Dimitri stops walking.
“Natasha,” Kozlov repeats, his voice dangerously soft. The calm before the storm.
“You know her?” I ask, but I already have an idea who she is. The busty brunette Dimitri was chatting up.
Kozlov doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns to Dimitri and unleashes a torrent of Russian.
I don’t catch all of it; my grasp of the language is limited, but I catch enough.
There’s a lot of swear words. Natasha. Dimitri’s name, repeated with increasing venom. The word for whore. Slang for a traitor. And a hand gesture that looks like he’s accusing him of having loose lips in front of his crush.
Dimitri’s face goes from pale to red to purple in the space of seconds. He fires back in Russian, his voice rising, gesturing wildly.
Whatever he’s saying, it’s not an apology.
Kozlov cuts him off with a snarl, jabbing a finger at his chest. More Russian, faster now, too fast for me to follow, but the meaning is clear enough.
You were fucking her. You told her things. This is your fault.
Dimitri turns on me, his eyes blazing with fury.
I step back, not submitting, but keen to make it look like I’m the calm one here, while Dimitri is turning into a loose cannon.
“You.” He spits. “You think you can come in here and cast doubt on my loyalty? On my ability to do my job? I’ve been with Kozlov for 15 years. 15 years. And you’ve been here, what, a few days?”
I hold his gaze, unflinching. “I just told him what they told me. Your name never passed my lips.”
For a moment, I think he might actually swing at me. His fists clench at his sides, and his whole body is vibrating with rage. But after what he witnessed me do inside, he seems to think better of it. Instead, he turns and storms off down the corridor, slamming through a door hard enough that it rattles the frame, and a picture bounces on the wall.
I think it’s fair to say he’s pissed off.
Kozlov watches him go, his expression unreadable. When he turns back to me, some of the fury has faded, but not all.
“The men downstairs,” I say. “Do you want me to dispose of them? Quietly. In case someone comes looking for them.”
Kozlov’s eyes dart back toward the now dark TV screen. Oh yeah. He watched, alright. Then to the door Dimitri has just exited in a fit of rage.
I’m assuming this normally falls under his job description.
“Make sure nobody can find anything.” His eyes bore into mine. “Nothing that can be traced back to this house. Understood?”
I nod, my mind scrambling to figure out where the hell to hide them until this is over. “Understood.”
Kozlov waves a hand in dismissal and retreats into his office, already reaching for his phone. I hear him barking orders in Russian, then Natasha’s name as I head back down to the basement.
I pray to god the authorities have hidden her well.
The two prisoners are still unconscious when I return. I work quickly, unhooking them from the chains and lowering them to the ground as gently as I can manage. There are two tarps in the corner, prepared before tonight’s interrogation, and I drag them over, wrapping each man tightly but allowing room to breathe through small holes near their noses.
I lean close to the first one, the one who gave me the most information, and speak directly into his ear.
“I know you can hear me. Your breathing changed.” A pause. The breathing stays steady, but I catch the slight tension in his shoulders. “I’m going to put you in the boot of a car and drive you out of here. You don’t move. You don’t make a sound. If you fuck this up, they’ll kill you for real. Understood?”
There’s the tiniest nod, barely a movement at all.
“Good.”
I straighten and grab the edges of the tarps, dragging them toward the service entrance, my mind already racing ahead. I need to get these men out of here, then I need to get back to Emma. Closing my eyes, concentrating on the fledgling bond that feels stronger to me now after tonight, I’m confident she’s still peacefully asleep.
