Whiskey Sunrises

37-Finding Her

Nikolai

Angry. Frustrated. Homicidal. Bloodthirsty.

They took Alayla. It felt like I had just gotten her back, we had just cleared everything up. She understood, she fucking sympathized, and now she was gone. I hadn't slept for more than a few hours at a time the week she first week she was gone and we were well into the second, the nightmares haunting me only getting worse. I dreamed of Alayla getting tortured, raped and killed each time I closed my eyes, her screams haunting me each second of the day. I thought that the screams that came from her mangled Jeep would be the worst thing to ever be stuck in my mind, but at least I knew she would be somewhat alright. I had absolutely no idea what those bastards were doing to her and my dreams were telling me to fucking find her before it got worse. The petrified look in her eyes was something I would remember well into whatever afterlife awaited me.

I had men working around the clock to track her down while I beat every man I could find that was working for Petrov within an inch of his life, Alexei finishing the job when I was done. He flew out with us the moment we found out that Alayla was taken to Russia a few days prior, vowing to help me end this once and for all. He didn't  want every member of our family to fear for their significant other's life anymore, he didn't want us to keep looking over our shoulders and wonder if we were really free. We both wanted that, and I would be lying through my teeth if I said we weren't looking forward to having revenge.

Revenge for Alexei's lost love. Revenge for our child. Revenge for whatever they were putting Alayla through while we busted our asses looking for her. Revenge for nearly killing Sergei.

I thanked every deity I could think of that my woman was there to save him. He'd lost so much blood by the time we found him that we almost lost him, but he pulled through. He wasn't as strong as he should be, but after a full week went by with him in the hospital he was fed up, to put it lightly. He threatened to castrate us in ways I'd never thought possible, hissing out strings of curses when we tried to object. Alexei swore under his breath before telling Sergei to do whatever the hell he wanted because, and I quote, 'You'll be as useless and annoying as you are lying here, anyway! Maybe if you keel over we'll have some fucking peace and quiet.'

Turns out he was only half way right. Though Sergei was annoying as always, he proved to be quite useful. He  had dozens of contacts even my father had never known of (which made him absolutely livid and caused me to smile for the first time in what felt like years), and one of them ended up pointing us to Russia. Sergei had met with another informant after the private jet landed who helped us narrow Alayla's location down to three places. Ajax wanted to split into teams, get Alayla out and blow all of them up with as many explosives as possible, but it wouldn't work. Petrov would have a small army wherever he was keeping her and we needed as many men as we could get to keep her safe.

Lia was currently helping me figure out where they were most likely keeping her. The woman surprised all of us by taking charge (after swearing to all of us that she would personally cut off Petrov's balls), instructing us to get our heads out of our asses and keep them out until her girl was safe. We'd scratched out the first option, it was too small and after some investigation we'd found out that it was where he kept all of his extra arms & ammunition. Lia made herself a reminder to make sure that we had a particularly special bomb for whoever was handling that site.

"Right, so this one is big enough, but the building is really fucking old. Not the 'They don't make them like this anymore' old, the 'Kick the door hard enough and the wall will crumple to dust' kind of old. It's probably safe to assume that they're keeping her at the warehouse close to the docks." She explained, pushing a few stray curls from her forehead.