• Guards switch shifts at ten
• #2 smokes five times per shift
• Five men in all.
“We should make our move soon,” Aleksio says. “Before they change locations.”
I direct Santino to the backup to the photos. Once they’re up on the screen, I point to a sliver of light on the roof. “Is this an opening?”
“I thought it was a reflection,” Santino says. “But wait…”
We compare it to other shots and arrange the night shots in a row on the screen. “Fuck me,” he says. “It’s an opening on the roof.”
It’ll be dark soon. I suggest we grab a cable camera and try to get it down in there.
Aleksio swallows. “Climb right up on their roof? Motherfuck.” He likes it.
I’m liking it, too. “But your ankle…”
Aleksio waves it off.
“I don’t see you getting up there undetected,” Santino says.
“We will, and you’re going to cover us,” Aleksio says. “If we can get a visual inside there it would be a cakewalk to hit…”
I nod. We could go in soon. Rob the shit out of Lazarus.
Aleksio smiles at me.
Two hours later we’re stealing through the dark with cameras and rock-climbing gear. He’s still limping, but that’s Aleksio. Always ready. “Konstantin would not like this,” he says.
“I know,” I say. But Konstantin isn’t in charge.
We cut a rusted fence. It’s a fuck of a dangerous thing, going in this way. But both of our imaginations were seized by that sliver of light and the promise of getting eyes in there. It could take a week or even a month to cripple Valhalla, but hitting this place will take Lazarus’s attention away from Kiro. It may even make him lose his cool. If he loses his cool, he loses his people.
We crouch in the dark. “We really need to get out more often.”
I smirk.
When Santino gives the flash signal, we rush up and begin to scale the side of the building. Tilt-concrete construction. The surface is rough with few handholds. This part is dangerous; not so much for falling, but if caught, we are so easy to shoot. Santino is in the chimney next door, covering us with a long-range rifle. It’ll help. A little.
We get up the side and scramble over the top, out of breath. Quietly we pull up the gear. If we make noise, we’ll have to rappel down. Again, easy to shoot.
We lie side by side on the soft, still-warm rubberized surface of the roof. The stars are bright, the air thin.
“When we hit this place, we should bring some of the American Russians,” Aleksio says. “We let them keep all the money.”
“It can’t look like charity,” I say.
“But if we worked it right?”
“Then yes,” I say. “It would make our friendship more solid.”
We crawl on our bellies toward the mechanical plant. The sliver hole will be in the seal around the HVAC equipment.
Creeeeeeak.
I freeze and shut my eyes. It was loud—much too loud. It’s not just about the dangerous people inside; the roof may be unstable.
I catch Aleksio’s eye. He shakes his head grimly and pulls out his phone to call Santino, who sees nobody coming out of the doors. We’re okay. For now.
Santino thinks we should come back. The roof sags ahead; it’ll mean more creaking.
“Fuck that,” Aleksio whispers. He points out a slight ridge. That would be the support. “We’ll be safe if we stay right on that.”
A lot of tundra to cross. Fifty feet, perhaps.
We crawl slowly, head to toe now, Aleksio in front. The massive mechanicals that supply heat to the space below are housed up ahead in silver casing. He reaches the plant first, sits up, and opens his pack. The camera is on the end of a small cable. He unspools it, fits it into the hold, and lowers it.
I come up next to him and watch the view on my phone. It’s a long process. Slow.
“Still, there’s one thing I’ve been wondering,” he says, unspooling it one centimeter at a time, lowering it down into the space. He twists to change the view.
I peer through the lens via my iPhone. “Keep going.”
He unspools it more. “Your endgame.” He continues to work calmly. “What’s your endgame with Tanechka?”
“It’s under control.”
“Is it?” He whispers. “Because I was sitting there thinking, what the fuck is Viktor’s plan? What the fuck happens when Tanechka remembers everything? When she realizes she’s a stone-cold killer instead of a nun. And oh, look, Viktor isn’t my heartbroken boyfriend after all, but rather the man who fucking tried to kill me!”
I focus on my phone, speak under my breath. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Really? Because when she remembers, won’t she be pretty mad? A killer, mad at you? But then I realized, oh, that’s your plan.”
I turn to him. “That’s not my plan.”
“Maybe not your plan,” he clarifies. “More like your unconscious agenda. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, do you? Fucking unconscious agenda.”
“You Americans,” I spit. “You American and your psychological…cotton candy,” I say, unable to find a better word. “Just cotton candy.”
“No, I think I’m onto something. You told the nun she’s a killer. What the fuck is that?”
“I didn’t tell her.”
“Fine, she put it together.” He uses air quotes. “From something you said. Hmmmm.”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“No? ’Cause here’s my question: What’s the one thing you aren’t telling her?”
I give him a look, there in the dark.
“The one thing you’re not telling her is that you fucking threw her over that cliff.” He whisper-shouts that last phrase. “Why not tell her that part?” He tucks a curl into his dark cap and continues to unspool the cable, expertly, quietly. “Tanechka the nun would forgive you for throwing her over the cliff, wouldn’t she?”
My head feels strange from his words.
“But you don’t want forgiveness. It’s the last thing you want. You need Tanechka to remember she is an assassin before she finds out you threw her off that cliff.” He turns to me. “That’s your fucking plan, isn’t it? You don’t want the nun to find out you killed her. You want the assassin to find out.”
“No.”
He unspools the line. “This is a fucking death wish is what this is.”
“If I wanted to die I’d be dead already,” I growl, pulling up the images on the app. All dark.
“Right. This suits you more. Way more twisted.”
I snort, concentrating on the feed from the camera now inside the warehouse. Nothing.
“Let me ask you a question—how would it feel if she plunged a blade into your gut?”
I still, stunned by the question.
“Come on, be honest.”
I imagine her coming after me with a blade. I imagine her sinking it under my ribs and…it feels right. Good. Warm, somehow. As though the world became cold when I killed her, and her blade in my belly would make it warm again. Right again.
I don’t know what to think—not about anything. So I focus on the picture. Shapes. The full room comes into view. “I’m seeing something.”
He doesn’t reply.
I look up to find him glaring.
“It’s bullshit,” he says. “Maybe I’ll fucking tell her.”
“Leave her alone.” I make an adjustment in the cable.
He clamps a hand over my arm. “You want Tanechka to be herself when she remembers what you did so she can hurt you. You want Tanechka to punish you.”
“Stop it,” I say.
“You want to be the one falling into that gorge. Or at the business end of her blade. You’ll provoke her until she’s back to Tanechka. Let me ask you, how is it she was wearing Tanechka’s clothes anyway? Seems odd she’d change, considering she insists she’s a nun. A bit odd, right?”
“I burned her
nun outfit,” I say calmly. “I stripped her and burned her outfit.”
“That’ll get a nun out of a forgiving mood,” he says.
“She’s a nun with Jesus as her imaginary friend.” I shove the tools back in the pack. “A nun.”
“You deserve forgiveness.”
I sniff.
The silence between us stretches long and wide. I think again about her blade, sliding between my ribs, piercing my heart.
I think what it would feel like.
I think it would feel like freedom.
Chapter Fifteen
Tanechka
The strangest sense of familiarity passes over me as I sneak along the rooftop, night wind in my hair. The men below are good; they know to look up. They had one man stationed on the roof, but he went down for a piss break. He should’ve pissed on the roof.
I race along and jump the short gap to the next roof, a deeply familiar move. I know not to look down. I know how to land, setting my weight forward. My plan is to run to the Orthodox church I found in the phone book in the kitchen. These guys are so careful about keeping me away from phones and the internet, they forgot about paper. A Russian Orthodox church not twenty blocks away, judging from the map at the back. Very large. The name is Sacred River—very similar to our Svyataya Reka, Holy River. There are nuns there. These are my people. I’ll tell them of the virgin brothel, and we’ll identify police with ties to the church, the community, those we could trust. We’ll get them involved in rescuing the girls. And I’ll contact the sisters.
And get away from Viktor.
He’s too much, too compelling to me, infusing the air with desire whenever he’s near. I need to get back to Ukraine, to put a world between us.
Most of all, though, I need to fall to my knees and throw myself on the mercy of God. I’ll beg to be shown the way back. I have so much to atone for. I took a life. I don’t know how to be in my skin.
I race across, leaping again, landing lightly, feeling strong and small. I pause and take in a breath, then I slip down the side of a peaked roof and grab onto a tree, clinging to the branch. I fumble for a foothold and quickly descend. I rustle the branches, but never mind; I’ll vanish before anybody can get to the window.
I hit the ground and take off, racing through the night streets toward the church.
I feel eyes all around. A person watching you is a feeling, always a feeling.
I turn a corner and walk; it’s time to blend. I hate that I know this. A nun wouldn’t know this. I tell myself things will be all right. When I used to worry about my violent past, Mother Olga would say that God loves all his children, especially the difficult cases, the lost causes.
Surely it’s no less true now.
Footsteps. I’m being followed. I slip around the corner of a brownstone and hide.
Somebody coming. Three men.
I set off running in the other direction, though unfamiliar streets. I can feel danger growing. It’s a feeling on my skin. In the air.
I cut through a gloomy alley. I don’t know this place. I don’t like it. I move through the shadows and peek out. Empty sidewalk.
I turn out, begin to walk.
Hands grab me from behind and pull me back. I’m shoved face-first into the rough, cool side of a building.
My cheek grazes the brick. My heart pounds.
A whisper. “You used to like it like this.”
Viktor.
“I’d shove you up to a wall just like this. I’d take you from behind. Use you hard like a stranger.”
He presses harder. I feel strange inside.
“I’d make you turn your head and open your eyes so I could see what I did to you. I would fuck the alertness right out of your eyes so all your world was only my cock. You loved when I drugged you with the harsh pole of my cock.”
Roughly he turns me to face him.
My pulse races. “Leave me. Let me be with my people.”
“I am your people.”
“I’ll keep trying until I get away.”
The vein in his neck is there. “To your pathetic church? Your god up in the sky? Your imaginary family like Mickey Mouse?”
“God does not need your approval.”
“And will he protect you from the danger all around? Bloody Lazarus and his men?”
“He will, yes.”
“He isn’t even there! And if he was, he wouldn’t care about killers like us. When you remember, you’ll see.”
Ten minutes later we’re back in the apartment.
Once again I’m upstairs in the large bedroom. I’m on a thick bearskin rug in front of the roaring fire, in fact.
That sounds nice, I suppose. It would be nice if my ankle weren’t shackled to a chain that goes to a fat metal heating pipe that runs up and down the wall. Just enough room to go and lie in front of the fire, or to use the small, windowless bathroom.
Viktor gives it a tug and steps back. The part that connects to my ankle is an iron cuff with a padlock. The fire crackles.
“How is this different from the brothel?” I ask. “Kept for a man’s whim?”
“Utterly different.” He lifts a corner of the rug and peers underneath, then he stands and swishes through the coin dish on the dresser. He’s looking for things I can use to pick the lock—hard, bendable things. As if I can remember how to pick a lock. Then again, I know exactly what he’s looking for, so perhaps I do know.
I certainly knew how to traverse rooftops.
He says, “You’re lucky I grabbed you first. Because you know who else is out there looking for you? Bloody Lazarus. Remember? The man who owns Valhalla? His men are on the hunt for you. What do you think he’ll do when he finds you? Your experience with him will be very different from your experience with me. He’ll probably bring you back to that Charles who was so into you.”
Shivers roll over my skin. “I was grateful it was me and not one of the other girls.”
Viktor unscrews the door stopper and tosses it out of the range of my chain. “You’re lucky they didn’t find you before we did.” He yanks up a piece of molding, and I get the feeling it’s just to get the nail out of my range. He thinks I could use a nail?
“Nothing will stop me from going back where I belong, Viktor. Not you, not Lazarus.”
“You think Lazarus can’t stop you? Even Tanechka at the height of her powers wasn’t magical.” His look is dark. It scares me a little. “We always knew he was bloodthirsty. We never knew he was smart.”
I lie back. “Still. I will leave again.”
“The old Tanechka wouldn’t run through the streets to a predictable destination. So predictable. Running to a church.” He practically spits out the word.
“Maybe Tanechka should’ve run to a church.”
“Tanechka was perfect. She didn’t need a church.”
He kneels at my feet and tucks a sock around the inside of my leg iron, on the outside of my jeans. Cushioning the metal. Roughness and softness. Harshness and care.
A familiar thrill of excitement rushes over me. He looks up, catches it in my gaze. “I like this. You chained up for me.”
“You need to let me go,” I say. “I need to confess what I’ve done.”
He sniffs.
“I killed a person.”
“Perhaps. Or is it all lies? It’s too bad you can’t remember. Tanechka would.”
“Viktor, please.”
“Please what?”
What? I don’t know. “I can’t be what you want.”
“Then you’ll die of old age in this room.”
“You killed, too,” I say. “Don’t you want to find some peace?”
This seems to stop him. I see heat in his face. Rage. Or maybe shame. “It’s too late for me.”
“How do you live with it?”
He seems to consider this. “It hurts sometimes. But you go forward.” He kneels in front of me. “We’ve always been fighters, Tanechka. We’ve always been dark and wrong. When you don’t expect sunshine
and happiness, nothing can truly hurt you.” He tucks in another sock, cushioning my ankle all around. “Hell is only disappointing to those who were expecting heaven.”
I look over at the icon of Jesus. Too far to reach.
“Don’t even think of asking. You don’t get to kiss him anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter. Take it away—you won’t change my heart. I saw light shine from his eyes. You can’t take that away from me. The sweetest, brightest light you can ever imagine.”
“I grow weary of your fairy tales.” He gets up and walks out.
“Viktor!” I call.
Nothing.
I inspect the chain. I yank on it. I test the strength of the pipe. Nothing. I run my hand across the thick, rich fur of the rug. So decadent. We didn’t have such things at the convent. Yet the familiarity of it goes deep into my bones. Fur in front of a fire—is this like the honey cake? The American rock and roll?
I shove the rug away and sit on the hardwood floor.
I shove it away as I shove away a life where there is no hope, no brightness. I turn to the bookshelf across the room where I set the small icon. I can’t reach it, but I can gaze upon it.
He returns with a tray loaded with pears and cherries. My heart lifts. And then falls. I know this trick.
“You keep feeding me Tanechka food. It won’t work.”
He says nothing about the rug bunched up by the wall He simply sets down the tray, stokes up the fire, and sits cross-legged beside me.
“You remembered how to escape along a roof.” He takes the pear. Something silver flashes in his other hand. There’s a tickle in my palm.
He watches me with glittering eyes. He flicks the catch, and the blade snaps out.
Something wicked inside me comes to attention. I can feel the shiver of that snap, the weight of it. The sharp power of it. My mouth goes dry.
“You feel it, don’t you? It’s just like yours.”
I look away.
“You could do a lot of damage with one of these things.” He cuts into the pear. I watch it drip, so juicy, this pear. He passes me a slice.
I shake my head.
“Eat it or I’ll sit on top of you and shove it into your mouth.”
Wicked Mafia Prince: A dark mafia romance (Dangerous Royals Book 2) Page 13
