Vengeance (Updating Weekly)

Part 7

This place really is a hotel. It's 6 stories high, with a total of 100 rooms. Some are entire suits like mine, with their own bathroom and dining area, some have their own lounge room and kitchen, but most are smaller rooms with shared bathrooms. The ground floor holds communal spaces, like the cafeteria, a gym, and lounges. I tried to pay as much attention as I could to fire exits and other ways out, but it's going to take a few more laps to fully understand the place. There's another, similar, structure on the other side of the island, too, meaning there are about 200 people on the island that I'll have to manage to escape. It seems almost impossible, but I have to keep it in mind as an option. One wrong step, and it could become my only option.

Atticus finally leads me into a room amongst a series of offices. It's a conference room, with a large table in the centre and piles of paperwork spread out over it. All but two chairs are piled up in the corner. Maps and photographs fill the walls, some linked together with twine. It looks like one of those murder boards you'd see on detective shows. I take a closer look. The maps are mostly of different areas of Greece, but others are of New York. There are several floor plans of the prison Vassilis is located at, each from different angles. Photos of different men surround them, who I can only assume are Vassilis' accomplices. There are images of Vassilis, too, dressed in his dark grey prison clothes, moving around the yard. Seeing him makes me shiver. He's grown a beard since I last saw him, and his hairline has receded further. My stomach churns, hatred rising within me. He took my mum from me.

"Why don't you just hire another prisoner to kill him?" I ask.

"We've tried that," Atticus responds.

"What about hiring a guard to do it?"

"Tried that too."

"What about a sniper?

"Tried it."

"Have you had one of your men arrested purely to get in there and kill him?"

"Anything you think of, we've already tried. Just look at this," he slides a large binder across the table. "This is everything we've tried so far."

"Jesus." It's the thickest binder of them all — filled to the brim with paperwork. "He's not that indestructible."

"No, but he's a snake. He's slippery. We may have gotten him into prison, but he's got half the population in his pocket. We can't get to him in there."

"And you think I'll know another way?" I question.

"Maybe. He's smart. He knows us. He knows how we think and he knows how we operate. Everything we've done, he's seen coming. He doesn't know you, not in the same way. He doesn't know how your mind works, or what you might come up with."

"I don't know how to think about this type of stuff. I don't know what would work."

"Yes, you do," he furrows his brows. "You can't tell me you haven't been planning a way out of here since we arrived."

Alright, that's a fair point, but still, I have no idea how to go about this. I don't know what to look out for or how to plan something like this. But, if it means Vassilis dies and I get to go back home, I will do what I can.

"So what's the current situation, then?" I begin.

"We have it on good authority that Vassilis will be escaping soon. We think this will be via a delivery truck, but we can't confirm this yet."

"If he gets out, where will he go?"

"We're still waiting on that information, but we're tracking every vehicle leaving the prison. He has a few property's around the area, but it seems unlikely that he would be going somewhere familiar. He'd know we're watching those properties."

"Where are they?" I ask. He motions to one of the maps. It shows all of Europe. The map beside it narrows in on the Eastern countries, and the one beneath it shows Greece only. Red pins point to specific locations. "Do you think he'll leave the country?"

"Most likely, yes."

"Well, your map is wrong," I point out. "There are no pins in Belarus."

"He doesn't have property there. That's Sokolov territory."

I know about the Sokolovs. They're the epitome of a violent gang. They're the largest Russian mafia and the Stavros' biggest enemy. Vassilis's lawyer tried to pin one of his charges on them.

"He has an estate there. My mum used to talk about it all the time, how he wanted to take her there and show her these lakes in the north."

"The Braslaw Lakes?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," I insist. She'd never shown an interest in Belarus before, but she wouldn't shut up about it.

"See, this is why we need you," Atticus adds a pin to the board. "A property we don't know about — that's his most likely location, especially if it's on Sokolov territory."

"Won't they kill him if he enters their land?"

"Not if he's working for them."

"Oh." That's bad. That's very bad. If a Stavros enters Sokolov land, they'll be killed instantly. It would lead to a full-blown war. "We have to get him before he leaves the country, then. Transportation is the most vulnerable point, anyway."

"We have a sniper on standby outside the prison, but it's the most obvious choice, so he will likely have planned around that. We can put another sniper on him once we've got his location, but can't rely on one plan. Too much has failed. We need several in motion at the same time. We have to get this done."

"Well, you could always use me as bait," I say. It's more of a test than a suggestion. I'm sure the idea has crossed his mind, too. He shakes his head.

"No, we won't be doing that. It's not worth the risk." His words surprise me. I didn't think he would care about my life more than ending his father's. If anything, I expected it to be his plan for me all along. It would be the easiest way to lure him out. But Atticus doesn't even seem to be considering it as an option.

"Why not?" I quiz. "Once he finds me, he'll take me straight to him. You could follow."

"It's not happening," his scowl deepens. A hint of frustration flickers in his eyes. "Putting an innocent's life in danger would make me just as bad as he is."

The hatred I felt towards Vassilis before, I now see in Atticus. He despises his father. Killing him seems less like a business decision now. It's personal. Atticus has suffered at his hands, too. He knows exactly what type of man his father is. I see him in a different light now — a better one. We have a shared interest and a common goal. We want Vassilis to suffer. Atticus breaks eye contact, feeling the intensity just as much as I do. He reaches for another binder on the table.

"What do you want me to do?" I ask him. I need some kind of idea of where to start with this.

"Here," he passes the binder over. "This is everyone we know that works for him. Look through it and see if you find any weak spots we've missed."

"Alright. I can do that."

"I have to head off to a meeting, but you're joining us for dinner tonight."

"Us?"

He nods. "My brothers want to meet you."

Super. The rest of the Stavros'. Vassilis has so many offspring, I have no idea how many will be there. I can't imagine they're all involved with this lifestyle. There are probably kids out there who don't even know they're related to the family.