“Because Dylan’s girlfriend, Anya, is from Kiev,” Jayson told him. “She was grabbed by militia soldiers outside the RSA building almost a week ago. We’re not leaving until we get her back.”
Victor’s wife regarded them thoughtfully. “Why do you care about the girl if she is not American?”
“Because Dylan cares about her,” Layla said. “He won’t leave without her, and we won’t leave without him. When we learned that there were other girls about the same age as Anya who were captured, we realized we couldn’t leave without rescuing them too.”
The woman considered that for a long time, then turned to give her husband a nod. Victor asked how they had broken into the RSA building and how they managed to free all the prisoners held there on their own.
Jayson and Layla answered each question honestly, not leaving anything out. Well, except for the part about her being a shifter.
“And what will you do if you find out where the girls are located?” Victor asked.
“Get them out,” Jayson said simply.
“No matter where they are?” his wife pressed.
“No matter where they are,” Jayson affirmed.
The woman exchanged looks with her husband, then nodded. Victor set his cup down on the table and stood.
“Come with me,” he said. “I have something to show you.”
Layla and Jayson put their cups down on the table as well and followed him into a modest kitchen. She thought at first that he was going to take them outside, but instead, Victor shoved aside a set of shelves along one wall to reveal a hidden door.
He led them down a set of old, wooden steps into a darkened basement, yanking a chain dangling from the ceiling as he went. Layla blinked as light flooded the room. Now she saw what all the secrecy was about. Half of one wall was covered with dozens of surveillance photos of militia soldiers. The other half was filled with pictures of eleven teenaged girls. And in the middle was a poster-size print of a dark-haired man wearing the same uniform as the militia. Big and muscular with cold eyes that seemed to bore right through you even in a photograph, he didn’t look like someone you’d want to mess with.
“I am a loyal Russian citizen of the DPR, but what is happening now with the militia is not the Russian way. Something must be done to stop them.” The words seemed hard for Victor to say, but he took a deep breath and straightened his spine, then pointed at the picture in the center of the wall. “This is Colonel Grigori Zolnerov. He’s the senior commander of most of the militia forces on this side of Donetsk. He has been responsible for the fighting that has gone on here. He is the one who has kidnapped these girls.” The old man swallowed hard as he lovingly touched a photo of a smiling girl with dark, curly hair and big dimples. “This is my granddaughter Larissa. My wife and I raised her since her parents were killed. She was one of the first taken.”
“How do you know Zolnerov grabbed them?” Jayson asked.
“I’ve talked to several witnesses who saw some of the girls get abducted,” Victor said. “In each case, it was Zolnerov’s personal bodyguards who either kidnapped them or picked them up from another holding facility.”
“What is he doing with them?” Layla asked, almost afraid of the answer.
Victor shook his head. “I don’t know. The only thing I can say with certainty is that Zolnerov’s personal guards have all left the city and are now in a dacha—forgive me, a luxury home—north of the city that the colonel took over shortly after he arrived here. They’ve been on nearly constant alert since then.”
Victor took a photo off the wall. With all the other pictures, Layla had completely missed this one. It was of a huge brick house surrounded by a high wall. Even in the limited view offered by the picture, Layla could count six heavily armed guards. Her stomach clenched. She tried to think of some other reason a man like Zolnerov would keep a dozen girls captive in that house, but her imagination failed to come up with anything that wasn’t depraved.
Victor handed the picture to Jayson. “The dacha is about thirty miles outside of town, due west. The address is on the back, and I will let you use one of my trucks to get there. Mikhail will know the way. He is a smart kid, never afraid to stand up to people when it is necessary. Try not to get him killed.”
Jayson regarded the Russian thoughtfully. “If you’ve known where your granddaughter is all this time, why haven’t you tried to rescue her? Those men out there who searched us look capable enough.”
Layla wondered the same thing.
Victor didn’t say anything for a long time. “We tried,” he finally said in a sad voice. “But they are police officers, not soldiers. The team of men I sent in four days ago were killed before they even made it through the front gate. They never had a chance.” His gaze went from Jayson to her. “I am praying you two can do better because there’s no one else who can stand up to Zolnerov and his guards, and I fear what he has planned for my granddaughter and those other girls.”
* * *
Jayson leaned over a table in one of the few areas of the library that hadn’t been bombed to pieces watching as Layla and Olek added details to the map they were drawing of the large estate where Victor believed the girls were being held.
When they had come back from their meeting with Victor, Layla had immediately called Kendra and asked if she could find out anything about the layout of the house as well as dig into Zolnerov’s background. It had taken a few hours, but Kendra emailed a ton of information. And none of the intel on the colonel was good.
The man had been booted out of the Russian army two years ago for corruption and had taken over leadership of the militia forces in the area when the more senior officers had died during a supposed terrorist attack. No one thought the senior officers’ deaths had been a coincidence and most doubted that pro-Ukrainian loyalists had been responsible.
Since then, Zolnerov had developed a reputation as an ambitious man willing to do whatever it took to gain more money and power. He’d been leaning on many of the local businesses and charging them protection fees while doing as little actual fighting along the regional borders as he could get away with. According to Kendra, it looked like he was positioning himself for a run at president of the DPR if and when it became an independent country. While there were quite a few other political figures in the race ahead of him, Jayson doubted they’d be around long enough to claim it. People who stood up to Zolnerov seemed to disappear.
“I wish I could get you guys some more help, but it looks like you’re on your own for a while longer,” Kendra had said before hanging up. “I still haven’t heard a peep out of Clayne and Danica. And Trevor and his team had a hell of a time getting out of South America. It could take them another twenty-four hours to reach you.”
The thought of waiting around another twenty-four hours didn’t sit right with Jayson. His gut told him they needed to get to those girls sooner rather than later. To do that, they needed a solid plan. That was why Layla and Olek were transferring the drawings of the house Zolnerov had commandeered from Layla’s iPhone to a large sheet of paper. Jayson needed the layout of the place before they tried to slip in there. He had no desire for this rescue mission to end up like the one Victor had attempted.
