"Mr. Andrushko?"
"Da." I nod in acknowledgment.
"This is for you." She holds out a box but her hands are shaking. The pupils of her eyes are tiny pinpoints and tears threaten to spill at any moment. I don't want to take the box. I want to shove past her and get on with my mission, but I reach out for it anyway.
A stone settles in my stomach and each step toward the airport parking lot is like walking through cement. I choose a car from the back of the lot, pick the lock and start the engine. I drive a little ways and then pull over. Inside, I see a small electronic device with an LCD screen and a bloody tissue. My hands shake when I lift the tissue-wrapped package out of the box. And when I see the severed finger inside, I wrench open the door and heave. What little I have ingested splatters the frozen ground on the side of the road. My god, Daisy. What have I done to you?
I lurch back to the car and pick up the video screen and watch as Yury forces his finger inside my Daisy's mouth; I watch as her tears and terror are captured by some laughing, cock-sucking, miserable human being who will be flayed by my knife as soon as I reach them.
I don't want to watch the rest of the video but I force myself to. The scene shifts from the plane to a concrete room. The sound cuts out, and I can't hear her scream as a knife is produced, but I cry out when a close up of Daisy's finger being cut off flashes across the screen. But tears and puking will not save her. She has nine fingers, so what? At least she is alive.
I force myself to watch the video ten more times, looking for any clues that I can find. The finger looks desiccated already, not like any of the fingers on Daisy's hand. But the death of a limb can change the appearance. I push it out of my head. None of that will help me now.
Finally I head west. Alexsandr has a safe house there. There will be weapons and gear, and it will give me a moment to plan. Storming Sergei's quarters would be near impossible. There are a dozen of mercenaries who guard the exterior and probably a dozen more loyalists inside. The GPS location of Daisy's phone is squarely inside the estate. It's possible that Sergei had the phone and that he has stashed Daisy somewhere else, but he has to know that I am coming, and so he has retreated inside his castle.
The hour-long trip takes me half the time. I am nearly out of gas when I arrive at the safe house. I take the precaution of circling the house to locate the underground cellar entrance at the back. Alexsandr and I dug this tunnel ourselves for five years. No one else knew of it. Creeping down inside, I walk lightly, stepping over three tripwires that are set. I wonder at the last time Alexsandr was here. The tunnel is musty and insects are crawling through the boards we had lined along the soil walls. At the end of the tunnel is a small dirt cellar with a generator. The generator is humming, indicating that electricity in the upstairs is being used.
Someone is there.
I have no gun, but I have the garrote on my belt. I pull that off and hold it in one hand and climb the cellar stairs with the other in order to loosen the lock. Then I push the ladder hard, and the trap door on the floor pops open. Quickly, I move back to the tunnel to avoid ricochet gun shots, but I hear nothing. I duck and roll over to the generator and flick it off, kick the ladder out of the trap, and then run back to the tunnel opening.
An image of Daisy as she found her first orgasm with my tongue pressed against her fluttering cl*t teases at the fringes of my mind. No. Not now. I've been cold-blooded all my life. Daisy has brought me to life, though, and should she die, there are not enough ways that I can make a man suffer like I will make Sergei and anyone else who harmed her suffer.
I want to roar out my anger but now, more than ever, I need to swallow my emotions.
A curse sounds from above. "Goddammit, Nikolai. Why can't you come through the f**king front door like a normal person?"
It is Daniel. Despite the lack of voice modulator, I recognize him somehow. Maybe it is the cadence of his words, something a modulator cannot change. Or perhaps it is because he sounds exactly as I imagined. Still, I wait. The video that was sent to me has the voices of men in the background over the soundtrack of Daisy's tears and cries.
One of those men could be Daniel. That he is here in my safe house makes me suspicious. I clench the wire tighter in my hand. I can take Daniel, not because I know I am stronger or faster than him, but because through him is Daisy. Daniel does not have the same incentive.
The sounds from the upstairs are now penetrating over the pounding of my heart. My body tightens at the memory of the video, and I want to place my hands around Daniel's neck until he is blue in his face. I close my eyes and inhale to regain control. I cannot afford any mistakes. I breathe deep. Once. Twice.
There. I can hear. There are more than one set of footsteps above. No matter. I can take up to five by myself. The first victim down will equip me with weapons. I have a way out and an advantage. Anyone wanting to get me will have to drop down into the cellar space. Their body mechanics will require them to land with their knees bent. From here, I can swipe my leg under theirs and they will be on their back. In one more move, I can disarm them and shoot them, lifting the dead weight of the body as my shield. I practice the moves in my head. Swipe, attack, shoot, and spin. Swipe, attack, shoot, and spin.
"It's me, Daniel, but I expect you know that. Look, I'm going to drop a Glock down to you as a sign of good faith, okay? It's not your favorite handgun, but hey, no hammer right? Who doesn't like that?"
I consider this. A Glock has no external hammer like most handguns, but an elongated firing pin called a striker instead. It makes for quick and easy shooting, even when your hand is injured.
A light flashes at the top of the opening and seconds later the Glock and the magazine drop into the dirt. I draw both toward me with my leg. No shots fired. I can barely see the Glock chamber in the dim light of the tunnel, but I dry fire it twice. It sounds and feels fine.
I load the magazine and shoot up into the opening where the trap door once sat.
"Jesus f**king Christ." I hear Daniel yelp.
I've got twelve bullets left. Murmurs are exchanged. The other voice belongs to a Russian. So two people, twelve bullets. No question. I consider heading out the tunnel and then circling around and picking the two off from the exterior.
"Listen, you hot head, what will make you come up here without shooting us?"
Nothing, no Daisy. If they had Daisy, I would come up, but I say nothing.
"Okay, listen. It is Vasily and me. Just the two of us. I'd say we were unarmed, but we both know that'd be a lie. I know where Daisy is. I promise you that as of an hour ago, she was fine. Unharmed, maybe a little mentally f**ked up, but otherwise doing pretty good. Her blonde roommate, not so much."
"Regan," I mutter.
"What's that?"
"The roommate you take? Her name is Regan." I say.
"Yeah, Regan. They hustled her off. I don't know where she is. I couldn't break my cover and leave Daisy. Nikolai, it was not Daisy's finger that got cut off. I promise you. It was another girl. She made a bad deal with Yury and had to pay up. Vasily was there."
"I want to hear from Vasily."
"Get over here, a**hole," I hear Daniel mutter to his companion.
"What?" the voice is heavy and accented. It could be Vasily, or it could be a dozen others, but I'm going to play Daniel's game for a short while.
"Why?" I call out.
"Why am I here and not with my uncle Sergei, raping your tender girlfriend? A virgin?" He clucks his tongue. "I don't know whether to praise you for finding such a gem or laugh at your lack of manhood in failing to take such a prize."
I cannot hold back and I shoot again in the hole. Eleven bullets. Two killers. Still enough.
"Mudak," Vasily curses.
Fuck you too, f**ker, I think.
"Shut the f**k up, Vasily. We don't have time for this shit." Daniel growls. I hear a scuffle and then Vasily's voice returns, a bit chastised, a bit sullen. This is quite the play the two are putting on. If only my Daisy wasn't in the hands of a f**king madman, I would think this is funny, but I don't.
I am gripping the butt of the Glock so hard that the metal weave on the grip is imprinting itself on my hands. I want to unload the entire magazine until the two are bleeding on the floor.
"GET FUCKING ON WITH IT," I roar. I have lost all my patience.
"Ah, Nikolai, I thought you were unmanned down there," Vasily says, ever cool. "But nonetheless, Alexsandr was right. Sergei is the wrong leader of the Bratva. The selling of our women, the pervasive use of krokodil, all of these things are killing us. It is not making us stronger, but weakening us. But even those things, maybe we forgive. But killing Alexsandr, kidnapping your woman, and turning you against us? Nyet. Sergei is just not fit to lead. In a generation or less, the Bratva will be broken, as Alexsandr said. So, we will help you recover your Daisy. You may kill Sergei. Then you must leave. Leave the Bratva, retire. No more kills. No more jobs. The name of Nikolai Andrushko will be wiped out of the books, and you and your Daisy will cease to exist to us, just as we will cease to exist for you. Those are the terms."
I slide to my butt. All this because Alexsandr whispered in the ears of the Bratva that Sergei was unfit? My Daisy taken because Sergei feels his position at the top of the Bratva is imperiled? He was more stupid than I thought. But somehow I am still uncertain.
"What will make you feel safe enough to come out, Nick?" Daniel asks. "Because the more time you spend in the tunnel, the greater the risk to Daisy."
He is not wrong. Each minute that ticks by is a minute that Sergei could change his mind and decide to harm her more. But if this is a trap, then I have lost the chance to save her.
"You cannot take on the Bratva alone." Vasily re-enters the game. "You know this. At best, you have a suicide mission on your hands—at worst, you die at the front gates and Daisy is passed around to the guards until she wants to kill herself."
The options in front of me are bad and worse, but I take bad because I have no choice. I exit out of the back of the tunnel. There is no point in sticking my head out of the hole and waiting for it to be shot off like a melon. At least from the front door, I'll have some cover. I walk to the front of the small cabin, and the door is thrown open.
I press against the side and both Daniel and Vasily walk out. Their hands are to their sides, empty but poised for action. I lower the Glock.
Daniel is six feet, five inches. He has at least three inches on me. Vasily and I are more of the same height. Both are fit and hold themselves with a certain lightness that I associate with men who know how to use their bodies as weapons. I could take one, perhaps, but not both. Against my better judgment, I offer my left hand to Daniel in a gesture of agreement.
He takes my hand and squeezes it.
"I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart," he says. "I have my own agenda, and I'm going to need your help."
This, I understand. The transaction of favors has meaning to me. I nod and walk inside, showing my back to the two dangerous predators behind me. It is an overwhelming show of good faith.
Inside, I see a battery of weapons. Machine guns, submachine guns, knives, handguns, a stack of C-4 about two feet high. I would've never left this building alive.