Page 4 of Broken Embers

“I’m sorry, boss,” Lev says, his voice low. “He just vanished.”

“It’s okay, Lev,” I say, trying to keep my cool. We’re all tired. Lev, Syd, and Ivan had been the only three of my men that weren’t taken down by tranq darts and gotten a few of the bastards before the entire fucking team crashed into my house. “They are slippery cunts and know their way around this town better than we do.”

Elena stirs, her little mouth opening in a sleepy yawn. I adjust the sling to keep her quiet.

“Where is Magda?” Ivan asks.

“Sabrina gave her a few days off,” I say. “She wanted to visit family in Moscow.” I catch the time on my watch. Almost five-thirty in the morning, and it already feels like a lifetime since Sabrina was taken. “Magda should be back before six.”

“It’s best not to leave the little cutie alone right now,” Syd says.

“I don’t want her out of my sight until I know what the fuck is going on,” I growl and my eyes catch Clyde’s. “Why the fuck did General Ergorov and his team of Russian Special Forces take Sabrina? What do they want with her? Has this got something to do with Tara and Gavriil digging into some Russian woman’s birth certificate?”

Clyde’s eyes narrow to slits. “What do you know about that?” His voice is low and deadly calm.

“Not much,” I admit. “We found a Russian puzzle box that Tara had hidden in hers and Sabrina’s apartment. In it was a birth certificate for a Lidiya Zorin, a photograph of the famous Russian cryptographer and mathematician, Anya Novikov, and…” I hesitate to tell them about the adoption papers of Gavriil and Irina that Sabrina and I found in a hidden compartment of the box.

“Please tell me that you didn’t go poking around here in Moscow?” Clyde’s eyes bore into mine. “Is that why the two of you came here?”

“There were a few reasons we came here!” My brook becomes frosty. “Admittedly, that was on the list. But the hospital had burned down…”

“And I got hold of some of my contacts to find out about the hospital records,” Syd picks up the conversation.

“Did you specifically ask about Lidiya Zorin?” Clyde’s tone becomes more forceful.

Syd and I exchange a glance, and I nod.

“We did,” Syd answers.

“Sabrina had a theory that Lidiya may have been Tara’s real name and that Carla and Sol may have stolen her from Russia, and that is why their parents lied to them about who Tara’s real mother was all these years,” I add. “Sabrina wanted to know if her parents were kidnappers, and then her theory seemed even more plausible when her mother, Carla, went missing in Moscow a few days before we arrived here.”

“What?” It’s Clyde’s turn to look confused. “Why would you think that Carla had gone missing in Moscow?”

“Because Sam told us that Nikolas’s yacht had gone missing near Trabzon,” Syd answers. “He told us that it had just disappeared off the radar.”

“Carrying my aunt, Carla, and Mark.” My hand absently strokes Elena’s soft hair as she sighs and moves position.

Clyde’s brow furrows deeper, showing us he didn’t know about this. “What were they doing near Turkey?”

“They were on a cruise celebrating my Aunt Galina and Nikolas’s engagement,” I explain. “But they were supposed to be going to the Bahamas.”

“That’s a serious detour,” Clyde points out the obvious. “Wait!” His eyes register his realization. “Trabzon is on the Black Sea coast, not far from the Georgian border.” His eyes hold mine, and I can see his mind putting the puzzle pieces into place. “It would make sense that if Carla wanted to come into Russia, she’d do so through a not-so-obvious route.” He looks at me wide-eyed as full realization dawns. “Fuck! Do you think Carla knows that Tara was looking into her real mother, and that’s why she came here?”

Now my mind’s reeling as I had not thought about that possibility. “Has there been any news of Tara’s whereabouts?”

“No.” Clyde shakes his head. “I was in Russia when Sam called me with instructions for an urgent extraction of first Sabrina and Elena, and then you.”

“What?” Syd, Ivan, and Lev splutter.

“What kind of an extraction?” Syd asks suspiciously.

Clyde raises his brows and purses his lips. “The kind where they have a seemingly tragic life-ending accident.”

“Erased!” Syd’s brows shoot up, and she looks at me. “Jesus, fucking Christ, Oleksi, what kind of hornets nest have we kicked here?”

“That’s what I want to know.” My eyes bore into Clyde’s. “Why were you in Russia?”

“I promised Tara that I would look into Lidiya Zorin for her,” Clyde admits.

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