Page 51 of Savage Lies

The phone on the conference table rings, and Semenov answers it with a clipped, “Yes.” He listens for thirty seconds before hanging up. “That was Mikhail. He found the van abandoned in Sokolniki Park. No bodies or blood, but they left tire tracks leading east.”

“Toward what?”

“Industrial district. Lots of warehouses and shipping facilities. Perfect for keeping someone who doesn’t want to be kept.”

I stand and button my jacket, feeling the familiar weight of my shoulder holster. “How many men can we field?”

“Thirty. Maybe forty if we pull everyone off their current assignments.”

“Do it. I want them armed and ready to move in twenty minutes.”

“Boss.” Igor speaks up from the far end of the table. “If we go in heavy, and she gets caught in the crossfire…”

The implication makes my vision blur with rage, but he’s right.

Whatever these people want with Katya, they went to crazy lengths to take her alive. That gives us some leverage, but it also means they might not be afraid to hurt her if they feel cornered.

She may not be my real wife.

But that doesn’t matter. She’s mine

And I’ll put a bullet in anyone who forgets it.

“We go in smart. Eyes first, then knives. We pull her out clean.”

“And the men who touched her?”

“They die slowly.”

“No one touches what’s mine and walks away.”

My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number.

Your wife is safe for now. Instructions to follow.

I show the message to Alexei, whose face darkens as he reads it.

“They want something.”

“Obviously. But what?”

Another text arrives.

Come alone to the Moskva River pier at midnight. Bring nothing but your phone.

“Like hell,” Alexei snaps. “It’s a trap.”

“Of course, it’s a trap. It’s also the fastest way to find out what they want.”

“Dmitri, she isn’t your wife?—”

“She’s mine. Yuri, I need a swallowable tracker.”

“Boss, no,” Semenov says. “If they scan you?—”

“Then I’ll deal with it. I’m not going to play chess while my wife sits in their hands.”

The next three hours pass in a blur of weapons checks, tactical planning, and systematically intimidating every low-level Borisenko associate we can find. Most of them know nothing useful, but a few provide fragments of information that start to form a pattern.