Half Empty (First Wives, #2)(90)

“You’re lying.”

He looked at the camera. “I was told she didn’t have them.”

“Katrina lies.”

Keep him talking. Buy time. “Says Donald Duck.”

Wade saw the punch coming, tightened his abs.

He coughed several times, felt bile rise in his throat. “Fine, whatever. Someone have a phone? Let’s call her right now. Of course, she’s bound to call the police once she realizes what’s going on.” Wade calling her would give them the trace they needed to find out where she was, which wasn’t a risk Wade was willing to take.

“You’ll have to convince her not to if you want to live to see another concert. If you want to see your mother alive again.”

C’mon, Reed.

“You could have a career in music, Petrov. I’ll be Alvin, and you be the chipmunks.”

Wade’s head flew back with the punch. “Not the face.”

“Clearly you’re not taking me seriously, Mr. Thomas. Let’s see how well your mother likes looking in the mirror after I remove her ear.”

Vicki started to shake her head, and the next thing Wade saw was the floor as the camera fell and went blank.

At the same time, Reed’s team broke the silence.

Wade used the distraction, buckled his knees, and dove for the floor. Between attempting to hold Wade up and pulling their guns out, the men holding Wade let go.

The window on the east side of the room crashed open and someone kicked in the door.

Wade covered his head and ducked around a half wall and heard a few soft popping sounds and the heavy thud and grumbling of men.

The room grew silent outside of Donald Duck’s voice. “Zakhar?”

Wade looked up to see two men wearing street clothes and face masks that made it difficult to see the color of their eyes. One of them had to be Reed, but Wade couldn’t make out which one he was.

They hadn’t shot and killed the men in the room, but they would be wiping their asses with their left hands for some time to come.

The team worked quickly and quietly, wrapping bloody hands, feet, and mouths together.

“Which one of you—”

“Uh-uh.” One of the masked men put a finger to his lips, tossed Wade the duct tape.

“Zakhar?”

Wade ignored Donald Duck.

That is, until a woman’s voice came through the speakers.

“Hello, Father.”

Wade froze. So did the other men in the room.

Donald’s voice was replaced by something much more serious.

Ruslan’s.

“Natasha?”

One of the team turned to Wade, their voice altered, but not in a duck kind of way. “You have no idea who we are.”

The masked man Wade assumed was Reed turned to leave.

“Where is my mother?”

The man pointed out the door. “One floor down.”

As fast as the masked men arrived, they left.

Wade ran out into the hall.



He was staring at the living dead.

A zombie, and vampire . . . Natasha was at the bottom of a cliff with a broken neck. Only, the woman staring at him now was her, reincarnated and calling him Father.

“You seemed surprised to see me.” She walked around the chair in the sitting room, her long, lean legs enveloped in black spandex.

“Natasha is dead.”

“You would know that, since you killed her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

This woman’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t insult me.”

A memory burned bright in his head. “You’re the daughter.”

She held a hand to her chest. “I’m touched. You remembered.”

Ruslan looked beyond her, toward the door, and called out to his men in Russian.

The woman laughed, responded in Russian. “They have drugs so powerful in Africa that one drop into the bloodstream and phew! Down you go. I have waited my whole life for this moment, do you think I’d let two thugs at the door stop me?”

“What do you want?” Ruslan asked in English.

“You dead would be ideal, but I’ll settle for life in prison without a chance for parole.”

He kept his hands from reaching for the gun he had at his hip. “How do you plan on managing that?”

“I waited until you screwed up. You’ve been doing that quite a lot since you killed my brother.”



“Mama?”

Wade lifted his mother off the floor and into his arms. The pain in his side told him not to walk very far.

“I should have stayed home,” she said as she dropped her head on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

She looked up at him, her eyes swollen with tears. “I didn’t want them to hurt you.”

He took care in setting her back in the chair, although seeing her there made him want to run out of the room.

Sirens grew closer.

“Wade? Vicki?” Jeb’s loud, booming voice, along with the sound of running footsteps, came from the hall.

“In here.”

Jeb paused at the door long enough to take in the situation. He kicked the side of a wounded man lying on the floor, his body bound in a way to keep him from moving until he had assistance.