Russian Roulette: Family secrets [2021 version]

Ch. 49: You did nothing wrong

Hope dwindled by the hour.

For almost six days, Mackenzie had kept it together by the skin of her teeth.

Six days since she had stepped up and taken over Gareth's faction as the Adjenkov she was.

Eight days since Gareth went missing.

They had been at it around the clock. And nothing. Not the faintest hint of what Gareth was up to got uncovered.

Horse had pinged him more times, sadly, at places without cameras of any kind. The pings were not accurate; they were area based and could be off by a small margin. So, if Gareth was on the road where it pinged or hid in a house nearby, was a toss-up.

It was not like the movies where a red dot showed exactly where he was in real-time.

Mackenzie had done everything she could to stay strong.

She had made people drive to the pinged locations to look for clues. She had teams going through mail coming into Gareth's offices daily. All his emails got monitored. The tactical teams sat on hold at different locations all over the city to cover a bigger area to reach whichever point needed, as fast as possible.

The smallest of things she had set in motion to feel as if she did something. To fool herself into thinking there was still hope. None dared say it to her, but she knew. Gareth had gone out on a mission, not expecting to return. The way he had left his things and his goodbye to her were enough to convince her of that. Whatever suicide mission he was on, he had chosen to not involve the people he could trust.

Her mind could not handle it anymore.

She needed something.

Anything.

They occupied what seemed like half the hotel. Guests had got thrown out of their rooms and relocated to other floors because Mackenzie had explained their need to have the five floors under the banquet hall floor to themselves. Sereai, though not in on Gareth's mafia ties, was more than eager to help. Even with the sparse and vague information, Mackenzie gave her.

The number of people who were supposedly in the dark about everything showed up to support them. People who had no apparent mafia ties, but called themselves friends of Gareth's, were there in any capacity needed.

Some probably because Sereai had alerted the entire friend group.

Anthony, Lorelai, and Richard had flown in from England and stayed at the hotel with them. Richard, being a tech genius, had taken an in-house spot and coordinated with all the hackers from the command center. Anthony, who had no other skills to draw on than a shrewd business mind, had proved himself a solid support for Vasili and Phoenix in keeping Gareth's companies running, for them to focus on getting Gareth back. Lorelai had become the one coordinating with the hotel to manage food and beverages.

Blaze Trieste, a fixer of sorts, Mackenzie only knew superficially through the friend group, had contacts everywhere, and dealt with a lot of shady people. He and Remy Wellington-El, a former military man, had flown in from The States.

Devil had shown up out of the blue. He had become their underground informant and gathered all the information from the streets. He kept Mackenzie in the loop about anything of importance. And he also monitored the other factions to know if they smelled vulnerability. He had helped Gareth in the past and stood by them again.

Zariyah and Alyssa had stayed with Mackenzie all the time. They had gotten her to eat because Phoenix had threatened to force-feed her or hook her up to an IV if she did not take care of herself. He had even brought Gerson, just to emphasize his threat.