Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

It was midnight before Franz turned up again. But he had no information. For once he’d failed — no one in Nikolai’s organization was talking about Torstein. And that, in itself, was a bad sign, he said. If it were anything but murder, someone somewhere would be talking about it. A hit was the only thing they kept absolutely silent. Bruiser had run into the same wall ... none of his old friends knew, or said, anything about Torstein.

Pete had not rebounded as well as I’d hoped he would. He went up to bed after Franz came and made his report. The rest of us just sat in his living room, but we had nothing to say. It was all so grim. Around one a.m. Maggie called. She and the others had been released from jail. They’d left Angel and Len to continue trying to pressure the police to take action to get Sully and Van back, but Maggie and Caroline were on their way to Nikolai’s.

“You’re what?” I asked, dazed. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Caroline knows him,” Maggie said. “She thinks she can get the kids back. I’ll be there with her. What’s he gonna do?”

“Kill you!” I said, for the moment forgetting about Torstein who was probably there, too.

“We’ll be okay,” Maggie said. “But I heard there was a big commotion in the park after we were detained,” she said. “Are you guys all right?”

“Ah, no, Torstein’s missing,” I finally told her. “Some of Nikolai’s thugs came and took him away. We don’t know where he is or what they want with him. I really think you and Caroline shouldn’t go there.”

“No,” she sighed. “Look, did you call the police when they took Torstein?”

It was like a slap in the face. No, we had not called the police. We had been scared when the police started busting people in the park, and we’d run away from them. It hadn’t occurred to us to try to report Torstein’s kidnapping.

“Idiot,” Maggie said brusquely. “Get down there, now. Waverling’s gone, and I’ve threatened this lieutenant enough where I think he’s going to help us. Anyone who witnessed the kidnapping, get down here and report it.”

I went to wake Pete, but he wouldn’t get up and come. He said there was no point. Jack, Jazz and I went alone. Maggie’s lieutenant was very nice and took our statements, and gave every evidence of believing we’d been the victims of a crime and that our friend was missing ... but then he said:

“Now, do you have anything that links the kidnappers to Nikolai? Did you get a license plate number on the van, or anything?”

Of course we didn’t. We were all beat up. And the thugs had not spoken to us in Russian or worn any kind of “Nikolai’s Knights” t-shirts or anything. It simply stood to reason ...

“We can’t assume it was Nikolai’s men, but we’re going to investigate and see if we can find Torstein. Meanwhile I’ve already sent men over to Nikolai’s to get the little boy back.”

“Boys!” Angel said. “He’s got Caroline’s son, too.”

“That may be more difficult. She admits Nikolai is the boy’s father, I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about that ...”

The lawyer, Vic, was still there. He’d had a hard time getting confirmation from the police earlier in the day that Maggie, Caroline, Angel and Len were even there because Waverling hadn’t filed any paperwork. He’d just locked them up. Vic had persevered, but it had taken until Waverling went off duty before he could get our people out of jail. Then he had forced the lieutenant to listen to him and take action. I’m assuming he was embarrassed that one of his officers had locked people up without any charges and seemed to be protecting a known mob guy.

Be a Facebook Fan!

Read the next chapter