Way Off Plan

by Alexa Land

  Sokolov and two other men were stepping out of a little office at the back of the warehouse as my hands were cut apart and I was escorted from the vehicle. “Well hey there, Jamie,” he said cheerfully, as if I’d come over to watch a ballgame.

  Thing One and Thing Two led me to a concrete pillar and shoved my back up against it. They tied me to the pillar with rope as Sokolov smiled and said, “Well damn, you made that too easy. With you being a cop, I thought you might give my men a run for their money. But you came along as quietly as a little lamb.” I just stared at him, and after a minute he said, “Don’t you have anything to say to me, Jamie?”

  He came and stood right in front of me, and I straightened up and held his gaze. And he said, “You know, normally I like it when the people around me remain silent. But in your case, I have to say, I find your silence really fucking irritating.” And then he sucker punched me right in the gut.

  I gasped and doubled over slightly, as much as I could with the rope wrapped around my torso, pain radiating through me as I struggled to fill my lungs with air. And then he grabbed a fistful of my hair and jerked me back up, and said to one of his men, “Tie him so he remains upright.” A rope was run around my neck and around the pillar, then tied so tight that I struggled to take a breath. I panicked momentarily and struggled against my bonds, but that only made the rope cut deeper into my throat, and I started to pass out. “Not that tight, you moron,” Sokolov admonished. “What good is it if he passes out?” The rope was loosened just a hair, enough so I was able to breathe at least, and I gasped desperately.

  “So. Jamie. When I said earlier today that I’d see you soon, I never imagined it would be this soon. Did you?”

  When I didn’t answer he punched me in the stomach again, and I couldn’t double over this time. I struggled to fill my lungs and pressed my eyes shut through the pain as Sokolov hissed, “I said, did you imagine we’d be meeting again so soon, Jamie?”

  “No,” I ground out through gritted teeth.

  “No what?” If he thought I was going to call him sir, he was delusional.

  “No, you fucking piece of shit asshole,” I growled.

  That earned me several more blows to my midsection. I had known it was stupid as hell to antagonize him, but I couldn’t help myself.

  When finally he stopped hitting me, tears rolling down my cheeks, my body in sheer agony, Sokolov said calmly, picking up the conversation right where he’d left off, “I thought you’d merely merit supervision for the immediate future. I thought my fickle nephew would get bored of you and move on like he always does, despite all the lovely dovey bullshit that’s been coming from him the past few days. I really didn’t want to stir up trouble for myself by slaughtering a member of the SFPD. But then Dmitri forced my hand, didn’t he?”

  “Why? What did he do?” I managed through gritted teeth as I drew in quick, shallow breaths.

  “My dear nephew and my lovely daughter started to get some really bad ideas. They started talking about finding evidence to use against me, so I’d leave you and my nephew alone.” He shook his head sadly. “Such miserable, ungrateful children.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, obviously I know this because I keep both my nephew’s and my daughter’s cell phones bugged at all times. I can read all their texts and hear all their conversations. Catherine’s phone was quite busy tonight, the two of them hatching plans. Some of them were quite amusing, actually. I appreciated the idea of tying up one of my employees and trying to blackmail information out of him. That showed some initiative, I thought.” Despite his smile, he eyed me with icy detachment.

  I blurted, “Would they have found evidence in the Packard that you killed Vince Pasteretti?” I was stalling for time. I didn’t know why. No one was coming. No one would find me.

  He shrugged, taking the bait. “All the obvious evidence has been cleaned up, but you know how thorough that forensic shit is. Even now, years later, one stray hair, one drop of blood could send me to jail. Worse than that, the Dombruso family thinks they caught the guy responsible, they offed someone years ago that I set up to take the fall. But if the police suddenly find evidence that I was Pasteretti’s killer? The Dombrusos are going to realize their mistake and come after me. That’s something to be avoided at all costs.”

  “So why didn’t you just get rid of the car?”

  “Look at her. Could you get rid of something that beautiful? Keeping her is a risk, but some risks are worth it.”

  I flailed around, still trying to stall. “The car’s been hidden successfully for twelve years. Dmitri would never have found it. So what’s kidnapping me supposed to accomplish?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Sokolov asked, pulling a gun from his shoulder holster and pressing it against my forehead, hard. “Killing you will teach my nephew a lesson. One he will never, ever forget. The arrogant little cocksucker thought he could double-cross me. Me! And after everything I did for him! He repays my generosity by sneaking around behind my back, trying to find evidence to use against me. My bitch daughter will learn a lesson, too. They’ll both learn that you do not fuck with Gregor Sokolov. They will learn – ”

  The rest of that sentence was cut off as the big rolling door to the warehouse was knocked off its track and came crashing to the ground in a deafening clatter. A huge Land Rover drove up on top of the bent and twisted door, and Dmitri jumped out from behind the wheel, Uzi in hand. “Holy shit,” I murmured as his uncle staggered back a few steps in alarm.

  He pointed the Uzi at his uncle, and the three other men jumping out of his vehicle trained a couple guns apiece on Sokolov’s stunned men. “Guns on the ground. Kick them away from you,” Dmitri demanded, his voice ringing with authority. Sokolov’s men quickly complied. A second and then a third big SUV rolled up on either side of the Land Rover, and half a dozen more men piled out, also pointing guns at Sokolov and his men.

  His uncle hesitated, gun still raised, and Dmitri growled, “Drop your fucking gun now, Gregor, or you’re a fucking dead man.” The two men had a standoff for a few long, tense moments. But then his uncle reluctantly lowered his weapon.

  Dmitri strode across the big metal door and leapt off it gracefully. He took his uncle’s gun from him, then flipped his Uzi around and drove the stock into his uncle’s face. Sokolov dropped like a bag of rocks with a muffled yell, cupping his broken nose as blood flowed between his fingers. Dmitri stepped back from him, assessing him coolly.

  “Search him, and then tie that motherfucker up.” Dmitri sounded perfectly calm. He took a deep breath and turned to me as several of his men converged on Sokolov. His eyes went wide as he got a good look at me, and he said, “Oh shit, Jamie.” Now he sounded rattled.

  He crossed the warehouse to me quickly as he asked, “Baby, are you ok?”

  “Yeah,” I told him. “And that was the coolest Rambo shit I’ve ever seen.”

  Dmitri set his gun down and produced a switchblade from his suit pocket. He cut the rope around my neck, then raised my chin up and turned my face gingerly, assessing the wound on my forehead as I asked, “How the hell did you find me?”

  “Cell phone,” he murmured as he started sawing through the rope binding my torso.

  “But they took my cell phone. They threw it in the bushes in front of your house,” I told him.

  He met my gaze. “Not yours. Mine. You must have gotten it from your nephews when we were at your parents’ house. I just followed the GPS.”

  “How’d you even know I’d been abducted?”

  “I heard your van’s engine turn on at the same moment the side panel door was slid shut. You couldn’t do both things at once. So I looked out the front window and saw the van driving off with you in the passenger seat, and I recognized the guy in the back of the van as one of my uncle’s men.” As he was talking, he continued to slice at the ropes. When they fell to the ground, I grabbed him and crushed him to me, then gasped at the pain in my midsection.

  He
pulled back and looked at me closely. “Where are you hurt, Jamie?”

  “I got punched in the stomach a few times. My ribs are probably bruised.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw as he ground his teeth together. “Come over here and sit down, baby.” He led me to the nearby Packard and opened the passenger door, and I sank gratefully onto the black leather upholstery.

  He knelt in front of me and looked me over carefully. And I said, “So, you never mentioned the fact that you have your own personal army.” I tilted my head toward the men he’d brought with him, who were currently rounding up Sokolov’s cohorts, patting each one down, and tying their hands behind their backs.

  Dmitri grinned a little. “I don’t. But fortunately, I knew someone who did.” He indicated a tall, good-looking man of about thirty with olive skin and dark eyes, and said, “That’s my friend Dante Dombruso.”

  “Dombruso?” I echoed in disbelief. “You got the Sicilian mob to help you?”

  “Yup. Your dad was wrong, by the way, we’re not Kindergarten level mafia. We actually run with the big boys.” He actually sounded a little bit proud of that.

  “We?” I asked. “Are you more involved with your family business than you let on?”

  He gave me an enigmatic smile as he said, “I’m the same man you’ve always known, Jamie.” And he reached up and gently tucked my hair behind my ear. It didn’t really answer my question.

  “And Dante agreed to help you out of the goodness of his heart?”

  “Well, no. We made a trade. Quite a fair one, I think.”

  “What was the trade?”

  “Dante and his men agreed to help me get you back in exchange for the family business. And a couple other things.”

  “You mean – ”

  “They’re taking over the Teplov empire.”

  Dante Dombruso came over to us then, holstering twin Berettas into twin shoulder holsters. “Hi. You must be Jamie,” he said, assessing me carefully.

  “Hi Dante. Thanks for acting as the cavalry.”

  “My pleasure. That was fun.”

  I grinned at that. And then I asked, “How did you round up all these men so quickly? I’ve only been here a few minutes.”

  “That was pure luck,” Dmitri said. “Dante lives down the street from me, and he happened to be holding a meeting with several of his men at his house tonight. It took very little time to load everyone up and come after you.”

  “Ah. So, what’s going to happen with your uncle?” He was currently hogtied on the floor of the warehouse, a few guns pointed at him and one man’s boot resting on the side of his head, glaring at everything and everyone over his broken nose.

  “Dante and I talked about that on the drive over. I don’t want him. Dante doesn’t want him. He told me he knows my uncle didn’t kill Pasteretti, by the way – they caught the real killer years ago.” Or so they were told, I thought. “The only one that actually wants him is the SFPD. So we’re thinking we’ll turn him over to the cops, along with a nice, tidy bundle of evidence to put him away for a long time.”

  “I thought you didn’t have any evidence,” I said to Dmitri.

  “He doesn’t,” Dante said. “I do. I always make sure to keep plenty of documentation on my colleagues. You never know when you might need it.” He grinned a little.

  “And his men?” I asked.

  Dmitri stood up and gestured toward Sokolov’s thugs, who were rounded up at the rear of the warehouse. “Everyone that works for my uncle – well, not to be a total cliché, but Dante will be making them –”

  “Don’t say it!” Dante exclaimed. “Don’t even think about saying ‘an offer they can’t refuse.’ You dork.” He was grinning affectionately now, and I got the feeling there was a history between these two that went a bit beyond friendship.

  “Well that’s what they’re doing, isn’t it?” Dmitri demanded, also grinning.

  I stood up and felt mildly dizzy, so I sat back down again. Dmitri turned his attention back to me and said, “Baby, do you think you need a doctor?”

  I shook my head. “I just want to go home.”

  “Of course. But first, do you want to be the one to hand Sokolov over to the police with a pile of evidence? We can swing by the station on the way home if you feel up to it.”

  “Nah. Call my dad for that one if you want to. It’d make his day.”

  “I need to get Jamie out of here. Can you clear a path?” Dmitri said to Dante, who in turn called a couple orders to his men. Immediately the SUVs were pulled out into the street and the big warehouse door was dragged out of the way. While that happened, Dmitri went over to where his uncle was tied up. He said something to one of the men pointing a gun at Sokolov, and the man reached in Sokolov’s pocket and fished out a big key ring. Dmitri flipped through the ring quickly and removed a single key, then dropped the ring back on top of Sokolov, walking away from him without a parting word.

  Dmitri said, “Mel over there is going to drive your van home for us when they have everything wrapped up here.” He got behind the wheel and fired up the Packard, which started with a smooth purr, and as we pulled out of the warehouse he asked, “Can you give me my phone, Jamie?”

  I pulled it out of the pocket of my cargo shorts and handed it to him, and he dialed a number and put it on speaker. Catherine answered on the second ring, and Dmitri said, “Hey. Are you still out with Joe?”

  “Yup. We’re getting a nightcap or six before heading home.” She sounded buzzed and happy.

  “We’re calling off Project Rope-a-Dope,” Dmitri said.

  “For real? Damn, that sounded fun.”

  “You can still tie Joe to your bed for fun if you want to. But now you don’t have to blackmail him. Your father’s on his way to jail. I have a million things to tell you, but they’re gonna have to wait for morning.”

  “Holy shit. Ok.”

  “One thing though. Guess what I’m driving?” Dmitri smiled ear to ear, and hit the horn. It sounded like a lighthouse signal.

  “No fucking way!” Catherine yelled into the phone. “I call the Green Hornet!”

  “Oh no, Cat. I got the car back. I get to be the Green Hornet for life,” he told her.

  “Actually,” I said, “Since you’re the one that’s driving, that makes me the Green Hornet.” I shot him a big smile. “Take me home, Kato.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When we got back to Dmitri’s house he bathed me so carefully, like I was liable to shatter at any moment. And afterwards he disinfected the cut on my forehead and applied a couple butterfly bandages, then took me to bed and tucked me under the covers. I turned down his offer of stronger pain meds and swallowed three Advil, and then he stripped himself and turned down the lights and got in bed beside me.

  I gingerly rolled onto my side and put my head on his chest, wrapping an arm around him. And I said quietly, “Hi.”

  He reached up and ran a palm over my damp hair, and I could feel that his hand was shaking. “Jamie, I–”

  I interrupted him. “You’re about to apologize, aren’t you? Well, don’t. What happened tonight wasn’t your fault.”

  “Of course it was.” His voice was a jagged whisper. “It was all my fault. If you’d never met me –”

  “If I’d never met you,” I interrupted again, “I would have missed out on the greatest love of my life.”

  I felt his chest heave as a silent sob shook him. “I love you so much,” he whispered. “When I realized my uncle had taken you, my whole world totally crashed down around me. If you hadn’t had my phone in your pocket – ”

  I tilted my head back to look at him. Tears were streaming down his beautiful face, agony in his eyes. And I told him, “But you found me. And now for the rest of our lives, we’re going to be together.”

  He met my eyes. “But you know what I am. Or what I was, since I handed the family business over to Dante tonight. How could you possibly still want to be with me, knowing all you do?”

  “I
love you, Dmitri. I always will. It’s that simple.”

  “I love you too.”

  He was quiet for a while, and eventually he said, “A lot of changes are going to come from this deal I struck with Dante. I’m going to need to look for an apartment. I’ll need to help out Catherine, too, since this house was half hers, and she’ll need a place to live when she graduates. And…well, I actually have no idea how I’ll be earning an income from this point forward.”

  “What about the club? That’ll still generate an income, right?”

  He shook his head. “I gave it to Dante.”

  “You did?”

  “It was sort of the clincher. He was hesitant to get involved, and only agreed when I threw in the club, on top of most of my other assets and all my uncle’s business ventures.”