Page 48 of Savage Claim

That was good enough for me. Alfie had a reputation for delivering and then some. “I wired your usual fee,” I said. “There will be more if this works how you said it will.”

Alfie looked pleased. “You’ll be plenty pleased, boss.”

Then, he disappeared, going back to wherever he tinkered with the kind of toys that would get him thrown into federal prison for the rest of his natural life. I zipped the duffel back up and carried it, carefully, to the rendezvous point. I wasn't interested in becoming a pink mist.

Four men were waiting for me, three were mine and Sergei, who was on loan from Nikolai. He would go in first as a recon while we planted Alfie’s bombs. “Get as much of a view of the inside as you can,” I told him. “Then get out of there. Report back to Nikolai, no stops.”

Sergei nodded, and I handed him an ear piece and watched as he pushed it in and twisted it until it was only visible if someone was looking for it. My tech guy Vincent, a hacker that we recruited from NYU, wired him for a pinhead-sized camera and a microphone. It streamed directly to my phone.

Once Vincent was done with Sergei, and we sent him off, he put a bigger camera on me. I had argued at first, it was far too bulky and would get in the way, but Vincent had won out. “This gives me five extra eyes. I can notice things that you can’t,” he’d said. “If we miss our mark today, we’ll have a video to review later so that we aren’t swinging in the dark anymore.”

The other two men, Carmine and Matt, would be my backup. Matt would plant the bombs while Carmine and I were on extraction, if Gemma was in the building. “Boss.” Carmine had been watching Sergei as Vincent fiddled with the camera.

I took the phone. A man who looked like a younger, much more hardboiled version of Artem had welcomed Sergei into the converted warehouse. He had bags beneath his eyes, like he was exhausted. They started talking, mindless chatter, but my eyesstudied the surroundings. It looked like the same place from Isabella’s FaceTime call.

“You look sick, man,” Sergei said. “I’m not going to end up with Covid or some shit like that, right? I can’t take a sick day with Nik riding my ass.”

Efram waved a hand. “I just haven’t slept well in a few days. You’re fine.”

“I heard about Artem,” he said. “My condolences.”

The young man snorted. “Keep ‘em,” he grunted, but he didn’t elaborate as to why. It was enough for me: Artem was alive.

“Is it work breaking your back, then?” Sergei asked.

Efram gave him a weary look. “What’s with the third degree?” he asked.

Sergei just laughed, and I had to commend him for his acting skills. He looked totally calm, like he wasn’t in any danger at all. “You look like shit. Am I not allowed to be worried?”

Efram scowled. “It’s hard to sleep with all the screaming.” Sergei clapped him on the back with a crow, but he got shoved away. “I wish I was getting laid,” he complained. “I’m fucking babysitting. Bitch is driving me crazy.”

Carmine and I exchanged a look. “That’s good enough for me,” I said.

“Me too.”

Matt took the bag of explosives and went on his way to plant them. Vincent stayed at the rendezvous, and Carmine and I headed for the warehouse. “Sergei’s making his excuses to leave,” Vincent reported. “He should be clear in a few.”

“Got it,” I muttered.

The warehouse came into view, and from Damian’s research, I knew that there was a door down a side-alley that ran along the one side. That was our entrance point. It was largely out of view, and even if there was a camera, it would take time for whoever was inside to get to us. The building really was fucking huge, and only parts of it had been renovated into living space.

Getting into the building proved far too easy; the lock was already broken, and while the door had been secured with a chain, it was easily broken and thrown to the side. We each drew a gun the moment we stepped inside, and Carmine watched my back as we headed down the echoey hallways.

As we moved closer to the residential area of the warehouse, a noise reached my ears. Wailing that reverberated through the hallways, making the place feel haunted. Carmine and I followed that sound until we found the source: a locked room.

“If I break the door, whoever’s here will come running,” Carmine said.

“Do it,” I told him. I wanted Santino and Artem to come; it would be easier than having to track them down. Carmine kicked the door in; it practically exploded inward, and the wailing grew louder, more panicked.

While it had been dim in the hallway, the room was overly, almost painfully, bright. Gemma was chained to an exposed pipe; she was alive, but I didn’t have to study her long to know that she was in shock.

“Fucking Christ.”

I glanced to Carmine, who was looking paler than before, and I almost asked what was wrong…until I saw what he was looking at. Isabella and Gemma’s mother was still strung up to the wall, and it was clear that she was dead. Her wounds had stopped bleeding at this point, and she looked like so much raw, torn meat hanging as she was. They’d left Gemma in the same room as her dead mother.

“Get her out of here,” I told Carmine, gesturing to Gemma.

“You sure, boss?”

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