by Alyssa Cole
When Alexi tugged his passenger out into broad daylight, leering down at her, Julian’s heart nearly exploded. It was Salomeh, eyes wide as she looked about her plaintively as if she hoped someone would help her but didn’t want to jeopardize anyone by asking for it. Alexi clamped a beefy hand down on her shoulder to steer her toward the entrance of the club, and Julian saw her wince in pain.
“Shit. Where are you, Yates? What’s your ETA?” he demanded. He could hear the panic in his voice and tried to tamp it down.
What was Salomeh doing here? She should have been sitting in the hotel, cursing him to hell for leaving her, but safe and sound. Instead she was being taken to the most dangerous place possible. Bardhyn would hurt her badly if he had any inkling that Julian cared for her, and Julian hadn’t exactly played his cards close to his chest.
“What’s going on?” Yates asked, picking up on his anxiety. “We should be there in about fifteen minutes if traffic allows. That’s plenty of time, right?”
“Wrong,” he said. “He’s got Salomeh. I don’t know how, but he’s got Salomeh.”
He heard the sound of rubber screeching against asphalt, which heartened him. It meant Yates was putting the pedal to the metal and would be there soon. But it didn’t ease his fierce need to run across the street and snatch Salomeh out of Alexi’s grasp.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Don’t even think about it,” Yates warned, her voice steely. “I know this must be hard for you, but you could compromise everyone’s safety as well as the entire operation.”
An anguished growl rose in his throat. She was right, but she didn’t understand. To her, Bardhyn was just a perp to take down. Julian had intimate knowledge of what the man could do seared into his psyche, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.
As the door to the club closed behind Salomeh and Alexi, Julian felt hysteria washing over him, an emotion he hadn’t experienced to this degree since he was a boy thrusting his arms into the burned wreckage of his home, searching in vain for some remnant of his family.
But he was a man now, and he would not let Bardhyn use his weaknesses against him or hurt those he loved. He remembered the feel of Salomeh’s soft hands running over his scars as she sought to give him solace. He would make sure nothing happened to her, even if he could only do so after the longest fifteen minutes of his life.
He closed his eyes and marshaled his fear into something useful: determination. He had already let both Yates and Salomeh down once, and he needed to keep his cool if he was going to be of use to either of them.
“I can wait,” he said. “But please—”
“Do you remember who you’re talking to?” she snapped.
Before the call ended, Julian heard the voices of several large men, trained killers all of them, begging Yates to slow down.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Salomeh jerked her arm away from Alexi as he shoved her into the entrance of the club. He released his grip on her shoulder, and she was preparing to make a break for it when he kicked her in the back of one knee, sending her sprawling. She skidded over the waxed linoleum, her knees burning as she came to a halt. Alexi grabbed her roughly by the shirt and pulled her back to her feet.
“Don’t get any ideas now that we’re here. I’m the one in charge right now, as much as you hate it. And when you meet the guy in charge of me…” He shook his head forebodingly, but it was the smirk on his face that frightened Salomeh more.
She thought back to the ice-blue eyes that had so casually assessed her from the backseat of the car that day when everything had gone wrong. She had been able to avoid thinking too much about the reality of Bardhyn, distracted by the downhill roller-coaster ride her life had been over the past forty-eight hours. Now that she had inadvertently gotten her wish and would actually come face-to-face with the man, she realized she didn’t have an endgame planned. Unfortunately for her, he probably did.
She looked around at the club’s main room. It had all the accoutrements of a regular strip club—stages, poles, and mirrors—but devoid of dancers and patrons, the club had an eerie feel. The smell of cigarettes and stale beer permeated the place. It was the kind of scent that clung to hair and clothing after only a few moments in a bar.
“You want to see your little girlfriend, right?” Alexi asked as he dragged her through a back room that held only a bed with the mattress stripped clean of sheets and a chair. “Are you excited? You should be, because now you can see what’s in store for you.”
Salomeh remained silent as he pulled her up a flight of stairs and down a hallway lined with doors, continually taunting her. She was nervous, as ridiculous as it seemed given the situation they were in. What would she say to Yelena after all this?
“Three more doors, two more, and here we are,” Alexi said, seemingly unable to keep his mouth shut. He stopped in front of a blue door, fumbling with a key ring before pulling it open and shoving her into a dark room.
“Have a nice reunion,” he said, a loud slam marking his departure. Salomeh heard the click of the lock and tried to control the panic rising within her.
She could tell the room was small. Even in the darkness, she could feel the walls closing in on her, the knowledge that she was locked in with no escape amplifying her fear. The room was quiet after Alexi’s nonstop blathering, quiet enough she could hear her own heart racing.
But then she noticed the smell; it was familiar enough to a teacher. She tripped over something in the darkness, her hand coming down hard in a puddle of cool liquid. When she bought her fingers to her nose, she nearly retched.
Bile. She had found the source of the scent.
“Yelena?” she whispered. There was no response.
She stumbled forward until she hit a wall and began feeling around for a light switch. She could hear the unhurried rustling of sheets to her left as she searched.
“Yelena?” she called more forcefully, but no answer came.
It took her longer than it should have to find the light switch in a room so small. When she finally flipped the switch, she expected a flood of light to stream through the room, matching her elation at having finally found it. Instead, a weak yellow light filtered down from a small bulb overhead.
Salomeh turned slowly, dreading what she would see.
The girl was sprawled on a cot with her head propped up by the wall, her eyes blank. The puddle Salomeh had stuck her hand into was next to the bed, having trickled over the edge of the mattress.
“Yelena! No, no, no,” she cried, reaching the bed in one step. She grabbed a balled-up blanket from the corner and used it to wipe the filth from the girl. Yelena still stared into the nothingness as if Salomeh weren’t even there.
Salomeh shook her but stopped when her gaze drifted to the marks on Yelena’s arms. It was only then that the scorched metal spoon and the lighter sitting on the small nightstand caught her attention.
“Oh God,” she whispered, pulling the girl into her lap and settling back onto the dirty bed. She ran a hand over Yelena’s knotted hair, unable to quite grasp the horror of the situation.
“Why did they do this to you?” she asked aloud. “How could they do this?”
Yelena shifted in her arms. “Miss Jones?” she asked in a dull voice.
“Yes, it’s me,” Salomeh said, her voice barely squeezing past the lump in her throat. “I’m going to get you out of here, but I just need to think.”
There were no windows; the only exit was the door.
“When I first got here, I wanted to leave too.” Yelena’s words were slow, and her glassy eyes turned up to look at Salomeh. “But once they start giving you the medicine, you don’t want to go anymore. Now, I just don’t care. I like not caring.”
Salomeh felt the hot tears sliding down her cheeks. The reality of this situation was so much more than she had bargained for. She had imagined that what Yelena would be going through could be no worse than what she had experienced at home. How naive she had been.
>
This was what the girls Julian had described went through. This was why they couldn’t escape.
“No, we’re going to leave here,” she said gently. “We’re going to get you some help, and then you won’t need that poison. That’s what it is, poison. Not medicine.”
Yelena rolled her head to the side and looked at Salomeh with lazy contempt. “What do you know?” she asked. “You would wanna forget too if your mom thought drugs were worth more than you. She told me I would get used to it, you know. Said men touched her when she was my age, and she turned out fine.”
Salomeh couldn’t bite back her gasp of shock. She wondered how Yelena would feel about her mother’s death, but now was not the time to find out. Instead she tried to give her the comfort a child should receive from her mother, hoping it could serve as a balm against the horror the girl had endured.
Yelena shook her head, pulling her hand down over her face like she could wipe the drowsiness away. “I’m sorry. I read the newspapers and saw the horrible things people were saying because of my lies. You were my only friend, you know that? And I ruined you,” she said. “That’s why it’s okay if I die now. That would be better.”
“No, you can’t die,” Salomeh said. “You can’t die, because I care about you.”
“You don’t care,” Yelena said quietly. Utterly resigned. “No one cares about me.”
“I do. I love you,” Salomeh said, rocking the girl as if she were an infant. She had always fought the feeling before, thought it unprofessional, but it was the truth. “And when we get out of here, I’ll make sure you understand that.”
“Why are you so sure we’re going to get out of here?” Yelena asked.
The more she talked, the more lucid she became, so Salomeh tried to keep her talking.
“Because we have a good guy on our side. And he told me he was going to come here and save you. He’s going to be pretty mad when he finds me here too, but he’ll get over it.”
Yelena let out a bleak laugh. “We’ll see,” she said.
Salomeh heard a key turn in the lock and looked over to find herself caught in the gaze of a slim woman with large dark eyes. Her black hair was cut into a sleek angular bob that framed her too-pale face, but auburn roots were visible in the sweeping side part. The woman looked at the two of them on the bed with a palpable mixture of contempt and what seemed like envy.
“I see you were right, Yelena,” the woman said, and Salomeh instantly recognized the cold voice that had threatened her over the phone. “She did come for you.”
The woman cocked her head to the side and stared at Salomeh as she lit a cigarette, her fingers trembling ever so slightly. She smirked after she finally managed to take a drag, and her dimpled smile sent a jolt of recognition through Salomeh.
“Rylinda, leave us alone,” Yelena whispered, huddling closer to Salomeh.
“Miss Jones,” Linda said as she exhaled, the smoke swirling around her face—a face that was strikingly familiar to Salomeh. “Forgive my directness, but given that you were both supposed to be dead, I really must ask immediately: where is my brother?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Yates was there well before fifteen minutes. Julian couldn’t imagine how deranged her driving must have been, but she pulled up smoothly and quietly, eyes hidden behind aviators with reflective lenses. She didn’t look his way when he slipped into the vacant passenger seat, and he knew she was taking in the club from her peripheral vision. They pulled away from the curb quietly.
As they made to circle the block, an SUV similar to their own pulled up in front of the club, and two slim dark men who bore the distinct features of West Africa exited the car, flanked by a couple of large bodyguards.
Julian wondered if those were the only men the syndicate was bringing with them, and how many Birdie could possibly have inside. Too many men going in and out would have been conspicuous, and letting too many goons know about the meeting would have increased the chance of a leak. Albanians hardly ever broke the Besa, but that didn’t mean Bardhyn would trust them with information about his every move, especially one as important as this.
“Did you guys take that in?” he said to the bulletproof-vest-clad men in the back of the car, who grunted their replies. He knew a couple of them, Aimes and Nichols, but the others were strangers to him. They were bruisers, though, and as long as they could follow directions, they were fine by him.
Julian gave his opinion on the security situation and then waited for the assembled agents to voice any disagreement. When there wasn’t any, he continued.
“What are your thoughts, Yates?” he asked, trying not to jump out of his skin. At the forefront of his mind, a timer was ticking away every second Salomeh had been left alone with Alexi and Bardhyn. He had thought losing his family was torture, but they had already been dead when he arrived. Knowing there was a chance Salomeh would be hurt and that he wasn’t doing everything to prevent it made his chest feel as if it were collapsing. He felt the knowledge of Orpheus weigh upon him: to have his love so near to him but so close to death. He would be patient, though, and do this thing right. There was no other option for him.
“You’re deferring to me now, huh,” she said, but it was more of a statement than a question.
“I’m the smooth talker, you’re the ass kicker,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “I’ll follow your lead.”
He left unspoken the fact that if he had to break off and go search for Salomeh, he didn’t want to waste time instructing the others on what to do.
She pushed the sunglasses up onto her forehead and regarded him for a few seconds. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Tamali. Aimes, Nichols, you go through the back with Julian. The rest of us will go through the front. I pulled some info about the place online—online review sites can be a surprisingly helpful source of information—and it looks like the main club is split up into one large room and some champagne rooms in the back. I don’t know anything about the upper levels, but judging from the shuttered windows, they’re keeping the girls there if any are on site. From previous similar busts, I’m going to guess there are several small rooms for housing the girls, and some central area or office that Bardhyn works out of where the cash and drugs are kept.
“Try not to shoot any girls, or anyone for that matter, since we need someone willing to give intel about what these fuckers are up to and we’re going to have enough to have to explain anyway. But if necessary, and I trust you to know if it’s necessary, blow away any asshole that gets in your way.”
Yates’s words filled the cabin of the car with a sudden thrumming tension. Julian’s adrenaline surged, reminding him of the frenetic high he used to feel before skirmishes with the Serbians. He hoped these agents were more careful than the men he had fought with then, because if one of them accidentally hurt Salomeh, he would rip his head off.
His stomach flipped at the thought and then from the impact of something heavy being slammed against it. A Kevlar vest, courtesy of Yates. As he shimmied into it, she dropped a double holster with two loaded GLOCKS into his lap.
“If you come across something bad in there, I’ll back you up on whatever you need to do to this asshole,” she said, her blue eyes wide and unreadable. “But make sure you don’t put any of my men at risk, and make sure we get something we can pin these guys with. I won’t have terrorists running free because you were bent on revenge.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, tightening the straps on his vest and shrugging on his holster. “Let’s do this.”
Julian waited for Yates’s word so they could storm into the building as a unit, but it felt unnatural, as if he were resisting some irresistible force that pulled at him from within the building. The intense feeling should have been overwhelming, but instead it grounded him.
She’s alive, his instincts thrummed. He hoped he was right.
There was a moment of taut silence, and then Yates whispered, “Go.”
The team surged out of the car, Ya
tes and her agents heading up the block and around the corner to the front door, Julian, Aimes, and Nichols heading to the rear entrance. They jogged down the grimy alleyway behind the building, slowing as they approached the back entrance. Julian gave the men a sharp look before testing the heavy steel door. It didn’t budge, as he knew it wouldn’t. He didn’t think blowing it off the hinges was a good idea if they were going for surprise, or if it would even work on such a heavily reinforced structure.
He was spared having to figure out how to get in thanks to a nicotine-addicted dishwasher. The cigarette that had been dangling from the man’s lips as he stepped outside dropped to the ground, and his dark eyes rounded in surprise. He looked up at Julian.
“INS?” he asked fearfully, his Spanish-accented voice shaking as his gaze darted to the guns pointed at him.
“No, no somos de INS,” Julian reassured the man in Spanish, not wanting to deal with the inevitable No hablo ingles conversation. “Is there a meeting going on inside? Where is it at? Tell us, and we won’t send you back.”
The man shook his head, his fear of Bardhyn obviously warring with his fear of deportation.
“Dígame,” Julian commanded, his patience wearing thin. “Tell me,” he repeated, “or deportation will be the least of your problems.”
“Upstairs,” the man said. “Go up the back way, and they won’t see you. Pero my family, I can’t go back—”
“Okay,” Julian said and then pointed at a Dumpster. “Go stand over there. You better be here when I get back.”
The man nodded and hurried over to the Dumpster, his face drawn in dismay. Julian felt a twinge of regret, but he didn’t exactly have time to find nice accommodations for the guy. He doubted the man would still be there when he returned, but he had to at least try to retain a witness.
Julian stepped into the club’s kitchen, quickly scouring it for danger before they headed toward the stairwell the dishwasher had pointed out. Julian didn’t hear any commotion, so he didn’t know if Yates was inside or not, but he’d have to trust that her skills had gotten her through the front door.