Page 60 of Scarred Redemption

“I wonder why that is.” It was another beautiful day in Charleston. Warm and inviting for the cusp of April. Yet neither the sunshine nor the warmth had offered any positive effect on me. It would seem I was finally dealing with the whiplash.

“I’ll make some calls and talk with Diana. Maybe there’s another avenue we can use to pick apart her family and friends. Speaking of which. Are you planning on allowing anyone to know the two are alive?”

“At this point, I’m surprised some fucking reporter hasn’t found his way down the beach to take startling photographs of the grieving crime lord. Yes, there will be a need to share the good news with others. Not yet. I want them all to myself even for a couple days.” While I processed how best to handle everything and because I could be a selfish bastard when I wanted to be.

“Understandable. We’ll have people heading to Kingville this morning to look around. The area is very rural and there’s nothing on the maps. A couple hundred miles of nothing. However, Diana is calculating as we speak how far they were likely able to walk. There are three roads she could have taken, forks in them she might not have seen in the dark. But all roads led to the tiny commercial blip including the diner.”

I bristled visibly and stopped a few yards in front of the firehouse.

“Take a deep breath, Pakhan. Ms. Dayne’s recall of the area, including the road will help us find it. What do you want to happen when we do?”

“Call me.”

“Will do.”

“Make sure Diana scours facial recognition for the captor Mina drew.”

“Not to throw shade on your daughter, but children often make their nightmares seem like monsters.”

I turned my head toward him, feeling nothing but an icy chill inside. I knew what he was saying, that her picture could be of anyone. “I’m well aware. However, after weeks of nothing helpful, this could be. We follow every lead.”

That included talking with my father.

Not tonight.

I had plans with two beautiful girls and I refused to disappoint them.

The two other soldiers remained behind while Sergei and I entered the firehouse. There was no need to terrify the man who might have nothing to do with the scheme that had played us so well. I’d know by the look on his face if he’d had anything to do with the ruse.

And if he had, James Kincade would find himself unable to work for the foreseeable future. Given the only people in the town who didn’t know who I was obviously lived under a rock, as soon as we walked in through the open bay doors, the men and a couple of female firefighters did little more than back away into the shadows.

The press had been all over my loss for the first few days, ensuring every man, woman, and child knew I was suffering. It was funny how my family and I had always been represented in the press. With both reverence and fear. A philanthropist to some, a business mogul to others, and to everyone with any true understanding of how syndicates worked, a heinous and calculated criminal.

So I was all of the above. Maybe soon they’d start calling me the devil.

James had a small office in one of the larger firehouses centrally located. He had a small team that assisted him, but normally preferred working alone. I knew he was in his office as the man had been easy to track.

I didn’t knock. I simply walked in.

A gruff older man like James didn’t flinch in seeing me. He merely looked up from the papers he had spread across his desk, peering at me over the rim of his glasses. It even took him a full minute to register who was standing in front of him.

“Mr. Aristov.”

While there was a second chair in the room, I opted to press my knuckles against his desk and lean over. The compact space allowed for a feeling of suffocation. “I don’t have a lot of time, James, as even though I’d still recovering from the horrific crime destroying my entire family, both business and life must go on.”

“I don’t think I had a chance to tell you how sorry I am for your loss.” His voice, where initially strong, was responding to the pressure.

He was definitely hiding something. “Yes, well, you were busy trying to decipher how the fuck the bastards managed to bring bombs into a busy and usually crowded restaurant without someone having seen them. Now, if I remember correctly, you never really did share the news of how that was possible.”

His face paled and he sat back to try to gather some space. As if there was but so much. “The bombs were small but highly powerful and could easily have been stored so that unless people knew what to look for, they wouldn’t find the device.”

“Such as?”

The man was clearly flustered. “They could have hidden the devices in a delivery of food items such as a box of potatoes. Or a linen bag. Anything. Obviously, the bombs were scattered around the main portion of the restaurant, which was why the blast radius was remotely contained. Whoever planted them knew exactly what they were doing.”

Some of what he’d just said he’d already told me.

However, he was clearly nervous with my in-his-face presence, which was noted in the twitch by the corner of his eye. “What type of bombs?”