Chapter Two
Raven arrived at her apartment.
Nick was waiting for her. As soon as she closed the door he asked, “How did it go?”
Raven grimaced. “He almost caught me.”
Nicky groaned as he hung his head low.
Raven sighed. “Please don’t do that again. Yuri Anatoly is a dangerous man.”
“Then why the hell are you working for him?” Nicky demanded.
Raven shrugged. “When we came here three years ago, I was tired of running, tired of looking over my shoulder. All that time waiting for Carlos to find me. I thought what better place to hide than under the nose of the Russian Bratva? Carlos isn’t a stupid man and he has his enemies too, and I think Yuri is one of them. He would never come here willingly and that is our safeguard.”
“How do you know Carlos will avoid this place?” Nicky wanted to know.
Raven looked over at her brother. “Because the last job I did for Carlos was the night he held you prisoner, do you remember?” Fear rippled through her voice.
Nicky swallowed hard. “I remember. They put me in that damn closet and locked me in there.” He shuddered. “I hated that damn place.”
Raven nodded. “Carlos had me break into a house on Cannel Street, down by the docks. I didn’t know it but the Russian Bratva’s accountant lived there. He wanted me to steal some flash drives in the safe. I got the flash drives but I also found evidence of what they were. I knew if I took them back to Carlos he would make us both disappear, so I did what Carlos didn’t expect. I took the drives and came back to the house to get you. I watched the house and saw Carlos and his friends celebrating in the garage. I could hear everything they said.” Tears rolled down her face as she recalled the past.
Her brother shook his head sadly.
“Carlos was never going to let us go. He had grandiose plans to take over this city. Do you know what was on those flash drives?” She wiped the tears away. “The Bratva’s bank accounts and the billions of dollars they control. Carlos and his no good friends were going to steal the money and force them to hand over the city. He was going to start a war no one could…win for money.”
Nicky sat down in the chair hard. He hadn’t seen Carlos in almost a decade and didn’t miss him at all. They’d spent their last few years in the system with Carlos and his wife Rachel but he’d been a kid back then. He hadn’t understood everything Raven had done to keep him safe from Carlos and his unsavory friends until much later. The fact that Carlos taught him how to steal had impressed the young boy he was then, now as a young man not so much. “What happened to the flash drives?” Nicky wanted to know.
“I hid them all these years,” Raven admitted. “I couldn’t put us in danger by giving them to Carlos. As soon as he got his hands on them, he would have killed us. That’s what his plans were.”
Nicky nodded. “I know, I heard him and Rachel talking after they locked me up. They had buyers all lined up. I wanted to tell you but I couldn’t, you were already gone by then and when you came back, there wasn’t time. You grabbed me and we left. After that, we were already on the run and I didn’t think about it again.”
“We were trying too hard to survive.” Raven nodded. “Staying under the radar while trying to survive was really hard wasn’t it?”
Nicky smiled. “Yeah but we did it, didn’t we? Working together, we can do anything.”
Raven walked over to her brother and took his hands in hers. “That’s why right now, we have to be smart. We can’t afford any mistakes and lifting Yuri’s wallet was a mistake. We both need to stay under the radar. If we watch ourselves, we can make it. We changed our last name, now we just have to fit in.” She gripped his hands tighter. “Nicky, we can make it together if we can just stay out of trouble.”
Nicky flopped back in the chair. “I get it, I get it. No more stealing,” he grumbled.
“Oh Nicky, I didn’t mean to come across like that.” Raven closed her eyes. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you. I don’t know if I would survive without you.”
“It’s been you and me against the world since we were kids huh?” Nicky noted the obvious. “I don’t know what I would do without you either. I guess you’ve been watching out for me since I was born.”
Raven grinned. “Yeah that’s true, but I’d do it all again, if I had to.”
Nicky glanced at the clock. “You’d better get some rest. It’s late and you have to get up for work soon.”
“Yeah…” She yawned. “I have the early shift at the restaurant.”
Nicky watched her move to her bedroom and when she closed the door, he reached inside his pocket and drew out a small brass key. It had fallen out of Yuri’s wallet and for some reason, he’d stuck it in his pocket. He should probably have returned it but he didn’t.
Yuri growled when the wallet didn’t show any prints, not even his own. His money was gone too. Someone had lifted it from his pocket and then returned it. He wanted to know who it was. When his phone rang, he was distracted enough not to check the ID before he answered, “Hello.”
“Yuri, this is Nikoli. I’m coming to see you in a couple of days.”
Yuri straightened his shoulders a bit. “Of course, Nikoli. Has it been almost a year already?”
“Da, it has been. Has anything changed at all?”
“No but we’ll review it again, maybe there is something we missed. We’ll get word out on the street and see what pops up. She has to be out there somewhere.”
“But where?” Nikoli growled. “We’ve been searching for the bitch for almost twenty years now and we haven’t found any trace of her. Every single lead we do get, never pans out. Not one single sighting of her or the boy. Makes me wonder if either of them are still alive.”
“You can’t think like that.” Yuri hurried to assure him. “They’re out there somewhere and we will find them both.”
Nikoli sighed. “Perhaps, perhaps not. We haven’t found them yet and it’s been too long. I fear we’ll never find either of them, not alive anyway.”
“We’ll find them,” Yuri assured his boss. “Both of them and if she’s hurt the boy, she will pay.” He hesitated then reminded the other man, “We did find her mother a few years ago.”
Nikoli scoffed, “Yes, I remember and look how that turned out.”
Yuri closed his eyes. “Yes well, we weren’t expecting her heart problems but she did tell us she hadn’t seen her daughter in a number of years.”
“Yet another dead end.” Nikoli growled. “That’s all were have is dead ends. I’m tired of not knowing whether my son is dead or still alive.” He growled again. “I want that bitch found and turned over to me. I guarantee she’ll talk to me.”
“When the time is right, we’ll find her. I honestly believe that.” Yuri tried to reassure the other man.
“After twenty years, I doubt that very much. It’s been too long already,” Nikoli told him. “I’ll be there in two days.”
“I’ll be ready.” Yuri hung up the phone and glanced over at his security department. “Go through the tapes for today. I want to know when and who lifted my wallet and I want to know who broke into my home. I want answers people, and I want them before the sun comes up.” Yuri looked over to his bodyguards. Kosta and Stephanou and nodded at the door. When they joined him outside, he told them, “Nikoli is on his way here. We need to update our files on Andria Waterson. Check through everything and run the programs to search for her.”
“I cannot believe we will find her, not after this long.” Kosta shook his head.
“It does seem unlikely, but she has to be somewhere,” Yuri urged. “What ever happened to the baby? Did he grow up? Is he still alive or did he die all those years ago? Nikoli just wants to know what happened and to find that, we must find the woman.”
“After twenty years, it will take a miracle to find her,” Stephanou cautioned.
Yuri nodded. “Then let’s pray for a miracle. I’m not certain Nikoli can take much more. He needs answers and perhaps closure.”
Kosta nodded. “I’m not sure I would have handled it this well. Anyone who messes with my family would be hunted down right away.”
“As did Nikoli but Andria had a plan in motion from the moment she took the baby,” Yuri assured them. Nikoli was heartbroken from the death of his wife, to the point he didn’t receive word about his son for several hours after he was taken. The night his son was born several other women had babies as well, so everyone was busy, too busy to notice a woman had come into the neonatal part of the hospital and simply walked away with one of the newborns. She was dressed as a nurse so no one paid her any mind. It was only by reviewing the security tapes that we found her. We have been searching for her since that time.”
“That’s insane.” Kosta shook his head. “How did a woman like that even get close enough to get Nikoli’s attention?”
“She brought herself to his attention three months before when she introduced herself to him at a nightclub. She told him almost right away, that she wanted to be his mistress but Nikoli refused her advances. By then his wife was around five months pregnant and he was not looking for someone to fill his bed. When he told Andria that he loved his wife and wouldn’t seek another woman’s bed, she didn’t care. She figured if she wanted it bad enough, he would just sleep with her and she would become all important to his future. It got so bad that Nikoli banned her from his places of business and had her arrested on several occasions. Then she got it into her head that Nikoli wasn’t paying attention to her because of his wife. Andria attacked Bethany the night she was killed. She stabbed Bethany causing her to go into premature labor. Just after she delivered her son, Bethany died and Andria took the baby.”
“And she’s never been found?” Kosta asked.
“Like I said, she had a plan already in place before she took his son.” Yuri nodded. “Everything has been well thought out and executed on her end. We’ve found very little on her since then. Several years ago, we did find her mother but that didn’t pan out either. While questioning her she had a fatal heart attack and died before we could gain any information the whereabouts of Andria.”
“Did the mother say anything useful?” Kosta wanted to know.
Yuri shook his head. “Nothing we could use. She did tell us she hadn’t seen her daughter for about four years and she had no idea where she was living.”
“There was no word on the boy?” Kosta asked.
“They never got the chance to ask about him,” Yuri explained. “The old woman was literally scared into a massive heart attack, almost from the moment the men got inside. She told them that she knew this would happen one day. She knew Andria would do something that would come back and bite her in the ass. While in great pain, she told Andre that she hadn’t seen her daughter in four years.”
Kosta rolled his eyes. “I can see Andre frightening an old woman. He’s not exactly a gentle man.”
Yuri flinched. “Yes well, I sent Constantine and Hemi with him.”
Kosta chuckled. “I can understand her fear now. Those three would frighten the bravest of men, let alone an old woman.”
“They searched the house and found evidence of young children but found no one there. They had to leave in a hurry because one of the neighbors had called the police when the old lady began yelling,” Yuri informed them.
“So the boy could have been there at some point?” Stephanou asked.
Yuri shrugged. “He could have been but there was no sign of him or any other child that day.”
Kosta ran his fingers through his hair. “What a fucking mess that woman left. She deserves everything Nikoli does to her when she’s found.”
Yuri glanced over at Stephanou and motioned toward the security room. “You stay here and wait for the face of the one that lifted my wallet. Kosta and I are going to review the file and see if we can find something new.” Yuri turned and walked toward the elevator.
As usual, Kosta was two steps behind and when the doors closed he commented, “Do you ready believe the boy is still alive?”
Yuri shrugged. “What can I say? For some reason I do.”
Kosta looked uneasy and wouldn’t meet his boss’s eyes.
Yuri paused then asked, “What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Kosta insisted.
“It is something if you are unwilling to speak about it.”
Kosta squirmed a bit under his scrutiny. “There are rumors going around about Nikoli’s state of mind.”
“What kind of rumors?” Yuri crossed his arms over his massive chest. He stood six inches over six feet and weighed in at three hundred fifty pounds. His hair was still black at the age of forty-two, although a few silver threads were making themselves known around his temples. He was a handsome man and a player as he carried the weight of his office well. People might not know he was head of the Russian Bratva outright, but they did know about the power he carried.
“There is one man who is making waves about his obsession with this woman. The things he is saying is making others start to listen. It could become a problem at some point.”
“Who is this man?” Yuri demanded.
“Grigori Demencoff from New York.”
Yuri scoffed. “Grigori is hoping to step into Nikoli’s shoes. He figures if Nikoli is displaced, he will step in with no problems.”
“Could that happen?” Kosta asked nervously. Everyone in the Bratva knew Grigori’s temper and that under his rule, the essence of their organization would change drastically. Grigori was a harsh taskmaster and loved to rule his empire with fear and terror. Nikoli was a strong leader but only used fear against those who truly deserved it.
Yuri shook his head. “Russia would never let that happen. They don’t care for Grigori’s methods any more than we do.” He rubbed his hand down his face. “We have to find this woman and the boy. That will get Nikoli back on track and put Grigori out in the cold.”
“So how do we find a woman that’s been hiding for twenty years?” Kosta asked.
“We go back to the very beginning and review everything we know about her, her family, her contacts, everything.”
“And if we can’t find anything new?” Kosta asked.
“Then we go over it again until we do,” Yuri assured him. “There has to be something we missed all these years. Something that will allow us to find her.”