Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 78732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Kaylee isn't in the room, and I don't know how to feel about it. Not that I have much time to worry in the first place.
The next several hours are a blur. I really thought that it would take more than improper disposal of chemicals to take down Dima Tkachenko, but that's what Casper found that allowed us to do the raid on the warehouse.
I wore a mask, as did all the other guys from the Vegas team, along with many others from several different agencies local to the area.
As much as we considered ourselves helping the women at the warehouse, none of them seemed to be happy we were there. They aren't the first group of women I've encountered in my work with Cerberus who have been conditioned to see anyone in a policing type of position as the enemy. They don't want our help because they think we're just there to hurt them more than the men holding them hostage.
Of course, Dima is too smart to keep all of his paperwork at the warehouse, and there's nothing there that would give us a legal position to raid his home or the home where the women have been living. He claims a fire destroyed all of his company paperwork, and although he was able to prove a small fire at a local storage facility, we fucking know better.
The women at the warehouse had to be moved to a holding facility until lCE could figure out who they were and if they were legally in the United States. They wouldn't be getting much help from the women. Each one remained silent when questioned in both English and Russian.
When I leave the warehouse and get back to the villa, I feel like I've done more harm than good today.
Despite the fact that Dima is being held in jail currently, I have no doubt that he'll see the sun rise from his own front porch tomorrow.
Chapter 28
Kaylee
"What happened?" I ask the second he walks into the room and I see the look on his face. "Did someone get hurt?"
I rush off the bed and across the room until I'm standing right in front of him.
I'd never forgive myself if the job they did today got someone on his team hurt or killed. It would be my fault. I know he'd have no other recourse than to blame me because I'm the reason they went there in the first place.
In the silence, I question every decision I've made since leaving my hometown, regret swimming inside of me for it leading me here, putting me in a position in his life that would bring tragedy to someone else.
"It's fine," he mutters, his eyes darting away from mine, as if he can't stand the sight of me.
I wrap my arms around myself, needing to find some sort of shield from the cold that's rolling off his shoulders.
"Dima Tkachenko and Edmon Vasilev are both in jail."
"Oh good," I say, but his head shakes, as if trying to tell me that it's not okay.
I watch as he takes a seat on the edge of the bed, his eyes searching mine.
"Did you find Alena?" I ask, a tremble in my voice as I lift my hand to cover my mouth, thoughts of her coming to a violent end making me shake.
"We found nothing," he answers. "No paperwork of any kind. No proof of other women. We didn't even find your name at the warehouse. He's smart enough to keep it somewhere else. He claimed a fire destroyed it all, but he wouldn't be so lucky."
"What does this mean for me?" I ask, because half of me wants to be free from the threat of danger, but the other half is already scared that there will be retribution from Dima and Edmon when they get a chance to retaliate.
"They're out of commission for a while. We believe Dima is the head of this organization, but it's possible he isn't. It's possible that someone else can step right back into his place and they'll be back up and running by morning."
"So the women were free to go?"
"Kaylee," he whispers, and it makes another wave of unease run up my spine. "They have no documentation. There's a very real chance they'll eventually be deported."
"What?" I ask with a shake of my head. "That's not right. What if they don't want to go back to their home country?"
"If they aren't here legally, they can't stay. That's just how these things work."
I feel sick to my stomach. I don't know what's worse—them staying here and getting married off to men they don't love, or going back to a country they fled from for a reason to begin with.
"Dima claims a fire destroyed his 'employees' paperwork.” He lifts his hands to make quotation marks with his fingers as he says employees. “Although there was a fire at the storage facility that he rents, we can't prove it was actually there."