Page 48 of The Payback

“All of them have trackers for security. She was transported separately from the others and slipped her guard.”

He must have moved her separately to keep his involvement with the others disconnected. He must be kicking himself right about now. My brain stalls on something he just said. The others have trackers. I didn’t tell Agent Kim that. How the fuck didn’t I know? Why didn’t I ask?

Dimitri guesses my internal questions and leans closer to me. “They’re removed as soon as they arrive at the centre.”

Nik is vibrating on the seat beside Dimitri, the tension thick enough to cleave with an axe. “I can’t believe you requested a girl. That’s sick, D. And you”—he rounds on me—“you know he requested a child? And you don’t have a problem with that?”

“Shut the fuck up, Nikita,” Dimitri barks. “You have a problem with what’s going on? There’s the door.”

He wisely shuts up as he looks at the scenery flying by. We’re moving at speed now that we’re headed out of Manhattan, and that fall would hurt.

Not that I’d be opposed. The bastard has it coming. I eye the door and wonder if I can shove him out of it. Adrenaline spikes within me, and I know part of the imagery in my head is because of that. The rest is out of pure spite for fucking me and betraying my trust.

“She’s stopped moving,” Dimitri says with a mix of relief and fear, then lists off an address for his driver.

We fly across a bridge as we make our way to Brooklyn. “Where is she?” I ask, slipping into work mode. I need all the information before we just show up and scare this poor child half to death.

“Looks like it’s a junkyard,” Dimitri answers, clicking a few things on his phone and showing a Google Maps overhead view of the area. It’s not a massive lot, which gives me hope we’ll be able to find her before someone else does.

When we arrive, the driver hits the brakes, and I fling open the door, spilling from the back seat with Dimitri and Nik on my heels.

“What’s her name?” I ask, whipping around and finding the guys striding to the office and almost tearing the door off the hinges.

“Anya,” Nik calls over his shoulder as Dimitri shouts at someone within.

I tear into the lot, passing heaps of junk and calling out her name. She’s Russian and probably doesn’t know any English yet.

“Anya!Gde ty?” I call. “Where are you, sweetheart?” I keep the panic from bleeding into my voice and continue looking for her.

Dimitri catches up to me after he veered off to the right, checking along the chain-link fence surrounding us as Nik scours the other side of the lot.

After peering into what must be the fiftieth car and finding nothing, Nik shouts from the other side. “Over here!”

I race towards his voice, Dimitri keeping pace just behind me until I slip through a narrow passage he can’t get his body through. He growls in frustration and takes off in another direction to find his way to Nik.

Nik is looking up at a pile of cars, his gaze aimed at the window of the third one in the stack. There’s blood on the window frame, and he’s speaking to the girl hiding inside, her hair just visible over the edge of the window frame. “Vse v poryadke, malen’kaya l’vitsa. Ya ne prichinyu tebe vreda.”

I only catch snippets of Nik’s words, but he’s telling her he won’t hurt her, something I doubt she trusts. A blonde head peeks over the window, and her eyes go from Nik to me. Tears well and spill down her cheeks.

“Hi. I’m Ellie.” I place my hand on my chest in introduction. I talk to her like I would want someone to speak to Bella if she ever found herself lost in a strange place, not knowing the language or location. “We’ll get you home to your mama and papa.”

I don’t move closer, letting her see I don’t intend to threaten or harm her, and when Nik shifts his stance, she ducks into the car again. “Nik, walk away.”

He looks from where Anya was poking out to me, then back again. “Okay, I’ll be behind the blue car at your six.”

I nod that I’ve heard him, and when he walks away, Anya pokes her head out again, watching him go. Dimitri is on the other side of the car pile, out of sight from Anya, with poking his head around to observe but not getting in the way.

“Anya, I want to take you home,” I say. “Dom.”Home.

She nods quickly, her lower lip wobbling as tears spill.

I keep my feet planted but lift my arms to her, inviting her to join me. “Take home?” she asks quietly in simple English. She seems about seven, and her English is not great, but so long as we understand each other, I couldn’t care less.

A gentle smile spreads across my face, and I nod. “Yes, sweetheart. We will help get you home.”

She briefly studies my face before nodding and shimmying her little body from the broken mess of the car she was hiding in. “Help?” she asks as she hangs from the window frame, her hand bloodied where she must have scraped it on one of these tetanus-riddled rust buckets.

I step closer and carefully take her around the waist, pulling her into my arms. She spins and wraps her too-skinny arms around my neck, hugging me close. My injured arm hurts like a motherfucker as I cradle her, but it doesn’t matter. I’d do anything to help this little one feel safe.

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