Claim Me

Chapter 7

7

Lucas

By Saturday morning, I’m convinced that Yulia must be back in Ukraine. Diego and Eduardo were able to track her as far as Venezuela, but her trail seems to have gone cold there.

“I think she left the country,” Diego says when I call him for an update. “A private plane registered to a shell corporation filed a flight plan to Mexico, but there’s no record of it landing anywhere in that country. It must’ve been her people, and if that’s the case, she’s gone.”

“That’s not a fact. Keep looking,” I say, even though I know he’s most likely right.

Yulia got away, and if I’m to have any hope of recapturing her, I’ll have to widen the net and call on some of our international contacts.

I consider bringing Esguerra up to speed on the whole situation, but decide to postpone it until Sunday. Today is his wife’s twentieth birthday, and I know he’s not in the mood to be bothered. All my boss cares about is giving Nora everything she wants—including a trip to a popular nightclub in downtown Chicago.

“You do realize guarding that place will be a nightmare, right?” I tell him when he brings up the outing at lunchtime. “It’s too many people. And on a Saturday night—”

“Yes, I know,” Esguerra says. “But this is what Nora requested, so let’s figure out a way to make it happen.”

We spend the next two hours going through the club schematics and deciding where to station all the guards. It’s unlikely that any of Esguerra’s enemies will catch wind of this, since it’s such a spur-of-the-moment event, but we still decide to position snipers in the buildings nearby and have the other guards within a one-block radius of the club. My role will be to stay in the car and keep an eye on the club’s entrance, in case there’s any threat coming from that direction. We also work out a plan for securing the restaurant where Esguerra and his wife will have dinner before going to the club.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Esguerra says as we’re wrapping up. “Nora wants Rosa to join us at the club. Can you have one of the guards drive her there?”

“Yes, I think so,” I say after a moment of consideration. “Thomas can bring the girl to the club before taking his position at the end of the block.”

“That would work.” Esguerra rises to his feet. “I’ll see you tonight.”

He leaves the room, and I go outside to assign the guards their tasks.

Esguerra’s dinner outing passes without an incident, and afterwards, I drive him and Nora to the club. Rosa is already waiting there, dressed in the yellow dress she bought on our shopping trip. The moment Nora steps out of the car, Rosa runs up to her, and I hear the two young women chattering excitedly as they head into the club. Esguerra follows them, looking mildly amused, and I stay in the car, settling in for what promises to be a long, boring night.

After about an hour, I eat a sandwich I packed earlier and check my email. To my relief, there’s an update from our hackers.

Finally broke through the Ukrainian government’s firewalls and deciphered some files, the email reads. UUR is an acronym for Ukrainskoye Upravleniye Razvedki, which roughly translates to “Ukrainian Intelligence Bureau.” It’s an off-the-books spy group that was established in response to their main security agency’s corruption and close ties to Russia. We’re now working on decoding a message that may point to two UUR field operatives and a location in Kiev.

Smiling grimly, I write a reply and put away the phone. It’s only a matter of time before we take down Yulia’s organization. And once we do, she’ll have nowhere to run, no one to help her.

No lover she could return to.

My teeth clench as violent jealousy spears through me. Yulia could be with him already, with this Misha of hers. He could be holding her at this very moment.

He could even be f*****g her.

The thought fills me with blazing fury. If I had the man in front of me right now, I’d kill him with my bare hands and make Yulia watch. It would be her punishment for this latest betrayal.

A buzzing vibration from my phone cuts into my vengeful thoughts. Grabbing it, I read Esguerra’s text, and my blood turns to ice.

Nora and Rosa attacked, the message says. Rosa taken. I’m going after her. Alert the others.