Chapter 58

Nikolai

As Hannah sat quietly beside me, I felt another pang of guilt. Yes, I had spent the last ten hours trying to make sure my father didn’t have her kidnapped and shipped to some Asian whorehouse, but all she knew was I had sex with her last night and never spoke to her again. After we drove out of the parking lot, I started explaining the situation.
“Okay, Hannah, when I said things are fucked up right now, I’m not sure you have a complete understanding of the level of fucked up I’m talking about. My father made some threats about you.” I shot her a glance, noting her shocked expression. Understandable. “And your sister,” I added.
She gasped. “My sister? How does he know my sister? Why would he bother making threats against either of us?” she asked, her expression vacillating between bewildered and panicked by turns.
“He did it to control me. He must have noticed how I acted around you when you were at my house. He did a background check on you, which is how he knows you have a sister. He’s using threats against both of you to get me to do what he wants.”
Hannah swung her head to me, frowning. “What did he threaten to do?”
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure sharing this with her was a good idea. “It was bad enough that I agreed.” I just left it at that, and even though Hannah was vibrating with curiosity, she could read my expression well enough to know that she might be better off not knowing.
I continued. “We’re picking up your sister and I’m taking both of you to Katya’s. You’ll be guarded there until this whole thing is over. Just to be safe, I checked your mom’s schedule—she works a double shift today, so she should be okay. You’re going to call her and tell her where you and your sister are, and when her shift is over, one of the guys will pick her up and bring her to Katya’s. That is, if this whole situation isn’t over by then.”
Hannah looked at me in dumbfounded shock, slowly absorbing the situation.
“Is your sister at home now?” I asked, trying to pull Hannah out of her stupor.
She looked at me and nodded slowly. “She should be. I’ll call her and make sure.”
As Hannah pulled out her cell, mine rang. Drago.
“What’s up? Do you have him?” I asked impatiently.
“No,” Drago bit out. “That woman we were using for information double crossed us. Told him we were coming, so he got away, but we got Sergei.” Katya’s father. He’d definitely know where my father was going.
“He’s loyal, but he’s weak. Lean on him and he’ll tell what my dad is doing.” I knew Drago would have no problem roughing up Sergei to get information. Drago has always hated my father’s right-hand man. I didn’t blame him; Sergei was a sadistic toady.
“Oh, I know that. He’s already giving us information and we haven’t laid a finger on him. Perhaps he was concerned by how enthusiastic I acted at the idea of interrogating him,” Drago quipped sardonically.
“Good. I’ve got Hannah, and we’re picking up her sister and going to Katya’s place. I assume there will be trusted men there to watch them.” I knew Drago would not trust just anyone to watch the girls, but I still hated having Hannah out of my sight while all this was going down.
“Of course, Nikolai. My most trusted,” Drago responded seriously. “Ivan.”
“Ivan? Ivan who?” He could not be talking about who I thought he was.
“Ivan Petrov.”
I was stunned into silence. “I thought he was dead,” I whispered in shock.
“No, but it was important that your father and his father think he was.” Ivan Petrov was Katya’s older brother. He joined the organization right after high school and had been quickly moving up. I’d always looked up to him, wanted to follow in his footsteps. We used to enforce together every once in a while, but about a year and half ago, he disappeared and was presumed dead. Katya had been devastated, and so had I. Nothing about his death had made any sense. He hadn’t been doing a job when he disappeared, and we never found a body. Either he was dead, or he was disloyal, which was the same thing.
I wanted to ask what happened, but I knew this wasn’t the time to get into it. “I’ll hear more about that later, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Drago responded wearily. “Get the girls and get to Katya’s.”