Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
My father honored my request to treat me as if I were dead, and to my surprise, cut me the sum total of my buy-in with the American contingent. I took some of the money and used it to form a new identity. I invested, some of my investments far more ethical than others. I’ve purchased women—so many goddamn women—in the hopes of finding one who will give me a clue to her whereabouts, earning me a reputation as one of the underground elite, one of the buyers. But I’ve not found any information from the women I’ve taken. Some are tight-lipped, others beaten into submission, but the majority are ignorant of the inner-workings of their traders.
One day, I will find a clue that leads me to her. One day, I will end the lives of the men that took her. One day, she will be mine again, or I will die trying to find her. Whichever comes first.
And something tells me tonight is different.
After I’d gotten myself onto solid footing under my new alias, I hired a private investigator to look into the men I suspect are responsible for her abduction. He found nothing until this week, but what he discovered… there’s promise.
My phone rings and I answer before the first vibration stops. Eager to hear what he’s found.
“Yeah.” A casual word meant to deflect attention, when I want to say, “Tell me everything. What did you find? Where is she? How can I find her?” My pulse races, my body stilling with instinctive knowledge that this call is the one I’ve been waiting for.
“I have good news and bad news.” I grip the phone tighter. Jacobs is lucky he delivers news to me on the phone. If he were in front of me now I’m not sure I wouldn’t strangle him for drawing this out, for making me wait. I’d hold him by the throat and force the words out of his mouth.
“Spill.” My voice is tight, a string pulled taut, ready to snap with a wisp of air.
“The good news,” he begins, trying my patience once more because everyone fucking knows you don’t start with the good news. “She hasn’t been sold yet.” Relief floods through me so hard and fast, I’m dizzy and I need to close my eyes to steady the spinning room around me. If she hasn’t been sold, that means she’s still being groomed. There’s hope.
“She’s being sold at a virgin auction at the end of the month.”
A virgin auction. My skin crawls even while relief floods me.
I know how they test for virginity, and the thought of her undergoing the rigorous, invasive inspection makes me ready to kill.
“The bad news is, the auction is being run by a ring in Boston, exclusive buyers only. No outside buyers allowed.” I clench my teeth.
“How the fuck am I going to get into that?”
“I have a plan,” he says, with unmistakable glee. “And your father helped me, but we have to act immediately.”
I drop my head and hiss into the phone, “I told you to leave my father the fuck out of this.” So fucking lucky he isn’t in front of me.
“I had no choice,” he goes on, speaking so rapidly I can hardly decipher his words. “But no one is the wiser.” That’s what he thinks.
“What’s the plan?” I ask between clenched teeth.
“Your father knows of several new recruits. He made a deal with Boston that he’d vet them himself. And with my help, the third is a ghost profile. Yours.”
“What?” I don’t understand.
“Six months ago, the Boston group suffered a major loss. Three of their best leaders were incarcerated and four murdered. They’re slowly inducting new members into their brotherhood, and asked the pakhans of neutral groups for assistance. Your father vetted three new members. Two of them are legitimate, they’ve passed every test and he sanctioned their induction into the Bratva life. The third is you.”
This is nothing like what I’ve known, but each Bratva group has rules of their own. I spent time with my brothers in Moscow, each member hand-picked by the pakhan, and many were orphaned boys raised by the founder. In America, the rules are a bit more liberal.
“What tests?” I’ve asked. He goes down a litany of criteria new recruits have to pass. Fluency in Russian, written testimonials from current Bratva, a record of having served a minimum of three years in a Russian prison. A lump forms in my throat and my voice sounds husky when I speak.
“And my father did all that for me?”
He pauses.
“Almost all. He hasn’t paid the entire entry fee, because that’s something only you can do.”
I nod, but I’m curious. What type of fee can I only pay myself? This is a risk, one I wish he hadn’t taken. If the truth comes out, my father’s life is forfeit. I suspect Myron’s connections run deeper than we know. I scrub a hand across my brow as Jacobs tells me where to go, and who I now am.