I purse my lips, trying to find the right words. “Not really. More like a friend…a lady friend.”
“Lady friend? What’s that?” Mere’s eyebrows squish together in confusion. That was exactly everyone’s reaction when we met the girl for the first time. “Like a girlfriend?”
I grab my neck in irritation. Girlfriend is a much better word. “Something like that.”
“Holy crap! Uncle Luke has a girlfriend? And no one knew about her. That’s epic.”
Epic is an understatement, given how little we know about Luke’s personal life. I always thought the extent of his past was his dead parents and his life in a boys’ home.
“She might move in next to us.” I cock my head toward the main door, and farther to Lukas’s apartment in the same floor.
“Where is she now?” Clementine’s eyes find mine.
“She won’t budge from the hospital until Luke gets up.”
* * *
It’s been a week since the shooting.
Our daredevil Lukas is still in the hospital.
He did open his eyes and confirmed that the girl at the hospital is not a con. Everyone has so many questions about her, about both of them, but that has to wait until he returns home.
Since the hit, the Kings Security office is bustling as we all try to find the fucker Mikhail Lebedev. Either he’s being sloppy, or we’re getting good at identifying his moves, but there have been no new abductions. St. Peppers Police Department has raided more than ten places in the past week. I can feel it in my gut that we are very close to catching him.
I glance at his grainy sketch on my table, when the phone rings.
“Keith, I got something.” Carter’s barely holding his excitement.
“Shoot.”
“I’m following the man we found lingering at the last three abduction sites.”
I hum a yes. All the trainees are out in the field, following the clues we’ve gathered so far.
“He keeps returning back to this motel. It’s a real shithole, but there’s security outside like it’s Fort Knox.”
“You think Lebedev is holed up there?”
“I do. I think his soldiers are reporting to him or something.”
My muscles tighten as I think hard, forming a plan to catch this fucker today. We can’t call the police until we are a hundred percent sure they’ll find Lebedev in this motel. “We need to go inside.”
An hour later, Gavin and I sit inside a mail truck. The motel, along with the dozens of men on the roof and in the parking lot, in clear sight.
“How do you want to proceed, Keith?” Carter’s voice comes through my phone speaker.
“He knows me, and maybe also Gavin. But you’re new to the team. I want you to go inside, in the ruse of reserving a room for tonight. Wear a wire and see if you can find anything. I’m sending a text to the police chief. With all this security, he’s got to be here.”
Gavin and I sit tight in the truck, watching Carter walk inside the motel. My jaw clenches, I want more than anything to see this guy behind bars. He has left my girls paralyzed in fear, my friend in the hospital. It’s high time for some payback.
Carter reaches the reception desk and we hear him asking the receptionist for a room. When she tells him that all the rooms are booked, my eyes scan the huge, almost-empty parking lot.
I send a text to the police chief, sharing my location.
Carter continues to talk to the lady for some more time, most likely eyeing the premises before walking out of the motel. A few of Lebedev’s men stationed on the first floor draw their weapons until Carter is seated inside his car. My own hand slides to my gun holster.
“He’s there, Keith. You saw the empty parking lot?” Carter says in a breathy voice.