Page 174 of The Umarova Crime Family

I’m in bed, lying next to Mona. She’s snuggled up against my side, with her leg over mine and an arm draped around my stomach. My phone rings on the bedside table, so I reach over and grab it, seeing it’s Paulo. He’s one of the people who guards my home that I’ve had out on the streets in a desperate attempt to search for my mother.

“Paulo, if you’re calling this late, it must be good.”

“I found your mother, sir, and I was able to capture her.”

My heart begins beating intensely, and I inhale sharply before I speak. “Where do you have her?”

“On the west side of the city. I’ll send you the address. I did move her underground because…”

“Because why?”

“I’m about to be blunt here, sir. She wouldn’t shut the fuck up. If I kept her where I had her, it would only draw attention, and then the police would show up at some point.”

The police might show up, sure, but they’re in our pocket, and that’s why we haven’t really had any issues with them. Even if they came to wherever Paulo was, all he would have to do was mention our name, and then they’d leave him alone.

“Text me the address, and I’ll be there soon,” I tell Paulo and hang up the phone. I place the phone back on my bedside table, and Mona stirs awake.

She stretches slightly and yawns. “Nazyr, what’s going on?”

“Ssssh, Med. Go back to sleep. I need to go handle something for work,” I tell her and press a soft kiss on her forehead.

She pulls the covers back up and nods in a half-asleep manner. I get out of bed as quietly as possible and glance back at her. She’s already back asleep, so I head into my master closet and put on a fresh suit. As soon as I’m finished with that, I grab my phone and head out of the bedroom, straight for the front door.

Sure enough, I already have a text message from Paulo, so I head to the address he sent me. It’s only a ten-minute drive, which is a lot closer than I originally anticipated. The roads aren’t too busy this time of night, so the lack of traffic helps me get there a few minutes early.

I pull up to the address Paulo sent me, and it’s a small townhome. It’s not quite as regal as the one I live in, and it’s on a rougher side of town. This house might’ve been built in the early 2000s, if that. I park in front of the building and then walk up to the door, knocking four times until the door opens. Sure enough, Paulo’s on the other side. I shuffle inside the home quickly, and he shuts the door behind me.

“So, what happened?” I want to know every nitty-gritty detail about how he found my mother. I also need to figure out if he told any of my siblings he found her.

“I was on this side of town. I know your mother would come to see a woman down the street from time to time. I… I had people keeping tabs on her. Alejandro informed those of us who came here from Mexico that we needed to keep a good eye on your family. I wanted to make sure I was doing that, so I went above and beyond. Sure enough, she was trying to get to her friend’s house when I intercepted her.”

“Good job. So, whose house is this?”

“It’s the house I’ve been renting since I’ve been in Grozny.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes,” Paulo answers honestly.

“Okay. Have you notified Ruslan, Lom, or Eset?”

“No, sir. You were my first call.” I appreciate Paulo’s loyalty to me, but I do need to let my siblings know we have her. I dig my phone out of my pocket and send a text message to my brothers and my sister with the address Paulo gave me. I tell them to knock when they get here, and someone will let them inside. Once I’ve sent the group text, I look back at Paulo.

“All right, take me to her.”

Paulo walks me down the foyer area and stops in front of a door. He opens the door, which reveals a set of stairs, and we both head down. The second my foot hits the top step, the distinctive sound of a metal chair jolting against a cement floor echoes through the space. Sure enough, I get to the bottom of the stairs and find my mother tied with ropes. There’s duct tape around her mouth, and her eyes go wide when she sees me. Her eyebrows rise, and she thrashes against the ropes, trying to tell me something.

I walk right up to her and rip the tape off her lips. “Nazyr! Let me out of this mess this instant. I need to go. I need to go right now! There are things you don’t understand. Things I have to warn your sister about!”

I furrow my brows at my mother’s words. Things she needs to warn my sister about? Is she really trying to act like she had nothing to do with what happened to Eset earlier today?

“What could you possibly need to warn Eset about?” I crane my neck slightly as my curiosity gets the best of me.

“You… you wouldn’t understand, Nazyr.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t understand. It seems I don’t understand a lot about you, Mother. I don’t understand how you lied to Eset and me since we were children, allowing us to think Anzor was our father for our entire lives. That was despicable, but more than that, it was wrong. I don’t even want to talk about any of that pointless shit, though. You’ve already made those decisions. You made them a long time ago, and you didn’t give a rat’s ass about how it would affect us. What I really want to know is why you had your men go after Eset and Meryem today.”

My mother reels her head back a bit and looks at me like she has no idea what in the fuck I’m talking about. I’m not foolish enough to think she’s in the dark. She orchestrated this madness. She must have.

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