I answer without thinking. "Hello?"
Heavy breathing. Then a man's voice, accented, speaking English but with something Eastern European underneath. "You're looking for your sister."
Every muscle in my body goes rigid. "Who is this?"
"Someone who knows where she is."
"Where? Where is she? Is she okay—"
"Vine and Crimson. Nine PM. Come alone, or you'll never see her again."
The line goes dead.
I stare at my phone, heart hammering so hard I can barely think.
It's a trap. It has to be a trap. No one just calls and offers to help find a missing person. No one except…Except maybe whoever took her in the first place.
I dial 911 and just as I’m about to stab the call button with my thumb, I hesitate.
What if this is my only chance to find her? What if I call the police and they don’t take me seriously, again?
I delete the numbers from the screen and open the Uber app with shaking hands to request a car.Vine and Crimson. The bar Madison mentioned. The place Laurie was researching before she vanished, the place I was told by a man I don’t know to meet him there in a little under an hour.
I'm going. Alone. Like they said. Because I'm not stopping until I find my sister.
The Uber arrives in twelve minutes. The driver tries to make small talk but gives up when I don't respond.
The Strip glows in the distance as we drive, all bright lights and false promises. Somewhere in this city, my sister is alive. I can feel it. That twin connection, that bone-deep certainty that she's still breathing, still fighting, still waiting for me to find her.
The Uber pulls up to Vine and Crimson at 8:53 PM. Early. Good. I want to scope it out first, see what I'm walking into.
The bar looks exactly like the Google images. Dim lighting visible through dirty windows, cheap drinks advertised on a flickering sign, the kind of place that caters to locals who want to forget they live in Vegas.
I pay the driver and step out onto the sidewalk. The air is still hot, desert heat radiating up from the concrete. Music thumps from inside the bar. Laughter. The clink of glasses.
Normal sounds.
But nothing about this feels normal.
I check my phone one more time. No response from Madison. No missed calls from Laurie. No miracle text saying this is all a misunderstanding and she's fine.
Just me, alone, about to walk into a bar that may be the last place Laurie was seen.
I take a deep breath and push open the door.
Yakov
Vine and Crimson is the kind of bar that caters to off-Strip locals; dim lighting, cheap drinks, pool tables in the back. It's also where the Albanians recruit. Pretty girls looking for easy money, maybe a little coke to take the edge off. They get introduced to the wrong people, and suddenly they're in debt.
Or they just disappear.
The sun has fully set by the time I reach the alley behind the bar. Kaiden and two of my guys are already there, watching from across the street.
"Anything?" I ask.
"Not yet. The cars left ten minutes ago. Heading east, toward Henderson."
"What about the girl?"
