Eagle's Heart (25 page)

The lady smiled sadly. “I’ve heard that so many times over the years,” she said as he headed outside to take his call. “Trouble is there’s always another thug waiting in line to replace the old one.”

Not exactly what I need to hear right now, he thought, moving to an area where he could remain inconspicuous as he watched the club for signs of activity.

“What’s the plan?” he asked impatiently as he put the phone to his ear, the old woman’s story making him even more impatient to take Bardhyn down.

“I have five guys, plus me, plus you,” she said.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“I’m not a miracle worker, Tamali. It’s kind of hard to rustle up a posse when you don’t know whose side they’re on. I’m hoping we can get some cops on the scene for backup eventually, but can we even count on them? He can’t have bought everyone, can he?”

“I hope not,” Julian said. “I guess this team will have to do. Do you have heavy-duty weaponry, anything that’ll give us the upper hand?”

“We’ve got a few flash grenades and the usual stuff for doing a quick entry. No rocket launchers, unfortunately.”

“I think I’ve had more than enough interaction with those to last a lifetime. But thanks for thinking of me. Besides, there are going to be innocent people around. He has girls in there, and I’m willing to bet the majority aren’t there voluntarily.”

“I know. We’re going to have to be very clean, very precise,” she said. “I don’t want any dead prosti-tots on my conscience. Anything we should know from your end?”

Julian pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought. When he opened them, a shiny black car was pulling up in front of the club.

“I’m guessing there’s going to be video surveillance, human and electronic security measures—all probably beefed up for this meeting. I haven’t seen anyone go in, but they may be using a back door, and a car is pulling up now.”

As Julian watched, Alexi stepped out into the street. The man’s step was jaunty as he rounded the front. Julian grimaced, wishing he could take the idiot down now without jeopardizing the raid they were about to attempt.

When Alexi tugged his passenger out into broad daylight, leering down at her, Julian’s heart nearly exploded. It was Salomeh, eyes wide as she looked about her plaintively as if she hoped someone would help her but didn’t want to jeopardize anyone by asking for it. Alexi clamped a beefy hand down on her shoulder to steer her toward the entrance of the club, and Julian saw her wince in pain.

“Shit. Where are you, Yates? What’s your ETA?” he demanded. He could hear the panic in his voice and tried to tamp it down.

What was Salomeh doing here? She should have been sitting in the hotel, cursing him to hell for leaving her, but safe and sound. Instead she was being taken to the most dangerous place possible. Bardhyn would hurt her badly if he had any inkling that Julian cared for her, and Julian hadn’t exactly played his cards close to his chest.

“What’s going on?” Yates asked, picking up on his anxiety. “We should be there in about fifteen minutes if traffic allows. That’s plenty of time, right?”

“Wrong,” he said. “He’s got Salomeh. I don’t know how, but he’s got Salomeh.”

He heard the sound of rubber screeching against asphalt, which heartened him. It meant Yates was putting the pedal to the metal and would be there soon. But it didn’t ease his fierce need to run across the street and snatch Salomeh out of Alexi’s grasp.

“I have to go,” he said.

“Don’t even think about it,” Yates warned, her voice steely. “I know this must be hard for you, but you could compromise everyone’s safety as well as the entire operation.”

An anguished growl rose in his throat. She was right, but she didn’t understand. To her, Bardhyn was just a perp to take down. Julian had intimate knowledge of what the man could do seared into his psyche, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

As the door to the club closed behind Salomeh and Alexi, Julian felt hysteria washing over him, an emotion he hadn’t experienced to this degree since he was a boy thrusting his arms into the burned wreckage of his home, searching in vain for some remnant of his family.

But he was a man now, and he would not let Bardhyn use his weaknesses against him or hurt those he loved. He remembered the feel of Salomeh’s soft hands running over his scars as she sought to give him solace. He would make sure nothing happened to her, even if he could only do so after the longest fifteen minutes of his life.

He closed his eyes and marshaled his fear into something useful: determination. He had already let both Yates and Salomeh down once, and he needed to keep his cool if he was going to be of use to either of them.

“I can wait,” he said. “But please—”

“Do you remember who you’re talking to?” she snapped.

Before the call ended, Julian heard the voices of several large men, trained killers all of them, begging Yates to slow down.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Salomeh jerked her arm away from Alexi as he shoved her into the entrance of the club. He released his grip on her shoulder, and she was preparing to make a break for it when he kicked her in the back of one knee, sending her sprawling. She skidded over the waxed linoleum, her knees burning as she came to a halt. Alexi grabbed her roughly by the shirt and pulled her back to her feet.

“Don’t get any ideas now that we’re here. I’m the one in charge right now, as much as you hate it. And when you meet the guy in charge of
me
…” He shook his head forebodingly, but it was the smirk on his face that frightened Salomeh more.

She thought back to the ice-blue eyes that had so casually assessed her from the backseat of the car that day when everything had gone wrong. She had been able to avoid thinking too much about the reality of Bardhyn, distracted by the downhill roller-coaster ride her life had been over the past forty-eight hours. Now that she had inadvertently gotten her wish and would actually come face-to-face with the man, she realized she didn’t have an endgame planned. Unfortunately for her, he probably did.

She looked around at the club’s main room. It had all the accoutrements of a regular strip club—stages, poles, and mirrors—but devoid of dancers and patrons, the club had an eerie feel. The smell of cigarettes and stale beer permeated the place. It was the kind of scent that clung to hair and clothing after only a few moments in a bar.

“You want to see your little girlfriend, right?” Alexi asked as he dragged her through a back room that held only a bed with the mattress stripped clean of sheets and a chair. “Are you excited? You should be, because now you can see what’s in store for you.”

Salomeh remained silent as he pulled her up a flight of stairs and down a hallway lined with doors, continually taunting her. She was nervous, as ridiculous as it seemed given the situation they were in. What would she say to Yelena after all this?

“Three more doors, two more, and here we are,” Alexi said, seemingly unable to keep his mouth shut. He stopped in front of a blue door, fumbling with a key ring before pulling it open and shoving her into a dark room.

“Have a nice reunion,” he said, a loud slam marking his departure. Salomeh heard the click of the lock and tried to control the panic rising within her.

She could tell the room was small. Even in the darkness, she could feel the walls closing in on her, the knowledge that she was locked in with no escape amplifying her fear. The room was quiet after Alexi’s nonstop blathering, quiet enough she could hear her own heart racing.

But then she noticed the smell; it was familiar enough to a teacher. She tripped over something in the darkness, her hand coming down hard in a puddle of cool liquid. When she bought her fingers to her nose, she nearly retched.

Bile. She had found the source of the scent.

“Yelena?” she whispered. There was no response.

She stumbled forward until she hit a wall and began feeling around for a light switch. She could hear the unhurried rustling of sheets to her left as she searched.

“Yelena?” she called more forcefully, but no answer came.

It took her longer than it should have to find the light switch in a room so small. When she finally flipped the switch, she expected a flood of light to stream through the room, matching her elation at having finally found it. Instead, a weak yellow light filtered down from a small bulb overhead.

Salomeh turned slowly, dreading what she would see.

The girl was sprawled on a cot with her head propped up by the wall, her eyes blank. The puddle Salomeh had stuck her hand into was next to the bed, having trickled over the edge of the mattress.

“Yelena! No, no, no,” she cried, reaching the bed in one step. She grabbed a balled-up blanket from the corner and used it to wipe the filth from the girl. Yelena still stared into the nothingness as if Salomeh weren’t even there.

Salomeh shook her but stopped when her gaze drifted to the marks on Yelena’s arms. It was only then that the scorched metal spoon and the lighter sitting on the small nightstand caught her attention.

“Oh God,” she whispered, pulling the girl into her lap and settling back onto the dirty bed. She ran a hand over Yelena’s knotted hair, unable to quite grasp the horror of the situation.

“Why did they do this to you?” she asked aloud. “How could they do this?”

Yelena shifted in her arms. “Miss Jones?” she asked in a dull voice.

“Yes, it’s me,” Salomeh said, her voice barely squeezing past the lump in her throat. “I’m going to get you out of here, but I just need to think.”

There were no windows; the only exit was the door.

“When I first got here, I wanted to leave too.” Yelena’s words were slow, and her glassy eyes turned up to look at Salomeh. “But once they start giving you the medicine, you don’t want to go anymore. Now, I just don’t care. I like not caring.”

Salomeh felt the hot tears sliding down her cheeks. The reality of this situation was so much more than she had bargained for. She had imagined that what Yelena would be going through could be no worse than what she had experienced at home. How naive she had been.

This was what the girls Julian had described went through. This was why they couldn’t escape.

“No, we’re going to leave here,” she said gently. “We’re going to get you some help, and then you won’t need that poison. That’s what it is, poison. Not medicine.”

Yelena rolled her head to the side and looked at Salomeh with lazy contempt. “What do you know?” she asked. “You would wanna forget too if your mom thought drugs were worth more than you. She told me I would get used to it, you know. Said men touched her when she was my age, and she turned out fine.”

Salomeh couldn’t bite back her gasp of shock. She wondered how Yelena would feel about her mother’s death, but now was not the time to find out. Instead she tried to give her the comfort a child
should
receive from her mother, hoping it could serve as a balm against the horror the girl had endured.

Yelena shook her head, pulling her hand down over her face like she could wipe the drowsiness away. “I’m sorry. I read the newspapers and saw the horrible things people were saying because of my lies. You were my only friend, you know that? And I ruined you,” she said. “That’s why it’s okay if I die now. That would be better.”

“No, you can’t die,” Salomeh said. “You can’t die, because I care about you.”

“You don’t care,” Yelena said quietly. Utterly resigned. “No one cares about me.”

“I do. I love you,” Salomeh said, rocking the girl as if she were an infant. She had always fought the feeling before, thought it unprofessional, but it was the truth. “And when we get out of here, I’ll make sure you understand that.”

“Why are you so sure we’re going to get out of here?” Yelena asked.

The more she talked, the more lucid she became, so Salomeh tried to keep her talking.

“Because we have a good guy on our side. And he told me he was going to come here and save you. He’s going to be pretty mad when he finds me here too, but he’ll get over it.”

Yelena let out a bleak laugh. “We’ll see,” she said.

Salomeh heard a key turn in the lock and looked over to find herself caught in the gaze of a slim woman with large dark eyes. Her black hair was cut into a sleek angular bob that framed her too-pale face, but auburn roots were visible in the sweeping side part. The woman looked at the two of them on the bed with a palpable mixture of contempt and what seemed like envy.

“I see you were right, Yelena,” the woman said, and Salomeh instantly recognized the cold voice that had threatened her over the phone. “She did come for you.”

The woman cocked her head to the side and stared at Salomeh as she lit a cigarette, her fingers trembling ever so slightly. She smirked after she finally managed to take a drag, and her dimpled smile sent a jolt of recognition through Salomeh.

“Rylinda, leave us alone,” Yelena whispered, huddling closer to Salomeh.

“Miss Jones,” Linda said as she exhaled, the smoke swirling around her face—a face that was strikingly familiar to Salomeh. “Forgive my directness, but given that you were both supposed to be dead, I really must ask immediately: where is my brother?”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Yates was there well before fifteen minutes. Julian couldn’t imagine how deranged her driving must have been, but she pulled up smoothly and quietly, eyes hidden behind aviators with reflective lenses. She didn’t look his way when he slipped into the vacant passenger seat, and he knew she was taking in the club from her peripheral vision. They pulled away from the curb quietly.

As they made to circle the block, an SUV similar to their own pulled up in front of the club, and two slim dark men who bore the distinct features of West Africa exited the car, flanked by a couple of large bodyguards.

Julian wondered if those were the only men the syndicate was bringing with them, and how many Birdie could possibly have inside. Too many men going in and out would have been conspicuous, and letting too many goons know about the meeting would have increased the chance of a leak. Albanians hardly ever broke the Besa, but that didn’t mean Bardhyn would trust them with information about his every move, especially one as important as this.