Nikolai

  Besian approached the car and fished a key fob from his pants. The car beeped twice as the trunk was unlocked and popped open. Lifting the lid, he gestured to the bound and gagged man stuffed in there. Dressed in jeans and a hoodie, the man didn't look familiar to Nikolai—until he spotted the angry, red wound in the man's hand.

  "Yes," Nikolai said as the memories of the attack frantically flashed through his mind. "I stabbed this one."

  "His brother-in-law ratted him out to me. He wanted the reward but didn't want to come forward on his own. Better to let me do the dirty business—and get the bigger cut."

  "Who is he?" Nikolai reached into the trunk and yanked down the collar of the man's shirt in search of gang tats but he had unmarked skin.

  "He's got no affiliation. The brother-in-law gambles in one of my underground casinos but he's just a plumber." Besian cruelly poked the man's wounded hand and drew a shriek of pain. "He's called Bill Rathbone. He's a dentist." Besian shrugged. "He's nobody." He spit into the trunk, splattering the crying man. "He was nobody. Now he's all yours."

  "Sergei."

  Without a word, the lumbering enforcer walked over, scooped up the wailing man and carried him back to the SUV. Kostya popped the back hatch and Sergei dropped the dentist into the cargo area.

  Nikolai didn't take his eyes off the man who had taken part in the attack and kidnapping. His mind raced with all the terrible things he could do to make this man talk. It had been a long time since he'd experienced this sort of bloodthirsty need to make a man hurt. The idea that Vivian might be in pain right now spurred his bloodlust.

  Besian dared to lay a hand on his arm. "Whatever happens—we're with you."

  Nikolai accepted the offer of alliance with a curt nod. Things were still so uncertain. There was something in the air, something new and worrying, that all the factions of Houston's criminal world could smell.

  "Nikolai?" Julio Jimenez stepped a little closer. "When this is all settled, Lorenzo would like a sit-down to discuss new terms."

  Nikolai's eyes narrowed to slits. "We'll see."

  Julio didn't push it. He melted into the background with a sickening smile.

  Turning back to the SUV, Nikolai joined Santos in a slow walk. Thinking of the bound and gagged man writhing around in the cargo area, he wanted to give Vivian's cousin a chance to back away without compromising himself. "This is your last chance to step back over the line to your side of the law, Eric."

  The detective seemed surprised by Nikolai's use of his first name but he didn't say a damn word. No, he simply jerked open the passenger door and climbed into the SUV.

  So be it, Nikolai thought and slid into the front passenger seat. As Sergei backed out of the garage, Kostya leaned forward and extended Nikolai's favorite lighter and an unopened pack of cigarettes. He kept them in his desk at Samovar but Kostya had obviously known he'd want them tonight. Though he'd been trying to give them up at Vivian's urging, he couldn't deny the need to feed his nicotine addiction right now.

  The first long tug of the hot smoke into his lungs brought such relief. Fully aware that Sergei was on Vivian's team when it came to this particular habit, he cracked the window. The chilly December air whirled around him. The bracing cold snapped the drowsiness right out of him.

  Staring out at the bright lights of the city, Nikolai thought of Vivian. Was she warm? Was she hungry? Was she injured? Were they hurting her? The crushing weight of guilt and fear compressed his chest.

  Flicking cigarette ash out the window, he thought of their last conversation. Had he really said that she should consider leaving Houston? The very idea was like an ice pick through his heart.

  The memories of everything that had gone down in her studio ripped at his conscience. She'd been so angry with him—and for good reason. He'd been an abominable asshole to her about the painting. He'd reacted with panic and fear instead of manning the fuck up and telling her the truth about what had really happened that night.

  And he'd never forgive himself for that.

  Never.

  Just as he'd never forgive himself for never telling her what she meant to him. Faced with losing her forever, he now understood how stupid he'd been to keep her at a distance. He'd convinced himself he was looking out for her, that he was trying to do the best thing for her by refusing to acknowledge what had grown between them, but he'd been dead wrong.

  A pitiful whine from the rear of the SUV interrupted his thoughts. Finishing his cigarette, he pinched off the end before tossing it out of the window.

  Finally, Santos dared to ask, "Where are we taking him?"

  Kostya provided the answer. "We're going to my place."

  Chapter Seven

  This time of night, the storage center was a ghost town. They owned and operated several of these storage places around the city. Despite the high initial outlay, the acres of storage containers, some climate-controlled and others bare bones, had proven to be a profitable enterprise. The added perk of having hundreds of containers available at a moment's notice was one that couldn't be touted enough.

  Tonight, Sergei took them deep into the maze of storage rows before killing the lights and engine. From the outside, this row of connected storage sheds looked exactly like all the others but inside was a different story.

  Kostya removed his keys and unlocked his secret space. Sergei grabbed the dentist from the rear of the SUV and hefted him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Finally feeling the analgesic effect of the pills Kostya had given him, Nikolai was able to move without constant nausea from the pain. The cigarette, his first in almost two weeks, had given him a nice buzz that edged off the dull throbbing in his skull and the stabbing ache in his shoulder.

  The frigid interior of Kostya's storage locker greeted them. Bright fluorescent lights lit up the surprisingly cavernous interior. Though it looked like one mid-sized unit from the outside, it was actually four connected units. Plastic sheeting covered the walls, ceiling and floor. A crinkling sound accompanied their footsteps.

  When Sergei dropped the dentist into the lone chair sitting in the middle of the room, the man tried to run but Sergei's meaty hand held him place. Kostya opened a cabinet along the right wall and retrieved a handful of zipties that he used to quickly bind the man to the chair. Stuck there, the dentist scanned the room in a panic. It was the meat hooks hanging from the ceiling that really made him scream.

  One look at Detective Santos' pale face told Nikolai that Kostya's theatrics were working. When Kostya slipped into surgical booties and a black apron, Santos slid closer to Nikolai. Voice hushed, he hissed, "What the hell is this? I thought you were going to work him over a little bit. I didn't realize you were going to field dress the poor bastard."

  Nikolai held the detective's gaze before glancing toward the door behind them. "If you want to leave, go now."

  Santos clenched his jaw and crossed his arms but didn't move. Sergei placed another folding metal chair across from the dentist. Nikolai carefully sat down, mindful of the bruising along his sides and the way quick movements made his head ache.

  Leaning back, he got comfortable and stared at the weeping dentist. The man looked pitifully out of place. There was nothing hard about him. He had that beaten-down soccer dad look. Why the hell had he taken part in such a brazen attack?

  "All right, Bill," Nikolai said very calmly. "We're going to have a discussion. You're going to tell me the truth. Do you know what happens if you lie to me?"

  On cue, Kostya whipped the black covering off his little cart of horrors. The gleaming silver instruments of torment inspired a ball-shriveling shriek from Bill. The gag in his mouth dampened the sound somewhat but it didn't matter. The night attendant at the storage center knew better than to poke around and ask questions if he heard a sound like that.

  Tilting his head, Nikolai studied the man. "I'll take that as a yes."

  Kostya stepped forward and tugged the rag gag out of the man's mouth. The second it was free, the dentist started
to beg for his life. "Please. Please. Don't kill me. I have kids. I have a wife. Please."

  "You tried to kill me. You took something very precious from me. Why should I let you live?"

  "No, please!" He sobbed pathetically. "Look, I'm not a criminal. I'm a dentist. You know? I deal with cavities and dentures. I'm not a kidnapper."

  "Not a kidnapper?" He leveled an icy stare Bill's way. "Kostya, did that sound like a lie to you?"

  "Da." He turned to his cart and retrieved a pair of gruesome looking pliers.

  "It's not a lie. I didn't want to take her. They made me."

  Seizing on the chance to get to the mastermind behind this sick plot, Nikolai asked, "Who made you?"

  Bill shook his head. Sweating profusely, he refused to answer. "I can't."

  Fishing the pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, Nikolai said, "You know, my friend here, he does some dabbling in dentistry."

  Eyes wide, Bill started hopping in the chair. "No. No. No."

  Slightly amused, Nikolai watched the metal chair travel a few feet before Sergei finally stepped forward and put his foot out to halt the dentist's escape. Clamping his hands on the man's jaw, Sergei forced it wide open so Kostya could reach in with the pliers.

  "Jesus, Maria y Jose!" Santos rubbed the side of his face. Clearly disturbed, he asked, "His teeth?"

  Nikolai glared at the detective as Bill gurgled and shouted. His patience thin, he snarled, "If you don't have the stomach for this, get the fuck out! I shouldn't have to remind you that this piece of shit kidnapped Vivian. For all we know the pigs who have her have done far worse than pull a couple of teeth."

  As Santos breathed heavily and visibly clenched and released his jaw, Kostya jerked hard and the dentist shrieked. Pale with horror, the detective turned his back as Kostya dropped the bloody tooth on a metal tray atop his cart. "Another, Boss?"

  Nikolai gave the tiniest shake of his head and tugged a cigarette from the pack. As he rolled it between his fingers, he watched as a wet spot spread across the front of Bill's jeans. Piss pooled on the plastic beneath the man. Certain he'd gotten his point across, Nikolai said, "Does my friend need to check your mouth for any more cavities or are you going to cooperate?"

  "I'll cooperate." Blood-tinged saliva spilled down Bill's chin. "No more. Please. No more."

  "Who do you work for?"

  "No one." Bill inhaled a shaky, sobbing breath. "I really am just a dentist but there was a debt. The loan shark got killed and this new guy said he'd bought the loan but he didn't want money. He wanted this favor and then he'd clear all of our debts."

  Nikolai's fingers went still and he clamped the cigarette between his fingers. Even in his injured state, his mind quickly flipped through all the angles. "You had a debt with Afrim Barisha?"

  Bill nodded quickly. "I got in over my head with the expansion of my practice. The fucking recession hit and I had too many expenses. My child support and alimony for my ex-wife in Dallas and then twins with my new wife—I couldn't keep up so my brother-in-law told me about the Albanian and his loans."

  "But you got behind," Nikolai guessed.

  "Yeah, but he was letting me spread out the payments. He'd agreed to have my boat stolen."

  In other words, Afrim would have one of Besian's men steal the boat and sell it on the black market. After he collected the insurance payout from Bill and his cut from Besian, he'd be in the black again on the man's loan or damn close.

  "But then Afrim got killed and this guy showed up and told me that if I didn't meet him at the bar where Afrim ran his loan sharking business, he'd kill my wife and sell my kids. He had their pictures and their schedules. I panicked."

  "A guy? What guy? White? Black? Latino? Asian?" Now Santos was intrigued. His horror at witnessing Kostya yank that tooth out of Bill's head seemed to vanish as he started to interrogate the man.

  "He's a white guy. Tall. Brown hair. About twenty pounds overweight. He said his name was John."

  "Did you recognize him?"

  "No, I'd never seen him before that night."

  "Did he tell you who he worked for?"

  "No. He had tattoos on his neck. Lightning bolts and a skull. He said that his boss would make the Albanian mob look like the Boy Scouts. I didn't ask questions."

  Eric glanced at him. Lightning bolts and skulls were common among the skinheads who were trying to grow their territory.

  "How many of you were at the bar that night?"

  "I don't know. Ten? Eleven?"

  "Did you know any of those men?"

  "I recognized their faces but I don't know their names. They were guys I'd see at the bar making payments, you know?"

  Santos paused. "You said this guy John threatened to sell your kids. What do you mean by that?"

  "He had pictures of dog cages but they weren't holding dogs. They were holding girls. Women," he added and sniffed loudly. The front of his shirt was now covered in bloody saliva and his cheeks glistened with tears. "It was sick. Sick."

  Nikolai's gut soured as those old buried memories of his miserable childhood resurfaced. Until Yuri's recent trouble, he'd been able to forget them, but they'd been dredged up by a grudge-wielding psychopath who had tried to kill Lena and Yuri. As a child in the orphanage with Yuri, Dimitri and Ivan—the men he considered his brothers—he'd been the oldest by a few months. He'd always done his best to take care of the others, to shield them from the nightmare of that negligent hell hole, but he'd never imagined his desire to protect them would cost him so much.

  It had started innocently enough. Back then, he hadn't understood how pedophiles groomed their victims or even what a pedophile was—but he'd quickly figured it out. Pasha, the man who ran the orphanage, picked the prettiest boys for his favors. Eventually, Pasha had started renting out some of the boys to high-paying customers.

  The dirty old bastard had used Nikolai's desperate need to protect his brothers from such pain to manipulate him into maintaining his silence. He'd have done anything to keep Ivan, Dimitri or Yuri from experiencing the shame and trauma of having grown men—and even a couple of women—pawing at him and abusing him.

  But then Yuri had followed him one night and had discovered Pasha hurting him. He'd reacted as any child would have. He'd picked up the nearest weapon—a pipe—and whacked Pasha across the back of his head. The older man had gone down like a sack of rocks. They'd run back to the orphanage, grabbed Dimitri and Ivan out of their beds and fled.

  Even now, all these years later, the painful memories triggered his gag reflex. It was all Nikolai could do to muscle down the urge to vomit. His skin crawled. Hot and cold shivers raced up and down his back. With a slow, quiet exhale, he managed to regain control of his body and mind.

  "Sex trafficking?" Aghast, Santos glanced at him. Fear contorted his face. "No. Not Vivian."

  Suddenly, this whole mess felt very personal. Maybe it had nothing to do with Vivian's father after all. Nikolai had always taken a hard stance when it came to the skin trade. From the beginning of his introduction to the underworld, he'd refused to deal in prostitution or trafficking. He'd turned a blind eye to Kostya's strip club sideline, but it didn't sit well with him and he wouldn't take the customary percentage that was typically kicked his way.

  "Where did you take Vivian?" Nikolai's tone warned the man not to lie.

  "I don't know. I was in a different SUV. We headed to a parking lot across town where we met up with the guy who set up the attack."

  Kostya picked up a chisel and took a menacing step forward.

  "Jesus!" Bill screamed and tugged his head as far to the side as possible. "Wait! Wait! When I was leaving that night, I heard John talking on the phone to some guy named Lou about making arrangements for a shipment."

  "Lou?" Santos perked right up. "You mean Mr. Lu?"

  Nikolai caught the detective's eye. Mr. Lu ran a bustling import and export business that looked clean from the outside but was dirtier than hell on the inside. He laundered money for the local Tri
ad syndicate and brought in weapons and other goods for the Vietnamese crime family. Apparently, it wasn't just knockoff purses in those container ships of his.

  "Maybe?" Bill gulped nervously. "I really don't know. They separated us into groups that night we met at the bar. Our crew was supposed to attack you, to hurt you, and the other guys were supposed to grab the girl."

  "This guy is fucking useless," Santos growled. "Look, I've got an ex-girlfriend, Katrina, who works vice. She's been on most of the trafficking busts since the summer. Maybe she can help us narrow down a list of possible locations where they're holding Vivian."

  "Let me make some calls. There's a pimp who likes the girls at Wet. If there's competition on the streets, he'll know all about it." Kostya eyed Santos with distrust. "We don't need them involved any more than they already are."

  "Go." Nikolai flicked his fingers. "Find out everything you can."

  He wouldn't let himself consider what Vivian might be suffering right now. The rage building within him threatened to explode—and when it did, the whole city of Houston would burn.

  "What the hell are we going to do with him?" Santos gestured to Bill. Finally finding his balls, he said, "You can't kill him. I won't let you."

  "No?" Nikolai's brow arched imperiously. "Well," he inhaled deeply and found the strength to push out of the chair. With a slight a wince, he lifted his sore arms and lit the cigarette he'd been toying with during the interrogation. As he took a drag, he considered what to do with the man. All sorts of violent possibilities flashed before his eyes.

  But then the image of Vivian clouded his vision. Sweet, soft-hearted Vee would argue for mercy.

  "You have forty-eight hours to get the fuck out of my city. If I find out that you've set one foot in this county—"

  "I won't. I swear. I'm gone." Bill shuddered with relief. "I'll take my family and go tonight."

  Nikolai figured the dentist understood that he was the least of his worries. The man who had bought his debt would want to tie up those lose ends now that the botched attack and kidnapping had been completed.