Cops 02 - Love on the Run

Love on the Run

Copyright © May 2008 by Kori Roberts

Anthony “Tony” Tate glanced out the window from inside the unmarked van, his focus on the building across the street.

From the outside, it looked like any other storefront in the busy Humboldt Park neighborhood. The sign on the front of the building read SALON AND SPA, but Tony knew that was a deception. He and his partner, Jack Parker, had been investigating the owner for months. They’d received tips from informants that inside, there was a private area that offered select customers a far more intimate — and illegal — service.

They’d spent weeks doing surveillance. Finally, they’d gathered enough evidence to prove that the store was actually a front for the real business: a highly organized, and extremely profitable, human trafficking operation.

Tony knew from past experience with similar cases that the victims had probably been abducted from outside the US, smuggled illegally into the country, and held against their will. They would be forced to perform frequent, often violent, and sometimes deadly, sexual acts for countless numbers of customers on a daily basis.

He and Jack scheduled the raid for early morning when the legitimate part of the business wasn’t open yet. Too often these types of raids resulted in casualties, and they hoped to reduce the risk of endangering civilians as much as possible.

Tony glanced at his watch once more before he turned to address the group of police officers with him.

“Okay, here’s the deal. Jack, Ed, and I will hit the front entrance. Elizabeth” — he looked at the newest member of their team — “you’ll cover the back and side exits with Ron and Eric. We know there’s at least one armed guard in there at all times, but it could be more. So keep your eyes open, cover each other’s asses, and watch out for innocent bystanders.” “And if anybody has a question, now would be the time to ask,” Jack said, looking around at the group.

Tony stared into the faces of his teammates, all of whom returned Jack’s gaze with confidence. Satisfied that they were ready, he said, “Okay. Let’s do this.”

They exited the van and ran across the street with their weapons drawn. When they reached the store, they forced the doors open and rushed inside. As soon as they entered the room, Tony knew immediately that their rescue was too late. The smell — a sickly mixture of human waste, blood, and death — greeted them at the door. They raced through the store and searched until they found the private room concealed in the back.

Tony quickly surveyed the scene in front of him. It was little more than a large storage area, filled with old, filthy mattresses and piles of trash. The lifeless bodies of several women and a couple of men littered the floor.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jack swore softly, looking around the room as the rest of their team entered through a back entrance.

As they performed the futile task of checking for survivors, Tony tried to control the anger that boiled within him as he looked at each female victim. Mainly Hispanic and Asian, some of the women looked barely legal, and he suspected that others were probably nowhere near the legal age of consent. Tortured and malnourished, their nude bodies had bled profusely from multiple gunshot wounds.

Tony walked over to the first male victim and quickly saw that the man was Mikhail Satzkoi, the supposed owner of the store. The second man wasn’t so easy to identify. He lay facedown in his own blood with a gaping hole in the back of his head.

Jack came over to where he stood. “It’s like somebody knew we were coming.” Jack’s words confirmed Tony’s thoughts.

“It sure as hell seems that way. They obviously wanted to get rid of anyone who knew anything about this place.” Tony glanced around the room again. “This was a recent hit. The bodies are barely cool.”

As the room filled with more police and emergency technicians, Tony remained standing in the middle of the room and stared at the bodies of the dead young women.

Finally, he sighed and shook his head. Such a fucking waste.

“Yo, T,” Jack called out. “You need to see this.”

Tony walked over to where Jack stood with the rest of the team. He looked down at the previously unidentified man. Someone had turned the body over so that it now lay face up.

“Recognize him?” Jack asked.

Even with half of his face blown away, Tony recognized the scar along the man’s jawline. A bullet from his own gun put it there a few years ago during an entirely different confrontation. “Josef Michalovich,” he spat. Josef was a high-level member of a criminal organization run by Dimitryi Ivanov, the vicious and ruthless bastard behind the brutal massacre they currently had the displeasure of dealing with.

They’d been hunting Dimitryi for more years than Tony cared to remember. When he thought about all the violence and bloodshed Dimitryi had been responsible for, all the pain and suffering he’d caused…well, Tony wanted to commit murder himself. Starting with Dimitryi.

He remembered a night a few months ago when Jack’s fiancée, Clarke, had been taken, beaten, and almost raped and killed by one of Dimitryi’s sons.

Tony glanced at Jack. If the hatred burning in Jack’s eyes was any indication, his partner was thinking the same thing. Tony couldn’t blame him, because he felt the exact same way. Jack was his best friend, and Clarke was like a sister to him. And the damage that bastard and his sons did nearly destroyed them both.

Thanks to Jack, Dimitryi’s sons were no longer an issue. But their luck seemed to always run out when it came to Dimitryi. Like evaporating mist, he managed to disappear every time they closed in on him.

Dimitryi had been off their radar for months. But Josef’s presence at the scene made it apparent that Dimitryi was back.

Tony knew the man rarely left Dimitryi’s side and often functioned as his personal bodyguard. So if Josef was around, Dimitryi wasn’t too far away. Which meant he was back doing business as usual.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jack asked.

“Yeah.” Tony returned Jack’s hard gaze with one of his own. “It looks like our boy, Dimitryi, is back on the block.”

*

Bianca Mendez climbed out of her car and locked the doors. She ignored the horns of angry motorists as she made her way across the street.

The high-heeled boots she wore looked great, but they definitely weren’t made for walking, let alone running — especially not on snow-covered Chicago streets in February.

She’d been on her way to work when the police scanner she kept in her car alerted her to a multiple homicide. When she heard the address of the location, she changed direction and headed here instead.

Bianca had heard rumors about this place before. She’d received anonymous tips about the real services supposedly offered that weren’t posted anywhere inside the store. Bianca never had a chance to confirm any of the reports she’d received. Now it looked like she never would. Plenty of police and emergency vehicles and, as far as Bianca could tell, just about every reporter in the city were parked in front of the building.

Yellow crime scene tape roped off the entire area, so she could only stand on the perimeter with the other onlookers and watch as members of the medical examiner’s office carried out the victims on stretchers, their bodies concealed in black zippered bags.

Bianca had only been a reporter for a few years, but during that time, she’d investigated more than enough cases, witnessed far too many scenes that looked hauntingly similar to this one. Each time, the victims turned out to be women or — even worse -children.

As it always did in these situations, her heart broke a little more with each body they removed from the store. She counted eight black bags loaded into the medical examiner’s truck before it drove away.

Scanning the area, she tried to find at least one friendly face in the crowd she might recognize and be able to sweet-talk a little information from. Considering she’d only been living in Chicago for a short while, she knew the chance of that happening was pretty unlikely.

Her gaze landed on an officer who kept shooting appreciative looks in her direction, and she decided to take her chances with him. Putting on her best smile, she approached him. His gaze tracked her every step of the way until she was standing in front of him.

“Hi,” she said. “Busy morning, huh?” Bianca glanced around at the scene. “Wow, it looks really bad in there.”

The officer grinned down at her. “Oh, yeah, it was pretty crazy before the police arrived. But now that we’re here, you don’t have anything to worry about. We have everything under control.”

“Oh, yeah.” Bianca nodded. She purposely kept her expression wide-eyed, her voice full of awe. “I can definitely see that.” She tried not to laugh at the self-important look on his face. “So, what’s your name?”

“Brian.” His voice dropped an octave. He probably thought he sounded sexy. Bianca could practically feel him undressing her layer by layer with his eyes.

“So, Brian, now that the police have everything under control, what other information can you tell me about what took place here?”

The smile slid from his face. “You’re a reporter.” He practically spat the words out.

“Uh…yeah,” she said lightly, her smile still plastered on her face. “So, can you —”

“No comment.” He cut her off before she could finish her sentence, and she could only stand there as he turned and walked away.

Bianca looked around to see if there was anyone else she could talk to when she saw the side door of the building open. Her heart rate began to accelerate when she saw two familiar faces exit the building and head toward a waiting van. Bianca had met both Tony and Jack when she’d first moved to Chicago. Jack was engaged to be married to her best friend, Clarke. And Tony was like a brother to Clarke, having been raised by Clarke’s father after his parents died when he was a teenager.

She knew that Tony and Jack only worked on two types of cases: those involving drugs or sex. And she was willing to bet a week’s paycheck that this case involved the latter.

Bianca called out to them to get their attention, but they didn’t hear her and continued toward the van. She headed in their direction, but a different officer stepped into her path before she could reach them.

“You can’t go this way,” he told her. “The area is off-limits. You need to find another way around.”

“But…I know those officers there.” Bianca pointed in the direction of Tony and Jack.

The look on the officer’s face made it apparent that he didn’t give a shit about who she knew.

She was wasting her time. He was not going to let her pass. Jack and Tony climbed into the van, and she watched as they pulled away from the curb and drove off down the street.

She looked around at the other reporters on the scene, all still scrambling to find someone to talk to regarding the murders. Bianca didn’t bother to follow their lead. She wasn’t interested in the official press release the police department would eventually provide to the media. The facts she sought wouldn’t be found in a carefully worded statement written by some unknown, uninformed public relations person.

No, she wanted the true facts. The real story.

Bianca turned and headed back toward her car, her resolve hardening with every step.

These murders were no random acts of violence, and she was determined to find out if they were related to a larger case Tony and Jack had been working on for several years, a case involving Dimitryi Ivanov, a monster who had built a criminal empire from the rape, torture, and murder of innocent victims. If her suspicions were correct, the same bastard was responsible for causing the death and devastation she’d seen today.

Bianca had been investigating Dimitryi for what felt like a lifetime, living and breathing her story on him for so long, it felt like he was part of her life. Long before she’d started working at the news station, long before his son had kidnapped and tried to kill her friend, Clarke. Before she’d ever come to the US from Brazil when she was a teenager.

Bianca sighed. It was way too early in the morning for her to start an emotional journey down memory lane.

She got in her car and started the engine. As Bianca pulled away from the curb, her thoughts were on her next steps. Her deadline to complete this story for her news station loomed near, and the firsthand information she sought could only be found one way.

She had to go directly to the source.

Although she’d much rather talk to Jack, Bianca decided against it. The topic of Dimitryi was far too personal for him at the moment, Clarke’s kidnapping having just happened recently, and the memories were probably still too fresh, the wounds too raw.

Besides, he and Clarke were busy getting ready for their wedding in a few months, and she didn’t want to bother either of them or cause them any more pain than they’d already experienced because of Dimitryi.

She didn’t know the other members of the team, so she couldn’t ask them. That left Tony. She rubbed her brow. The thought of spending any amount of time with him — alone — made Bianca sigh again, but for totally different reasons.