So just pull the trigger.

37. Okay, give me the car keys

The ride home seemed to take forever. Misha would have wanted to drive, but Ivo had insisted that he should drive instead, claiming that he was too upset to pay prober focus on the traffic. His brother was perhaps right, but now he was driving far too slowly! After noting it out loud, Ivo snapped that he was already driving overspeed.

Jami and Anna sat quietly in the back seat; the atmosphere was nervous. Anna had called Yegor on their departure and explained the situation. The man had promised to go out to see if he could see Joni and said he would call back as soon as he could.

Yegor hadn't called back yet and wasn't answering his phone. It couldn't be a good sign.

When they finally got there, the house was dark and quiet. Ivo left the headlights on, and Misha got out of the car in a hurry. The snow was full of footprints, car tire tracks cruising here and there, deviating from the driveway to the yard. The porch window was broken and the front door was wide open. Misha was trembling, he felt the anxiety spread. Now, however, he was not allowed to collapse, he couldn't afford to collapse.

"Joni!" He called looking around while following the footprints and tire tracks on the snow, leading towards Yegor's house. The house next door had lights on.

In the distance, Misha could see a human figure, motionless in a snowdrift.

First, he wanted to hurry then he slowed down, fear squeezing his insides. His throat tightened. What if it was Joni? Misha shook his head and ran forward. After identifying the figure on the snow as Yegor, the relief was only temporary and quickly passed. The snow had stained dark with blood beneath the man, his face whitish white, gunshot wound on his forehead, his eyes close. There were clear traces of struggle in the snow nearby.

Misha swallowed, he had never seen a dead person before. Fear mixing with rage and shock he trembled as he hid his face and let out a desperate cry. The choking feeling in his throat spread to his chest, it felt unreal and horrible. He felt helpless, without solutions and it was the most horrid feeling he had ever felt. He had thought that after his parents' death, nothing could come close to that pain, but this... this was ... there were no words to describe how he felt.

The whole situation felt unreal. The fact that Yegor lay there dead, didn't seem real and his mind was reluctant to process what Yegors death meant.

He could hear the footsteps behind him. His grandmother moaned in aching grief, a sound that he had never heard her make before. Ivo said something, but the words didn't register. Joni had been taken... Joni might be alive still, but with two men, who... Misha didn't want to think about it, he couldn't without breaking. He had to keep up the hope, that Joni would be found before... Before they'd hurt him. Perhaps Joni was able to escape? But... It was such a cold night, Chris, or Aki, or both had guns and... No. Misha didn't want to think!

It was like in a nightmare, one you just wanted to wake up from. The sound of approaching sirens from afar. The cops were coming.

The police arrived and later after the crime scene investigator was finished with Yegor, the hearse. Jami had escorted their shocked grandmother inside the house just moments earlier and Misha now stared with numbness as the men lifted the covered body into the car.

Ivo stood by his side, hand on his shoulder to comfort and Misha just tried to make sense of what had happened. His mind was restless. They were wasting time! The authorities were just idly walking around here when they should have searched! – But where? He had never in his life felt such utter helplessness.

Joni's dad tried to call. Ivo spoke with him while the police were interviewing him about what had happened. Joni had been kidnapped and he had named the two men responsible on the phone to his father. Both had criminal records. Misha explained that Chris had a sick obsession with Joni, that they had lived together once, until Joni wanted to move out, and Chris had assaulted him. Chris had been in jail for it and met Aki there.