Page 70 of Call Sign: King
Ryder heard Alexi’s arrival before the loud sports car came into view. Four years ago, it had been a Lamborghini that had screeched to a halt in front of the all-night sex club. Tonight, it was a bright red Ferrari.
“It’s not too late. You can back out,” Torch’s voice came from the tiny earpiece Ryder wore in his right ear.
“It’s our best shot at getting the info we need,” he answered just before reaching out to open the passenger side door.
Leaning down, Ryder looked across at the driver. The man behind the wheel looked twenty years older than the carefree man who’d picked him up in this very spot just four years earlier.
“You getting in, or change your mind?” Alexi taunted, glancing around nervously as if they were being watched.
“You sure you weren’t followed?” Ryder asked.
“I’m sure. I just picked up this car an hour ago from one of my many car lots to make sure I was driving something clean.”
Smart.
Taking a leap of faith, Ryder slid into the low-riding leather seats. As Alexi gunned the gas, Ryder added, “I see you still drive like shit.”
While he had no desire for small talk, Ryder knew he needed to be at least a little patient. He needed to draw Alexi out carefully to gauge if he were more friend or foe at this point.
“I see you didn’t come alone. I already spotted your tail,” Alexi said, glancing up into the rearview mirror.
“How do you know they’re mine and not Vlad’s?” Ryder asked, truthfully paranoid Vlad did have his goons watching Alexi.
“Vlad is too self-absorbed to be worrying about me,” Alexi answered, taking a corner so fast Ryder’s body pressed against the car door from the centrifugal force.
As much as Ryder wanted to believe that he was less sure.
Several blocks of seedy establishments whizzed by as the men sat in awkward silence. It was Alexi who broke the quiet.
“I have to admit. I never thought I’d see Nicolai Romanovski again. Not after the coup you pulled off four years ago.”
Waiting until Alexi glanced his way, he finally answered. “The name is Ryder Helms.” Sharing his real name was a calculated risk. Obviously, Vlad already knew more than enough about Ryder’s true identity to do catastrophic damage. Exposing his real name to Alexi at this point had been Doc’s idea. An olive branch toward building trust with the only possible ally they might have on the inside of the Volkov crime family.
If his revelation surprised Alexi, he didn’t let it show. Instead, the driver weaved them through the busy downtown streets, still bustling with open bars, strip joints, and dance clubs. Ryder covered his face as they stopped at a red light, unwilling to leave visual proof in the red-light cameras that he and the head of the Volkov Bratva had connected.
A minute later, Alexi turned down a deserted alley, still driving fast enough that Ryder could see the stray newspapers strewn across the crumbling pavement flying up into the air after they’d passed.
Ryder had just started to worry they might be ambushed and trapped in the small street when the car jutted out into the four-lane highway that ran along the Moskva River that cut the city of Moscow into northeast and southwest halves. Less than a minute later, Alexi navigated across the lanes of fast-moving traffic, pulling to the side of the road under one of the many bridges that crossed over the river.
Ryder scanned the area, wondering if the half-dozen bodies huddled around the two burning drums spewing black smoke were really homeless people or some of Alexi’s men. When Alexi turned off the engine and spun in his seat so he could look at Ryder, Ryder decided it didn’t matter and blurted out the only question he really cared about at that moment.
“Do you know where he’s holding her?”
Alexi’s glare hardened.
“Even if I do, what makes you think I’m going to tell you?”
“Because you have as much to lose by Vlad coming back to life as I do.” Ryder almost choked on his lie. There was absolutely nothing on this planet more important than Khloe Monroe’s safety, but he wouldn’t get Alexi’s help telling him that. “How long have you known?” Ryder tacked on.
“That he was alive?” The men’s stare-down lasted long seconds until Alexi admitted, “I’ve known since just a few days after we had the three funerals for the brothers.”
Shit. The chances of Alexi wanting to help just plummeted. Still, the bastard hadn’t shot Ryder yet, so there was that.
In Ryder’s silence, Alexi filled in the answers to questions Ryder hadn’t even asked yet.
“In the beginning, we weren’t even sure if he’d pull through. He spent the first year in and out of consciousness — high on pain meds — hidden away in the make-shift ICU we set up in the same room where you started this whole fiasco.”
“I didn’t start shit,” Ryder barked. “Viktor and his sons went too far when they kidnapped Maggie Marshall and her two young daughters and don’t tell me you didn’t agree at the time. I was there. I saw the look of horror on your face as they brought them in to be raped and tortured in front of us. An innocent American woman was one thing — but two children… that was a line I could not cross.”
