Chapter 2 - THE CHILD’S DRAWING
The plastic bucket felt heavy in my hands.
My knuckles were white. The ammonia burned my nose, but the scent of fear in the boardroom was stronger.
“Put the bucket down,” Dominic Rossy repeated.
His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t have to. Dominic commanded the kind of power that made the air in the room feel thin.
I slowly placed the gray bucket on the Persian rug. The water sloshed, a dirty wave against the plastic rim.
Charles, the twelve-hundred-dollar-a-night interpreter, took a step backward. His expensive cologne couldn't hide his sudden sweat.
“Mr. Rossy, she’s a janitor,” Charles stammered, adjusting his glasses. “She doesn’t understand the nuances of the Chechen regional dialect. I assure you—”
“Be quiet,” Dominic said.
He didn’t even look at Charles. His dark, piercing eyes remained locked on me.
At the other end of the mahogany table, Gregory stood up. He was a mountain of a man, his face scarred, his tailored suit struggling to contain his massive frame. He glared at me.
He spat a rapid, aggressive sentence in a Georgian prison dialect.
The guards by the door tensed.
Dominic looked at me. “Well?”
I wiped my wet, raw hands on my navy smock.
“He says I am a rat who speaks out of turn,” I translated quietly, my voice steady despite the trembling in my knees. “He says if you trust a woman with a sponge over a man with a degree, you are already dead.”
Dominic tilted his head. “Tell him my brother is none of his concern.”
I turned to Gregory. I didn't use the academic Russian Charles had tried. I used the exact, guttural dialect Gregory had grown up speaking in the mountain prisons.
Gregory’s eyes flashed. He slammed a heavy silver pocket watch onto the mahogany table.
The metal struck the wood with a sharp crack.
“Time is up,” Gregory growled in heavily accented English, looking directly at Dominic. Then he switched back to his dialect, speaking too fast for anyone but me to catch.
“Translate,” Dominic ordered.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I looked at the silver pocket watch on the table. The lid had popped open from the impact. The hands were frozen at 2:15.
“He says he isn't negotiating anymore,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. “He says the warehouse is already rigged with explosives. And Charles gave him the security codes an hour ago.”
The boardroom erupted.
Dominic’s guards drew their weapons, aiming them squarely at Charles.
Charles threw his hands in the air, his face completely drained of blood. “She’s lying! Dominic, I swear to God, the maid is lying!”
Dominic didn’t draw a weapon. He just stared at Charles.
“Empty your pockets, Charles,” Dominic said softly.
“Dominic, this is insane—”
“Do it.”
Shaking uncontrollably, Charles reached into his tailored slacks. He pulled out a sleek, black burner phone.
Dominic snatched it from his hand. He opened the sent messages.
The reversal hit the room like a physical blow.
Charles hadn't just been mistranslating to save face. He had been mistranslating to stall Dominic while Gregory’s men moved into position. The highly paid professional was a mole.
“Take him to the basement,” Dominic ordered his guards.
Charles screamed as they dragged him out, the heavy boardroom doors slamming shut behind them.
The odds had just shifted.
Dominic turned back to Gregory. “You just lost your inside man. Call off the men at the warehouse, or you don't leave this building.”
Gregory just smiled. A slow, terrifying expression that showed gold-capped teeth.
He reached into his suit jacket.
Dominic’s hand hovered over his waistband, ready to draw.
But Gregory didn’t pull out a gun.
He pulled out a piece of folded, heavy construction paper. He tossed it onto the mahogany table. It slid across the polished wood, stopping right next to the silver pocket watch.
Dominic looked at it. Then he looked at me.
“What is that?” Dominic asked.
I couldn't breathe.
I recognized the jagged, uneven edges of the paper. I recognized the bright red crayon.
Slowly, I walked toward the table. My legs felt like lead. I reached out with a trembling, blistered hand and unfolded the paper.
It was a drawing of a bright yellow sun. A small house. And a boy holding hands with his mother.
At the top, written in clumsy, oversized letters, was my name. M-A-V-E.
“My son,” I choked out, tears instantly blinding me. “Where is my son?”
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Gregory leaned over the table, his smile vanishing.
“He is safely asleep in the back of my car downstairs,” Gregory said in English. “And if you want him to wake up, Mave, you are going to walk out of this room with me right now.”
