by Soraya Naomi
“You look confused.” Medlov practically reads my thoughts.
I need to school my expression better.
“This will mean the end for you and probably Adriano, which could be avoidable. Call Adriano and persuade him to sell me Club 7 in exchange for you, and then we part ways.”
“Fine, give me a phone.” I hold out my hand.
He lets out a condescending snort. “Not so fast. I can see the wheels turning in your pretty little head. I will contact Adriano while you sit here.” He points to a yellow futon. “And you may talk to him, but you can’t speak Italian or else I’ll cut you off. Now, go sit.”
The guard shoves me down onto the seat and kneels down. I stiffen when he flashes a knife and rests the sharp edge against my throat.
“One wrong word, move, or hint about your surroundings, and you’ll die. And once you die, it’s over. I won’t talk to the Syndicate again; I’ll let the government handle them. All you’re allowed to talk about is how he must meet you tonight in upstate Chicago at ten, and that he should bring his lawyer with the transfer papers. If he complies, nothing will happen to you.”
I can’t nod because of the blade at my neck, so he takes my silence as agreement.
Medlov brings his phone up against his ear. “Adriano Montesi.”
“Where the fuck is Camilla?!” I hear Adriano yell.
“She’s fine, and if you want to talk to her, then listen to me. I have an offer for you which she will relay. If you ask her anything about her whereabouts, the call will be cut off and you’ll never see her again.”
I can’t hear Adriano’s response as Medlov unkindly stares at me and then presses the speaker button. “Speak.”
“Adriano?” I say.
“Cam? Are you all right?” His unsure, distressed tone cuts through my heart.
“I am. Are you? You got shot?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” There’s an awkward silence because he’s thinking about what to say without getting me hurt.
“Sure you’re okay? You got shot?” I say again quickly, hoping he understands my underlying message that I saw him getting shot, that he was in the correct place before.
“Hurry up,” Medlov intervenes.
“Adriano, meet us in upstate Chicago tonight at ten p.m. We can settle this matter easily. Sell Medlov Club 7 in exchange for me.”
It’s silent for a moment before he replies, “Where exactly?”
Medlov shakes his head. Apparently, one of the rules is that I can’t reveal the exact location yet as his guard presses the tip of the knife to my throat.
I hiss and Adriano hears it, asking in a panicked voice, “Cam? What’s going on?”
“Nothing, I’m fine. Answer me. Are you going to do the trade?”
“Yes,” he confirms instantly.
I want to ask so many questions as I’m sure he wants to as well, but at least we both know we’re alive and okay.
“I’m texting you the address,” Medlov informs Adriano before he ends the call. “You did very well, Camilla. Let’s hope your man follows through and doesn’t find his club more important than you.”
CHAPTER 28
Adriano
“I’m texting you the address,” Medlov says.
“Cam? Cam...” I yell, but Medlov’s hung up. In a flash of pure fury, I hurl the phone across my office and steel my jaw from the pain killing my shoulder. “She said she was all right. She did not sound all right.”
James, Luca, Henry, and Wade have been with me since the crack of dawn, and it’s only eight a.m. currently. Medlov wants to meet at ten tonight, which means fourteen more hours of thorough agony for me.
“He was going to text you on that phone,” Wade comments dryly from behind my desk where he’s sitting with Henry behind a laptop.
Luca, James, and I stand across from them.
“Oh, fuck.” I peer at the phone, now annoyed that I couldn’t hold myself back.
“Don’t worry. I can still access the message,” Henry informs without looking up from his computer screen. “Give me your phone. Wade, put Adriano’s card in a new smartphone. He has some in his desk.”
When my phone went off, I answered immediately. And finally hearing Cam’s voice made me euphoric, yet miserable. So many questions were on the tip of my tongue, but without knowing the situation she’s in, I couldn’t take a risk and inquire about her whereabouts. Hearing her voice crushed me, but then I replay the conversation, and a sense of pride swells inside.
“She sounded fine,” Luca disagrees. “He probably held her at gunpoint.”
Discounting his comment, I state, “Maxim was telling the truth. She is on the second floor, because she knew about my bullet wound.”
“Maybe Medlov told her about it,” Wade points out.
“No, then Cam would’ve asked did you get shot. She didn’t ask for confirmation, and I think it was a clue from her, because she purposely said it twice.”
“I noticed it too,” Luca says. “She was giving us a clue.”
James drops down into one of the chairs. “Now what?”
I ask Henry, “How far away is the address?”
“About four hours’ drive from here.”
“Well,” I start thinking out loud. “Medlov wants to meet at ten, which gives him fourteen hours to transport her from his house to the location. We need to get her back before tonight, because if we wait until then, we’ll be walking into another trap. He has something else planned.”
“And he won’t move her until dark. He won’t risk it in broad daylight, hence setting the time at ten p.m.” Wade shifts in his seat.
“What if he’s already taken here there?” Luca adds, leaning against the desk.
“He hasn’t,” Wade remarks. “No one’s left the estate all night. But what about the club?”
“You think I care about this club? I don’t.”
“You can’t budge, Adriano. We’ll lose power if you sell Club 7.” Luca’s face is full of surprise.
“But I’m not stupid. He’s never going to just give me Cam after I sign over Club 7. There’s more, and that’s why we have to get her out of his mansion before he moves her. He wants us out of the Loop and won’t rest until that happens. He has another plan.”
“We also can’t attack now because Henry isn’t in his system yet,” Wade says.
“Henry, how far are you with hacking his system?”
“I’m not sure. I need a couple more hours. I keep hitting firewalls.”
“How long for us to set up a team to go to his estate?” I ask. “We need to make sure we’re there when he leaves with Cam, even if Henry hasn’t finished breaching their system by then.”
“I can already disable some of the estate’s exterior security,” Henry notifies me.
“Wade, how many soldiers can work tonight at five?”
“I can rally up around fifty.”
“Then do so. I want her back with minimal chaos to ensure her safety. We’ll need tranquilizers and lots of silencers.”
“I’ll have to go to the CIA tech department to get tranquilizers,” Wade answers.
“Where’s that?” Luca turns his head to Wade.
Wade smiles slowly. “When Adriano’s made me an official first Capo, I’ll tell you.”
“Fine. Then let the other Capi round up soldiers, and you go to CIA tech,” Luca says.
“Let’s put it in motion,” I order. “Either Cam’s back with me by nightfall, or I’m selling this fucking club.”
And so the damn waiting game continues.
CHAPTER 29
Camilla
It must be long into the late afternoon when I get a chance to escape this room. These men underestimate me and let a short, chubby maid come in alone to give me food. As she’s bringing my tray in, the guard gets called away and closes the door.
I smile at her; she does not return the sentiment. Nonetheless, as she turns to place the tray on the nightstand, I jump up, hook my fingers into her n
eck, and smash her head against the edge of it twice, knocking her out. I grimace when it makes a loud thumping noise and stare at the door nervously, but the knob doesn’t turn.
In a rush, I strip my clothes, hissing from the sting of the scratches on my palms, which have scabbed over, and then I remove the girl’s black and white uniform-dress and put it on.
I inch open the door, and the guard is in a heated conversation with his back to me, so I sneak out and walk in the other direction. The floor isn’t as busy as it was earlier, and I avoid eye contact with a passing guard as I tread down the stairs as unassumingly as possible, passing windows and realizing it’s later than afternoon; it’s already dark outside.
Suddenly, my heart slams around in my chest when a door to the left opens and Medlov appears in the foyer reading something on his phone. Right before he looks up, I duck around the stairs and pace straight ahead toward another room. As I’m about to enter it, I notice that it has a phone sitting on a table.
But I hear Medlov yelling from the staircase, “Give me the tape! I’m holding on to it.”
I’m about to walk inside the room when an alarm goes off. Then several men shout in a foreign language; I assume it’s Ukrainian. They must’ve discovered the unconscious maid, so I run to the back of the house and jump off the porch into the darkness of the vast garden as sounds are closing in on me.
Oh, shit! It’s cold and raining.
The drops sting my cheeks, and the wind freezes my bare legs as I keep going.
“There she is!” Medlov shouts from behind me.
In reaction, I duck as shots blast around me, alighting the night and allowing me to see Medlov chasing me. I slip into the forest without slowing down, and almost at once, I catch my foot on a root and fall. Wheezing, I push myself up and scramble behind a tree trunk as voices invade the forest.
Medlov and Ukrainian guards pass.
I blink through the spitting rain and a thunderbolt illuminates the atmosphere. The ruckus of the storm makes it hard to concentrate, but a light beside a nearby tree has me pressing myself further into the shelter of the trunk.
Please don’t see me!
The light redirects away from me as people scream my name and other foreign words. And as soon as my eyes have adjusted to the darkness again, I spot a faint light up ahead. It looks like Medlov has gone into some kind of pool house or cottage.
He has the tape. Now is my chance to get it.
Indecision plagues me, but the chaos and chilly wind have me sprinting over fallen branches and wet clumps of mud and leaves, and I almost slip twice when I reach the grassy area. Taking a chance, I look back over my shoulder, but no one has followed me. And it sounds as if a riot is ensuing in the distance.
I turn the knob on the front door, which opens into a hallway, and discover that the cottage is actually as big as a normal house with a second story. Floorboards creak and water drips down my body as I proceed, shivering, and I strain to hear footsteps, but the storm is making that impossible.
Sharply, there’s a click right next to my ear, and the end of a gun barrel is pressed into my temple.
“I knew you’d come after me,” Medlov says from behind me and thrusts me toward the window.
I look to the side and see him scanning the perimeter before his eyes rest on me.
I swallow through my dry throat as he murmurs, “You’re quite courageous. Instead of escaping to freedom, you dare to follow me.”
“I am running to freedom.” That tape is my freedom.
The corner of his lip curves up. “I have to say that I’ve never met a woman as intriguing as you, Camilla Guillermo,” he emphasizes my name with that thick Ukrainian accent. “I’m fascinated more and more by you...But we have more pressing matters—” He’s interrupted by his phone chiming in.
Medlov indicates with his weapon for me to face him, and then he levels his aim at me again as he answers his phone, “What?” His angry stare is focused on me, and he switches to Ukrainian so that I can’t understand his words anymore, but it’s obvious that I’m not the only issue.
Inwardly, I smile because my instinct is informing me that Adriano is probably wreaking havoc in the area.
I knew he’d come for me.
Now, all I need is that tape and, preferably, Medlov dead. But after he hangs up, everything happens in fast-forward. He grabs my neck and propels me to the door, but I can’t let him take me away. I’m sure that Adriano or the Syndicate’s team have something up their sleeves and it’s the reason for Medlov’s anxiety.
I stop abruptly when he’s close behind me, letting him slam against my back, and elbow him in his nose, stooping down when he swings his gun at me. Then I barrel into his leg, and we collapse to the floor together.
“Stupid bitch!” he roars and pushes me flat on my back, slapping my face.
Heat slashes my cheeks as I kick and scream while he hovers over me, trying to sit astride me. Then something drops from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, and both our gazes follow the movement of the USB device as it clanks to the floor a few feet above my head. For a split-second, Medlov glances back at me before he lunges over me, but I clutch his shirt and roll us over, digging my fingers into his eyes.
“Ahhh!” He launches me off him with his knees and yells swear words as he rubs his eyes, which are tightly shut.
I take that moment to scramble forward on my knees, extending my hand to reach the tape. My fingers touch the rectangular device, and I almost have it, until a sting in my neck has me lowering my arm and feeling dizzy.
Medlov’s manic red eyes are the last thing I see before I black out.
CHAPTER 30
Adriano
“Adriano, the engineer’s here,” a Capi announces from the doorway of my office at Club 7.
“Who?” I’m settled in a chair without my shirt on, gritting my teeth, while Marc gives me an injection to numb the area around my healing bullet wound. It’s been killing me because I haven’t been able to sit still since I lost Cam seventeen hours and twenty-three minutes ago.
“The man who’s going to reactivate the elevator that goes from the underground floor to this office.”
I throw on my black long-sleeved shirt and stash my gun in my ankle holster, shaking my leg to let my pants fall over it while the room bustles with all the high ranking men as we prepare to leave for Medlov’s estate within the next five minutes.
“Oh, yes.” In all the commotion, I downright forgot about all the orders I issued last night. “He can do whatever he needs to do in my office in fifteen minutes. Come back then, and we’ll be gone.” Without bothering to wait for a reply, I take a tranquilizer gun from my desk and hide it in my waistband. “Henry, how far are you into disabling that system?”
Typing away furiously, he snarls orders into his earpiece before lazing back in the chair and adjusting his black-framed glasses on his nose. “I can only ensure that the gates stay locked when you’re inside so that he can’t move Cam out, and I can control the outside cameras. The system for the house is another program that’s impossible to hack within the timeframe you set, so I won’t be able to do anything for you there.”
My grunt reveals my dissatisfaction. “Well, I don’t have more time. The sun has set, and Medlov needs to move Cam to the meet’s location if he wants to arrive there at ten p.m.” I address Luca, Wade, and five Capi next, “We leave now.”
Apprehension regarding this last-minute mission clamors inside me. Nevertheless, I’m fully absorbed in one thing: getting back what belongs to me.
***
Storm clouds darken the sky, and pouring rain streams down when I pull off onto the side of the road on the west side of Medlov’s estate in Ukrainian Village with Luca and Wade. The view of the main house is obstructed by the tall trees that surround the estate like a forest, and night has fallen.
“You know the main rule; we use the tranquilizer guns because even with our silencers, we can’t take the risk of exposure too soon. T
ranquilize first, and then kill.”
They nod. We all have earpieces, and Henry informs me that he’s frozen the cameras so that we can climb over the fence.
I get out of my car and take a black duffel bag from the trunk. Luca’s already jumping down the other side of the fence, and I toss the duffel bag over after him. Wade and I follow swiftly. I land with both feet planted firmly in the wet earth and zip open the bag. In the distance, more members of the Syndicate are invading the territory and creeping into the trees toward the main house.
“Here.” I throw tranquilizer guns to Wade and Luca.
“We go straight ahead.” Luca leads the way as Henry guides us to the mansion over our earpieces.
The wind rings loudly in my ear, but I don’t feel the cold because I’m numb to everything except finding Cam without a scratch. As we move through the trees, it doesn’t take long for us to come across the enemy.
“Luca, take the one on the right,” I instruct, just as I run up to a guard patrolling in front of me, and Luca takes the other one.
Hooking our arms around their necks, we shoot each of them in the throat and let their bodies sag to the ground before continuing on with Wade. I hear an alarm in the distance and we freeze, looking around to see if we’ve been discovered.
Then, all of a sudden, we’re surrounded by shadows, bullets, thunder, and rain – a combination that results in disorder as I determinedly track ahead, because I refuse to be forced back. I stagger to a fall when someone jumps on me from behind, but I lunge up, tossing him off me, and punch him the moment he comes within striking distance. When I shoot him in the arm with a tranquillizer dart, he stumbles to the ground. Spinning around, I block the fist of another attacker as Luca and Wade fight off more guards and discharge their Smith & Wessons. My second attacker goes down, and since our cover is blown anyway, I snatch my gun and kill Luca’s attacker just as Wade does away with the last two guards.
“Hurry, our cover’s blown,” I say.
This estate is enormous as I still can’t see the main house, but I do think I detect a smaller house, perhaps one of the cottages Maxim mentioned, in the very far distance. I just can’t see well enough to tell for sure in this fucking weather.