Page 24 of Enigma: The Final Chapter
A heavy set of wrinkles indents his forehead. He looks utterly baffled.
Isaac tries to ease it. “Isabelle was raised by her uncle after being sold to him by Vladimir when she was six years old. Her Uncle Tobias isn’t really her uncle.”
Ryan is shocked, but he maintains his cool-cat composure. “Can you speak Russian?”
I grimace. “Not very well.”
“Did you understand what Enrique said in the corridor when he was leaving?”
I twist my lips. “I don’t remember what he said. I was too flustered over his arrest to pay proper attention.”
Air whizzes out of Ryan’s nostrils as he struggles to stifle a chuckle over my daftness. When I glare at him, he pulls a small black recording device from his pocket. After fiddling with the gadget, Enrique’s voice bellows out of the speakers.
“Don’t worry, Isabelle.Ya idu domoy.”
I cringe, hoping I don’t make a fool of myself. “I’m… going… ” I lift my gaze to Ryan. “Can you play it again?”
When he plays it for the second time, the fog clouding my brain scatters away, and his sentence becomes readily distinguishable. “He said ‘I’m going home.’”
Ryan stiffens, his pupils widening before he sprints into the corridor. Isaac and I quickly shadow him. The air is forcefully removed from my lungs when my eyes lock in on the elevator at the end of the hall. Four heavily guarded riot officers are lying unconscious on the elevator floor.
Enrique is nowhere in sight.
Chapter 10
Isaac
Islide my cell out of my pocket and move to a window. After ensuring Ryan and a handful of police officers milling around Enrique’s room aren’t paying attention to me, I flip open the screen.
Done.
It’s the simplest word, but it causes the largest grin to stretch across my face.
When I enter the corridor, Isabelle’s head lifts to glance at me. She's sitting between two female officers who are no doubt asking her a flurry of questions responsible for the tired expression on her face. Even exhausted, she's as ravishing as always.
I raise my finger into the air, requesting a minute. When she nods and smiles, I hit the speed dial on my phone and walk around the corner. Henry answers on the very first ring.
“Isaac, how is your Katarina?”
A smirk etches on my mouth. “She's good. Safe.”
Isabelle has spent the past three hours giving statements regarding everything that transpired this afternoon. The police have nothing. No leads. No witnesses. Not even any surveillance footage. All they have is Enrique entering the elevator with the officers, then the frame freezes for not even five seconds. Once it’s restored, the four police officers, although unconscious, are unharmed and lying on the elevator floor.
“Your men are good.”
I hear Henry’s cheekbones rising over the line.
“Are we good?”
“We’re good,” he replies without pause. “You know good people, so I trust your instincts.”
“He was raised by a monster, but he had good intentions. He just went about it the wrong way.”
“Perhaps I should have sheltered him under my wing instead of shipping him off to Russia.”
I smile. “He’ll be safer there.”
“No extradition,” we say in sync.
