"Thanks," I told Kirov. To Dmitri, I said, "Come on, Grumpy. Let's go get your daughter."

CHAPTER 18.

We went into the hotel the same way we'd gone out-through the service door. This time, though, I wasn't half-starved and disoriented. I was alert, armed, and angry.

"We need to find the office where they keep their business records," I said.

"You really expect a place like this to have records?" Dmitri muttered. "Optimistic, I think."

"Trust me," I said, easing down the hallway, every sense open for anyone who'd object to our presence. "Pimps are even more compulsive about their money than witches are about their spell books. Pimps and and witches-forget it. They'll have records of every cent that's ever come in and out. Coded, of course, but it'll be there." witches-forget it. They'll have records of every cent that's ever come in and out. Coded, of course, but it'll be there."

"And we break the code how?"

"I'm thinking we hold Grigorii Belikov's head in a toilet until he gives it up. Work for you?"

"Sure does," Dmitri said.

The service elevator was a dank metal box, and my heart thudded as it levered us to the top floor. "There's one more thing," I said. "Once we get the information we need, we have to let these girls out of here."

Dmitri snorted. "Now who's the white knight?"

"I mean it," I said. "If we don't help these women, my involvement ends here. I'm going to the airport and getting on the first plane back to LAX."

"Fine, fine," Dmitri muttered. "Just stay focused. I don't want them to know we're here until it's absolutely necessary."

The doors rolled back and we came face to face with Peter.

"Too late for that," I said. I yanked the Walther out of my belt and held it in his weasel face. "Surprised, comrade?"

Peter's eyes darted toward the girls' suites and I pulled the hammer down. "Don't run. Don't yell. Be a good little gangster and maybe I won't shoot both your kneecaps off purely for what you put me and those other four girls through. Maybe Maybe. "

Usually, when I was with Dmitri, I relied on him to be the heavy. He enjoyed it, and it meant I took less damage over the course of whatever stupid adventure we had gotten ourselves involved in. I'm not such a feminist that I can't let a guy do the heavy lifting.

But not this time. Peter had fucked with me and he was about to learn exactly how bad of an idea it was. "Turn around," I said. "Hands behind your head."

Peter did as he was told, to his credit, with only a sigh of regret. "Any cameras between here and Grigorii's office?" I said. He grunted, shaking his head no no.

"Then march, motherfucker. Double time." Peter shuffled ahead of me and Dmitri brought up the rear, his face reading surprise. I ignored him. He'd never seen me get really good and pissed off before, but he was about to.

I can be a real bitch when someone hurts me where I live. Screw with me or my family and all bets are off. I may act like a cop, I may act like a were. You pay your money and you take your chances.

"What will you do?" Peter said. "No way you get out of here again."

"Not the plan," I said. "And incidentally..." I drove my foot into the back of his knee hard enough to pop tendons. "Did I say you could talk?"

Peter fell through a door into an office that had once belonged to the manger of the complex-the old paintings and certificates were still on the walls. He rolled, moaning, clutching at the joint. I aimed the pistol between his eyes. "Dmitri, give him the phone."

Dmitri did as he was told, and I held the receiver next to Peter's ear. "Call Grigorii and tell him to come up to the office pronto. You say anything else and I'll blow your brains all over this ugly carpet. Any questions?"

Tears ran down Peter's face, but he punched in a number and spoke into the phone. I looked to Dmitri, who nodded that the thug wasn't talking out of turn. A gun in the face is powerful motivation for a human.

Now I just had to figure out what would work on Grigorii.

Peter cut off the connection. "He said he'll be right up. What are you going to do to me?"

I shrugged. "That's up to the father of a girl you kidnapped and sold." I stepped back, sticking the Walther into my waistband. Dmitri stepped in and leaned over Peter, his fangs growing and his features rippling toward were. Redbacks could phase with or without the moon, and I hoped that we weren't about to be treated to an all-you-can-chew mobster buffet. Blood is hard to clean out of clothing.

Peter started sniffling and shivering, pure panic overtaking him. I heard footsteps outside, smelled that cool non-smell of ice in winter. "Dmitri," I said, positioning myself in the line of sight for anyone coming through the door.

"Damn," Dmitri said. "I was so hoping we'd get some alone time, asshole. This will have to do." He hit Peter in the face and knocked him out. "Sweet dreams."

Dmitri put himself behind the door, and we waited, for a few mile-long heartbeats. Grigorii was speaking to someone, and I recognized the high voice.

"This is your fault, you know," Ekaterina snapped. "If you hadn't been so enamored of that werewolf trash, she never would have played your emotions like a cheap violin and we wouldn't be wasting time looking for her now."

"I know what I'm doing," Grigorii snarled. "I'll find her. Now go back downstairs and mind the till. Peter needs me for something. Probably can't figure out how to check his email again."

Ekaterina's footsteps retreated, and Grigorii twisted the doorknob and stepped in.

His reaction to seeing me alive and well wasn't at all what I expected. He smiled, a slow one that grew from the corners of his lips. "Joanne. You came back to me."

I pointed the Walther, gesturing him into his desk chair. "I just couldn't stay away."

Grigorii slid into his leather chair and cocked his head toward the door. "You can tell your unwashed friend that he doesn't need to hide."

Dmitri shut the door with a bang. "Where is she?"

"Please," I said. "I'll handle this, all right?" I pointed the Walther back at Grigorii. "We're looking for a girl. Masha Sandovsky. One of your thugs kidnapped her from outside of her school."

Grigorii spread his hands. "This name means nothing to me."

"Think fast," I said. "I'm not in the mood to be patient. Or kind."

"I think your information is perhaps faulty, Joanne," said Grigorii. "Maybe your unpleasant friend has led you astray."

Faster than I could react, Dmitri had closed the distance between them and grabbed Grigorii by the back of the neck. "This is my daughter, you son of a bitch, so you have five seconds to tell me where she is before I rip your throat out."

Grigorii swallowed and turned to look at me. "Talk some sense into him, Joanne, before someone gets hurt."

"Sorry," I said. "I'm not my werewolf's keeper."

Grigorii sighed and rotated his gaze back to Dmitri. "Let me go and I will provide you with the information I have."

Dmitri bared his teeth. "I think I'd rather beat it out of you, Belikov."

Grigorii rolled his eyes. "Have it your way."

Dmitri went backward, hit the wall hard enough to dent it and slid down, his eyelids fluttering. "Just a little shock," said Grigorii. "Not much more than what you got in your cage. Elemental magick can be disorienting, though. Let's give him a moment." He ran a hand through his hair. "What do you think of our fair city, Joanne?"

"Hex you," I said. "What did you do to Dmitri?"

"Shocked me," Dmitri said, getting to his feet. "Our boy here is a gods-damned living stun gun, isn't that right, Belikov?"

"I do have some control over electricity, yes." Grigorii shrugged, not seeming bothered in the least that I was holding a gun on him. Then again, I guess when you're the living version of Electro, you don't have to be.

Grigorii rubbed his neck and smoothed down his shirt. "I'll give her the information you're looking for, but only her. You leave the room."

"No way," Dmitri said. "I'm not leaving you two alone."

"Then I'm sure your daughter will enjoy her new life," said Grigorii. "The young ones are profitable. They can get as many as fifteen men a day."

Dmitri roared, and I put myself between Grigorii and his swing. "This is not helping Masha. Wait outside."

He glared at me, black spilling across his pupils, and I cursed under my breath. The daemon was coming out, grabbing hold in moments of stress and anger, taking one more piece of Dmitri away.

"Dmitri," I said, keeping my voice even. "Leave."

"Luna?" he said, blinking. His eyes were back to green. "Did I..."

"I'll take care of this," I said, shoving him out the door with more force than was strictly necessary. "You need to wait out there."

I shut the door after him and turned back to Grigorii. "I don't know what you think that accomplished."

"It got you alone," Grigorii said, standing up. "So difficult to talk when some oaf is blundering around." He approached me and reached out his hand. "Put the gun down, Joanne. Let's talk about this and be civilized."

"You don't know the meaning of the word," I said, but I lowered the gun a fraction and didn't flinch when he reached out, slowly, and brushed a midnight strand of hair from in front of my eyes.

"I don't know where the girl is that you're asking about," he said, his fingertips lingering against my cheek. I met his eyes.

"You're lying."

"And how do you know that?" Grigorii said. "You can read my mind, perhaps?" The fingers slid down my jaw, to grip my shoulder and pull me closer. Was he going to bargain with me or make out with me? I felt a tremor of panic in my chest at being so close to him again and fought it down.

"I know that you kidnap girls and sell them," I said. "You and your sister care less about them than about a piece of trash on your shoe, so don't pretend like you're innocent. It doesn't suit you."

"If I am all the things you say," Grigorii said, his other hand traveling over the curve of my hip, "a pimp, a liar, a seller of flesh-then why are you not running from me, far and fast as you can?"

I shoved the Walther into his gut, hard enough to send a breath from his lungs. "You make a better target up close."

Grigorii's lips peeled back in a smile. "I was afraid that you would spurn my advances." His hand on my skin clamped down and the cold was all over me, like being dipped into a frozen lake naked. Not cold, I realized ... shock shock. It was dancing in me, just like the silver that had put me down.

My knees buckled and I lost my grip on the gun. Grigorii eased me down to the floor as I fought to breathe, the air whistling in my chest.

"Let me tell you something about my sister," he said. "Our family lived in disgrace after the Romanovs fell, for generations. Ekaterina was bought by a man in our village in Siberia-a filthy, fat man. A whoremonger who took her away and cut her when she tried to escape and come back home. I killed him, hung him up by his ankles like the pig he was, and I'll kill you, too, and anyone else who attempts to step between my family and our livelihood.

"Now, I've only paralyzed you," Grigorii said. "Just a small working to keep you still, but completely reversible. Here are my terms." He pushed my shirt up and caressed one of my breasts. "You allow me to fuck you raw, and I'll let your big friend outside leave unharmed with the information he needs to find his child. Or I will have you both killed. What's your choice?"

I pantomimed trying to talk, although everything above the neck seemed to be working, including my brain, which was clouded with rage to a screaming degree. Grigorii sighed. "Don't struggle. Let me release the working. You'll just burst a blood vessel and then it will be like having my pleasure with a coma patient."

Charming. I'd run into plenty of witches, but not one who could paralyze with just a touch. Grigorii was extra-special talented. Wasn't I lucky?

The numbness eased, electricity retreating from my nerves, but Grigorii kept his hand on me, holding me down. I wriggled my hand under my body, hoping that he would be otherwise occupied.

"Speak up," Grigorii said. "What choice have you made?"

My hand closed on the Walther where it was pinned under my body and I drew it, scraping a line along my own back. "Get your fucking hands off me."

I struck with the pistol butt, but Grigorii was faster and leaped backward, making me miss his temple. The gun slammed into his nose and he screamed, blood spattering my face with the warmth of spring rain.

Dmitri banged the door open and came in, grabbing Grigorii in a sleeper hold before he could react. "Luna," he said. "Get something to tie him with."

My legs were quivering, and I was still freezing, as if I'd just stood outside naked in a snowstorm, but I jumped up and slammed the door before ripping the phone cord out of the wall.

Dmitri and I tied Grigorii up and Peter, too, just to be on the safe side. "You okay?" Dmitri asked me quietly. "I need to break anything off of him?"

I looked at Grigorii, who stared back at me calmly. He even smiled, blood flowing freely from his mangled nose, over his lips and teeth. "You and I both know that nothing happened you didn't really want, Joanne."

"What's he talking about?" Dmitri snarled. I shook my head.

"Nothing." Grigorii's violation wasn't something I needed Dmitri riding cavalry on. I didn't want to spend another second in the compound, didn't want to remember what I'd had to do to get away the first time.

There was a laptop sitting closed on the desk, and I booted it up. I was confronted with a blinking login screen. "Password?" I said to Grigorii.

He smirked at me. "Perhaps I'll trade it for a kiss."

Dmitri grabbed the Walther and I grabbed Dmitri, trying to deflect his aim from Grigorii's head. "No!" I snapped. "This is not how we're doing things!" Not that the prick didn't deserve it. My finger lodged against the trigger and the gun spoke, a shot going into the wall next to Grigorii's head. It missed by maybe an inch. He flinched, coughing on plaster dust.

"Password?" I said, wresting the gun from Dmitri's grip.

"That shot has drawn everyone in the building," said Grigorii. "You should be less concerned about the password than about your dramatically shortened lives."

Great job there, Dmitri. "We need to go," I told him.

"Masha..." he started.

"We'll find Masha," I said, jerking the laptop's power cord from the wall and shoving the computer into Dmitri's hands. Shouts sounded from down the hall, running footsteps. I knew the cadence of a frantic pursuit all too well, seeing as I was usually on the other end of one.

"What about him?" Dmitri said, jerking his head at Grigorii.

"Yes, white knight," said Grigorii. "What about me? Justice must be served, swift and merciless as a sword blade."

"He talks too damn much, is what," I said to Dmitri. "Now, move your ass. I'm not getting caught here again."