Page 75 of The Pakhan's Secret Babies
I look at him. “Why was Elena on 74th Street?”
“I don’t have that yet. Viktor’s call was fragmented. He was still on the scene. All I know is they were intercepted outside the building.”
“Get the car,” I say. “We go to Kessler first.”
He’s already moving.
The Kessler facility sits on 68th between Lexington and Third, a building that looks like a private medical practice from the outside because that is exactly what it’s supposed to look like. Inside it is something else, staffed by doctors who understand that the people brought through its doors sometimes arrive with complications that cannot be reported to the NYPD and who are compensated accordingly for that understanding.
The on-duty doctor meets me in the corridor outside the surgical suite. She is young, direct, and does not waste words.
“The bullet entered the left shoulder, missed the subclavian artery by approximately two centimeters,” she says. “We removed it without complication. She lost significant blood, but she is stable. She will be in recovery for the next hour.”
“I need to speak with her,” I say.
“She’s coming out of anesthesia. She’s not?—”
“I need to speak with her now.”
The doctor looks at me for a moment. Then she steps aside.
Mara is in the recovery room in a hospital gown with her left arm immobilized and an IV in her right. Her eyes are open when I come in, half-focused, moving to the door when she hears it, and when she sees me, they sharpen.
“Elena,” she says. Her voice comes out thick, slow from the anesthesia, but the word is clear. “Where is Elena?”
“I’m working on that,” I say. I pull the chair to the side of the bed, and I sit down, and I look at her. “I need you to tell me what happened this morning. Everything you remember.”
She blinks. Swallows. “We were at the penthouse. In the kitchen. We were just talking, having tea, when Elena grabbed the counter and said she was in pain. Sharp pain, low.” She pauses, her eyes going slightly unfocused before she pulls them back. “We thought it was the baby. We got scared. So we got in the car.”
I look at her. “There was no appointment scheduled.”
“No. We just went. Because she was in pain and we panicked.” Her jaw tightens. “Someone was waiting for us. The moment we got out of the car, they were already moving. Four of them, from both sides of the street at the same time.” She closes her eyes briefly. “They knew we were coming. They had to have known. Nobody moves like that without knowing.”
I sit with that for a moment.
Someone gave them the building on 74th. Someone knew that if Elena felt enough pain, she would leave the penthouse and go there. Someone either manufactured the reason or was positioned to move the moment any reason presented itself.
“The pain,” I say. “Has she had it before?”
“She had something similar weeks ago. The doctor said it was normal. Round ligament pain.” Mara’s eyes find mine. “Roman.” Her voice drops. “She’s twelve weeks. The baby.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m going to get her.”
Her hand moves on the bed toward me, slow, the IV pulling slightly. “She doesn’t know about any of this. The Bratva, thecouncil, Grigori. She has no idea what she’s in the middle of.” Her eyes are wet. “She’s just a girl who fell in love with the wrong man, and she doesn’t deserve?—”
“I know,” I say again.
I stand up.
Mara looks at me from the bed, her shoulder immobilized, her face pale, her eyes doing something that costs her something she doesn’t have to spare right now.
“Bring her home,” she says.
I look at her for a moment. “Rest,” I say. Then I walk out.
Kostya is in the corridor with his phone and two printed sheets, and he hands them to me before I reach him.
“Marchetti properties in the tri-state area,” he says, falling into step beside me. “We have been running every contact, every wire, every surveillance asset we have. A contact near the Hoboken waterfront reported unusual vehicle activity at the warehouse conversion on Sinatra Drive forty minutes ago. Two vans, additional personnel, all arriving within the same thirty-minute window.”
