Page 102 of For a Price

“I’m more concerned with the war you’ve waged on the sovietnik. You are not taking it seriously enough.”

“If the sovietnik has anything to do with Katerina’s disappearance, trust me, Shram. I am taking it more serious than any fucking thing. I will get answers. If you’re not here to assist, then get the fuck out of my way.”

Our bodies collide as I turn and stride forward. My broad shoulder knocks him half a step back, clearing my path ahead.

We’ve turned up outside a strip of worn-down apartment buildings in the Williamsburg area. A poorer side of the city where we’ve tracked down those associated with Katerina.

My men follow me obediently up the flights of metal stairs and down the corridor on the third floor. Coming up on the door, I don’t hesitate exerting my full strength to kick it in. My heel slams into the door’s surface, the kick hard, abrupt, and forceful.

The door gives, flying open and granting us entry.

We rush inside with guns drawn.

There’s two men inside smoking blunts on bean bags, the big screen TV loud as fuck. They have delayed reactions as the living room fills with men carrying weapons.

“Woah… what…” the first one asks, his eyes bleary.

I deck him across the jaw and send the marijuana blunt flying out his mouth. He’s left reeling as his head rolls on his shoulder, practically knocked out from my punch. I grab him by the front of his shirt and half lift him off the bean bag.

“Where’s JC?” I growl.

The other pot smoker has been thrown to the ground, rifles pointed at his head by my men. He’s already pissed himself, weeping into the carpet as he begs for mercy.

“JC…” mumbles the guy I’m gripping. “What… you’ve… you’ve got the wrong place, man.”

I look up in the same second a third man appears in the hallway connecting the living room and kitchen with the bedroom and bathroom.

I recognize him immediately.

Finch Freedman.

Otherwise known as the mastermind in Katerina’s little group. The same man who had orchestrated the kidnapping attempt and then subsequently ditched her at the apartment when I was tied up like the fucking coward he is.

A rage so blinding I black out comes over me.

For the next sixty seconds, I’m a bull charging through the apartment.

Chaos explodes as my men hold the two pot smokers at gunpoint and then a few of them break off to follow me in my pursuit of Finch.

I come to in the bedroom, on top of a gasping Finch. Half his teeth knocked out, blood everywhere, my fist drawn back for yet another savage blow.

“Zver!” Oleg calls out. “Get the information first. You’ll kill him soon.”

He’s right—another few to the skull, and I’ll do permanent if not lethal damage to his brain.

I blink out of my dazed rage, breathing like a ragged beast. “Where is she?” I grunt, then I shake him by the front of his shirt. His head bobs like he’s a bobblehead. “WHERE IS SHE?”

“I don’t… know who…”

He can’t even finish before I give into my fury and punch him yet again. His head snaps back from the blunt force of mygiant, clenched fist. His eyes go vacant as if barely hanging onto consciousness.

“Where is Katerina?” I spit. “Your partner JC took her, ublyudok?*! Say it now or I’m ripping your fucking head off!”

“Do what you want! You already killed my brother. You think I give a fuc?—”

I unsheathe my hunting knife and ram it into his face before the last syllable. The fucker wasn’t about to give any info. The fucker, like JC, was getting revenge for Fozzil’s death. They’re defiant even now.

They’ve done something with Katerina and every second she’s out of my sight is another second closer to a grim ending.

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