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Ivan held up a drink and inched closer with it. He set it on the floor a good five feet away from me and scurried back to safety like I was Hannibal Lecter. “He’s not here.”
Just like before, I made no move for the drink. This guy was too skittish, but he was way chattier than Sasha. Maybe I wasn’t entirely out of options after all. I wasn’t about to start handing out free blowjobs, but if I could get this guy to sympathize with my situation, maybe I stood a chance. “Where is he?”
Ivan shrugged.
“Something more important than his hostage?” I ventured, surprising myself with how bitter it sounded.
He snorted out a laugh. “You never know with the Wolf of Verkhoyansk. He’s very busy. Always someone to kill or—” He stopped talking and cleared his throat.
“The what?” The giant wolf tattoo on Sasha’s stomach immediately came to mind. I wondered which came first, the name or the tattoo. Either way, I didn’t know if I should be impressed my kidnapper had a criminal nickname or terrified.
“That’s what they call him,” Ivan said quietly, almost reverently.
“Like a code name?”
“Like a warning.”
“Is he supposed to be like the bogeyman?” I chuckled at Ivan’s wide-eyed expression.
He shook his head emphatically. “He’s worse.”
The seriousness with which he answered gave me goosebumps. Terrified. I was officially back to being terrified. “How so?”
Ivan blinked solemnly. “He’s real.”
I couldn’t exactly argue with that. Sashawasreal and the pain he doled out was real, too. My thumping jaw was proof of that, along with the bruises on my face and abdomen. “Why a wolf? Is that some Russian thing?”
Ivan shrugged, hooking his thumbs in his pockets. “I heard it was because when he was ten years old, he killed a man twice his age. They said he cut him into little pieces and fed him to his pet wolf.”
“That’s crazy,” I replied with a laugh, hoping it sounded natural. I tried not to picture a pint-size Sasha tossing chunks of human flesh to a wolf and failed miserably. “What ten year old kills someone?”
“Someone from Verkhoyansk.” Ivan shook his head at my confused expression. “It’s a terrible place. The night makes people…” He twirled a finger at his temple, the universal motion for “crazy.” I guess you had to be if you chopped up people to feed to a wolf at the ripe age of ten.
Ignoring the shiver that raced down my spine, I forced a smile to my face and abruptly changed topics. “So where are you from, Ivan?”
“Kazan.”
“Huh.” Yeah, I had no idea where the hell that was. Right up there with Verk whatever. I looked him over, trying to figure out my next move given the new surroundings and my new jailer. “How are you liking America so far?”
He smiled and nodded. “It’s nice. Very different. But good.”
“Do you know what they want from me?”
The smile vanished. “I can’t say.” Damn it!
“You can’t say because you don’t know or you can’t say because they told you not to tell me?”
“I don’t know,” he replied with a shrug. For some reason, I believed him. He seemed like the kind of guy who wasn’t very high up on the totem pole. “All the decisions are coming from Viktor. Sasha does the work.”
That was a new name. Ivan, Yuri, Sasha, Viktor. I kept them in the order I learned them, so I could remember as much as possible when I eventually hauled ass to the nearest police station. If I ever got the fucking chance.
“And you work for Sasha?” I asked.
Ivan nodded and then stopped, making a face. “Yes and no. I work for Yuri, but you don’t say no to Sasha.”
“Uh-huh.” Probably because he’d tear your arm off and beat you with it. “So the kidnapping thing. I take it I’m not the first?”
“It’s not personal, it’s just business,” Ivan stated matter-of-factly. Well, to the person being held captive, it wasverypersonal, but I understood what he was trying to say.
