ARAWN
I slap my phone against my thigh repeatedly as I look out of the window of the driving car.
“Elia says that he isn’t in the usual park,” Aleksei says as he disconnects the call, making me hum absentmindedly.
Maybe I should let him scurry around in peace, granting him the time he needs.
But I am afraid about him doing a stupidity, or worse, going looking for drugs again.
And the more I try to convince myself that it isn’t that dramatic, the bad sensation that I have in the pit of my stomach grows.
I wonder where Nerthus went to look for him, and I hope she got a better trace to follow than us, because she didn’t answer my last texts.
But maybe I’m just going crazy for nothing.
Another call reaches Aleksei, who takes it to learn that one of my men checked out another dealing spot, and he wasn’t there either.
Groaning, I lean back into my seat, continuing to play with my phone as it suddenly rings. I look at the unknown number and pick it up reluctantly.
“Oh, hello? Is there Aaraaan?” a sweet voice that I recognize immediately reaches my ear and I can’t even be mad at her as she still pronounces my name completely wrong.
“Yes, hi, Maria. How are you?” I ask with a chuckle.
She takes a deep breath and I hear her clasping the note she must have had lying around with my number on it.
“I’m fine, my dear. But listen, there was your boy at my door. He showed up and didn’t look good, and Amber doesn’t pick up her phone, so I thought I would call you. Is everything alright?” she asks worriedly, and I click my fingers to get Aleksei to move. “Thank you, Maria. I’ll be right there.”
“Nerthus’ apartment,” I whisper, getting him to turn to the driver to instruct him to turn around while Maria keeps talking about how she was preoccupied at seeing him like this.
I wait for the perfect moment to chime in while Aleksei contacts Vito to find out where Nerthus is. But as I must realize that Maria doesn’t grant me even a split second to chime in, I just interrupt her. “Maria! Maria! Thank you very much but let me start driving now. I’ll be there in five!”
“Okay,” she answers confused, “But I don’t know if you need all those people. Maybe try to talk to him alone first.”
I snicker, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Sure, I will thank you, Maria.”
She speaks another blessing in Italian before she disconnects the call.
I look up to Aleksei expectantly and he nods, “Vito says she got into her apartment building like half an hour ago.”
“Good,” I push out a deep breath, leaning back in my seat.
I guess that she is comforting him. That’s why she didn’t answer.
My nerves don’t seem to be able to stop buzzing as my brain shoots the thought through my brain that it is not like her.
Arrived at Nerthus’ old apartment building, I don’t even stop to talk to Vito or Gianni who are still standing on the sidewalk.
I burst into the reception hall, ignore the night concierge and take the elevator up into the apartment.
After having opened the apartment with my own key, I’m surprised to not find them inside. I flick on the light, scanning the quiet room.
“Where did they go?” Aleksei asks as he steps in behind me, making me hum.
The room looks like the last time I have seen it, and there are no signs that someone has ever been here in the meantime.
I walk down the hallway, checking the single rooms but find them all immersed in darkness.
And empty.
By the time I have reached the bedroom, my blood is boiling with the rage I feel at the bad sensation rising in me.
He is right. If they aren’t here, where are they?
Vito and Gianni should have seen them leaving the apartment.
Dialing her number, I try reaching her again.
I take a deep breath, my inner voice telling me that she will just pick up and tell me they are in some strange room or on the roof.
But my heart suddenly stills.
I lift my head, looking over to Aleksei who has turned towards the living room.
We stare down the hallway in silence as the call gets redirected to voicemail and the ringing stops.
Cutting the call, I dial her number again without holding it to my ear.
Her ringtone chimes through the apartment and we move towards the happy tune to look for it.
“Where the fuck is it?” I groan as I call her again.
Eventually, I find it in the couch and as I turn it in my hands, I realize that she must have shoved it in there as something bad was happening to them.
Good girl.
The apartment was cleaned so thoroughly that it would have taken us quite another bit to realize that they were taken.
Aleksei takes a few cautious steps to what looks like a ventilation shaft. “Boss!”
I watch him touch the wall around it, making the plastering crumble. My eyes widen as he rips the grid from the wall, tearing a good piece of the wall around it. “What the fuck…”
How could I miss that one?!
A huge hole appears as he kicks in the rest of the wall which is meant to cover it and reveals an entire passage. He pops his head into the shaft. “How the fuck did they get two people through that?”
“Down!” I growl, already storming out of the apartment.
We rush downstairs and I call Vito to get them to come in.
As we reach the lower grounds, and Aleksei and I stand before a closed door, he appears just in time, clasping the collar of the night concierge as he drags him along.
“What’s behind that door?” I ask and the concierge guy gulps as his eyes lower to the gun Aleksei is holding.
“Ma- Maintenance rooms, Sir,” he stutters, and I gesture to him with my head.
“Open up,” Vito growls, pushing him towards the door.
The concierge goes through his key with shaking hands before he unlocks the door. Aleksei gives him another push and we walk through the janitor and appliances rooms cautiously, our guns ready in hand.
A strange putrid smell reaches my nose and I see Vito scrunch up his face as I lower my gun. “What is this smell?”
“Ah, probably rats,” the concierge says, moving onto his feet. “We have informed the management but they refuse to do anything about this because they say that it’s just normal.”
He shrugs, flashing us an uncomfortable expression. “Welcome to New York, I guess.”
I look over to Aleksei who looks back at me annoyed. “Doesn’t smell like a rat to me.”
“You said this was going on for weeks already?” I ask the concierge, making him nod.
Pounding my fist against a locked door, I groan. “What’s in here?”
“Ah, the various rooms with the ventilation systems, Sir.”
He keeps standing at the door as I lift my brow. “Can you open it?”
“Oh, no, Sir,” he lifts his hands, shaking his head. “Due to the sensitiveness of the system, we don’t have any access keys. Only the management can call a specialist to look at it, and only them have the keys to that room. That’s why we have to live with the rat’s stench. We guess that one is decomposing in one of the rooms.”
“Wouldn’t that make it distend right into the different apartments?” I ask, putting my gun back into its holster.
The concierge straightens up with a proud expression. “Oh, no, Sir. We have the finest appliances available on the market. The air gets filtered before it gets distributed into the apartments to make sure that our tenants benefit from the best air quality possible.”
“Boy wants to sell us apartment,” Aleksei chuckles, and I check out the door.
I rattle at it, finding it moving. “It’s secured, but maybe we can break it down.”
The concierge gasps, taking a few steps backward as I start throwing myself against the door.
It doesn’t take more than three hits with my full weight to break it down, making it swing open.
I distort my face as I look down at a decomposing body lying in the middle of the separate rooms that contain the various vents, going up into the apartments.
The men behind me groan, and I hear someone throw up, who I guess must be the concierge.
Crouching down, I take a look at the dead man who is lying there covered by insects, already unrecognizable.
He must have been lying in here for quite a while.
I move my hand, chasing away the flies around me.
“Aleksei knew it wasn’t rat,” I hear him say matter-of-factly as he crouches down in front of me.
I sigh, keeping myself from inhaling too much. “Seems like they stumbled over the dead body and just climbed up through the vents.”
He reaches down to the man’s side. “And what? Just scrolled off dead man?”
Turning my head to look at him, I see him lift his hand, moving what looks like a pin between his fingers.
I recognize the flowery design of Saman’s flower shop logo right away, scoffing. “Let’s get out of here.”
Who would have thought that Kyle was literally under our very noses all the time?