The driver let out a controlled breath and unbuckled his seatbelt. Kostya kept his eyes trained on him while keeping the glass partition in his peripheral vision. He would not allow himself to make a mistake now. He’d come too far.
“Get out of the car and stand on the sidewalk until we’re out of sight,” Kostya demanded. He didn’t notice a gun on the driver, and he figured the man was defenseless. It was too bad. Anatoly was making this too easy. “After that, what you do with your life is up to you, but remember my mercy, and know that next time you cross the Sokolovs, you will not be so blessed.”
The driver opened the door and climbed out of the car. Kostya slammed the door shut, sidled into the driver seat, and turned out onto the intersecting street without issue, all the while making sure the frosted glass partition remained in place.
He had Anatoly in his grasp. Now all he had to do was figure out how tightly to squeeze.
18
KOSTYA
Elena Popov was older than Maya by a year, and she’d never let Maya forget it. She was the favorite, the golden child, and the most well-loved—at least, according to her. They’d grown up as rivals, entered adulthood as rivals, and split ways on bad terms. To Elena, family was everything, and her heart and soul had belonged to the Popov line… but Maya had seen her sister in that candid photograph with Viktor, which led her to believe that she’d gone to live with the Sokolovs recently... and maybe that she’d turned her back on their father.
Maya wanted to believe it, but she also knew that her sister was a viper who wasn’t beyond subterfuge if it meant she could get what she wanted. Still, what other choice did she have than to reach out to Elena? No one would understand the situation better than a Popov, and if Elena really had aligned herself with the enemy, then there was a chance she could get Maya in touch with Kostya before it was too late.
Maya woke her tablet and sent a FaceTime invitation to her sister.
Then, the invitation sat, and sat some more. Maya checked the time. It was a little after nine in the morning, which meant it was five in the morning in Boston. Elena probably wasn’t awake, but Maya needed answers. She would wait until Elena either hung up on her or answered. Kostya needed her.
At last, the screen flickered. Elena’s face appeared. Her hair was messy and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Maya couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her sister with a nude face. “Maya?”
“Don’t hang up,” Maya pleaded. “I need to ask you something.”
“Maya, it’s five in the morning. What the hell are you doing, calling me?” Elena yawned and rubbed her eyes. It looked like she was in bed. “It’s not even light outside yet. How am I supposed to get my beauty sleep?”
“Please, Elena… please, listen. I know that we’re not on good terms, but I need your help. Where are you right now? Are you with the Sokolovs?”
“Um, what’s going on?” Elena furrowed her brow. She held her phone a little farther away from her face, like doing so might help her make better sense of the situation. “You’re acting really weird.”
“I need to know. Are you with the Sokolovs, or are you at home?”
Elena pushed a hand through her messy hair, pulling it back from her forehead. “I guess it really has been a long time, hasn’t it? You have no clue what’s going on…” She sighed, then laughed and rolled over. The screen went blurry from the motion, then refocused. Elena had angled the camera lens so Maya could see across the bed. It was dark on the other half of the mattress, but Maya saw what she believed to be someone sleeping next to Elena. “Maya, meet my boyfriend, Roman. He’s Viktor’s driver and best friend.”
“Viktor Sokolov?” Maya squinted, trying to find any signs that Elena was telling the truth. From what little she saw, it didn’t look like a Popov residence, but with so much of the room plunged in darkness, it was hard to tell. “The oldest son?”
“He’s the head of the family now, and I was supposed to kill him.” She sounded oddly proud of that, like it was a badge of honor to be worn. “But I didn’t. Do you know what happened instead?”
Maya wanted to scream that she didn’t have time to listen to dramatic stories, but Elena was nothing if not dramatic, and she knew that interrupting her would only prolong the conversation. “What?”
“I fell in love.” Elena sighed dreamily—Maya was eighty percent certain that it was for effect. “But more than that, I learned that the man I called ‘Father’ is a brutish, evil, despicable excuse for a human being. Once I got over the fear that he’d come take care of me once he learned I’d defected, it was a no-brainer. Roman has promised to keep me safe, and Viktor has graciously opened up his home to me. I feel safer here than I ever did in any of the apartments I was given.”
“Then you’ll help me,” Maya said. If it was a member of the Sokolov crime family in bed with her, then Maya knew that Elena had told the truth. She wouldn’t have risked her life by revealing details like that if she didn’t mean them. Elena acted like a ditz, but Maya knew it was a calculated act—no one ever felt threatened by an airhead. Behind her act, Elena was intelligent and sharp-tongued. If she’d wanted to, she might have made an excellent lawyer.
Instead, their father had used her to spy on others and handle his dirty work. Maya was glad she’d never been trusted enough to do the same.
“What do you need help with?” Elena asked.
“It’s about Kostya—”
“Kostya?” Elena squeaked. “Like, Mad Dog Kostya? Like, Viktor’s little brother? What are you doing that you need help with Kostya? Are you hurt?”
Elena had never shown much compassion or worry for her before, and Maya found herself tongue-tied. She blinked in confusion, then tried to address her sister’s question as best she could. “I… I’m fine. But he may not be. He’s gone after Father, and—”
Maya’s phone rang right beside the tablet, and Elena almost fell off the edge of her bed. Maya snagged her phone from the bedside table and checked on who was calling. There was no name listed, but there was a number. It was one she didn’t recognize.
“One second, Elena, I’m sorry.” Maya answered the call. “Hello?”
“How sweet it is to hear your voice, Maya. Ya skuchal po tebe.”
Maya froze. Her heart leapt into her throat. It was her father, Anatoly Popov.
Thinking fast, she took the phone from her ear and set it to speakerphone. If Elena could hear what was happening, then maybe she’d understand the severity of the situation. If it was true that she’d defected, Maya only hoped that Elena could help her find the best way forward.
“Father,” Maya answered. “Why are you calling me? How did you get this number?”
“Why would I be calling my own daughter?” He laughed. “Why wouldn’t I? As my flesh and blood, I have a right to know what’s going on in your life, don’t I?”
“I left you and the Popovs behind me.” Maya’s voice shook as she continued, “Please, don’t call me again. I thought I made myself clear the last time we spoke.”
“If that’s what you want, I’ll respect your wishes. After all, you’ve given me such a fabulous gift, the least I could do is repay your kindness.”
“A gift?” Maya sat up a little straighter as her mind raced. Was he playing games with her, or had the worst come to pass? “What are you talking about?”
“It was very generous of you to send Konstantin Sokolov right to my front door. I deployed a decoy car, and wouldn’t you know it, he took the bait and strong-armed his way inside. Imagine his surprise when he arrived at the empty lot he’d intended to kill me in, only to find six armed and capable men waiting for him in the back seat.”
Maya covered her mouth with her hand, cutting off a sharp gasp that pieced her heart. “No.”
“You know what’s funnier?” her father added, laughing out loud before he went on. “He thought it would be poetic justice to take the car to the abandoned building you were so intent on building your homeless shelter in. So, I h
ave him there now, and in a few hours, once I’ve tortured him adequately, I will be putting the dog down for good.”
“You can’t,” Maya pleaded. “Don’t do this. It’s not right!”
“It’s not right to protect my family? To weed out those who would do us harm and inhibit the growth of our fortune and power? I think not.” Again, her father chuckled. “So I’ll leave you be, Maya, my good girl. You may have failed me your whole life, but this one act of kindness has redeemed you in my eyes.”
“No.” Maya’s eyes widened. Her worst fears had come to pass. Kostya would be killed, and it was all her fault. “Father!”
“Goodbye.”
Tears swelled in Maya’s eyes, and when she went to blink them away, they kept falling down her cheeks in fat droplets. She looked back to the FaceTime conversation with Elena, who had her hand clamped over her mouth in horror.
“Please, Elena,” Maya uttered, her voice raw with pain. “Please, come help me. I don’t know what to do.”
“Find a way to buy Kostya seven hours, and we’ll take care of it.”
The screen blinked off even as Maya nodded.
Seven hours was too long, but Maya could think of no other way to save the man she loved. She’d find a way. Kostya’s life depended on it.
19
MAYA
Kostya’s skin was clammy, beaded with sweat from exposure to staggering humidity. Each breath he took was labored. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt like this—his encounter in the alley had left him the same degree of battered—but the air was different here than it had been out on the open London streets. Despite the stink of garbage, it had been easier to breathe where he’d been left before.
He recognized the weight in the air and the dank, moldy scent it carried. He’d been brought inside a building, maybe a warehouse, that lacked climate control and had been left to deteriorate.
It didn’t take him long to piece the puzzle together.
He’d intended to force Anatoly Popov out of the car and apprehend him in the very building Maya had been petitioning to have turned into her homeless shelter. Anatoly, who’d concealed armed men in the back of his car, had turned the tables on him instead. He’d apparently brought Kostya into the very building he’d intended to use to imprison Anatoly within until Maya arrived and decided what to do with him.
How fitting.
Kostya opened his eyes and blinked against the blinding light of day. His head throbbed with a dull, pulsing pain that made it hard to think. A trickle of something wet ran down the back of his scalp and onto his neck. Blood? He wasn’t sure. There was no way to check if his suspicions were correct—his arms had been locked behind the back of the chair he sat on with coarse rope that dug into his wrists. His shoulders were nearly overextended. If he struggled, he’d risk dislocation.
Anatoly knew what he was doing.
As Kostya’s vision cleared, the warehouse came into view. Its unfinished cement floors were desperately in need of attention. Its walls were solid and appeared stable, but badly needed to be treated for mold. If this remained Maya’s pick for her shelter, she had her work cut out for her.
But when had she ever gone for the easiest option? Kostya knew her well enough to understand that she mercilessly pursued whatever it was she wanted. If this was her ideal building, for whatever reason, he knew she would make it hers.
Not that it would matter much. If Anatoly got his way, cleaning the mold out of here wouldn’t be Maya’s greatest obstacle to setting up a workable shelter. The fact that all of Kostya’s blood was still inside of his body, rather than decorating the space already, was nothing short of a miracle.
Why was Anatoly keeping him alive?
“Ah, the puppy has woken up from his nap,” Anatoly mused from a few feet behind Kostya, speaking in Russian. His footsteps echoed through the empty warehouse. From the singular set of footsteps Kostya heard, he had reason to believe that Anatoly was alone. “The Mad Dog has been collared. How does it feel to be the one coming up short?”
Kostya closed his eyes and focused on drawing breath. He didn’t deign to answer the man.
“I must admit, it was a courageous—if stupid—plan to catch me while I was most vulnerable. It’s a shame that you couldn’t execute your plan in the way you wanted.” Anatoly’s footsteps came to a stop. Kostya could only imagine the smirk on his face. “That you couldn’t execute me.”
The tactics Anatoly was using now were similar to ones Kostya had used in the past while torturing captives. Words had a way of getting under skin and driving men mad in the way that blades and bullets didn’t. What started off as mild irritation would, over time, become more brutal. Anatoly would attempt to tear into his conscious mind and render it in two before he ever touched him physically, it seemed.
Kostya would not let him. He would rather shut himself down than suffer that.
“And now, here you are… the first of the young Sokolovs to succumb to my might. Isn’t it strange how life works? Out of all your brothers, I wouldn’t have guessed you would be the first to fall victim to my brutality.” Anatoly clicked his tongue. His footsteps echoed through the warehouse then, marking his passage from Kostya’s side to a place right in front of him. “But I suppose that, just like there is a woman standing behind every successful man, there is a woman responsible for that man’s downfall, as well. My sweet Maya has made you soft. I’ll have to thank her for all she’s done for me. Do you think she’d enjoy a token of today? Your severed head, perhaps?”
Kostya couldn’t help it; he wrenched his head up and snarled at Anatoly. He lunged forward, but the ropes held firm, and all he succeeded in doing was hurting himself.
No one would hurt Maya like that. No one.
Anatoly laughed. “Oh, to be young and full of life. What a shame.”
“If you hurt her, I swear I’ll find a way to return that suffering to you a thousand times worse.”
“From beyond the grave?” Anatoly chuckled. “You don’t actually think you’re going to be leaving here alive, do you, Kostya? I know what’s going to happen as well as you do. I’ll offer you a chance to prove yourself, and you’ll betray my trust. I’ll have no choice but to kill you.”
Kostya didn’t fear his own death. From early childhood, he’d understood the nature of his family’s business. He was disposable. Being a Sokolov didn’t guarantee his safety. But to think that Maya might suffer because of him, or that she might be cursed with a similar fate because she’d opened her heart to him… that scared him more than anything had in the past.
There had to be a way to regain the upper hand. He was resourceful and strong—and far younger than Anatoly, too, whose posture was rigid with age, and whose steps betrayed physical weakness. If he could only get free…
“So, Kostya.” Anatoly leaned forward, almost nose to nose with Kostya. His breath smelled of peat and tobacco. “Tell me. Will you betray your brothers and save yourself—and Maya—or will you choose death? Don’t bother trying to trick me. Either you’ll tell me what I want to know, or you’ll die. There are no other options.”
“Is that so?” Kostya closed his eyes and let peace sweep through him. This was his last chance. If he failed, he would die, and Maya’s fate would be out of his hands. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake. “Then I have no choice. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For—”
Before Anatoly could finish, Kostya flung his head forward and sent it crashing into Anatoly’s. He used the forward momentum to rock the chair up until it was upended, and from there he managed to plant his feet on the floor before it fell. Anatoly staggered backward with a cry of anguish, and Kostya went after him relentlessly. He was tied to the chair from the chest up, but his legs had been left unrestrained, and that granted him a small amount of mobility he intended to use to his advantage.
A man as low as Anatoly would kill Maya if she spoke out against him. If Kostya didn’t best him now, he already knew that she was as good as dead. Leaving
the family, living independently, and consorting with the enemy, Maya had tested her father’s limits. It was up to Kostya to keep her safe.
Channeling his rage and fear into vicious energy, he swung around and crashed the legs of the chair bound to his body into Anatoly. Anatoly stumbled again, cursing in pain, and Kostya saw his chance. He’d knocked Anatoly off balance. If he could knock him down and bang his head against the cement floor…
Kostya went for it. With all his might, he lunged at Anatoly. The impact caught Anatoly off guard and they toppled to the ground, Anatoly cushioning Kostya’s fall. There was a sickly thunk of bone as a head knocked a hard surface, and then, quiet. Kostya laid on top of Anatoly and listened to their surroundings, waiting for rushing footsteps to hurry in their direction.
There was no sound. No one came. Anatoly, silent, lay still beneath him.
Against all odds, Kostya had succeeded. All he needed to do now was figure out a way to untie himself, and then get in contact with Maya and allow her to deal with the situation.
He’d kept his word—Anatoly had been left alive.
Whether he remained that way would be left to Maya’s discretion.
20
KOSTYA
When the phone call came and Maya heard Kostya’s voice again, she wept. As a Popov, she understood fear—she knew what it was like to have to leave a house in the middle of the night on suspicion of danger, or to be thrust into a situation where it was likely she wouldn’t wake up to see the dawn of a new day. But fear had never before felt like it had when she’d been on the phone with her father, the death of a man she loved held above her head like the blade of a guillotine. Knowing that Kostya was not only alive, but well, freed her from the executioner’s block.
Everything was going to be okay.
“Where are you right now?” Maya demanded, brushing the tears from her eyes. She did her best to bring herself under control, but another sob rattled loose from her chest despite her best efforts. “How can I help?”
Saving the Russian Enforcer: Sokolov Brothers Book Three Page 8