Page 23 of Sapphire Tears

His mouth opens and closes like a goldfish for a few seconds. “Uh, well… she was pretty.”

I grimace. “Word of advice, ‘friend’: you don’t want me to get impatient. When I get impatient, I get violent.” I let my eyes fall to the gun resting on the surface of my desk at my fingertips.

He gulps again even louder than the first time. “Brunette girl. Soft skin. Pretty pale. She had l-light brown eyes… nice, like—and really pink lips. Oh! And her arm was hurting. Looked like she’d been shot or something. She was also pregnant.”

I lean forward a little as hope rekindles in my chest. “Where is she?”

He shakes his head. “No way, boss man. I’m here because I want a payout. I want a million. In cash. Then I’ll start talking.”

“So you came here to extort me.”

He shuffles on his feet. His sweat is coming faster and faster with every passing second. “A man’s gotta eat. A man’s gotta survive.”

I rise to my feet. I always relish the moments when people take in my full size. When they see my hands flex and my eyes gleam and they realize just how much I’m capable of.

He raises his hands in feeble protest. “Kill me, and you’ll never find her.”

“Trust me—I will find her. There’s no question about that.”

His fat cheeks have started to go red with fear. “Listen, I was hired real sudden on this job. This man wanted me to kidnap this pregnant chick and take her to this barn out past the tire factory—”

“Barn?” I growl. “What barn?”

“She won’t be there anymore,” he explains quickly. “He came to rescue her. The man who hired me did.”

I frown as the gears in my brain churn. “Wait. The man who hired you… He paid you to kidnap this woman just so that he could rescue her?”

My ‘friend’ shrugs. “I didn’t ask questions. He was paying me, so I did what I was paid to do. Only the fucker went rogue on me! He told me he’d bust in and play the hero, maybe throw a couple of punches and get the girl. Except, then he brought a gun to a fist fight.”

I glance at his bleeding leg. It’s a flesh wound, but his weight is probably making the wound a lot more painful.

Realizing how much he’s already given away, he tugs at the collar of his shirt and says, “I’ll tell you the rest once you’ve paid me.”

I pace around my desk, scooping up my gun on the way. “Do you know who I am?” I ask pleasantly as I toy with the safety, flicking it on and off, on and off.

“Y-you’re Kolya Uvarov.”

“But whoamI?”

He blinks at me stupidly for a moment. “You’re… they say you’re the boss of this group… Uvarov Bratva.”

This time, I can’t hide my distaste. “A wiser man would have done his research before coming here tonight. A wiser man would know that trying to extort anything from a Bratva don is tantamount to suicide.”

“Tanta… what?”

“Jesus,” I mutter, rolling my eyes. “You’ll get five thousand dollars and your life. Refuse my generosity, and you get an early grave. Your choice.”

The idiot actually hesitates. Just long enough for me to flick the safety of the gun off one more time. “I-I’ll take the five thousand.”

“Good choice. Now,” I say, taking a threatening step forward, “tell me everything.”

10

KOLYA

A fuckinglaundromat.

In a way, it’s a clever choice. She’s been in the heart of the city this whole damn time. Hiding in plain sight.

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