The pain was indescribable. We tumbled to the floor.

  His laugh was bitter and full of disbelief. “You m
anaged to set yourself free,” he said, “and found a way to guide your brother here, but it won’t be enough.”

  I heard the shouts from beyond. Levan. My heart came alive with hope. But before I could start to breathe easy again, Boris’s hands circled around my neck. I looked into his eyes.

  “This is how you die,” he growled.

  With all my strength, I tried to tear his hands from my throat, but he was like a man possessed. He was smiling. This was what he had dreamed of for such a long time. I could barely see, my eyes hazy with a raging fever, and a deathly exhaustion was starting to take over. The edges were beginning to go black. Then his hands were gone. My head dropped to the ground as I choked and coughed and took great gasping breaths of air.

  “You’re not going to make it out of here, and I am not going to strangle you. That’s too much mercy for you.”

  He scrambled up and retrieved the can of gasoline from the corner and began to pour it across the ground from where I stood.

  “You will be burned like an animal!” he swore to me. “That’s the fate you deserve.”

  When he had emptied the can, he brought out the lighter from his pocket. He lit it and my heart lurched into my throat. He threw the flaming lighter forward and the room went up in flames.

  With a howl of delight he ran out and I watched the flames begin to engulf the room. This would be the end unless I found a way to get out. The fire was growing and coming towards me, trapping me

  Then I heard Levan call out my name.

  “Maxim!” he roared, and I answered back at the top of my lungs.

  “Levan! Levan!”

  I needed to leave… right this moment even if it meant being set on fire otherwise no one would be able to get to me. I took a deep breath and aimed for the corner that was the only place that was not burning. I counted to three and was about to move, but fear stopped me. My body was too weak. I could barely even stand up straight. I would be too slow, and the flames would engulf me in seconds.