Free Retribution by Lietha Wards Page A

note. Well, now he knew the urgency of Peter’s request. He
scanned the paper. The note was written in Arabic. His eyes went to
Peter. He already knew to lie to him would have him thrown out of
the place, or killed right there, and with it, his hopes of finding
the one who killed his brother. “It says, ‘We’re not
done.’”
    “That’s it?”
    He shook his head and
nodded toward the package. Now he knew what was in it. “That it’s
your oldest daughter’s pinky finger in the box.”
    Peter turned red—angry red,
twisted away and started cursing in his native language. Then he
stopped and leaned a fist on his desk with his back to them.
“Anything else?” he asked softly trying to regain his
composure.
    “That there will be more if
you don’t pull out of Miami. The territory is ours. He flipped it
over to see if there was more, there wasn’t. That’s all it says Mr.
Nickolov.” They wrote this in their native language when they could
have written it in English. Obviously they wanted Peter to know
their origins and make him work for it. Whether that made it more
serious, who knew? He didn’t think so. Obviously they thought a lot
of themselves. Again, typical vermin he had to deal with in his
career. Arrogant and thinking they were omnipotent. Well, everyone
bleeds, and everyone dies at some point. Some sooner than
others.
    Peter turned to face him
again. His eyes went past him to Ivan. “More pieces of my Anna. You
find these men and kill them!”
    “Yes boss.” Ivan turned and
left the room calling for the two men outside the door.
    Once they were alone, Peter
spoke again. “So you do speak Arabic. I was hoping with all the
time you’ve spent in the Middle East. I wonder what else my sources
didn’t uncover about you.”
    He smiled slightly. “What
do you want to know?”
    “Maybe I should have asked
you questions instead of reading a ridiculous file.”
    Of course he should have.
“Did you want to report this to the police?”
    “No. We keep it within our
circles. I will deal with them my way, my style.”
    “As you wish.”
    “That will be all Mr.
Casey.” He waved his hand dismissing him.
    Ryan nodded, set the note
on the desk and left the office. Peter clearly had this affect him.
Well, he probably wouldn’t appreciate the threat of having pieces
of his offspring mailed to him either. The dirt was still fresh on
Anna’s grave.
    When he went back to check
on Katya, she was sitting in a chair in her room, bent over, lacing
up running shoes. She’d removed the sling, but he could see that
she was having some difficulty with her arm. By the way she was
dressed; in black athletic shorts and a pink sports bra, she was
going for a run.
    “Going
somewhere?”
    She spoke without looking
up, still struggling with the last sneaker. “I like to jog. It
helps me clear my head.” Yes, she was absolutely terrified, but she
was going to face her demons and not hide. She would not let her
father, or anyone else dictate how she was going to live her life,
and she was going to live.
    “I’ll get
changed.”
    She sat up with frustration
and blew a stray piece of hair out of her face. “I don’t need an
escort; like some small child with a babysitter. There’s a crowd on
the beach this time of day, and I’ll stick to it.” She was scared
to death to go alone, but she wasn’t going to admit it. She also
was hoping this would start helping her cope with her
fears.
    He was amused, most
particularly at the metaphor. She was definitely no child. “You’re
getting one because you are not getting out of my sight. We’ve been
over this Katya.”
    She took a resigned breath.
“Well fine, Mr. Babysitter, but I’m not slowing for
you.”
    He smirked, walked over to
stand in front of her. She craned her neck to look up at him. Then
he adjusted his slacks by tugging on the material on his upper
thighs to give him room to bend, and got down on one knee. He met
her eyes and tied the remaining shoelace