Page 161 of Blood & Snow

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27

XANDER

I've been driving for twelve hours.

Every street.

Every alley.

Every safehouse and contact point I know.

I've torn through Moscow looking for her, and I've found nothing.

The warehouse on Prospekt Mira was empty when I arrived.

Not abandoned—empty.

Fresh tire tracks in the snow.

Cigarette butts still warm on the ground.

They'd been there.

They'd waited for me.

And then they'd moved her.

Three men stayed behind to finish me.

They came at me from the shadows, guns drawn, confident I'd walk into their trap unarmed and desperate.

They were half right.

I was desperate.

But I wasn't unarmed, and I wasn't stupid.

I put two bullets in the first one before he cleared his weapon.

The second one got a shot off, but it went wide.

I closed the distance and buried my knife in his throat.

The third one ran. I chased him down in the snow and beat him until he told me where they'd taken her.

He lied.

The address he gave me was another empty building. Another dead end.

I left his body in the alley and kept searching.

Now the sun's rising over the city and my eyes burn.

My hands ache from gripping the steering wheel.

My phone sits on the passenger seat, completely useless.

There have been no more messages, no calls.

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