Page 77 of Born into Chaos

“I found something.”

Vitaly and I both jump up at Niki’s words, running across the room to see what he’s dug up. Danil looks over at his son’s screen, says something to him that I don’t catch, and then starts typing on his own laptop, fingers flying across the keys in the skilled way that only few can manage. It goes so far beyond just being a skilled typer. They can unearth things that most people can’t even comprehend. They’re an invaluable asset to the Bratva, and they’ve saved our asses on more than one occasion.

“He’s going to sell the baby,” Niki says, and it’s the last thing I’m expecting him to say.

“What? What do you mean?” I quickly ask, and then my mind immediately goes to the worst case scenario and I start to feel nauseous. “Who is he selling her to?”

Niki quickly shakes his head. “No, not like that. It’s a couple who wants to buy her. They can’t have kids, so they’ve arranged to buy her from Shane.”

“He’s selling his baby?” The disgust in Vitaly’s voice is mirrored in all our faces.

“He is,” Niki confirms, “for a hundred thousand.”

“Jesus,” I groan. “Do you know when it’shappening?”

“Give me a sec,” Danil says, still clicking away on his keyboard and never once taking his eyes off the screen. After a tense few minutes, he finally says, “It’s happening tomorrow at midnight. They’re meeting at a spot that’s thirty minutes outside of the city. It’s a remote location. We can get there and have our men surround the place before they arrive. We’ll take him out and get Sveta and the baby back.”

“If he brings her,” Vitaly says, voicing all our fears.

“He will,” Roman tells him.

“And if he doesn’t,” Matvey adds, “we’ll torture him to within an inch of his life until he tells us what we want to know.”

“He won’t hurt her before he sells Samantha,” Lev says. “He needs Sveta to take care of her until then.”

“I’m going to call Timofey and let him know what’s going on. He can gather everyone and have them set up a perimeter around the meeting site,” Roman says, already putting his phone to his ear.

“I need to call Katya and update her,” Vitaly says, walking away and sounding like he’d rather do anything other than have to tell his wife that their daughter is still missing.

I stand next to Niki, looking at his screen as he scrolls through Shane’s laptop. He may only be sixteen, but the kid is wise beyond his years. Sensing that I’m close to losing it, he starts pulling up everything he’s found and explaining it to me so that I have something to focus on. He’s throwing me a lifeline, and I gladly fucking take it.

I don’t know how I’m going to make it until tomorrow night without them. I can’t stop worrying about every little thing that could be going wrong, but I try to push all of it aside and focus on Niki’s words. He shows me more photos of Shane and Dana, and I may be biased about our sweet little girl, but I see nothing of her parents in her. They look cruel and have the spaced-out look of someone who hasn’t been fully sober in a very long time. Our girl has the cutest, sweetest face, and her eyes are bright and clear. There’s an inquisitiveness in them that her birth parents lack. They may be responsible for her conception, but she’sourdaughter.

In thirty-six hours, I’m killing this bastard, and I’m getting my family back.

Chapter 12

Svetlana

Iclutch Samantha to my chest, kissing her cheek and whispering in her ear that she’s safe and that I love her. I tell her again that Vitya will find us and get us out of here, and my voice cracks when I say his name. I can’t imagine how scared he must be right now. When I’d woken up last night to give Samantha her bottle, I’d planned on feeding her on the couch so he wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t realize we weren’t alone until the gun was pressing to the back of my head and a stranger’s voice was telling me to not make a sound. He’d told me if I screamed that he would kill Vitya and Samantha. He said he’d let me live, and in that moment I couldn’t imagine anything worse than that. I’d been frozen with terror, holding Samantha as he removed the gun from my head and aimed it at her instead. I knew in that moment that I would agree to anything if it meant keeping the two of them safe.

I kiss her soft cheek again, remembering how I’d convinced him to let me pack her diaper bag and grab extra formula. While I was packing, I’d looked out the front window, my heart sinking when I saw the white truck parked out front, knowing that Vitya had been right about being followed. I’d scribbled a note for him as I grabbed the formula, but I was in such a hurry that I don’t even know if it was legible or ifhe’s even found it. I have to believe that he has. I have to believe that he and my family are looking for us. I’m not sure how they’re going to find us, but I have to believe that they will.

I look around at the rundown motel room we’re in. It’s in a small town I’ve never heard of or been to, and judging by the threadbare carpet and outdated everything, I’m guessing this motel has been here since the town’s beginning. The man pacing in front of me, the man who said his name is Shane and that he’s Erin’s dad, is trying his best to wear a path across the room. Every time I call her Samantha, he looks like he wants to hit me, but so far he hasn’t hurt either one of us. He can’t be much older than me, but his life choices have aged him, giving him a haggard appearance. The acne scars, greasy hair, and beer gut aren’t helping.

“You need to let us go,” I say, trying to reason with him.

“And you need to shut the fuck up,” he says, giving me his usual response.

“This isn’t going to end well for you, Shane. My family is going to come for you. You know they will.”

Shane runs a hand through his greasy hair and shakes his head. “I warned Wes to not get involved with your family’s fucking Bratva. He thought he could get a good deal from Radomir and then sell the pills off and make a profit. Fucking idiot.”

“Is that what all this is about? Drugs?” I hold Samantha tighter and adjust her pacifier when she starts to get fussy. She’s been doing an amazing job of holding it together, but she misses her old routine, and she seems to like her birth father about as much as I do.

Shane stops pacing and turns to face me. He looks at the way I’m comforting his daughter, but when he looks at her, there’s nothing in his eyes, no fatherly love, no affection, nothing. It’s like he doesn’t even see her.

“No,” he tells me. “This is about money, a lot of fucking money.”

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