I rendezvous with Mikolaj so he can translate the text messages coming into Vale’s phone. He reads Russian as well as Polish, and he scans through them quickly, a thin smile playing on his lips.
“They’re freaking the fuck out,” he says. “Yelling at Vale to answer his phone. Then they stopped texting—must have realized he’s dead.”
“Did they say anything useful first?”
“They said for him to come to Bond Street,” Miko says, raising one pale eyebrow. “What’s on Bond Street?”
“A weapons cache, most likely. I assume they plan to retaliate by attacking the South Shore development.”
“Should we go to the South Shore, then?” Miko says.
“Not if we can get them at Bond Street,” I say.
It’s only been fifteen minutes since their last message. I think there’s a good chance they’re still arming themselves, and I’d rather bring the fight to their warehouse, not to my family’s most expensive asset.
Sure enough, when we drive over to Bond Street, we see two black SUVs parked out front of a dingy brick building.
“You want to wait for them to come out?” I say to Mikolaj.
He shakes his head. “Then they’ll be fully strapped.”
“They might already be geared up in there.”
“With guns, maybe,” Miko says. “Not with these.”
He opens the trunk of his Range Rover and rummages around. After a moment, he pulls out a gas mask and tosses it to me.
I grin, slipping the face shield over my head. Mikolaj pulls his on as well. He looks eerie enough under normal circumstances, let alone with his ice-blue eyes peering through tinted glass, the lower half of his lean face covered by dual filters like he’s some kind of apocalyptic plague doctor.
He passes two more masks to his braterstwo.
“What about me?” a tall, dark-haired soldier says. If I remember correctly, his name is Marcel.
“Hold your breath,” Miko says. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“I’ll go in, you cover the back door,” his comrade says, slipping his own mask over his head.
Mikolaj’s braterstwo go around the back of the warehouse, while he and I approach the front.
“Ready?” he says.
I nod.
Cocking back his arm, he pulls the pin on the first tear-gas canister, and hurls it through the nearest window. The canister sails in a neat arc, smashing through the glass and tumbling down inside. I throw mine through the window on the opposite side of the door.
I can hear the hiss of gas, then startled shouting and running. Too late—the shouting turns to hacking coughs and the barking sound of retching. One of the Bratva loses his head entirely, shooting blindly into the smoke.
Yenin’s men stampede out the doors on all sides, coughing and stumbling. It’s child’s play to capture them. I was looking for Rodion, but instead I spot the unmistakable blond head of Adrian Yenin. His pale face is flushed, his eyes bloodshot and streaming. He tries to fight me anyway, until Mikolaj kicks his legs out from under him, seizing a handful of hair and jerking his head back so he can hold a knife to his throat.
“Get in the fucking car,” Miko hisses.
In terms of hostages, this is a better prize than Rodion, who I would have killed on sight.
I call Yenin on Vale’s phone.
It rings several times before he picks up.
“I assume I’m not receiving a call from a corpse,” he says.
“Not yet,” I reply. “I have your son.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line while Yenin considers this.
“I suppose you want me to turn myself over,” he says, lazily.
“No,” I snap. “I think I know you better than that by now. I just want to meet. Face to face.”
More silence. Then Yenin says, “You know the Midewin Prairie?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Come there in two hours. It’s private, quiet—wide open, no cover, so we can both have a certain level of . . . trust. You bring your men. I’ll bring mine. We’ll have a conversation. Or, if you’re determined . . . something less civil.”
He hangs up the phone without even asking after the state of his son.
I look at Adrian, trussed up in the backseat.
“I don’t think he cares about getting you back alive,” I say.
Adrian stares at me furiously, unable to speak because of the gag in his mouth.
His eyes are very like Yelena’s. It makes me feel guilty to have them fixed on me, so I turn back around again.
Mikolaj is watching me, still wearing the gas mask because the tear gas has permeated Adrian’s clothing and is still leeching out in the car. It’s burning my eyes.
He’s checking to see if I’m stupid enough to believe Yenin.
I was before. But as idiotic as I might have been, at least I’m a fast learner.
“Funny that he wanted to meet in two hours,” I say. “All the way out there.”
“Yes,” Mikolaj grunts. “Sounds a fuck of a lot like a distraction.”
I pick up my own phone and call Greta. She answers almost immediately, sounding slightly hectic. I don’t bother to ask what the problem is.
“Get Yelena,” I tell her. “And get out of the house. Go to the safe house in—”
She interrupts me. “Yelena isn’t here. She escaped the cell. She’s gone.”
I cast a swift glance back at Adrian, then press the phone closer against my ear.
“How did that happen?” I hiss.
“There was a sticker on the . . . never mind,” she says. “It doesn’t matter how it happened. It was ridiculous to lock her up in the first place! Now she’s—”
I don’t have time to listen to Greta’s scolding.
“Never mind that,” I snap. “Get out of the house now. Don’t stop to pack. Just leave. You promise me, Greta?”
“Yes,” she says, sounding slightly scared.
“Go to the safe house and stay there until I call you again.”
“You ought to go there yourself!” Greta cries.
“I will,” I tell her. “To pick you up later. After this is done.”
She makes an irritated sound that shows exactly what she thinks of that promise.
I hang up the phone.
Miko is still watching me.
“I take it we’re not going to the prairie.”
“No,” I say. “Yenin wants to destroy my family, root to leaf. He wants to shame us and decimate us. And most of all, he wants to hurt us. We’ve lived in that house for a hundred years. More than our businesses or our holdings, he wants to destroy our home.”
“Are you sure?” Miko says.
I shrug.
“No. But if we want to draw him out . . . that might be the perfect bait.”
