I wasn’t ready yet to tell my family about my newly wedded status to Alisa, the daughter of the god damn federal prosecutor. Ha. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how red Caspian would’ve gotten if he had heard.
“What’d you find out about the crew?” I asked Federico.
“They’re small and call themselves the Volkov crew,” Federico explained. “Just a bunch of misfits, honestly. Small-time hustlers who stick to petty extortion and low-level drug dealing. They volunteered to source items for sale at the auction to get a foot in the door to party with the big boys.”
“Anything else?”
“We got a location for them. Want me to send some of our guys?”
“No!” I said, a little too fast. Damn it, I didn’t want Federico getting suspicious and feared he and my brothers might come sniffing around and discover Alisa. “My friend wanted to handle it himself.”
“Alright then,” Federico sounded like he couldn’t have cared less. “I guess you can pass him the location.”
“Where are they?” I asked, already looking around for my gun and wallet in the foyer cupboard where I kept them so that I could leave.
“We traced them up to some abandoned warehouse in Red Hook. It used to be a fish processing plant. The place reeks, so no one asks questions.”
I got my keys too and moved toward the garage. “Anyone keeping watch that I should warn my friend about?”
“My guys just passed through, but didn’t stay. They said it looks like a temporary setup and they’re probably just using it for this operation.”
“I’m on my way,” I said, ending the call.
I’d spent the last week trying to track down the men responsible for putting Alisa on that stage. Not just because of what they did to her, but because I needed to send a message: You don’t traffic women in my city without consequences.
***
While I drove, my mind was racing faster than my Range Rover, already imagining all the gruesome ways I’d make them pay.
The warehouse came into view after a forty-minute drive. It was an ugly concrete structure with broken windows and rust-stained walls. I parked a block away and walked over while keeping to the shadows.
I had no idea how many men were in there, or just how dangerous they were, so I’d called ahead for back-up.
Two of my men were already there, waiting in an unmarked van. On seeing me, they exited.
“Any movement you noticed inside?” I asked.
“Nothing since we’ve been here,” one replied. “A guy left carrying duffel bags a while ago.”
Shit. I motioned for them to follow me, approaching the building from the side where a loading dock provided cover.
The door was unlocked, which was never a good sign.
Inside, it smelt exactly as bad as Federico said it did. The main floor was mostly empty except for a couple of scattered chairs, a folding table, and trash littering the concrete.
“Check the offices,” I ordered.
We moved through the space carefully and with our guns drawn, but it became increasingly clear with each empty room that we were too late.
It seemed that the Volkov crew had packed up and disappeared.
I looked around a little longer and was about to call it a day when I found a stack of papers forgotten in one of the rooms that must have been used as an office. I picked them up, and my blood turned cold as I scanned the list of female names with their descriptions and… estimated values?
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.
This wasn’t just about Alisa. This was a whole operation. They were identifying potential targets—daughters of wealthy businessmen, politicians, even women from the mafia.
They were running a full-fledged racket for selling and purchasing women. Whatever I had planned to do with them earlier started looking like a real treat compared to what I had in mind next.
