CHAPTER NINETEEN:
VIKTOR
Viktor watched Alexandra disappear past the gates from the front window in the sitting room. She had been insisting that ‘Uncle Tolya’ could help, and he assumed she was going to try and bring her uncle here. He sincerely hoped that, whatever she did, it would not interfere with his plans. Deep in his heart, he also hoped that she would forgive him.
He sent Roman after her, then disappeared upstairs to the boardroom in his private office. Restrained to a chair, Sergei sat staring at the table with a shell-shocked expression. His head lifted when he heard Viktor enter and he opened his mouth to talk, but Viktor held up a single index finger and began speaking before Sergei had the chance.
“There is a power drill tucked away in this room. It has been used before on men twice your size. I do not wish to use it again.” He entered the room painfully slowly, tension building, and carefully closed the door behind him. This time, he made sure to lock it. “Do not make me use the drill. Just answer my questions simply and honestly.” Viktor spoke with an even, deliberate voice.
“Where is Alexandra?” Sergei asked. He appeared shaken, but still full of resolve. Viktor didn’t respond, and instead allowed tension to rise while he resisted the urge to grin and shake his head; now he knew where Alexandra got it from.
The urge to grin faded quickly, however, as he remembered how horrified she had looked before she’d taken off. Remembered how she had called him a monster.
Ordinarily, he would have taken ‘monster’ as a compliment—this was the mafia, after all— but for some reason, it had stung to hear it from her lips. He wondered if he would have the nerve to torture or even kill Sergei, depending on how the interrogation went.
Should he wait for Alexandra to return and give her a chance to speak? She had seemed so determined.
“Where is Alexandra?” Sergei asked again.
“I am not here to discuss your daughter. I am here to discuss you.” Viktor pulled up a chair and sat across from his wife’s father. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and locked eyes with his captive. “Do you know why you are here?”
How easy it would be, Viktor thought, if Sergei just confessed outright.
“Because you have brought me here?” Sergei’s reply was confused, without a trace of sarcasm. Even though the response was genuine, Viktor found its directness irritating.
“And why might I have brought you here?”
“I am being honest right now, Viktor, when I say I truly do not know. We are in-laws. Why kidnap me? Why not just call and ask me to come over?” “Tell me what your relationship with my father was like.”
“Your father… Boris? He was a good man, a very generous man, and I am sad to have lost him.”
“Why was my father generous?” Viktor’s words were slow, seeping from between his lips—he hoped to entrap Sergei.
“He was there for me in times of need. Most men are not half as honorable and loyal as your father was.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with the almost quarter of a million dollars he lent you?”
Sergei’s face tightened, but he said nothing. Viktor stared him down and let the silence ring in their ears. The tension was palpable. It constricted like a tightening chain around them.
Finally, after a minute that felt like an hour, Sergei answered. “You are trying to get me to confess to his murder, but I have nothing to confess to, other than missing him. I am innocent. Right now must be a very hard time for you, Viktor, and I’m sure—”
“Killing him would have ended the debt by erasing it from our minds,” Viktor interrupted. He leaned closer, their faces separated by a few inches of air. He could smell the faint reek of cigar on Sergei’s breath. “In the grief and confusion, it would have been overlooked. But that’s not the case now, is it? Your attempts have blown up in your face, and they’re about to cost you dearly.”
“I’m sure,” Sergei continued from where he had been cut off, “that you are very hurt right now. Angry. Confused. But—”
Victor didn’t hesitate to interrupt. “You have two children, a beautiful wife. I’m sure she has expensive tastes. A family with mouths to feed, and a business to run. Who could blame you?”
“I did not do it! I am innocent.” Sergei’s gaze locked on Viktor’s again, this time with concern and fear searing his eyes. “Where is Alexandra?” he repeated.
Viktor snorted, and a grim chuckle escaped his lips. “Trying to save you. She insists that ‘Uncle Tolya’ can save you, but I doubt that.”
“Anatoly?” Sergei asked, confused. “How… well, I’m not sure how he can help.”
That name rang a bell. Viktor recalled the mention of an Anatoly at both of his most recent group meetings.
“Uncle Tolya… is short for Anatoly? What is his last name?” Viktor questioned.
“Popov.”
Viktor’s mask of indifference melted as shock and realization struck him, and knocked the wind from his lungs.
Alexandra’s ‘Uncle Tolya’ was Anatoly Popov, the gunrunner who had recently begun making inroads into business which had always been Sokolov turf.
“So Anatoly Popov, Alexandra’s uncle, is… your brother?” Viktor asked.
“No, no blood relation,” Sergei answered, apparently confused by the turn in the conversation. “He’s just another good friend of mine, a friend of the family, her best friend’s father. Alexandra’s known him for so long, he is like an uncle now.” Sergei’s concern mixed with bafflement. “Why?”
“How good of a friend?” Viktor asked slowly, and then he listened carefully for the response.
“Very good. I’d say he’s my best friend, now that your father is gone. Or at least, he was—he has been distant recently,” Sergei replied.
“How much do you confide in him?”
“Quite a bit, to be honest. A lot of man’s talk. The kind of things you don’t tell your wife.”
“Things you don’t tell your wife, like debts?”
The gears were turning in Viktor’s head.
“Well, yes. He has always been good with money, good business sense, and it was eating me alive to not say something to my wife.”
Sergei looked genuinely remorseful now. In fact, not once so far had Sergei given Viktor any reason to doubt him. Viktor was adept at sensing dishonesty; from his tone to his body language, he now felt sure that Sergei was being sincere.
And that chilled Viktor’s blood when the realization hit him. Viktor scooted backward from his captive and sprung to his feet. An uncharacteristic hint of panic tinged his voice.
“She’s going right there. Alexandra is going straight to him.”
Viktor moved quickly to undo the restraints holding Sergei to the chair, then pulled his phone from his pocket and called Roman. It took several rings before Roman answered.
“Roman. I need you to catch up to Alexandra, make sure she’s safe. Stay with her, and whatever you do—” Viktor was cut off.
“I lost her. She was on the subway, but she stepped off the train just before it left and I couldn’t get off in time,” Roman said. “I’m getting off at the next stop, but I don’t know where she went.”
“Fuck.” It was the only thing Viktor could think to say. He had allowed his wife to go straight to the real enemy, alone. He told Roman to return to the mansion, then jabbed the ‘end call’ button so hard he feared the screen might crack.
Viktor’s muscles tensed as he imagined what he would do if the same man who’d murdered his father did anything to his wife.
“Is my daughter okay?” Sergei asked, fear creasing his features as he rubbed the raw, red skin on his wrists.
“She will be—I’ll make sure of it. What is Anatoly’s address?”