Page 11 of Under His Heel: A Kidnapping

Anna scowled and looked over at Vasilis. “What do you think?”

“I think—” Vasilis paused. “It’s hard to think. I just want to see Johan safe and sound. So in that sense, I want to pay the ransom. But if we look at it from other angles—” He rubbed his brow. “What do they want instead? If it isn’t money?”

Torture and terrorism could be their own goals, but Tracht suspected if that’s what they wanted, they could have taken an easier target. Truth be told, he didn’t care why they were doing what they did. “You work on that. I have another appointment.”

He ignored their protests as he left.

==

Tracht took a cab to the other side of the station, to a casino. The guards at the entrance checked his ID and then ushered him in.

Like most casinos, the easy money-grabbers were out front. Slot machines and pachinko and roulette. At 1am on a weekend, it was packed, and Tracht had to hide his instinctual disdain for the class of people who hung around here.

He eventually found his way to the information desk where a young woman with far too many piercings—more even than Dr. Singh’s Nadia—was sitting quietly.

“How may I help you, sir?” she asked, lisping slightly.

“Is Ms. Nilsen in?”

Her eyes widened a fraction and she looked around. “Uh, um. I’m not sure?”

“Call the office and check for me, please. Let them know Johannes Tracht wishes to speak to Ms. Nilsen about a mutual financial arrangement.”

Her hand shook when she reached for the phone, and Tracht noticed that she was missing her pinky finger. Interesting. The woman wasn’t wearing a collar, but between the piercings and the missing finger, he suspected she had been a bondservant at one point.

He listened while the woman explained what he wanted and was marginally surprised when he was invited to wait at the bar. “Ms. Nilsen will be out to see you.”

The bartender gave him a whisky, “on the house,” and then he waited. Normally waiting wasn’t an issue for him—he enjoyed delayed gratification—but in this one instance, he was very aware of how little time he had. Every minute that passed was another one in which Alex was being tortured by some stranger.

“To what do I owe the honor?” a husky female voice asked.

Tracht glanced up from his drink, still mostly full. “Ms. Nilsen.”

Anja Nilsen was not, in the strictest sense, beautiful. She hadn’t done anything to fix the uneven nature of her eyes, and her nose was slightly too large for her face. But she kept her hair perfectly styled, and the dress she wore rivaled any of Anna’s.

Nilsen raised her eyebrows. “Well? What mutual business do we have?”

“Could we go somewhere a bit more private? I’m afraid it’s of a delicate nature.”

That made Nilsen laugh. “Are you sure you’ll be safe with me, in private?”

“I am fairly certain that you wouldn’t murder Vasilis Lysander’s brother-in-law, yes.”

There was a tenuous relationship between the upstanding, legal side of Cadmus, and the less scrupulous underbelly. It probably wouldn’t have been too difficult to remove the Nilsens from the station entirely, but given that human nature meant corruption was inevitable, the station tolerated the Nilsens running their business, provided the Nilsens kept things in line. Murdering Tracht would be a sure way to end the arrangement.

Nilsen inclined her head at him. “Fair point. All right, I have a private dining room. This way.”

Tracht followed her, and he had to admit he was a bit impressed with the grandeur. It was ostentatious in a modern way, not like the sleek lines that Vasilis and Anna preferred in their home. They ignored the dining table and chairs and went to sit on the couches.

After Nilsen called for coffee to be brought, she settled in and gave Tracht a look. “Now, stop wasting my time.”

“Very well. I am unsure how personally you deal with the many debt accounts, but two years ago, you held a pair of twins. Alexander and Nicholas Stone.”

She barked a laugh. “No, I remember them. Scarface and Wannabe Slick. Scarface screamed and screamed when we pulled his tooth out.”

Ah, that explained that. Despite the fact that the tooth had long-since been replaced, Tracht found himself hating Nilsen for having touched Alex. All in the past, he reminded himself. Really, he should be grateful that the Nilsens had done what they had to Alex, because it had helped land Alex in his debt.

“And then you decided to take Scarface as your bondservant. How’s that working out for you?” Her eyes narrowed. “If you want to renegotiate the debt, forget it.”

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