"Fuck, Roman…" I close my eyes.
"Ah, ah! You'd kick my ass if I tried to feel sorry for myself like this," he says crisply. "You'd tell me to stay focused, don't let my emotions interfere with my judgement."
"Yeah," I hear Alexsey in the background. "That sounds exactly like something Dmitri would say."
"Just get there." I stare at the red dot on the screen.
Three of our cars converge on the office building at the same time. The parking lot is empty, the security lights buzzing fretfully. I check my phone. The tracker hasn't moved.
Putting in my earpiece, I ask, "Is there any sign of movement inside?"
"I'm the roof of the building to the south," my cousin Nikandr says. "I'm sweeping the building through my sniper scope. There's nothing. I'm not even seeing a night watchman."
"That makes sense. He wouldn't want anyone there. We're going to have to risk it," I say, pulling my gun. "Roman, your team goes through the back, I'll go through the front. She's on the ground floor in the northeast corner."
Glass shatters as I shoot the lock on the front doors, echoing through the parking lot, and I ignore the teeth-rattling blare of the burglar alarm as I race down the hall. The corridor seems to stretch endlessly, like the hallway at The McManus as Ava raced toward me. The polished doors of the conference room are locked and I kick them open, rushing in and nearly hitting the table.
Her ring is sitting in the center of the table, some silver-blonde strands of hair caught in the back of one of the office chairs. I stumble back against the wall, my gun dropping.
"Kolya, do you have the traffic cameras pulled up yet?" Roman bursts through the door, listening to his earpiece. "He's combing through them now."
I try to force my muddy thoughts to clear. "How close could they be to an airstrip or a dock?"
What's the quickest way that they could smuggle Ava away from me? Or would he kill her now?
"We've got something," Roman says. "Kolya spotted two Lincoln Continentals heading away from the office building."
"That's got to be Will. He loves those giant fuckers. What direction are they heading?" I ask.
Roman listens for a moment as we race for the front door. "Kolya picked up the cars, crossing the George Washington Bridge. We can catch up if we take the Lincoln Tunnel."
I know my competitor's build sites almost as well as my own, so when Kolya pinpoints Will's direction, I know where he's headed. "It's a new warehouse complex, they're just digging the foundations now."
An icy hand grips my heart, squeezing it. We're not the only ones who know how to bury bodies in the footings of our buildings. Roman squeezes my arm. "Let's just get there."
It's dark out tonight, only the haze of the ever-present streetlights to guide us as we park, creeping up on the site. Andrey cuts through the wire fencing, pulling it open enough for everyone to slide through. Ten of us.
I can hear the rumbling of a concrete mixer as we race through the site. There are no construction lights burning, just a weak, yellowish one on the mixer itself. It's massive, designed to pour thousands of yards of concrete, filling up a fifteen-foot-deepfoundation in minutes. There's barely enough light to see Will and that motherfucker Smith, who's holding one of Ava's arms viciously behind her back. I can see the grimace of pain on her face, but she's still standing straight.
"Dmitri," Alexsey whispers into the headset. "There's fifteen guards between us and them."
Demid hands me a pair of night vision scopes. I pull it over my head, hissing between my teeth. He's right. Whether or not Will is expecting us, he's making goddamn sure she's not getting out of here.
"We have to bring them down quietly," I whisper. "Do you all understand? If they alert Smith, he'll throw her into the hole now."
I've been around enough construction sites now to know just by the sound of the mixer how close the concrete is to be ready to pour. We don't have long.
Pulling my knife from my ankle holster, I close in on the guard nearest to me, my hand slams over his mouth as I drive my knife into his kidney, twisting viciously. He stiffens and drops in seconds. My hearing is painfully attuned to the sound of the mixer, praying that it's loud enough to conceal the desperate struggle and the sound of bodies collapsing in the dirt.
I jump on the next guard, a big fucker, and he turns just in time to see me coming. He swings his arm, landing me on my back. I get my knife into his neck before he can pull his gun, but he's holding on, choking me, driving his knee up into my stomach. My grip doesn't loosen, twisting the knife as I watch blood bubble from his lips. He opens his mouth, and I slam my hand over it, one shout would be enough. He bites savagely into my hand- why won't this fucker justdie?
The night is still unnaturally quiet. Only the sounds of the mixer and Will's fucking voice droning on. I can stand it because this time, it means Ava is still alive.
Keep talking, motherfucker.
My heart thuds painfully in my chest as there's a short yelp from the opposite end of the site and I close my eyes, hand still clamped on the man's mouth, finally dead, slumped on top of me.
Smith looks up sharply, holding up his hand. He sends a man over to the area to check.
