“We were ambushed. They fucked me up. I woke up in the hospital. And Eva is just gone.” She was speaking a mile a minute. I set the phone on speaker, so I’d have use of both hands. “I told the cops it was that Russian piece of shit. But they won’t do anything without going through proper fucking channels. And you know she doesn’t have long. She needs her insulin.” There was a pause on the other end as I continued to pack duffel bags full of equipment. “I know you can help, Derek. I know what you are.”
I froze, waiting for her to elaborate.
“I heard my Uncle Franco talking to that Leni woman the other day. I hate you right now for hurting Eva, and you deserve a kick in the dick, but I need you to pull whatever resources you have out of your ass and find her before it’s too late. You owe her that much.”
I hung up the phone and pounded the table with both fists. My breaths were fast, and all I could think about was Eva in the hands of that son of a bitch. He was dead. Everyone he loved was dead. His family. His friends. The whole goddamn bratva.
I snatched the phone. It rang twice, and a familiar voice greeted me on the other line.
“Derek Cain.”
“Amalia.”
* * *
Kai and I pulled up to a red brick building on the corner of a lonely street. Neither of us had said a word on the drive. He looked at me as I threw the car into park and nodded.
“Ready, brother.”
I returned the gesture; my jaw set tight. “All of them.”
A smirk tipped the edge of his mouth. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
I climbed out, pulled a large duffel bag from the back seat, and slung it over my shoulder. Kai did the same.
We charged up a short porch. Not in the mood for bullshit, I kicked the door open in two hits. As pieces of wood went flying, two men scrambled into the foyer with their guns drawn, but not fast enough. Kai dropped them, and I moved toward a sack of shit trying to run into another room. I cornered him inside a small bathroom and pulled out my blade.
“Please,” he begged like the cowardly bastard he was. “I have a wife and kids. Please.”
“I don’t give a fuck about your wife or your goddamn kids. You’re going to die in this bathroom. How quick and how painless depends on how you answer my questions.”
He sat on the toilet with his hands raised in front of him, still uselessly pleading for his miserable life.
“I’ll tell you anything.”
I gripped the front of his shirt. “Where is she?” I growled through clenched teeth.
“Where is who?”
My knife plunged into the top of his right thigh. He howled in pain, and I put a hand around his throat, snuffing out his pathetic cries. There would be no mercy. Even if he had no involvement or knew of his boss’s plans, he’d die just the same.
Guilty by fucking association.
“I’m going to ask you one more time before I cut off your dick and shove it up your ass. Where is she?”
“Please,” he croaked out as I loosened my grip enough for him to speak. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Is this about Dmitry?”
“Still wrong answer.”
“Oh, fuck!” As I twisted the knife, flaying his quad muscle, he screeched like a pig at slaughter.
Drips of piss hit the floor in time with the blood from his wound.
“He took something of mine, and I’m going to get it back, even if I have to go through every single one of you motherfuckers.” I pushed down on his mangled thigh, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Fisting his hair, I tipped his head back and shoved the knife beneath his chin and into his skull. His body slumped over and hit the floor with a thud.
I ran my hands across the top of my head, blood caking my forehead and hair, and growled in frustration, having gotten nothing from this bastard.
“Derek, come check this out.”
