Lost(17)

Billy, as friendly as ever, said, “Lila was here just a minute ago. I’m sure she’ll be right back.”

The other Russian, Tibor, winked at me.

I don’t know what he thought would happen. I don’t know who they were used to dealing with. But it didn’t matter. I brought my hand up to his crotch and used the strength I’d been working on since the coach had told me I needed a better grip on the football twenty years ago. I felt Tibor’s testicles mash in the palm of my hand.

He gasped and his eyes rolled back in his head as I maintained my hold and pushed him against the bar. No one saw what was going on except for his friend Billy.

I turned to Billy and calmly said, “My next move will be to rip his balls right off him. I doubt he wants that to happen. What do you think?”

Billy struggled to maintain his composure and said, “I think you just committed felony assault. I think you need to release him right now. We’re part owners of this club and there’s a Fort Lauderdale police officer working the front door.”

“Why don’t you go get him? I’ve got a few questions to ask him myself. And if I don’t see my sister in the next thirty seconds, your buddy here isn’t going to have any kids and you’re going to have a pistol stuck halfway down your throat. Is that what you want to happen in your nice little club here?”

Then I heard Lila from the other end of the bar. “Hey, Tommy, I see you met my friends.”

I turned to see my little sister wobbling toward me with a stunning young woman whose arm was draped around her shoulder.

I released Tibor’s balls. He stumbled back and plopped onto a barstool without a word.

I turned to Billy and said, “This is not cool.”

“What do you mean? Your sister making new friends? I thought it was very cool.”

Lila came up to me, unaware of any potential violence, and said, “This is Nadia, Billy, and”—she looked at the man I had nearly castrated—“and their friend.”

I took her by the arm and started to drag her out of the club.

Lila tried to yank her arm away from me and said, “Hey, what the hell are you doing? I thought you were okay with me calling you for a ride now and then.”

We burst out of the club into the warm night air of South Florida. No one paid any attention to us.

This wasn’t the time to explain things to her. As soon as we were both in my Explorer, I pulled out of the spot and rolled past the club.

Billy stood just outside the door and gave me a friendly smile and a wave.





CHAPTER 22





THE TALK WITH Lila went about like I’d expected it would. She said I was too suspicious; I told her she was too naive. In the end, she agreed not to go back to that club or any of the other ones Rostoff owned. She also promised she’d check in with Anthony Chilleo every couple of days while I was away.

Chill told me that he’d keep an eye on things. When a guy like Anthony Chilleo tells you he’ll take care of something, you can be confident it will be taken care of.

Two days later, the kids and I were all on a KLM flight from Miami International to Amsterdam. The two youngest girls were next to me, and the other four kids were across the aisle spread out over two rows in front of me. The man across from me asked if we were on some sort of school field trip. Some of the passengers looked relieved I wasn’t sitting beside them. No one wants to be stuck next to a big guy in economy for eleven hours.

The kids were not excited about going back to Amsterdam. Annika from Finland had told me she lived there with her mother, but her mother’s drug problem had gotten so bad that she could no longer function. Once Annika’s mother had gotten into the social services network of Holland, Annika had lost touch with her completely. Two months ago, she’d learned her mother had died, and she’d decided to start fresh in the United States. She met a woman who promised to get her to America and said Annika could work off the debt once she got there. She had no other choice at that point.

Joseph’s story affected me deeply, maybe because I was so close to my sister. He had left Gdansk, Poland, with his sister, Magda. While traveling through Germany, they were caught up in a protest of the European Union’s refugee policy. They’d gotten separated in the crowd just as the police arrived. Joseph waited four days in Berlin, avoiding social services, hoping to find his sister. He hadn’t had any success. Now she was all he thought about.

The younger girls, Olivia and Michele, had essentially been tricked into coming to the United States. I didn’t even want to think what someone had had in store for them.

I noticed Jacques fidget in his seat, then lower his head. I went over and knelt down by the fifteen-year-old Belgian boy and said quietly, “You okay, Jacques?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“More embarrassing than me admitting I was the worst football player on my college team?”

That made him smile. Finally, he said, “I’m a little scared. This is only my second flight. This waiting is making me nervous. I wish we’d just take off.”

I glanced around, then said to Jacques, “Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

He did as I asked.

I said, “Now think about the most exciting thing you can. Feel the excitement.”

A smile slipped across the boy’s face.