by April Lust
“Enough.” Vitaly’s voice was like a whip, sharp enough to stop his men in mid-laugh. He turned to me with an apologetic smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Forgive them. They’re ignorant men. Not like me.” He held out his hands, and I had no choice but to take them as he lifted me from the trunk. I tried not to shrink back at the touch of his skin against mine.
He led me to the car, opening the back passenger door. “Back here. Don’t even think about sitting up front with me. That’s all I would need—you grabbing the steering wheel.” I hadn’t expected to sit up front, so it was no great loss for me. I knew he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t make it that easy.
I sat in the back, already grateful for the warmth of the car’s interior. Vitaly slid behind the wheel. “Buckle up for safety,” he said, smiling tightly. “I don’t want anything happening to you back there.” The click of the car’s locks told me I wasn’t going anywhere. He controlled the locks from the driver’s side door. I obliged, fastening my belt before he pulled off the shoulder.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“None of your business.” He glanced at me in the mirror. Our eyes met. I held his gaze out of defiance until he had to look back at the road.
“Considering the way you kidnapped me, I think it’s my business. I don’t see the harm. It isn’t as though I have the chance to contact anyone.”
He looked at me again, this time as though he were considering my statement. I wasn’t lying—I’d left my phone at the apartment, sitting on a table. I didn’t have it in my pocket, the way I normally would. Short of sending up a smoke signal, I was screwed.
“We’re on the back roads of New Jersey,” he said. “I wanted to avoid the parkway, of course. I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t trust me? What would I do? You have me outnumbered, for God’s sake. Don’t act like I’m the bad guy here.” I couldn’t help raising my voice out of sheer indignation.
“Easy! Temper, temper. I can see why you two fought so often.” How did he know so much about Eli and me? I assume we were who he talked about. What was it? Where did the obsession come from?
“And then what? After we reach wherever it is you’re taking me, then what do you plan on doing?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he said, his voice almost a singsong rhythm.
I smirked. “Isn’t that a little juvenile, even for you?”
“Watch your mouth,” he snarled. He could turn on a dime, which told me his nicer moods weren’t authentic. “You’d do well to remember who’s in charge here. I don’t need your shitty attitude.”
“Wow. Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re right. I’m not.” I folded my arms. “Why should I be sorry? Why shouldn’t I give you my so-called shitty attitude? Look what you’re doing to me. Look what you’ve done already. You probably killed one of my oldest and dearest friends back there. And for what? Some money I owed you? He had nothing to do with it.”
“Do you really think this is about the money, dear? Or do I have to remind you of our previous acquaintance? I would have assumed you would remember, but maybe time has softened your memories. My mistake if I assumed incorrectly.”
I blew out an exasperated sigh. “No. You’re not incorrect.”
“I didn’t think so,” he said, smiling again. When he stopped trying to sound scary—and I realized quickly that’s what he was trying to do, put on an affectation to sound scarier than he was—his voice carried a certain lilt, like an accent he’d worked hard to overcome. Russian, of course. Hence the name. I’d wondered if it were another one of his aliases, but I thought after hearing his true voice that it might have been real.
“No, this has nothing to do with the money, though it was a nice reason to go after you,” he said. “I can tell you all about it, if you like. We have plenty of time.”
I didn’t want to hear about it, so I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat. I just wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted him to let me out of the car, let me go back to my life. I would never take freedom or a boring Sunday afternoon or a hectic day at work or even one of George’s temper tantrums for granted, ever again. If only it meant I were free and out of danger, that I could be happy with my son and, if possible, my husband. I wanted Eli back. Heart-stopping fear had a tendency to make everything very simple.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eli
I called the clubhouse to bring in backup, and they told me a half-dozen men would be at my side in minutes. I didn’t have minutes. Didn’t they understand that?
“Easy, brother.” Marco saw the way I was ready to jump out of my skin. “Let’s think this through. What did we use to know about Vitaly?”
“I don’t fucking remember!” I couldn’t hold back my screamed. I was furious, frantic. Every minute that passed was one more minute without Tori. One more minute further away from me.
“Think, man. You have to remember. You can’t give in to what’s happening inside you. She needs you right now. She needs you to be you.” Marco took me by the back of my neck, gripping me with all the strength he had. “Center. Focus. Pull yourself together. I know you can do it.”
I forced myself to breathe easier. He was right. I had to hold it together for Tori’s sake. When he saw me relax, he relaxed a little, too.
“Thanks, brother,” I said, and he nodded. I shook my hands, then ran them through my hair. Think, damn it. Where would he go?
“He worked a lot out of the harbors, didn’t he? He had a ton of business coming in through Long Island, Staten Island, and all up and down Jersey. Philly, too, up the Delaware. That was his stock and trade, right? He had offices in a lot of the warehouses—I remember now, come to think of it, that Tori met him at a warehouse on Staten Island. Only it wasn’t him she met. One of his guys. But he must have known she was there. He had to know who she was. I always wondered why he would loan the money to such a shitty investment. No way she could pay him back. He was fucking with her right off.”
“Don’t worry about that now,” Marco said. “One thing at a time.”
“Right. Okay. So what if he’s taking her to one of those places? I mean, shit, it could take forever to track down every single place where he had an office.”
“Do you think he would take her somewhere close? Wouldn’t he wanna get further away?”
“You’re probably right, but then who knows? It depends on what he plans on doing with her, right? We don’t know what he’s gonna do. We’re just guessing right now. I mean, he could have her in Brooklyn for all we know. They could be hanging out at his house. Or he could take her north, into New England. Who the hell knows? It’s all a guessing game.” I held my head in my hands. I thought it might explode with everything going on inside it. I had never felt more helpless in my life, and that wasn’t how I liked to feel. I was the sort of man who needed to be in control, no matter what. Things weren’t looking up.
I heard voices in the living room, and when I went out there, I saw another six of my crew waiting. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“Where ya goin’?” Daniel asked. He had cleaned himself up and was sitting on the couch.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We’ve gotta split up somehow.”
He shook his head. “I don’t like this.”
“Yeah, well, if you have a better idea, why don’t you tell me about it?” He looked away. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I’m doing everything I can here. Don’t make it harder for me, okay? Please.” He nodded, but still wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t worry about him. All I could do was give the kid a pat on the top of his head.
“You just hang tight here, okay? I promise I’ll call when I get your mom.”
“You don’t know where to go, though.” I looked at Daniel, my eyes shooting daggers. He got the message.
“Hey, kid, don’t listen to me,” he said. “They screwed my head up when they hit me, is all.”
“Yeah, and he
wasn’t in such great shape before then, either.” I smirked at him, and he rolled his eyes. We left, then, and I really hoped I would be able to make that phone call. And that it would be a happy one.
We got to the garage, all of us talking at once. Which direction should we go in? Where should we even start? We know some of Vitaly’s contacts were still in the area, but would they even know where he took Tori? Or would he have kept something like that to himself?
One of my neighbors, an older man whose name I thought was Jones, stopped us. “I’m sorry to interrupt you guys.” I was surprised—most people didn’t bother to talk with us.
“Yeah?” I didn’t have time to waste on him.
“I was wondering something.” He looked at me. “Weren’t you with that pretty young blonde woman and her little boy not long ago? Maybe a day or two? I saw you out here with them late one night.”
That got my attention, and I felt bad for wanting to brush him off. “Yeah, that was me. And her. Why?”
“I saw her earlier,” he said. “I thought about calling the police, but two of the men she was with rode motorcycles, so I didn’t think it was something I should talk to them about. I wanted to talk to you, and was just about to go up there now that I finished doing my shopping. See, I was on my way to the store, just getting into my car, and I saw her come out from the lobby with three men.”
What he was telling me was so important, I didn’t dare tell him to cut the bullshit and tell me what I really needed to hear. Like I cared that the frail little old man had to go shopping. He should have told me right away, instead of going to the store and coming back.
“What did you see? Did any of them hurt her?” I felt the energy from the rest of my crew, standing behind me. All of them were ready to pounce on somebody. All I would have to do was give the word.
“No, I don’t think so. Though one of them—sort of a short, pudgy man—he put her in the trunk of a car.”
Vitaly. Short and pudgy described him, at least the way he’d looked in the picture from that strip club. “In the trunk? Was she tied up or anything?”
“No, her hands and legs were free. She didn’t say anything.”
“Did she look scared? Was she crying?” I had to know, even if it wouldn’t make a difference. I just had to know.
“No, not really. She didn’t look happy, mind you.”
Marco spoke up. “Did you hear anything? Where the guys talking to each other?”
“Yes, now that you mention it. I heard one say to the other one that they should take the parkway. But the third man, the one who put the girl in the trunk, said he didn’t want to take the parkway in case there was a lot of traffic. He wanted to take Route Thirty-Five South.”
I could have kissed the old man. Marco wasn’t so sure, though. “And you know you heard them clear?”
The old man pointed to his ear, where a hearing aid was looped over his earlobe. “Just changed the battery this morning. Clear as a bell.”
“Thank you so much,” I said. “I can’t thank you enough.” I would have to buy him something, do something for him. He might have saved Tori’s life.
We went for our bikes, and within minutes were on our way. We would pick up Thirty-Five after we went over the Outerbridge Crossing. I only hoped we would reach her in time.
There were ten of us in all, riding in two-by-two formation. Cars stopped or pulled over when they saw us coming—out of fear or respect, I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I was just glad they were getting out of my way. I had to get to Tori.
I’m coming, baby. I’m coming. When Daniel told me the sacrifice she’d made for me, I thought I might die. I still thought I might. I thought the pressure in my chest was going to kill me. I’d never known anything like that before. Wait, that’s not true, I thought. I felt that way when she left me. Why didn’t she tell me? Why did she leave without saying anything?
Because she was afraid he would kill me. Didn’t she know me well enough to know I would never let anything like that happen? Hell, if she had told me, I would have killed him that day when I had the chance. I wouldn’t have let him go. Because look what happened in the end.
You should have killed him. You should have done it anyway. You didn’t need another reason. You could have, and you didn’t. I would never forgive myself, especially if anything happened to her. If it did, it would be all on me. I wouldn’t be able to blame anybody else for it. Not even him. He was a fucking animal, that Vitaly. He was only acting the way animals do. He didn’t know any fucking better. I would teach him a thing or two. We would see who was the better man. And when I got the chance this time, I wouldn’t let him live.
I wondered what he was doing to her, and hoped he was only driving. He hadn’t tied her up. Maybe he didn’t mean to hurt her. Maybe he was only leading me into a chase. That was fine. If she was the bait, I could live with it as long as he didn’t hurt her. He could lure me all he wanted, as long as he didn’t do that.
It took everything I had in me not to ride at top speed. The last thing I needed was for some bullshit cop to pull me over, when Tori’s life was on the line. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to live the way the people in those cars did. The ones who watched us as we rode by, the ones living the “good” life, the “clean” life. What would that be like? They thought they were better than us. When something like what I was going through happened to them, they could call the cops and know the cops would help them. Only shit like what I was going through didn’t happen to them. Only outlaws and mobsters dealt with the sort of shit men like Vitaly dished out.
What had I done to him? It had to be more than just hating me because I was at the top of the club, because I was getting into his business. There must have been something else he never told me, or I never found out about. Waiting seven years before hitting me again? That was an obsession. That was bigger than him being pissed off because I fucked up his operation. And even if I had, I’d let the son of a bitch live. Maybe he couldn’t even forgive me for that. Some guys like him were just fucked up that way. It was an honor thing. Or there was something that went back even further than that. Would I ever know? Maybe he would tell Tori about it. Maybe when I found her, she would tell me.
What if I didn’t find her? No, that wasn’t possible. I had to. She was my woman, the only woman I had ever loved. She needed me. George needed her. I couldn’t let them down. We were a family, and I would make us a family again after I found her. I had wanted to even before Daniel told me the truth about why she left—I wanted to more than ever after that.
That stupid, noble girl. What was she thinking? Was that really the only choice she had, to run? She could have told me. Yeah, I probably would have gone for him, but I wouldn’t have been alone. I could have taken him. Why didn’t she let me do it? All the time we missed. We could’ve been together, we could’ve been happy. I hadn’t really been happy a single day until she came back into my life. Ironically, it was because of Vitaly.
Or Joe Green. What the hell was that all about? Did I fuck him up that bad when we tried to take his business over back in the day? Or did he decide to hide and lick his wounds, maybe rebrand himself? Who knew he was still out there, still waiting for me? It was unnerving.
We crossed the bridge into New Jersey, and headed for Route Thirty-Five. I didn’t expect it to be too crowded, which was why Vitaly took it. He wanted to take her somewhere on the coast—so my theory hadn’t been too far off, after all. But where? There were hundreds of miles of coastline. He didn’t even need to stay on Thirty-Five, either. They could hook up with Route Nine and ride it all the way down to Cape May, at the tip of South Jersey. Or anywhere in between.
I would have to find out something else, even if we had to make pit stops up and down the road until we heard or saw something. In the meantime, we had to ride fast to catch up with Vitaly. He already had so much time on us.
I’m coming, baby. I’m coming. Don’t be scared. I won’t let him do anything to you.<
br />
But was it already too late for that?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tori
I was dreaming. I knew I was dreaming. Part of my consciousness knew very well that I was still in the back seat of Vitaly’s car, still cruising toward I had no idea where, still in danger. I guessed my brain wanted to escape for a little while.
I dreamed about Eli. I dreamed we lived in a house on a quiet street. We had nice neighbors, and as I pulled in at the end of a long day, they waved at us. Hell, it was a dream. I made Carla one of them. She could live next door and come over for dinner.
George was playing out in the backyard with his dogs. We bought him two, since he couldn’t decide at the shelter which one he wanted most. When he saw that I’d come home from work, he ran to me and between him and the two dogs, I was soon lost in the pile. I laughed and kissed him, petted the dogs, asked how his day went. He would tell me all about it, then tell me his daddy was out in the garage. Of course he is, I would think, going out to see him. He would spend a lot of time working on his bike out there—sometimes, he would take George out with him to teach him little things about bike repair and how to work on cars. He wanted to show him manly things like that to make up for lost time. My heart would melt when I’d see them working together, side by side.