“What’s going on?” I rush out breathlessly.
“It’s okay Willow. There’s another two vans, they’ll get Dragna and everyone else back to the house.” He says softly when he notices the panic on my face.
“This is the plan and there is no deviating from it. I get whoever made it out to the house as fast as I can and the others will get everyone else back. Ivan is waiting with the second crew for the others to come out.”
I sit back down and pull the blanket tighter around me as every scenario runs through my mind.
Dragna not coming back, Ella being harmed, something happening to Lev. Every single thought of what could go wrong and not one of what could go right and I have a sinking feeling the further we drive away from that place that something is wrong.
We make it back to the house that Mikhail told us Dragna owns here in Boston and it’s like driving into a fortress.
There are men with guns strapped to them walking the grounds outside and as Mikhail pulls up to the front doors. I watch through the windscreen as one of them approaches the van and opens the sliding doors for us.
“Anyone injured?” He asks as he looks us all over. We all shake our heads and he holds his hand out for each of us to take as he helps us out of the van individually.
He leads us to the house and when we step inside it’s like a scene from a movie.
There’s a few men in a living room to our right and they sit around a large table with laptops open in front of them watchingas different dots flash around on their screens. One of the men stands and approaches us as he looks at each of us before his eyes land on mine.
“Willow?” He asks, and I glance at the girls anxiously before looking back at him and nodding.
“I’m Nikolai, it’s nice to finally meet you and to see that you are all unharmed.”
He gives me a sympathetic smile before holding his arm out in the direction of another room to the left.
“There’s food, water, tea, anything you’d all like in the kitchen. It might be a while before Dragna and the others are back, make yourselves as comfortable as you can. If any of you are injured or feel sick, we have our private doctor and medical team here too. Just let us know what we can do and it’ll be done.”
I feel myself start to go dizzy and Gigi grabs ahold of my elbow at the same time as Mikhail grabs my shoulders to steady me.
“I know this is a lot to take in, this side of Dragna, but you are safe now and that’s exactly what he wanted out of tonight. We’re tracking their movements, you can sit with us and watch if that will ease your worry.” Nikolai offers and I nod without thinking about any of the words he actually just said.
Tracking, movements, Dragna… This is the real Dragna. These are the things he’s capable of and I had no idea. I don’t even care about any of that right now though, I just need him to come back, to have Ella with him and to walk through the front door unharmed.
“Show me please.” I say to Nikolai and I take a wobbly step in the direction of the room he came from. His hand replaces Gigi’s on my elbow and he walks me to the table and pulls out the chair he was sitting in for me. When I sit down all I see are red dots on what looks like a map. I blink a few times and lean closerto the screen, making out that it is a map and the red dots are obviously Dragna, Lev and everyone else.
“Where are they?” I ask and Nikolai clears his throat before he answers.
“They are still at the club. I imagine since only four of you arrived back, there’s another girl still there and you know Dragna isn’t leaving without her.” He says and I sigh as I lean back in the chair thinking about what could be happening right now between Dragna and Tommy and hoping Ella hasn’t been hurt.
I feel like I’m in a state of shock, like none of this weekend has actually happened and I know my brain is about to shut down and disassociate to protect me from having a panic attack.
Just as I begin to feel myself slipping, I feel a comforting hand on my shoulder and a huge cup of tea is placed down in front of me. I look up to see Alina and immediately stand to pull her into me.
“We have to be strong. They’ll all come back. They’ll come back Willow.” She whispers into my ear, but she’s breaking just as bad as I am and it sounds like she’s not just trying to convince me, but herself too.
“Yeah.” I sniffle.
“They will.” I whisper back as we hold each other tighter.
Chapter Forty Seven
Dragna
“Blyat’! Fuck! Fuck!” I shout, punching the inside of the van as we take off from the alley.
Tommy is a dead man. Finn is a dead man. They’re all fucking dead men. We expected he would use Ella as a way to get out unharmed, but when he held his own gun to her head and threatened to send her body back to the girls there was nothing we could do and he knew it.
He took off with Ella and his men before we had a chance to take any kind of shot at him without risking him also pulling the trigger on Ella. The only positive to come out of us getting out of there unharmed was the fact the girls are back at the house safe and that Anton managed to help the girl from the other booth and they are currently in the other van behind us.
