So, what’s changed? Is he really that upset that I won’t take care of myself? Am I being too difficult for him to torment me?
A deep ache hits me in my stomach, making me wince as I wrap my arms around myself. My legs weaken, and I find myself back on the floor within seconds, the room spinning around me.
When everything begins to grow darker, I distantly wonder if I’ll ever wake up from this nightmare. Or if I even want to.
9
Gavriil
No matterwhat moves I make, control keeps slipping through my fingers.
I’m not used to reacting instead of anticipating, and I hate it.
Dominik would’ve anticipated this.
And that knowledge burns worse than any betrayal.
I stare at the laptop screen, my jaw clenched, as Matvei pulls up security camera footage from last night.
“There’s Timur,” Matvei says, standing on my left and pointing to a lone figure on the screen. “He was patrolling the warehouse in the northeast part of our city.”
A warehouse critical to our distribution network, with millions’ worth of inventory moving through it every week.
“Play it,” I tell him, feeling the eyes of my other men on me as they sit around the table.
Matvei taps on the play button, letting the video start.
I watch Timur walk along the back wall of the warehouse, the faint glow of a cigarette shining through the surroundingdarkness. He lowers the cigarette from his mouth and suddenly pauses like he hears something. Tucking the cigarette back between his lips, he approaches the left corner of the warehouse to check around it.
A black van tears around the right corner and stops less than three feet behind him.
Timur scrambles for the gun tucked into the back of his pants, but the attackers move faster.
Two men throw open the side door and swarm him, striking him again and again until he’s too dazed to fight back. That’s when they grab him and toss him into the van before slamming the sliding door shut.
The driver guns it and drives away.
The entire attack lasted less than thirty seconds.
My fingers curl into a fist beneath the table, nails biting into my palm.
Not only are these attackers invading our territory to do recon and damage property, but now they’re also kidnapping my fucking men.
And Timur is one of my best fighters, which makes this even worse.
I can’t believe he was caught off guard.
“How did you know he was taken?” I ask.
“I showed up for the morning patrol, and he was nowhere to be found,” Leon speaks up from farther down the table. “I kept calling him and looking around for him. I figured he snuck off to the donut shop down the street to grab something to eat, but he wasn’t there either.”
“After Leon called me, I checked the security camera footage,” Matvei tells me as he returns to his seat nearby. “He was taken around three in the morning.”
I consider my next move for a moment and come up…empty.
It feels like all we can do is fucking wait, and that’s unacceptable.
“They may be keeping him hostage in exchange for something. Keep an eye out for any messages,” I tell everyone, my voice steady.
