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“Move.” He gestures towards the door with his gun, and I bow my head, slowly shuffling through the hallway towards the front door, his pistol pushed into my spine.
The pocketknife burns a hole in my waistband, but I need him distracted before I can make a move for it. I can already sense my attacker’s impatience; he keeps glancing out the window, as if checking for someone outside. The getaway car. Fuck.
My hesitation angers him. “What’s the hold up? Open the fucking door.”
“I’m just getting on some shoes, jeez.” I shoot him a dirty look over my shoulder, but he stops me from turning fully, burying one hand deep into my hair.
“Not gonna fall for that one, princess.” He kicks my heels towards me, the ones I’d abandoned earlier. “Hands up, and put these on. And don’t you dare do anything stupid when we walk out of here.”
I nod, slipping one heel on. I make a move to put on the other shoe but deliberately lose my footing and fall to the side. “Shit,” I exclaim. He reaches out to steady me, and in that brief moment, I retrieve the knife from the back of my skirt. In one move, I press down to release the blade and drive it into his upper arm, causing him to falter and drop his pistol.
“You fucking bitch,” he howls.
“Yeah, so sorry about that,” I taunt. The sensitive flesh of the upper arm really is a shitty place to get stabbed. He scrambles for the gun, but I get there first. I reach for his pistol lying on the ground and point it straight at his chest. “Who sent you? What do you want with me?” I ask, hysteria edging into my voice.
His smile is demonic. “You’ll find out soon enough. It’s not going to stop with me, others will come for you.”
As much as I need answers, I don’t think I’m going to get them from him, which means he’s of no use to me. I lift the gun, press down on the trigger, and release a bullet between his eyes. In the quiet aftermath, my breath comes in quick gasps and my palms break into a clammy sweat, the adrenaline now replaced by a shivering cold sensation throughout my body. The full horror hasn’t fully sunk in yet, but a numbness has taken over. Am I in shock?
I leave the body lying on the foyer floor as I escape to the kitchen, heading straight for the freezer where I keep my emergency cigarettes. My shaking hands pull a Gauloises from the pack and press it between my lips. The first drag feels like heaven. It makes me light-headed and dizzy, but it calms my fried nerves. I take another long pull and think about what to do. My options are limited. But I do know I need to get this dead body out of my home, and then I need to figure out what the fuck is going on.
Yulian. I have to call my brother. Anxiety ripples down my spine as I realize the one person who I can count on to sort this out has turned off his phone and, for the first time in his life, is unavailable to me. Fucking great.
My mind flips through other options. Of course I can call Andrei Kozlov, the Kozlov Bratva pakhan. I know he’d do anything for me. We’re childhood friends, grew up together, and he’s a solid guy. As solid as gangsters come. But I know if I call Andrei, he’ll call in the troops. I’ll have bratva swarming this place in no time. With one man in particular guaranteed to show his face.
Leonid Kozlov. Andrei’s younger brother, sworn-invor, and the one person I’d be happy never to see again. Fuck that. I’m going to pull up my big girl panties and deal with this on my own. Retrieving my phone off the kitchen counter, I flip through my contacts before I find the man I’m looking for. Gianni Mero. Local gangster for hire. It’s the one underworld contact my brother insisted on. Just in case. I never imagined I’d have to use this number, but desperate times and all that. Because when you call Gianni, things are bad.
Gianni answers on the first ring, his voice gruff like sandpaper. “Alyona Nikitin.” My family isn’t as high-ranking as the Kozlovs, but my last name still buys me respect.
“I need a cleanup crew,” I say, sticking to the code words.
“I see. Are you harmed?”
“I’m not,” I say. But am I alright? Far from it.
“I’ll have a crew there in fifteen minutes.”
I hang up, not even questioning how he knows my address. I stub out my cigarette in the sink and run cold water over the ash. The noxious smell rises up, nearly making me gag. The cigarette did its job and calmed my nerves, but being an infrequent smoker, it also made me feel sick.
Or maybe it’s the dead guy on my hallway floor.
Despite the cold sweat sliding down my spine, I know what I have to do. Marching towards the foyer, I steel myself as I peel the bloodied balaclava off his face, hot sticky wetness coating my fingertips.
Sweet Jesus. Tattoos of monasteries and skulls crawl up his neck.
Russian prison tattoos.
I throw my back against the wall.
An echo of his accent comes back to me now. It’s Eastern European for sure, but he didn’t sound Russian, and it’s an accent I’m familiar with considering it’s my family’s lineage. Whatever his origins, one thing is clear. My troubles extend way beyond a shitty breakup.
CHAPTERTWO
LEO
“Stop… please. I did it, it was me.” A desperate sob works up the man’s throat, and I stand back, relieved that he’s finally admitting what I already know. He held out longer than I’d expected. Bankers are usually quick to squeal, but for some reason, Gerhart here did not.
But everyone has their breaking point, and I eventually found his.
