Consciousness
came slowly, in waves. The sense of hearing returned to her first.
There was a woman’s voice whispering. Her whispers sounded
frantic, but they also sounded fervent. Like prayers. Yes, that
was it…they were prayers. Someone was praying beside her, but
the words were not in English. They were Russian.
Alexis found she could translate them. Though her head seemed to
be exploding each time she attempted to move it, some part of her
brain still cooperated with her. And the whispered words…repeated
over and over…finally sifted through her haze of pain and she
could understand them.
“I pray for Thy protection, O God, now and at the hour of my
death…”
Alexis moaned. She wanted to open her eyes and orient herself, to
look to the whispering woman and find out what was happening. But
each time she tried to force her lids open a blinding pain would
arrow straight through her forehead.
“Do not move, Ms. Davis,” came the whisper. “The
man…he hit you very hard. You are bleeding. Just stay still.”
The sense of touch returned next. Alexis registered that she lay
against a cold, hard floor…it felt like a cellar floor. She
felt a gentle hand swipe at her brow, rubbing liquid from her skin.
She moaned when the fingers brushed over a tender spot on her skull.
“Please,” she said, her voice a harsh rasp of air.
“Shh, be still. The man, he is upstairs making calls. He seems
worried…like he is in trouble with Helena. He seems not to
know what to do.”
“Kristina,” Alexis groaned, trying in vain once again
to open her eyes.
“She is well. She was asleep upstairs when he broke in. I think
she is still asleep.”
Understanding slowly dawned and Alexis struggled to prop her self
up on her elbows. Too weak to do so, she subsided in a heap, sobbing
raggedly. “Please, he’s going to take her. We have to
stop him.”
“Shh, you tried. We both did. He has a gun. He may hurt us…he
may hurt her. We have to do as he says.”
“No, no, I can’t let him take her…”
She struggled to sit up again but the pain slashed through her head
so viciously it robbed her of speech and movement. This time she
subsided onto the floor in complete defeat, sobs wracking her body.
A single thought flitted through her mind just before the darkness
took over.
Sonny, please find us…
***
Sonny inhaled deeply, knowing this was the most important moment
probably of his whole life. He’d taken down foes before, but
this time he was doing it to save his daughter’s life…the
life he had created with Alexis. If he let her down today…if
he lost her and Kristina, it would finish him.
Johnny walked around the perimeter of the small clapboard house
on Windsor Street in a crouch so that he couldn’t be seen through
the windows. No movement outside, he noted. And no obvious signs
of life within Nadia Brehznikov’s home.
The back of the house was being covered by two of Sonny’s other
men. Sonny himself had crept onto the rickety wooden porch and was
peering through the glass beside the front door. He stood in the
shadows avoiding the gleam of the streetlight, drawing his gun out
to his side at the ready.
Silently, Sonny checked that Nikolas had taken cover beside a parked
car on the street. Then he motioned for Johnny and Luke to come
up onto the porch. Sonny met Johnny’s eyes solemnly, then held
up three fingers and slowly counted them down to one. As he reached
the final number, his tensely coiled body sprang into action as
he kicked in the front door and burst into the house.
Arms outstretched with their guns waving wildly in every direction,
they sped through the one floor residence, checking for indications
of human presence in the darkened rooms. What they found was a small
silent place, two tiny bedrooms only, a kitchen that had seen better
days and needed to see a new coat of paint, and a living room filled
with Matchbox cars and Tonka trucks, the things little boys liked
to play with. On the mantle above one of those artificial fireplace
heaters were photos. As soon as Johnny told Sonny the inside of
the place was all clear, Sonny reset the safety on his weapon and
slid it into his waistband.
“Where the hell are they?” he asked himself, swinging
his eyes about the tiny living room looking for any sign that the
two most important females in his life had ever been here at all.
Frustrated, he banged a fist against the mantle, unsettling a few
of the framed photos. He lifted his bleary eyes to examine them.
There were many that had been taken of a couple he assumed were
Nadia and Yuri. Some were of two boys, their children according
to Alexis. There were other ones taken in a tropical setting. On
an island, maybe? These looked older than the first set, their colors
faded while one was even taken in black and white. That was the
photograph that captured his attention.
It was of youngish Yuri standing by a beautiful black pony. Astride
it was a girl perhaps in her preteens, clad in formal riding gear,
her serious expression belying her age. She was a beautiful child,
but painfully slender, her eyes large in her small face. As Sonny
looked, he noticed that she was biting her bottom lip. His mouth
twisted in a small, wistful smile.
Alexis.
Without knowing quite what he was doing, Sonny lifted the tiny,
framed photo from the mantle and slipped it into his pocket.
“It looks like it’s clear, boss,” Johnny called from
another room.
“Not so fast,” Luke rejoined. “Come in here, guys.
There’s a loose floor board in the kitchen. Looks like there’s
a cellar downstairs.”
Sonny and Johnny joined Luke and saw that there was indeed some
kind of panel in the wooden floor. “Let’s pull it up,”
Sonny cried eagerly.
“No, gentleman, let’s not.”
The voice came from behind Sonny, and all three men looked up and
froze. Because the man they’d all been chasing for days now
stood before them, his tell-tale ponytail being twirled in the fingers
of the sweetest little cherub Sonny had ever seen. Kristina.
In the arms of Johan Christopher, Helena’s assassin, perilously
close to the snub-nosed revolver shaking in the man’s sweaty
hand…was Sonny’s only daughter.
