Her Rocky Mountain Hero. Jen Bokal

York City, spooking Gregory’s mother and forcing her into hiding with the boy for months. When Belkin had gotten word that she might be in western Colorado, he’d flown in to the area with his team to be there when she surfaced. Since then, there had been no contact. No use of a credit card. No bank withdrawals. No internet searches. It was as if she had simply disappeared and until this afternoon, Belkin feared that she actually had. Now he just wanted to complete his task and get paid.

      Gregory slumped over in his seat, snoring softly as the SUV rounded a bend and pulled through a circular drive. The driver parked in front of a two-story house built in the alpine A-frame style, complete with wooden scrollwork on the eaves and a balcony to make up the A’s crossbar. Light shone from an exterior sconce, illuminating the snow as it fell.

      “Try to contact Team Bravo again,” said Belkin, “and after you’ve spoken, put Gregory to bed in one of the upstairs rooms.” Belkin stepped into the night. Fat, downy snowflakes floated down, coating the road and settling on Belkin’s shoulders and well-trimmed dark hair.

      The extreme cold and falling snow reminded him of how fickle the weather could be in Russia. Taking the phone from his pocket, he glanced at the home screen. A blizzard warning scrolled across the bottom of the display. He opened the weather application, where a digitized radar reading of pink and white, signifying heavy snow and winds, filled the entire northern part of Colorado. Future radar predicted that the blizzard was expected to hit Telluride in the early morning and last for the next twenty-four hours.

      Belkin glanced at the local time—10:15. In four hours they would be airborne and on their way to Moscow. But could they leave earlier if necessary? No. The call regarding Viktoria Mateev’s whereabouts had come in only a few hours before and the private plane from New Jersey to transport Gregory back to Russia wouldn’t be in Colorado yet. Now, with the storm, it was better that they wait.

      Belkin added, “And tell them our departure is delayed by a day to day and a half.” He had enough sedatives to keep the kid quiet until they arrived in Moscow, even with the postponement.

      The driver’s words drifted out of the SUV’s open door. “Bravo, this is Alpha, do you read?”

      Belkin paused. Waited.

      “Bravo,” said the driver again. “This is Alpha. Do you read?”

      Belkin still thought that his plan to capture the child and kill the mother was flawless. Bribery and threats had been very effective in gaining the support of the smaller law enforcement agencies in the area. It was through one of those “strategic partners” he’d learned today that a private security firm hired by New York State authorities—under the impression that they were seeking a runaway abusive mother—had found Viktoria and Gregory hiding in a cabin less than an hour’s drive from Belkin’s rented house.

      Cooperation. It was a beautiful thing.

      Belkin had waited impatiently until dark before executing his plan. Team Alpha had grabbed the boy, and by now Team Bravo should have killed the mother.

      Cold wind cut through his cashmere coat as he waited for a response. More than the money, or even Peter Belkin’s reputation, was on the line. Nikolai Mateev did not take disappointment well and if Belkin didn’t deliver Gregory to his grandfather by Christmas, then Belkin wouldn’t live to see the New Year.

       Chapter 4

      “Bravo. This is Alpha. Do you read?”

      The disembodied, static-filled voice resonated inside the SUV’s quiet interior.

      Cody looked at Viktoria. Her eyes were wide, her gaze trained on a walkie-talkie they hadn’t even noticed, nestled between the SUV’s front seats.

      “That’s got to be the guys who took your son,” Cody said, while reaching for the walkie-talkie.

      She folded her hands together and pressed the sides of her thumbs into her lips. “So, what do we do now?”

      Just because they’d escaped together didn’t mean they were on the same side. No matter what, she was a Mateev. The name alone brought back painful memories that lodged in his chest—a leaden ball full of spikes. All the same, Cody was determined to get the kid back, which meant he had to work with the mother. Besides, he reasoned, once they’d rescued her son, Cody could still finish the job—turn the kid over to CPS and question Viktoria before she was taken away by the police.

      “Bravo.” The single word rang out like a shot. Viktoria started.

      “What do they want?” she asked.

      It was a good question with a horrific answer. “My guess is that they’re checking to make sure that you’re dead.”

      A gust of cold wind blew through the shattered window. Viktoria folded her arms across her chest and looked away. Cody turned the SUV’s thermostat to ninety degrees, its upper limit. The hot air hit him and he started to sweat. Small price to pay if it would make her more comfortable.

      What was it with his reactions to this woman?

      “We can’t ignore them,” she said and turned to him. “This could be our chance to try to negotiate my son’s release.”

      Cody understood her desperation and admired her bravery. “It won’t work. First, there’s nothing we have that they want,” he said. Then he hesitated. “Unless there is. Do you have any idea why this happened?”

      Her gaze never left his. “They want my son,” she said, “and for me to be...neutralized.”

      Cody wasn’t sure if Viktoria was purposely not revealing the real story behind the kidnapping, but at this point he needed to view this situation tactically. What he needed was a plan and intel.

      “Let’s start with what you know,” Cody said.

      “I know my son is safe,” Viktoria said. “The man in the cabin, the one who held me at gunpoint...” Her voice trailed off and Cody gave her a moment to reconcile with the nightmare she’d survived. “He told me that Gregory belonged to his grandfather Nikolai.”

      Like a piece from a puzzle, the latest bit of information clicked into place. Once again it came down to Nikolai Mateev—the head of the Moscow-based Mateev crime family.

      Now Cody knew Viktoria’s relationship with the Mateevs. Yet in getting that one answer, it brought up hundreds of questions. He swallowed them all, practically choking on his desire to ask about the drug trafficking ring.

      “These men are desperate and if we try to negotiate, they’ll know they failed.” He paused. His next words would be hard, no, devastating, for a mother to hear.

      “And?” she insisted.

      “Failure to have killed you might force these men to abandon their plans to take your son from the country.”

      She leaned forward, her eyes bright. “That’s good. They’ll release Gregory.”

      “Unless they don’t.” Cody couldn’t bring himself to verbalize Gregory’s possible fate.

      Viktoria understood, though. Like she’d been sucker punched in the gut, Viktoria sucked in a deep breath and sat back hard in her seat. In a way, Cody supposed she had been hit, and he’d been the one to deliver the blow.

      “Bravo?” A voice, barely audible, rose from the static. “Update?”

      “What if you answered them,” she proposed, “and pretended to be one of them. They can’t see who’s speaking and the connection is full of static on our end. It has to be the same on theirs.”

      Cody sat taller. It was a crazy idea. “That can go wrong in a million different ways. If they figure out that I’m lying, Gregory’s the one who could suffer the most.”

      “Please!” she said. Her fingers rested on the back of Cody’s hand. Those old internal