Page 92 of Enforcer Daddy
"You have six hours. Well, five hours and forty-seven minutes now. After that, I begin removing pieces of your pet." He paused, seeming to consider. "Small pieces first. Fingers. Toes. Things she'll miss but survive losing. For a while."
Eva's jaw clenched, but she stayed silent. Smart girl, knowing anything she said would be used against us.
"Six hours, Mr. Volkov. The original USB and five million. Or I start my work. And I should mention—I've been practicing. Studying. New techniques from a colleague in Mexico who kept a judge's wife alive for thirty-seven days. I think I can do better."
He raised his hand again, and Eva's eyes found the camera in the split second before impact. Looking for me. Making sure I'd see her being strong.
The video cut off with the sound of his hand meeting her face.
The silence that followed was absolute. The kind of silence that comes before catastrophe, before worlds end, before men like me stop pretending to be civilized.
Then I put my fist through the conference table.
The wood splintered, gave way, opened like the world should open to give Eva back. Pain shot up my arm, knuckles splitting, blood immediately welling, but it wasn't enough. I needed to destroy everything, needed to tear the building apart brick by brick, needed to paint every wall with Chenkov's blood until the color matched my vision.
Alexei grabbed me before I could destroy anything else, his arms locking around me with the strength that had built an empire. Not a hug—the Pakhan didn't hug. This was restraint,pure and simple, one predator keeping another from useless violence.
"Getting yourself injured won't help her," he said against my ear, but his voice carried the kind of promise that meant blood would flow, just not mine and not here.
I stood in his grip, breathing hard, knuckles dripping onto the ruined table. The pain helped, gave me something to focus on besides Eva's face when Chenkov hit her. That defiance that would get her killed if I didn't figure this out.
"We know where he has her," Ivan said, pulling up satellite images on his screens. "Red Hook, the warehouse. The Morozovs use it for special projects."
The warehouse sprawled across Ivan's screens in high definition—a fortress pretending to be industrial storage. One main entrance, two loading bays, windows all bricked over years ago. The thermal imaging satellite pass from this morning showed the heat signatures of at least twenty men throughout the building, positioned to repel any assault.
"Defensive positions here, here, and here," Ivan marked the screen with digital pins. "Overlapping fields of fire. No way to approach without being seen from at least three hundred meters out. They'd have five minutes minimum to kill her before we could breach."
Five minutes. More than enough time for Chenkov to paint the walls with her blood.
"We pay," Ivan suggested, practical as always. "Wire the money, deliver the USB, get her back."
"He won't let her go." The words came out hoarse, my throat tight with certainty. "She's seen his face, his location. She can identify him, testify if it ever came to that. And more than that—he enjoys it. You didn't see his face when he talked about keeping her alive for thirty-seven days. That wasn't a threat. That was anticipation."
I'd met men like Chenkov before. Men who'd found their calling in cruelty, who approached pain like artists approached canvas. The money didn't matter. The USB didn't matter. What mattered was that he had something beautiful to destroy, and Eva with her distinctive eyes and defiant spirit would be his masterpiece.
"Even if we pay, even if we give him everything, he'll kill her." I pulled free from Alexei's grip, moving to the screens showing the warehouse. "He'll just decide whether it's quick or slow based on how much we amuse him."
"Then we take it," Alexei said, studying the schematics with tactical precision. "Full assault. Overwhelming force."
"Twenty men minimum, probably more," Ivan countered. "Defensive positions, prepared ground. We'd lose half our soldiers breaching, and they'd execute her the moment we appeared."
The math was brutal but simple. Any force large enough to take the warehouse would be visible coming. Any approach fast enough to surprise them would be too small to succeed. It was a perfect trap, designed by someone who understood violence as well as we did.
"Unless they think they're getting everything they want," I said, the plan forming even as I hated it. "Unless we make Chenkov believe he's won completely."
Alexei turned from the screens, reading my intention in my face. "No."
"He wants the USB. He wants money. But what he really wants is to hurt me through her. So give him that chance. Me, walking in alone, supposedly to trade myself for her."
"That's suicide," Ivan said flatly. "They'll kill you both the moment you're inside."
"Maybe. Or maybe Chenkov's ego makes him play with his food first. Maybe he wants to make me watch, wants to break mebefore he kills us. That gives you time to position, to wait for my signal."
"What signal?" Alexei asked. "You'll be searched, disarmed, probably chained next to her."
I thought about the ceramic knife that looked like a belt buckle, the carbon fiber blade sewn into boot leather, the wire garrote that resembled a shoelace. All the tricks I'd learned from men now dead, all the ways to carry death past security.
"I'll figure something out. I get close enough to kill Chenkov, create chaos, keep Eva alive until you arrive."
