Page 85 of Lord of the Underworld

When I see Vadim's mother, Mariya, I drop to my knees, taking her hand and pressing my bent forehead to it. "I am so sorry. I'm so sorry," I sob. "I wish they had killed me quickly, so that he never would have -"

"Stop." Mariya loops her hands under my elbows, helping me up. "Stop now. Do you think that my son could have survived, knowing you had died at the hands of those men?"

Her hand is on my chin, forcing me to look at her. Her expression is firm, but not unkind. It's clear she's not going to tolerate my guilt or my apologies. Konstantin is standing next to her, and to the left, slightly away from everyone else, is his grandfather, Alexei.

The look on his face freezes my soul.

"Of course," I force out the words between numb lips. "Not now. Please, tell us the plan."

"Between your family, the Morozovs, and ours," Konstantin says, "we've been tracking traffic cameras, and storefront security feeds. There are two vans, they're identical. They drove off in two different directions, so we're following the feeds of both."

"Does Vadim have a location tracker?" Nikolai asks hopefully.

Mariya's eyes close, and it's Konstantin who answers. "He did. It was cut out and left on the floor at the house."

I cross my arms, sticking my fingernails into my skin, welcoming the sting. I will not collapse again. I won't cry.

"Sirs?" It's David, our tech lead, looking green. This is the man who I know tours the dark web on a daily basis while eating a sandwich. He's holding his laptop with shaking hands. "They've started a live feed." He turns the laptop away from me and toward the Turgenevs.

Surging forward, I try to see the screen and Nikolai grabs my arm, pulling me back. I may not be able to see what they're doing to Vadim, but I can hear the taunts and jeers of the men. All the posturing and tough talk. Not a sound from my husband.

Mariya's mouth goes into a thin, flat line, and she sways slightly, Stepan puts his arm around her. Konstantin and Alexei's expressions are frozen. Their eyes, though, I can see the slow simmering of hell fire.

"Can you track the feed?" Konstantin's voice is remarkably steady.

"We're on it now," David says. "I'm patched into Kolya's feed, he's the Morozov Bratva's tech expert. The signal is jumping VPN servers across six countries, faster than we can track. Kolya, though, he's built a predictive program that analyzes the next fifteen steps based on the last thirty ones. We're jumping ahead, he recognizes the pattern." David anxiously looks at me, then Nikolai and Maks. "This is good," he repeats awkwardly. "A good thing."

"Where do we go?" Alexi says. His face is terrifyingly blank, his black jacket blowing in the wind, looking monstrous like a carrion bird waiting to spread his wings.

David rapidly taps in a series of numbers. "We can start from right here," he says. "The predictive analysis shows the feed can't be coming any further than sixteen kilometers away."

Everyone surges toward the cars and trucks, including two monstrously huge trucks with reinforced grills. Rezvani Tanks, I think. Maks had always wanted one because they're the closest thing to an actual tank that's road-worthy. As eight more matte black SUV's roar into the parking area, everyone's guns go up until Konstantin shouts, "Put your weapons down! They're from the Volkov Bratva."

Kirill Volkov steps out of the first SUV in line, striding torward us. "I have thirty men with me. Viktor Balabanov is coming in from the east." He looks older, sterner than I remember, his jaw tight.

"Good to have you here," Alexei says.

Kirill nods respectfully. "It's an honor to stand with you, Sir." He glances over at me. "Anka is still screaming because I wouldn't let her come with us, even though I told her you'd been rescued."

I let out a half sob, half laugh. "That sounds like Anka."

Everyone is heading toward their vehicles as Alexi points at me. "You come with me."

Nikolai's hand on my arm tightens, but I pull loose. "Yes. Of course."

A guard tries to climb into the driver's seat of one of the Rezvani's and Alexi pulls him out by the collar. "In the back."

He climbs into the driver's seat and I scramble to get into the passenger side, buckling myself in as he stomps on the gas. One of the guards in the backseat hands me a surveillance kit, and I fit it in my ear, listening to the chatter until I can isolate the channel where David is talking with Kolya.

"Keep heading west," Kolya says. "The signal dropped and picked up again."

A new voice breaks in. It's a woman, and she's furious. "You started the program without me?" Her accent is Asian, Chinese, I think. She's shouting and I can dimly hear Kolya babbling apologies. She cuts him off with a stream of incomprehensible technical information.

"Who is this?" Konstantin cuts into the conversation.

"Mei Chen, sir. I work for the Volkov Bratva." She launches back into the digital gibberish with Kolya and David.

"Switch to channel eleven," Konstantin says in my ear, and Alexi and I do.