Ten Thousand Lies (40 page)

“For fuck’s sake!” Ronen yelled over the roar of blood in my ears. Wrapping his arm around my neck, he dragged me back behind the counter. “Don’t you fucking lose your shit now!”

“Jaime—”

“Man the fuck up, James,” he hissed at me.

“Don’t fucking call me that!” I bellowed.

Ronen, my brother, my touchstone when shit got real, casually slapped the fuck out of my face.

I stared at him in shock.

“You cool?”

“No!” But I was starting to feel it. The silence was descending upon me. The quiet coldness iced over the panic and fear, bringing me into that special place.

Staring at me hard, he waited until my breathing evened, and then he nodded. “There’s my boy. Stop. Think. What do we do?”

“Call headquarters. Call Ellen.”

“Who do you want me to call?”

“Headquarters.”

Ronen pulled out his phone, and I did the same.

It took only two rings before Ellen picked up. “Hello?”

“They took her. They have Jaime.”

Jaime

My face hurts.

Fuck that. My whole body hurts
. My arms were numb. My butt cheeks had fallen asleep, and a vertebra in the middle of my back was sore. My legs prickled unpleasantly, and my feet were chilled. The floor was hard and cold through my socks.

Someone with a deep voice said something in a foreign language.

Shivering, I tried to open my eyes, discovering the left one wouldn’t open. Pain knifed through my jaw, and I closed my right eye again.

A pitiful noise worked its way out of my throat, and the foreign speakers went quiet.

Shit. Shit. Shit.
What happened? Where am I?

The last thing I remembered was walking out of the Inkwell.
What was I doing?
Coffee. I was heading out to get us all some coffee. How the hell did I get from there to here?

A face and dark eyes swam in my mind. Not unattractive but…
evil.

Someone said something again, the voice hushed, and I recognized the language as Russian. I didn’t speak it, I didn’t understand it, but I knew I was fucked.

We’d been told to be on high alert. The fuckers had been snooping around the shop all week, ever since Ricki had finished Lenny’s tattoo.

Pfft! Lenny, my ass! What sort of Russian mobster goes by the name Lenny?

I’d have laughed if just the thought of doing so didn’t make everything from my tits up throb in pain.

Taking a deep breath, I forced my right eye open again.

I was tied to a chair; that explained the sore spot in my spine. My arms were bound behind the chair back, my head slumping forward. All I could see were my knees. It was dark, but there was a small amount of fluorescent light illuminating the room, as though it was coming from a distance. The floor was concrete, weathered, chipped, and stained. The air smelled dank and briny, as though it had settled into this place, absorbed into the very walls. I could hear engines whirring and the noise from a huge fan.

Though I hadn’t lived in Amsterdam for very long, I suspected I was on the docks.

These guys dealt with human trafficking.

While I was pretty sure I hadn’t been targeted as a potential sex slave, it didn’t mean I wouldn’t be going that route, if these people didn’t get what they wanted. And they wanted Ricki—that much I knew. I didn’t know what for though, and that might be a handy piece of info.

Next time—
if I have a next time
—I was going to demand Ricki keep me in the loop.

Fuck this need-to-know bullshit.

If Ricki and I were going to make it, I needed to know everything.

Heavy footsteps came toward me. I swallowed hard, seeing white spots dance through my vision as the pain in my jaw tripled with the contracting muscles in my throat.

This might be my last day.

It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t give them my reason for living, no matter how scared I was.

Ricki

Ronen, Rex, Xanthe, Ellen, and I sat in the west office at headquarters with Ursula, Felicia, Jones, Belfry, Jakob, and Ulrich, forming the plan that would get Jaime—and the rest of us—out of there alive.

“Their numbers are small,” Ulrich was saying.

Jones nodded. “There are no more than seven of them. With the secret shipment tomorrow, they’re planning on increasing their numbers by bringing in more men, so they can take us out with the fake shipment in a couple of weeks.”

“Our sources in Moscow tell us that only three unfortunates are being shipped,” said Felicia, flipping through a notebook. “The rest are Vasili men, twelve of them.”

“Doesn’t really help us with the problem at hand,” I snapped.

“Sure it does,” said Ellen. “If we only have to take out seven of them tonight and most of them are patrolling the warehouses, then it’ll be quick. Ronen, you’re on sniper duty. We’ll get you on the rooftop within an hour to give you time to get used to the area. Rex, Jones, and Jakob, take the grounds. What Ronen can’t waste, you get. Ricki and I will take the inside.”

Xanthe cleared her throat. “You’re forgetting someone.”

“The hell I am,” snapped Ellen.

“I’m not being left behind. They have Jaime. I’m going.”

“You’ll be a liability.”

“The fuck I will! They have
Jaime
!”

“You’re not killing anyone—”

“I’m not trying to. When you take out those fuckers, I go get Jaime. You’re not leaving me to stay behind and freak the fuck out about all of you.”

Ellen was about to get nasty; I could see it.

“It’s fine, Ellen,” I said. “She stays behind us. No gun. When we’re cleared to go inside, Rex can bring up the rear.”

Ellen scowled at me but gave a curt nod. “If she ends up bloodied, I’ll skin all of you alive.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I replied dryly.

Felicia whipped out the blueprints for the warehouse on the docks, and we formulated a plan.

By ten o’clock, we were all in place.

Ronen had gotten his sniper arse on top of the roof with
Lilla
, of all people, who’d be his lookout. Anyone who dared to venture onto the roof with them would end up tasered; it was entirely possible an innocent person could make their way up there.

Ellen sat behind the wheel of the green Mini, myself in the passenger seat, while Xanthe sat in the back.

“All seven fuckers accounted for,”
came Ronen’s voice in my earpiece.

Xanthe and Ellen had their own, too.

“Four patrolling, three inside.”

“Let us know when you take the outside fuckers down,” I said.

“Rex just took one on the left side,” Ronen informed us.

“Yes,”
hissed Xanthe from behind me.

I couldn’t help a small smile.

Three minutes passed.

“Done,” said Ronen. “Rex is waiting by the door.”

Ellen zipped the Mini through the narrow alleyways until we reached Warehouse 5A where she killed the engine and threw it into neutral. Jones and Belfry materialized out of nowhere and pushed the car close to the door. Rex stood there with a wolfish smile on his handsome face.

All three of us hopped out. Ellen and Xanthe crouched by the trunk, watching, while Rex and I headed for the door.

“Xanthe, I swear to God, if you do anything foolish—”

“I know the drill, Aunt Ellen,” Xanthe quietly snapped. “I won’t kill anyone.”

“The same goes for
being
killed, young lady!”

“Shut it,” I said, stowing my gun in the back of my jeans.

“You’ll lose an ass cheek that way,” grumbled Ellen.

“Or gain a new arsehole,” muttered Xanthe.

As quietly as possible, Rex opened the door. We knew one last guard stood not far from the door on the inside. Like a striking snake, Rex went in, and within seconds, he dragged a dead Pasha out with a broken neck.

“Fuck, that’s kind of hot,” whispered Xanthe.

“You have the most diabolical sense of sexy,” hissed Ellen.

“Well,
excuuuse
me!” Xanthe retorted in a heated whisper.

“They didn’t see you?” I asked Rex.

“Didn’t even hear me. Mikhail and Nikolai are the last two. They’re at the far end of the warehouse. Just some large containers stacked to the right. This side is in shadows. If you go first, we can keep hidden for a short time.”

“Jaime?”

“Tied to a chair. Look, mate…she looks banged up, but she’s not dead. Okay? I don’t think she’s bleeding.”

I nodded. I’d expected it after she had taken Nikolai’s fucking fist to her face.

Death’s own grace entered me as I turned the doorknob. It wasn’t yet midnight, but I wasn’t waiting any longer to get my woman. I was focused, cold, and unfeeling for the task ahead of me. As I entered, I held open the door for Rex, Ellen, and Xanthe to scurry in before letting it pull itself closed. I’d already started walking toward Mikhail and Nikolai when the sound of it echoed around the silent warehouse.

“Roman! You’re early!”
Mikhail said cheerfully.

I kept walking, saying nothing, refusing to look directly at Jaime. I was afraid I’d lose my shit, like I had earlier, and I couldn’t afford that. Too many lives were on the line.

Nikolai made a move toward Jaime—whether to slap her or grab her hair, I wasn’t too sure.

Then came a silenced
pop!

And Nikolai dropped to the floor, dead.

“Ha!” Ellen’s old-lady cackle filled the warehouse. “Got the fucker!”

Shocked, Mikhail turned his head to see his brother lying on the ground with a bullet hole in his temple. It was just what I needed to pull out my own piece.

“What—” he started to say, turning back to look at me.

Just feet away from each other, my gun raised to his head, we stared one another down. The things I wanted to say,
needed
to say, to this motherfucker were simply going to get lost between space and time.

I thought of my mother shivering in a cargo hold, the dream of supporting her family back in the Ukraine dying a cold death. I thought of little Ulla, whom I had carried out of the back of a dirty brothel, diseased and filthy, too young to know anything yet knowing far too much. I thought of my father, heartless son of a bitch he was, and my need to atone for his sins.

I was floating in an ocean of evil blood, my own sins justifiable but just as great.

It was because of motherfuckers like Mikhail Vasili that I would never lead a normal life. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself even if I could because pieces of shite like him existed.

“Good-bye, Misha.”

Pop!

Nailed the fucker dead between the eyes.

I didn’t wait around. I ran up to Jaime, kneeling before her, as Ellen cut the ties binding her wrists. Behind me, I heard the ripping of fabric, but I couldn’t be bothered with curiosity just yet.

“Oh God,” I breathed.

“Err dhey dead?” Jaime asked through her swollen face.

“They’re dead, Doll. All of them.”

She sighed, her arms flopping lifelessly to her sides. “Good. Meh ferce hurtsh.”

“Don’t speak,” I whispered as she slid off the chair and into my arms.

“Xantee, yer nersty,” she said with her head on my shoulder.

When I twisted around, the sight of Xanthe and Rex crouching over the body of Mikhail was a bit of a shock. Xanthe was straddling the dead man’s waist as she carved a knife around his chest.