“No!” I scream but my voice is lost in the shadows. “No!”
“Alyssa.”
“Get away from me!”
“Hey, now. It’s okay. Shh.”
“Give them back to me! Please, God, just—”
“Alyssa.”
I gasp, my eyes springing open as those huge, talon-tipped shadow hands grab hold of me. No—not shadow hands. Uri’s hands.
His face hangs over me in the gloom, eyes bright, teeth white. “It’s okay. You were just having a nightmare.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t a nightmare. It actually happened to me,” I whisper gasp, holding on to him tight. “Those men… I remember them now… the ones who took Polly…”
Uri’s eyes go wide. “What do you remember, Alyssa?”
My heart is racing. There was something specific I remembered. Something I know is important. But it’s slipping away fast.
What word were they saying? They said it again and again in a voice like thunder, low and rumbling and so deep I felt it in my bones. Ommm… Dommm…
“Dominik!” I blurt suddenly. “They mentioned a name when they dragged her away. Dominik. That’s what they said.”
Uri’s expression is unreadable but the urgency on his face is evident enough—this is the breakthrough we needed.
He nods once, presses a kiss to my forehead and gets off the bed.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
He starts pulling on his clothes in a frenzy. Instead of answering me, he leans in again and catches my lips with his. It’s a hard kiss—forceful, passionate, full of promise. When he breaks away from me, his eyes are bright. “I’ll be back, okay?”
And with that, he’s gone.
26
URI
The door bursts open and Nikolai sweeps in. “Anything from Kruger yet?”
I’m staring down at my phone waiting for it to ring. “Nothing yet.”
He walks over to my desk but doesn’t sit down. His eyebrows are arched and his skin looks pale. “How did you get the name?”
“Alyssa. She had a dream a few hours ago and when I woke her up, she had that name on her lips.”
“No last name, though?”
“No, but I’m hoping this will be enough. Sit down.”
“I can’t sit,” Nikolai complains, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll self-combust if I sit still.” He goes to the window instead and looks out over the lawn. Apart from the recessed garden lights, everything is shrouded in darkness.
Ring-ring. Ring-ring.
I grab the phone and put it on speaker for Nikolai’s benefit. “Kruger?”
“I got two hits, boss,” he says breathlessly. “The first one is Dominik Drozdov. No one you’d have any reason to know. He’s a small-time hitman and gun for hire who’s been known to dabble in the rings from time to time.”
My teeth gnash together. “And the second hit?”
“Dominik Evanoff.”
I glance towards Nikolai, whose eyes are wide with surprise. “As in the pahkan of the Evanoff Bratva?”
“That’s the one, boss.”
My gut stirs uncomfortably. “Dig up whatever you can find about both men. I need to be sure which one we’re after.” After I hang up, I twist my swivel chair towards Nikolai who’s still by the window. “We’ve never had a problem with the Evanoffs.”
Nikolai nods in agreement. “They’ve always been happy to function on a lower scale, defer to you as the alpha.”
“Unless something has changed…？”
Nikolai shakes his head. “The Evanoffs do most of their work out of Russia. They’d never challenge us Stateside like this. That’d be ludicrous. Straight-up suicide.”
“I agree. But we need to make sure.” I pick up my phone and dial in a Russian number that I haven’t called since before Alyssa made an appearance on my fence.
“Privet, cousin,” Dimiv answers. “It’s been a while.”
“Unfortunately, this is not a social call.”
“I didn’t think so. Isn’t it the middle of the night in your neck of the woods?”
“Sleep is for the weak, dvoyurodnyy brat.”
“Tell me what is the matter. I will do whatever I can to help from here.”
“I need you to look into the Evanoffs.”
I hear the rustle of him moving in surprise. “Have they crossed you?”
No, but Nikolai crossing the room again and again will drive me insane long before the Evanoffs will drive me into an early grave. I breathe out and remind myself to focus. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Before I make my move, I need to be sure.”