In His Sights

by Nikita Slater

  “If she’s really Sitinikov’s sister, you aren’t giving me a reason to keep her alive,” Ronson growled. “She’s more of a liability alive than dead.” His finger tightened on the trigger. Lucy could feel her world narrowing as she grew dizzy. She closed her eyes not wanting to see death coming.

  “No!” Maria cried. “Not here! He’ll find the body here. Trust me, you don’t want that kind of war. Just take her someplace quiet. Make it peaceful, give him time to look.”

  Ronson watched her, skepticism clear on his face. Anyone that knew Maria knew she had an uncommonly intelligent brain and knew how to use it. Finally, Ronson grunted. “She’s right. Not here and not messy. Get the bitch out of here, take her someplace else, make it quiet. Make sure there’s no body for Sitnikov to find.”

  Lucy couldn’t open her eyes quite yet, even as she felt herself being jerked away from the gun. She wanted to be able to see what was happening, to assure herself that Maria was safe. But at that exact moment, her world was spinning out of control. All she could do was concentrate on taking one breath at a time, in and out as she assured herself that, for now, she was still alive. She stumbled on heels that were suddenly way too high as she was dragged away from the plane, away from Maria and Ronson. She heard her name spoken, almost a whisper, a plea.

  Finally, Lucy looked up, over her shoulder at Maria. Their eyes met. Maria’s dark eyes glowed with a mixture of pity and apology. Lucy’s shoulders slumped in despair while her heart pounded in fear. That look told her everything she needed to know; she was going to die. Maria bought her only a little time by convincing Ronson not to do it here. She was jerked around and shoved back into the car while Maria was forced onto the airplane. She wondered if they would ever see each other again.

  “You’re the fucking tracker,” Jane yelled in frustration. “Tell me where my goddamn sister is! You drove her away, you find her.”

  Mack was about to snarl something at the tiny woman spitting fire and fury at him, when her husband stepped in between them, surprising Mack. Sitnikov wasn’t a fan on a good day, he didn’t expect the Russian to give a shit about Jane tearing a strip off him.

  Vlad curved his hands over Jane’s shoulders and said, “You need to calm yourself, my love.”

  “My sister is missing,” Jane said from between gritted teeth, glaring up at her formidable husband. “She’s been gone for over an hour and no one has seen her.”

  “I know this, Jane.” Vlad caressed her cheek with his thumb. “She is my sister also. We will find her together. But you must calm down.”

  Vlad turned to Mack, his voice hardening as he spoke. “You’ve tried her phone, of course?”

  Mack gave him a disgusted look. “It was the first thing I tried. The trace leads back here. She must have left her phone somewhere at the reception. Either that or she’s still in the building.” Mack was skeptical though. He would have found Lucy by now if she was still at the wedding reception or anywhere in the building. No, she’d found a way out and for some reason she’d figured out to leave her phone behind. Was that an accident or had she figured out her boyfriend was tracking her every movement through the device?

  Before anyone could respond Niccolo DeLuca approached their party flanked by two bodyguards, the harsh lines of his grim face spelling death. Mack stiffened, his hand dropping to where his holster usually was, only he wasn’t wearing one in deference to the high-profile King wedding. Every particle in Mack’s being told him this wedding was going to end in a blood bath if the escalating situation wasn’t diffused quickly.

  “My woman is missing,” DeLuca said bluntly, his hard eyes narrowed on Sitnikov’s face. His gaze rounded the entire company before settling on Jane. “Your sister was the last person seen in her company.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Jane snapped. “Luce wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

  Sitnikov’s hand flew up Jane’s back and tangled in her hair, gripping the back of her neck hard. A reminder to stay silent in the face of a potentially formidable enemy. DeLuca studied Jane with an intensity that would have been unsettling if he didn’t seem to settle on the side of deciding Jane was harmless. He nodded sharply and said, almost to himself, “You are worried for your sister.”

  Mack understood. Jane’s over-reaction told the mafia kingpin that the Russians likely weren’t setting him up by taking his woman; an extreme and deadly move on their part if that were the case. Which meant they could work together, their friendship intact. For now. DeLuca jerked his head to the side, indicating the Russian boss should step to the side with him. This suited Mack just fine. He was done waiting for the mobsters to finish pissing territory while his guts turned inside out in worry.

  Sitnikov released Jane’s neck, gave her a warning look when she tried to follow him and stepped away with DeLuca. Jane bared her teeth at her husband’s back and made to follow him anyway, seemingly determined to find out what the Italian knew that she didn’t, even if it meant causing a scene that could end in bloodshed. Zero self-control, that one.

  Mack grabbed her arm and wheeled her around to face him.

  “What the fuck?” she hissed up at him bracing a hand against his stomach and glancing over her shoulder.

  “Shut up and listen to me.” He bent his head to her ear and spoke quickly and quietly, his eyes on the men around them. No one paid the two any attention. “You said it yourself that I’m the best tracker in the city, the best chance you have at finding your sister. And I will find her. I won’t fucking stop until I do, then I’m going to spank her ass until she knows better than to take off.”

  Jane jerked her head in a nod and looked up at him. “I don’t care what you do with her ass as long as you find it safe and sound.”

  “You ridin’ with me?” he asked, icy eyes burrowing into hers. He wanted his partner by his side while hunting for the woman they both loved.

  She glanced back at her husband who was deep in conversation with DeLuca. Both could tell from the tense lines of his back, leading up to his rigid tattooed neck that whatever they were discussing wasn’t making Sitnikov happy. More than likely DeLuca was threatening to dismantle the entire city until his woman was found, regardless of the hold the Russians had over the area.

  “I’m riding with you,” Jane confirmed, gripping Mack’s arm. “Let’s go before he sees me.”

  “Leave your phone,” Mack told her. “You know he’ll track it the second you step foot out of this building.”

  “Shit,” Jane mumbled to herself, dropping her purse on the nearest table as she and Mack headed for the nearest exit. “He’s going to lock me up and throw away the key after this.”

  Mack couldn’t disagree. He was more than likely going to get a bullet in the head for this stunt. He doubted Sitnikov’s patience with him was going to last past finding out he’d taken off with the other man’s wife. He just hoped they found Lucy safe and sound first.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  They buried me! Lucy’s silent scream echoed in her brain. They actually buried me!

  Of all the horrific ways she imagined they were going to kill her during the long car ride to the outskirts of the city, this was not on the list. She thought for sure a bullet. Maybe a knife. Possibly drowning by being thrown off a bridge. But not this!

  She covered her face with her hands, curled up as much as she was able to in the enclosed space and tried to calm her breathing, knowing she would have to preserve what precious little oxygen she had. She was doing a poor job of keeping her panic in check. She was taking big heaving breaths that escaped her lips in shuddering sobs while tears streamed from swollen eyelids.

  “Stop, Lucy!” she chastised herself sharply. “There’s no point to this.”

  She forced herself to calm down and think as much as her frantic brain could. It kept flashing back over her traumatizing evening; those horrifying hours in the car as her captors drove around endlessly trying to decide on a way to dispose of Lucy’s body. One of them finally insisting she
needed to just “disappear” where the Russians couldn’t find her and that he had an idea. Lucy had fought them tooth and nail as they dragged her from the car. Why not? She had nothing left to lose. Then one of them pointed a gun at her and told her to settle down or her death would become messier than he planned. That’s when the tears and pleading started. She would have liked to say she was braver in that moment, but the truth was, Lucy didn’t want to die.

  They’d dumped her on her knees in the dirt next to the car where she’d curled onto her side and wrapped her arms round her bare arms. She looked around through tear-soaked eyes, trying to figure out where they were. She saw junk everywhere; broken appliances, stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers and tons of other twisted metal. She realized she must be in some kind of scrap metal yard filled with so much junk. A body could easily disappear and never be found in such a place.

  The men had a lengthy discussion before dragging an old-fashioned looking fridge over to where she lay crouched next to the car. “Get in,” one of them demanded.

  “No, please!” Lucy had begged, horrifying images flashing through her mind.

  Out of patience, the man grabbed her by the back of the head, dragged her up by the hair and pulled her bodily over to the fridge. Her knees dragged through the rocks and dirt. Terrified, she screamed and fought in blind panic until he slapped her so hard she went spinning into the side of the fridge. Her forehead hit hard enough to split open, and blood splattered across her face and the side of the fridge. She could see the red contrasting with the dirty grey-white of the old fridge. She held the back of her hand up to her face and lifted pleading eyes to her captor.

  “Please,” she begged fingers gripping the cold, unyielding edge of the fridge. “My brother… Vladimir Sitnikov, he’ll pay whatever you want if you just give me back. You don’t have to do this.”

  He shook his head, lip curling into a sneer. Not a flash of pity or remorse marked his expression. “You think he will let us accept money in exchange for you?” he laughed out loud. “No, sweetheart, not the Russian Boss. He will want severed limbs. He’ll want heads. He won’t fucking stop until every one of us and anyone associated with us is dead. No, chica, you need to go, and you need to go quietly where he will never find you.”

  With that he shoved her back so hard she tumbled into the fridge. She didn’t have a chance to catch herself or crawl out before the door crashed down, locking her inside. She screamed and banged on the lid in complete panic for what felt like hours but was likely only minutes when she realized she could hear something muffled, but loud coming from outside the fridge. She froze and listened. She wasn’t sure, but she thought it might be some kind of heavy machinery.

  She lay frozen for several minutes crying quietly and pushing uselessly against the lid, trying to feel around the seal in case there was a weakness, when suddenly the fridge jerked to the side and then rolled over and over. Lucy automatically braced her hands against the interior in an attempt to protect her head as she rolled with the fridge like a rag doll, smacking into the sides.

  After the fridge stopped moving, Lucy did a quick assessment of her body, she was bruised and aching, but it didn’t feel like any bones were broken. She suspected the fridge had been pushed into what could only be some kind of large hole. She was now laying sideways against the door, which was still wedged stubbornly shut. She dropped her head into the cradle of her arms and sobbed her heart out as she listened to the muffled sounds of dirt hitting the top of her grave.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Answer it.” Mack handed Jane his phone and gave her a pointed look that clearly said, answer or I answer for you and we both know how much Sitnikov is going to enjoy talking to me over his wife.

  Mack’s phone rang steadily the moment Sitnikov realized the two had taken off from the wedding reception without a word. His initial call had been a simple demand that Jane return to his side with subsequent calls becoming progressively more threatening until Jane stopped answering. She suggested they turn the device off, but Mack refused. They needed access to his community resources so they could trace Lucy’s and Maria’s steps. And there was the possibility that Lucy might call herself if she got hold of a phone.

  “What,” Jane snapped putting the phone on speaker while she studied a city map she’d dug out of Mack’s glovebox. She tapped Mack’s shoulder and traced her finger in a line indicating a subway line that Lucy and Maria might have taken after they were seen leaving a bar near the hotel. Mack nodded and turned the truck in that direction.

  “Watch your tone, wife.” Sitnikov’s voice was filled with menace. “You are in enough trouble without the added disrespect.”

  Mack silently agreed with the Boss. Jane was cruising a slippery slope with her deadly husband and this time he didn’t think she realized how close to the edge she was skating. She was used to Vladimir’s indulgence and thus seemed immune to the dangers of his shifting moods. Mack had the privilege of an outsider’s perspective and thought that Jane was about to finally discover where the indulgent husband ended and the vicious mob boss began.

  “Come to me now, Jane,” Stinikov said, an almost pleading note to his voice. “I need to see with my own eyes that you are safe. I promise, I will suspend punishment if you just come to me.”

  Jane blinked in surprise, having rarely heard her husband speak this way. Mack thought for a moment she might relent and he was about to lose his partner. A damn shame considering she was the brains he needed while he tracked. Then she stiffened, pressing her spine back against the seat.

  “If you don’t have anything useful to contribute to our search then please stop calling and tying up the phone, Vladimir,” Jane said stiffly.

  Jesus, the woman had a death wish.

  “If you place yourself and our unborn child in any amount of danger, Jane Sitnokov, I can promise, it will be the last independent decision you get to make,” Sintikov said with such chilling intensity the interior of the truck dropped several degrees. “Ponimayu?”

  Jane closed her eyes tight and then nodded. “Understood,” she said and then disconnected the call.

  The phone remained eerily silent after that. The Boss was done trying to retrieve his wife until he was ready. And once he got his hands on her, life would change. Jane opened her eyes and looked at Mack, putting her husband out of her mind. “We need to talk to your police commissioner contact, get footage of the city train and see if Lucy and Maria actually boarded.”

  Nearly an hour later they had their answer. There was no evidence that the two women had boarded the subway. Jane texted the information to her husband, aware that he would relay the message to Niccolo DeLuca. Despite his anger he was grateful that she was staying in touch and keeping him informed.

  They sat silently in the truck staring into the night, neither speaking for a moment, brains working furiously. It was as though the two women had vanished right off the sidewalk after leaving the pub. Jane sighed heavily and looked at Mack.

  “Don’t fucking say it,” he growled.

  She nodded. She didn’t need to say anything. They were both thinking it. The women didn’t vanish. The city cameras would’ve picked them up somewhere. Which meant they were forced off the street, most likely into a car. Rage threatened to overwhelm Mack’s ability to think. He clenched his hands into fists and closed his eyes. He concentrated on each breath, in and out as his brain worked to decipher each tiny clue.

  Jane spoke first. “We need to get footage of them leaving that bar. Whichever direction they went in. See if we can get any suspicious vehicles in the area. Mack, who else can you call to get us the feeds on the cameras around the bar?”

  He nodded his head. Jane was thinking smart. A lot smarter than him. “Everyone,” he said grimly. “I own information on just about everyone in this damn city. Let’s start pulling in favours.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Put these on,” Mack said tossing a pair of Lucy’s high tops at Jane. Lucy had left them in
the truck when she’d changed shoes after getting off work. Jane took them gratefully and kicked off her heels.

  “You sure we got the right place?” she asked, eyeing the seemingly abandoned apartment complex with boarded up windows and covered in spray paint.

  Mack nodded and opened his door, climbing out. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, handing his partner a gun. She took it and checked that it was loaded. Eyeing the dress that hugged her curves he handed her his leather coat. “Here, put this on.”

  Jane took the coat and pulled it on. It dwarfed her, covering her nearly to her knees, but it gave her better coverage than she had before. She gave Mack a sharp nod and they strode toward the building together, glancing around for other entrances. There appeared to be only the one. Jane suggested going around to the other side, but Mack shook his head.

  “No time, she’s been gone for hours already. Let’s get this over with.”

  They opened the door, a heavy metal fire proof door that was barely hanging on its hinges, and slipped through.

  It didn’t take them long to find their prey. He was sound asleep on a dingy mattress, exactly where Mack’s contact said he’d be. Mack studied him for a moment. Definitely Mexican. The arm flung over his head was covered in gang tats that screamed cartel affiliation. Mack glanced over at Jane who nodded sharply. Mack kicked the guy hard in the ribs, waking him.

  “What the F-” He flew up, reaching for the shotgun tucked under his mattress.

  Mack stepped on the barrel of the gun, trapping the man’s fingers between the metal of the gun and the dirty concrete floor. He screamed in agony then tossed his head up, glaring, only to come face to face with the barrel of Jane’s gun pointed directly at his nose.