“Grisha remains. Anything you tell me I would tell him myself anyway,” Dmitri said.
She looked at Fedarro and Collin and then at Vinny and Sunny.
“Be sure, Adalina,” Sunny said to her, and she nodded.
“By now, you’ve contacted Zinfer. Has he come up with a price, with what you will owe him for getting information on Puento and finding him and Rayanna?” she asked him, shocking all the men in the room except Vinny and Sunny.
“How do you know Zinfer?” Dmitri asked.
Grisha stepped forward. Vinny and Sunny went to move in front of Adalina, and she held up her hand. She stared at Dmitri. “Just answer the question, Dmitri.”
He waved his hand for Grisha to step back.
“I contacted him earlier since no one has any leads whatsoever.”
“Zinfer is a dirty crook but one of the best smugglers out there. You don’t need him, though, when you have me,” she said to him.
Dmitri squinted at her.
“What are you not telling us, Adalina?” Fedarro asked.
“I’m asking Dmitri to trust me, to know that Rayanna is my friend, that I will do whatever is necessary to find her and to destroy the ones responsible for her abduction.”
“That’s great, Adalina, but what connections could you possibly have that go above and beyond Zinfer, the top underground smuggler of the world?” Grisha asked her.
“He is not the top underground smuggler of the world, but he does work for the number one smuggler.” She stared at Dmitri.
“I’m not understanding any of this,” Collin said to them.
Dmitri crossed his arms in front of his chest and eyed her over. “You think you have connections better than Zinfer himself?” he asked, challenging her.
“This is where the confidentiality comes into play. What I reveal to you five men must remain a secret. I’m willing to let you in on this information, Collin and Fedarro, because Rayanna is your cousin, you love her dearly, and she will more than likely become family like the both of you will when Dmitri takes her as his wife.”
Dmitri narrowed his eyes at her.
“Family? What do you mean?”
“This stays in this room and goes nowhere else. I’ve been in contact with Lacosta, and he is working on finding out exactly where Puento has taken Rayanna,” she said to them.
“What?” Fedarro asked.
“How?” Collin asked.
“There’s no way. No one even knows if Lacosta is alive, never mind how to contact him. Someone is yanking your chain,” Grisha said to her.
She looked at Dmitri. “I can call my father whenever I need him, and believe me, he is alive and well.”
Dmitri uncrossed his arms. He shook his head. “No. No, it can’t be. Lacosta does not have a daughter,” Dmitri said.
“Holy shit,” Fedarro said.
“How? Lacosta wasn’t married and never mentioned a daughter,” Grisha said.
“Let’s not waste time. Think about the realities of his position and what a certain organized-crime boss wanted to do to him? Now if he was involved with a woman who became pregnant and that boss found out, what would that boss do?”
“Kill the woman and the baby,” Grisha said to her.
“He’s kept you a secret all your life in order to protect you. Why come out now?” Dmitri asked her.
“I don’t want to come out now, but it could happen. I’ve risked my life, gotten information in ways that could make someone suspicious. You contacted Zinfer, but now my father has called him off at my request and eliminated your debt.”
“You didn’t have to do that. I was willing to pay whatever was necessary,” Dmitri said to her.
“There is no debt between family, Dmitri.”
“Family?” he asked.
“My mother was your cousin, Dmitri. We’re blood.”
“I did not see that coming at all,” Grisha said as Dmitri stared at her.
“We’ll catch up on lost years another time. Lacosta should be contacting me shortly. What I did find out from my other resources is that Puento chartered a plane, destination unknown. It could be a ploy, an attempt at a wild-goose chase,” she said to them.
“It probably is. We’ve gotten several leads since Rayanna was taken, and all of them were dead ends. We’ve got men traveling out of the country and coming up with shit,” Grisha said.
“Same here. All the hot spots, secret safe houses came up empty,” Fedarro told her.
“Well, Puento made the mistake of doing some dirty work around my father’s territory, which is basically everywhere underground on the black market. He sold many of your items in scattered locations and made a major profit, too. I got a hold of Puento’s offshore accounts.” She looked at Vinny. “Grab that blue folder off the top of my desk, please.”
Vinny grabbed it, and she handed it to Dmitri. He opened it and looked at it. He whistled.
“This is a lot of money, a lot of resources to stay hidden and on the run for a long time.” He handed the folder to Collin and Fedarro to look at.
“Under normal circumstances, if he had access to all his accounts, sure. But as of an hour ago, he’s been cut off. His resources are limited, and that means he isn’t going far, not until he replenishes those accounts or contacts someone to try to figure out why they’re frozen. That person doesn’t exist.”
“You’re a damn secret weapon, Adalina. Your men are going to have their hands full protecting you if your identity is revealed,” Collin said to her.
“It won’t be revealed because none of us in this room will ever repeat what we heard. We keep it between us. I offer my protection, too, Adalina, as family should,” Dmitri said to her.
“Let’s hope my father is as good as I believe he is, and any time now we’ll get a call saying that he found her.”
* * * *
Rayanna huddled in the corner of the cell, concrete, cold, a breeze coming in along the shoreline. She could hear the ocean, but it wasn’t warm like Florida. It felt damp and cold. She inhaled and smelled terrible smells—death, erosion, garbage. The sounds of whimpering, even grunts of pain echoed every now and then through the corridor. She was in some sort of prison. Puento’s men had dropped her here so long ago. She didn’t know how long. Maybe a day or two. He hadn’t returned, and no one spoke a word of English. Well, just a few words from one beastly-looking man who shoved her a plate of food and a bottle of water. No one else got food or water. It was once a day, and it tasted like crap, but she tried to eat it. She was starving, and she ached everywhere.
She had tried to use her self-defense training against the three men who had brought her here. The moment the doors to the van opened, she had pretended to still be unconscious, and when one went to carry her, she’d struck him, shoved past the other, and ran. It was pitch dark out, and she tripped over branches and high grasses, only to be tackled to the ground and beaten until she was nearly unconscious. She’d gotten one of them good—broken his nose and given him a fat lip. The other one had cupped his balls and moaned and groaned all the way into the building. The third had laughed until she’d used her last bit of strength to punch him in the nuts when he’d dragged her by her hair.
That was days ago or maybe longer. She wasn’t certain. She’d heard the man say a week and she would be picked up. He’d answered in grunts and another language. The guys tossed him hundred-dollar bills, said to feed her but keep her weak. He did just that. She was weak—too weak to fight, too tired to be angry and demand to be let free. She didn’t know if Puento was coming to get her or if this was part of her punishment for sleeping with another man and evading capture for so long.
She couldn’t even cry with fear or sadness. She was done feeling sorry for herself. She was finished yearning to see Dmitri again and to feel his arms around her. He was probably so worried about her. He would be moving heaven and earth to find here, but he wouldn’t—not in a place like this, not out of America.
She heard some whistling an
d then some yelling as a woman came into the area where Rayanna lay on the ground in one cell, and other cells nearby that she’d thought were empty suddenly came alive. She saw the different men moaning, yelling for the woman to come closer. They were heckling her until the nasty-looking guard yelled for them to be quiet or something. Was that Greek? No, Ukrainian, something similar to how Dmitri spoke to her that night when they made love. It sounded the same. What had he called her? Vozlyublennaya—sweetheart.
The woman carried a basket of things, and the nasty guard squeezed her shoulder and looked into the basket. He ran a hand along her ass and squeezed, but the woman just smiled and pretended she didn’t care. When the woman turned and glanced over her shoulder, she locked gazes with Rayanna, and Rayanna’s gut reacted. She saw the woman slide her hand along the rim of the basket and tap it a few times. She then covered the spot with a cloth and laughed at something the guard said.
Had Rayanna imagined it? Was she hoping the woman recognized her somehow or would question who Rayanna was and why she was here? Rayanna’s eye was swollen, her cheek bruised, and her ribs tender from the strikes. Her arms had finger marks in bruises on them, and she reeked of sweat, body odor, and dirt from lying on this disgusting concrete floor. Puento was breaking her down, making her feel desperate, weak, and ready to accept his control and be taken from this place. She heard the commotion from the guy a few cells down. The guard yelled at him, and the man gurgled and made noises. He sounded as if he was dying.
The guard cursed, and the others threw money into the woman’s basket as they took sandwiches and bags of things from her. She hurried out of the room and up the stairs, glancing at Rayanna before she left. She heard the guards and then saw them open the cell and check on the man. One lifted him by his hair, and she could see blood dripping from his mouth. His eyes were wide open. He was old, gray, and dead. He’d just died right there in the prison cell, skin and bones, treated like an animal. She shook, and fear gripped her tight.
I don’t want to die here. Please don’t let me die here.
* * * *
“This is not my idea of living in paradise,” Puento said to Turnick. He was looking out the window at the farms and livestock, forced to hide out in a small village outside of Russia in Ukraine.
“Well, you are the one who decided to fuck with a man as powerful as Dmitri Sanclare. You should have left well alone, taken the woman and taken off. Now they’ve somehow locked you out of your funds.”
“Well, lucky for me, I have other secure locations not quite legal. I want out of here. When can I move her safely from the prison in Rostov and across to Romania?”
“I’ve been working on making the arrangements. We can grab her and have her moved tonight. You should know she’s weak as you requested, but the fight she put up with the men days ago left her battered and bruised.”
“Turnick, she will be broken down and desperate for cleanliness, for care and protection from me. It will all be worth it.”
“Despite you not destroying the Fiorre family operation or Sanclare’s business, as well?”
“Who said I didn’t destroy it? Or at minimum make them suffer? Dmitri will never be the same again knowing that I took his precious woman, the one woman to grab his heart and make him weak and stupid, and I took her, made her mine, and will get to fuck her forever.”
“She is quite the beauty. I never would have expected a man like Dmitri to be so weak that a woman would be his demise.”
“Exactly. I get the last laugh,” he said. “What time should I expect her arrival here? I want to be sure to get into Romania by the weekend. Then we can head into Greece and to the private island and estate there. I won’t need to deal with any more talk of Dmitri Sanclare or the Fiorre family.”
“Late, my friend. Very, very late.”
“Be sure to make them put her through hell and inflict fear and pain on her. I want her begging for mercy and for me to save her and protect her from further harm.”
“Understood,” Turnick said.
Puento smiled. Rayanna will be more than willing to accept me now. She’ll fear everyone but me.
Chapter 11
Dmitri couldn’t sleep a wink. He drifted off here and there from exhaustion but awoke quickly at the slightest sound and at his own nightmares. He envisioned men he’d killed, things he’d done to survive to become the powerful made man and businessman he was. It was his life. It meant everything until he met Rayanna, made love to her, and had her taken away from him.
He ran his fingers through his hair and held his head. He didn’t want to think about what Puento was doing to her, how he was treating her, or perhaps how he was scaring her by placing a gun to her head, raping her, beating her, and forcing himself on her in every way.
He growled, and Grisha opened the door.
“You need to eat. You’ll be no good to her if you’re weak and unhealthy.”
“I’m fine,” he snapped. He had been a miserable, snappy bastard for days. His men were, too. Olek was out of the hospital and insisting on helping to find Rayanna. He felt responsible for her abduction. The man needed so many stitches in the back of his head that he now had a nasty-looking scar.
“How is Olek?” he asked Grisha.
“Miserable and in pain, but remaining nearby on guard.”
“Get any information from Carlos?” Dmitri asked, knowing that Grisha and Bodashka found him and questioned him. They were working on interrogating him to get information.
“Nothing. He knew nothing but an amount of money he had wired from Puento to his account. Fifty thousand dollars,” Grisha said.
“She trusted him. She believed him to be a friend, not just her security.”
“I know, Dmitri. She’s a sweet woman and truly never felt like she was in any further danger other than an ex-boyfriend.”
“Well, he proved to be more than that. Are you in contact with Star Mulicheck and his team?”
“Yes. They’re on standby. Nicolai has men ready and supplies. Whatever is necessary.”
“Good. We wait,” he said, and then his cell phone rang. He glanced at it.
“Adalina.”
Grisha stepped closer. Nicolai put the phone on speaker.
“Adalina?”
“Rostov, Russia, as of four days ago.”
“Russia?” Grisha asked.
“Yes. Our connection got word on a possible sighting after certain leads led to a delivery truck dropping off a woman to a prison there,” she told them.
“A prison? What in the world?” Dmitri asked.
“I know. I don’t understand it either. The pictures aren’t that great, but Puento must have had her sent there for a reason,” Adalina told him.
“You said pictures. Of Yanna? Of this prison? What?” he asked.
“I sent them over despite not wanting to. I know you have a right to know. I know you will do what is necessary to all involved. I just hope Puento doesn’t move her again by the time you get there, Dmitri.”
“We don’t have much of a choice. Besides, if we get there, then we can hopefully catch a lead to where she was moved to. I have good men, soldiers who live for this, who are the best.”
“Good. Find her and get her back to us, Dmitri. Sunny is e-mailing over everything we’ve got. Keep me posted. I will keep the feelers out and hopefully track her down to an exact location if they move her again,” Adalina said.
“Thank you,” Dmitri said.
Then Grisha was walking over to the laptop and pulling up e-mails.
He clenched his teeth and then turned the screen toward Dmitri. Dmitri’s eyes widened and then a scowl formed on his face. His beautiful Yanna lay in the fetal position on a concrete cell floor, bruised, battered, with dirt and garbage around her. Puento was going to die by his hands. Dmitri would make certain of it.
* * * *
Rayanna was so scared. They moved her from the prison cell, threw a sack over her head, and shoved her around; said things to her in othe
r languages; and then kicked her and pushed her. She heard gunshots and laughter, and then men touched her and fondled her breasts. She tried slapping them away, and it earned her a hit to her head. She thought they might rape her, but something stopped them from going that far. She was petrified and shaking by the time she was tossed into a vehicle. The road was bumpy, and hands glided up and down her legs and between them, and she cried, begged for them to stop touching her. It was torturous not knowing when they would tear her clothes and rape her or who they were, what they looked like, and why this was happening to her.
She wanted to die. She didn’t even care anymore. When the truck stopped every so often, they ordered her to use a bathroom and stood there watching her. They lifted the bag, brought water to her lips and bread to eat. That was it. Nothing more. Then the truck went on again. This happened several times, and each time as she would doze off, hands would come at her again. She would slap them away, cry for them to stop, but the men would say things into her ear, lick her skin, touch her anyway. They didn’t force themselves between her legs, and she wondered why.
They dragged her from the truck, lifted her, and then dropped her onto a wooden floor. She felt the uneven flooring and then the sensation as if they were on water. She realized they were on a boat as an engine revved and splashes of water hit her bare thighs. Her clothes were rags of nothing, not covering much of her body as she remained in the fetal position and prayed for death.
* * * *
When she awoke from unconsciousness, she could feel warmth and the sun against her skin. Strong arms gripped her tight and then lifted her up and put her in the back of some kind of Jeep or something. She closed her eyes and didn’t want to feel, to think, or to know what they were doing next. It wasn’t until hours later and in darkness that they finally got to her destination.
Made Men 5: Dmitri's Denial (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic) Page 14