Chapter Two
Jaxson
“Should I be concerned?” Viktor asked, opening the back passenger door.
I slid inside and watched the mysterious woman walk down the sidewalk into absolute darkness. She was gorgeous, a classic kind of beauty with golden blonde hair pulled back from her face. Her brilliant green eyes and flushed, high cheekbones were angelic, but her gaze hinted of slight mischief and rebellion.
Even though she was dressed to cover up every inch of her willowy figure, how she moved her body left little to the imagination. She was confident with a smart mouth, and everything about her screamed to me, and I had let her just disappear into the streets of New York.
Probably for the best.
“Would you like me to follow her? Did she interfere tonight?” Viktor asked, not waiting for the answer to his first question.
His dark brows skirted his forehead as he waited for my reply, and I shook my head. Viktor had been our family’s driver for years and held more secrets than I cared to think about.
“No need. Let’s get to the city councilman’s.” I held in a sigh, and Viktor nodded before shutting the car door.
I glanced at my Cartier watch and leaned my head against the seat. Today had been exhausting and my night was only beginning. I wasn’t entirely sure what the councilman wanted, but he no doubted needed something.
Men like him always did.
I suppose it was good to be needed. It made our job easier, and our future on the streets more secure as we herded the masses, kept the wickedness in line, and hid the secrets of the city.
Rarely did a day go by that I didn’t have to deal with a politician’s self-made mess or lend a hand to cover up a law enforcement misstep, but we never walked away without something in return. I hid a smile and thought back to the last scandal plaguing the city council.
A prostitution ring had been busted in midtown and some of the funds could be traced back to the city treasury.
Until they weren’t.
Making problems disappear was one of the many services my family offered.
Viktor pulled into traffic and glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
“All go as expected inside?” Viktor asked.
I nodded. “It did. Until I met that woman.”
“Who was she?” he asked.
“No clue.”
“She’s beautiful.” His eyes flashed to mine in the mirror’s reflection. “But I can’t imagine that’s her usual hangout.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Definitely not a regular but no concern of mine.”
I knew where Viktor was headed with his line of questioning, and I really didn’t feel like entertaining it tonight. I knew anything I said would go directly to my mother.
It seemed the entire family felt I needed to get over my divorce and find someone else. What they didn’t realize was that my not wanting to have a relationship had nothing to do with my ex-wife and everything to do with the fact that I wouldn’t bring someone else into my world. There were too many unknowns in this line of work.
Viktor turned down the councilman’s street and pulled up in front of the brownstone. His eyes connected with mine as he put the car in park.
“I shouldn’t be any longer than fifteen to twenty minutes tops at the councilman’s.”
“And if you are?” His brow arched, and I laughed.
“I don’t think this is one of those times.” I smiled and let myself out of the vehicle.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been to the councilman’s home, and I highly doubted it would be the last. The councilman wouldn’t give me a hint about what was going on over the phone, but I understood his need for discretion.
I climbed up the stairs, and before I had a chance to knock, the door swung open.
“Mr. Volkov, the councilman’s expecting you.” A woman dressed in black slacks and a matching turtleneck stuck out her hand, which I quickly took in mine.
“And you are. . .?” I questioned.
“Carmella Townsend.” She slipped her hand away. “Assistant Campaign Manager.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” She must be new to the team.
“I’m sure it is,” she drawled. “He’s in the study.”
I followed her down the short hall to the double doors leading to the study.
Several men, whom I didn’t recognize, flanked the far wall, watching the councilman and listening intently to his words about some upcoming council vote.
“Rick,” I began, and the councilman’s eyes shot to mine. The other men quickly cleared out of the office. Carmella followed behind the group of men.
“Thank you for coming. I honestly didn’t know who else to call.” The man’s green eyes were dull and etched with worry. He stood up from his desk and walked over to the liquor cabinet, where he poured himself a whisky. “Want one?”
“I’m fine, but what can I do for you?” I took a seat as Rick made his way to his chair. “You look like hell.”
He took a sip and placed the drink on the desk, the syrupy liquid coating the glass. A few seconds of silence rested between us with only the voices from the other room traveling down the hall.
“It’s my niece. We think something has happened to her.” His eyes met mine and they hardened.
“What do the police think?” I sat back in the chair.
The room was tastefully decorated. A rich brown Chesterfield leather sofa placed in front of the fireplace centered the room. Bookshelves filled with classics he would probably never read wrapped the wall. Artwork that a councilman shouldn’t be able to afford hung to my right.
“We haven’t involved them.” He took in a deep breath, catching my unease.
“And why’s that? They’re precisely the ones to involve in a missing person’s case.” I folded my hands and glanced at a few family pictures behind the councilman. He hadn’t had any children, but there were several photos with kids wrapping their arms around Rick and his wife.
“It’s not like that.” He shook his head and shoved his fingers through his salt and pepper hair. “She. . . we don’t want the media attention that might come with notifying the authorities.”
“That might be the best way to get your niece home, wherever she might be.” I shook my head and started to stand. “I really don’t think this is anything we can help with. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but let the police do their job. File a missing persons report or whatever needs to be done. You’ve got connections. Police will be canvassing every inch of this city to bring her home.”
“We can’t.” He smacked his lips together and my stomach soured.
“Because of your political career?” My tone instantly changed.
There were very few groups of people I despised, but politicians were included. I slid my hand in my pocket and glanced toward the door.
He let out a sigh. “She was messed up in some bad things, Jaxson. My sister and brother-in-law tried to get her on the right path time and time again. They sent her to all the best rehab facilities. They tried their hardest to protect her.” He shook his head and spun around in his chair and faced the window. “She’s not their only child, but she’s taken up most of their time, and now she’s gone.”
“Missing,” I corrected, clearing my throat. “How old is she?”
“Nineteen.” He turned around in his chair to face me, and I sat back down.
“Once she hit fifteen, the cycle began. She’d run away. They’d find her and bring her home. She’d run away again. Her parents would scour the usual places. Eventually, they’d find her and bring her home.”
“Does she live with her parents?” I questioned.
“If you can call it living, yes. She resides at their residence.” His lips formed a thin line, and his eyes dropped to a folder on his desk. He opened it and took several photographs out and slid them toward me.
I recognized a hardened version of the little girl in the photographs behind Rick. Blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes had been replaced with dark shadows, hollow cheekbones, and stringy, unkempt hair. She was sickly thin and pale. Not even a hint of happiness touched her features.
“Meth was her drug of choice until her last stint in rehab. She got clean and stayed clean, or at least that was what my sister thought. Truth was, she’d moved on to heroin.”
“So what makes you certain that she’s not on a bender or—” I glanced at the photos.
They looked like surveillance photos. Did her parents have someone following her, and if so, wouldn’t that person know where she went?
“She very well may be, which is one of the reasons we don’t want to involve the authorities. If this is just Missy being Missy...” He didn’t finish his sentence.
“You’re up for reelection in the fall.” I tapped the image. “This could get messy.”
He scooted forward in his chair and ignored my assessment. “There’s been a string of murders. All young women. All known drug offenders. Six females over the last three months in a six-block radius.”
“I’ve heard about the murders. The police don’t believe they’re connected,” I told him, remembering what I’d recently read in the newspaper.
“Like hell, they’re not.” He slammed his fist on the desk. “It’s obviously the work of a serial killer, but because of who the victims are, there isn’t a damn thing being done. I want to make sure my Missy isn’t one of those girls.” Tears filled his eyes, and I wanted to believe this wasn’t the politician in him stirring up these emotions.
“I don’t know that there is much we can do.”
He sat up straighter and pulled out more photos. “I want you to find out where my niece is. I want you to bring her home. I can assure you that if you do this for me, your family’s life will get even easier.”
I shook my head and sat in silence. I had many concerns, but the main one was that we’d merely be wasting precious time by not involving the police.
“Our lives are plenty easy now, Rick.” I ran my fingers down my chin and let out a sigh.
“We’ll do anything. Give you anything. Money, future discretion…” his voice trailed off, and I finally heard real pain thread through his words.
I shook my head. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. Consider this on the house.”
Relief spread through Rick’s eyes, but we both knew there would come a time when we’d call upon this debt. It was how our two worlds coexisted. The lifestyles we led weren’t really all that dissimilar. The only difference was that he was an elected official. My position was inherited. But we both kept the city running. He focused on top of the streets, and I focused on the world everyone else wanted to pretend didn’t exist.
“Do you know who her dealer is?” I asked.
“We do. But he turned up dead two nights ago. The same night she went missing.”
My blood turned cold. “And these photos? You had a PI following her?”
“My brother-in-law did. That’s how we found out she was using again.” He let out a strained sigh. “New friends. New drug of choice.”
“What do you mean, new friends?”
“When she came back from rehab, she promised her parents she wouldn’t hang out with her old friends.”
“Fellow users,” I confirmed.
He nodded.
“I think there was a part of her that believed she could stay clean this time. At first, it seemed like she just might. In the first few weeks after Missy returned, she started acting like her sweet self again, and truth be told, since she switched drugs, a lot of the early warning signs were misinterpreted as the new Missy.”
“And this PI wasn’t tailing her on the day of her disappearance?”
“No. My brother-in-law got the information he needed from the guy and that was it. He didn’t think he had a reason to keep following her.”
“Did Missy know her parents realized she was using again? Was there a big blowup or something that made her leave?”
“They were too devastated to deal with it. I don’t think Missy thought they knew.” He shrugged. “But I could be wrong.”
“If you want us to help, I need you to send us all the files from the PI—all the information your sister and brother-in-law have on Missy, going all the way back to high school, needs to be sent over. Friends, boyfriends, acquaintances. Just send me everything you have.” I glanced at my watch. “But I need to get going.”
“Jaxson, thank you.” Rick stood and led me to the doors leading out of the study. “Your father would be proud.”
I gave a slight nod and showed myself out of the house.
I wasn’t so sure about the councilman’s claim. In fact, I think my father would have told him to go piss up a rope, but things had changed in the few short years since my dad had been gone.
After my sister’s murder and my father’s subsequent death, our family’s world imploded. I always knew I’d take over running the family businesses, but I never expected it to be so soon. My father and mother had been grooming me since I was young. It was tradition, after all, and the Volkovs were nothing if they didn’t keep to tradition, or so my parents thought.
When my sister, Vera, was taken from us, the grief spread through us all like the plague, but it was too much for my father. He died of complications from a stroke only six months after her death. My mother spent every single second avenging their deaths through us, her sons.
And when we did…
Our hearts were left as empty as before.
We’d only added more bones to the ever-growing pile, which was precisely why I would never involve a woman in my life again.
Love wasn’t meant to be dangerous.