Two Cuts Darker

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  He crashed into the crates, sending them flying. The guards on the boat whooped and laid heavy gunfire in the area, more dangerous to him than the bad guys. They didn’t care if they killed Vincent. He wasn’t one of them. He never would be their family. One man pulled out a smaller handgun. Vincent swept the first man’s rifle aside, looped an arm around the man’s neck, and swung him around in front of him. He felt the impact of the bullet through the man’s body, but it didn’t penetrate him through the man’s body armor. Vincent shot the first man, then swung both him and his shield around to face a fresh barrage from the cruise ship. Vlasenko’s men didn’t mess around—they used armor-piercing rounds. A shot burned across Vincent’s thigh, knocking him off his feet. He rolled through the fall, letting his shield topple to the ground behind him.

  Panting, he waited behind a crate until the bullets stopped, then he pushed to his feet and headed back toward Mads. His thigh held his weight, so the bullet wound wasn’t serious. Probably a graze. The crescendo inside him built, a crashing wave of pain and blood that only made him stronger. Injury had never slowed him down. It only made him fight harder. In his Special Forces days, they’d joked that he had berserker blood in him. But that had been before he’d stumbled out of the desert, assumed dead in a convoy raid, covered in blood with enough wounds to need nearly a hundred stitches and a blood transfusion.

  After they’d backtracked and found the cave he’d left littered with the bodies of a dozen insurgents, the jokes had become legend.

  Tkaczuk reinforcements had arrived, but he had people at his back now. Vlasenko’s men charged off the ship and joined the fray. Vincent shifted his attention to the women. They’d left their hiding place. A maze of crates—that Vlasenko’s men used to disguise what they put on and off the cruise ship—had tumbled across the dock. He climbed up a stack, unfortunately making himself a target, but he had to get to a vantage point. There. The three women had ducked behind a row of shaded benches that provided a comfortable waiting spot for tourists stuck in line.

  He jumped down, knocked a Tkaczuk to the ground with a hard downward kick to his right knee. Shot another. That was fifteen shots unless he’d miscounted. He pulled out another clip. The downed man with the shattered kneecap managed to stab him in the thigh—same leg that had taken a shot. Pain spiraled higher, giving him a fresh spurt of energy. He shot the downed man in the face and limped after Mads. He had to get to her. Make sure she made it out of here alive. Somehow that had become the most important thing.

  To reach her, he burned through another clip. He had a third, but he had her in his sights now. Did he need the gun? She was so close. Her hair shone like a beacon. She sent the first two women running up the dock, back toward shore. They ran screaming and crying, scattering like quail. Vlasenko’s men would gather them up and ship them off. But not her. She stood as he neared her. Her right arm leveled at him. His gun in her hand. He saw his death in her eyes and he kept going.

  “Stop.” Her low voice echoed with power, as if she was used to issuing commands. “I will shoot you.”

  He took another step so her hand hovered only a foot away. Even if she missed his heart, she’d do enough damage to send him to hell. “Good.”

  Someone screamed in pain behind him and another round of bullets sprayed in their direction. She didn’t flinch or duck, as if she feared that if she took her eyes off him for a moment, it’d be too late. Pain seared across his left biceps and he instinctively stepped into the shot, trying to shield her. Blood splattered her face and throat.

  His blood.

  In the moonlight, it looked like glistening black obsidian dotting her skin. He wanted to feel regret at the thought of her having to bear that mark of violence on her skin, but his pulse thundered. His overloaded senses locked on her. Mads. She’d been marked by his blood.

  “Yo, Mads!”

  She whirled and raced up the dock toward a waiting black sedan, grabbing the arm of one of the fleeing women who’d fallen, then hauling her along. Vincent watched her go and didn’t attempt to stop her. Or follow.

  Not yet.

  One benefit of having an eidetic memory: the license plate number of the black sedan waited like a snapshot in his brain.

  Oryol charged up beside him and aimed his gun at the speeding car. “She’s getting away!”

  Vincent shoved his arm aside before he could fire. “No, she’s not. I’ll find her.”

  Oryol gave him a narrowed look and for a moment, Vincent thought the man would aim the gun at him instead. He waited, body loose but ready to explode into action if the man even thought about it.

  A woman’s scream jerked Oryol’s head around and he jogged across the street after one of the other escapees. “If the blonde gets away, it’s on your head. Boss is already going to be pissed that we were attacked, let alone if we come back empty-handed.”

  “I’ll find her,” Vincent repeated. Anticipation pumped in his veins. Oh yeah, he’d find her all right. He’d find out who she worked for and what her mission was. And then...

  Escape is only the beginning.

  Chapter Twelve

  Petit St. Vincent, Caribbean

  Ranay

  The food was superb but I couldn’t concentrate on the flavors. Charlie ate, barely able to drag his gaze away from the shadowed face in the picture long enough to cut his steak. I’m sure he was envisioning all the horrible things that had happened to his brother in a foreign prison—and all the violence he might be doing in service to Vlasenko. Cutlery clanged against our plates, loud in the silence.

  I looked up at Matheson, remembering how she’d been there for me when Charlie’d disappeared. In many ways, she knew me better than my own family, so I hated seeing her on the opposite side of the table, knowing she had a gun and backup. That I’d brought Charlie here to possibly be ambushed. “You said your mother’s a senator?”

  She swallowed and took a small sip of wine before answering. “Yes, for North Carolina. She was born in Durham, but everyone still gives her the side eye when they meet her for the first time. Her married name is completely American, so it throws people for a loop when they realize she’s South Asian. She swears that if she’d run for office under her maiden name, Bharadwaj, she never would have been elected.” She lifted her fork with another bite of blackened sea bass, but paused. “Have you talked to your family? Do they know you’re all right?”

  “Yeah. They know.”

  “But...?”

  I made myself eat another bite of scallop before I answered her. “They’re not happy. They told me not to call again.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you were close to them.”

  Charlie laid down his fork and sat back in his chair. “They told her not to call as long as she’s with me.”

  “I don’t care.” Matheson recoiled a bit at my vehemence. “They made their choice, and so did I.”

  “I only met them that one night, but I could tell that they love you,” she said softly.

  “Yes, they do. But they never understood me. I was more of an inconvenience, a stressor they wished they didn’t have to deal with.”

  “That’s not—”

  I whirled on Charlie before he could finish the sentence. “You don’t know what it was like growing up with them. There are many kinds of love. Even people who claim to love you can tear you down without even realizing it. They were slowly destroying me with their love. How is that okay? Why do you think I jumped at the chance to move in with Josh so quickly? To get away from them. To find somewhere to belong. Where what I wanted and needed wasn’t something to brush under the rug and hide. And that doesn’t even come close to what I have with you.”

  My voice broke but my determination did not. I stared into his sad, dark eyes until he shifted closer and drew me against him. I wanted to crawl into his lap and bury my face in his ne
ck, but I couldn’t. Not here. I settled for his body heat against my side and the weight of his arm around my shoulders. His fingers shifted aside the scarf I’d tied loosely around my shoulders so he could touch my bare skin. The simple dance of his fingers on my shoulder made me shiver with longing.

  I looked back across the table at Matheson. She hadn’t turned away to give us a moment, but stared at his fingers on my skin. Not my shoulder. A bit lower. I’d worn the long, wide scarf like a shawl because I figured I’d be chilly, yes. But also to hide the healing cuts above my heart. The sundress was unfortunately cut deep enough that the red scabs weren’t completely covered.

  She’d seen pictures from the investigation. She’d seen his bites. She’d know what those cuts were. What they meant.

  I don’t give a damn.

  Matheson finally lifted her gaze to mine and I couldn’t read her expression. She’d been almost a friend to me during the Rusk investigation: understanding, sympathetic and kind, even when she didn’t fully understand why I’d put myself at risk with Charlie. This closed expression must be her cop face. She’d made a decision that put that flat, cold light in her eyes and I didn’t like it one bit.

  “There’s one more thing I need to share with you.” She reached back into her bag for the folder. At least I wouldn’t have to trick her somehow to get it. But why had she only decided to show it to us now? Maybe it’d just been a card she wanted to play at exactly the right time. “Vlasenko’s operation specializes in selling women overseas, mostly young tourists they nab off the street. Of course they’re shipping in girls cheap to the States too, but that’s a completely different operation. We’re concentrating on how they’re getting women off the islands and to the buyers. We haven’t been able to figure that out yet.”

  She laid the folder open on the table in front of us and pointed to a picture paper-clipped to the inside of the manila folder. “That’s why I think this is your brother we’re dealing with and not some random enforcer Vlasenko just happened to pick up out of prison.”

  It took my eyes a moment to make sense of what they were seeing. Then my stomach heaved and it was all I could do to keep the small amount of food I’d managed to eat down.

  It was actually two pictures: one of a dead woman spread out on the ground, and another on top of it, smaller, but blown up, showing her stomach. The letter G had been carved into her stomach. Her eyes still managed to convey horror and fear, even though she was dead. The twisted grimace of her mouth seemed to be frozen in a scream.

  “This is Annie Sunderland, aged nineteen. She’d come to Jamaica on spring break with a group of her friends. It took them nearly twenty hours to realize she’d disappeared because they were too drunk to notice when or where they’d seen her last. Local police found her on a deserted, remote stretch of beach a week later. She’d been sexually assaulted and beaten. We think she must have escaped but then drowned trying to swim ashore.”

  Charlie stared at the letter cut into her skin. “My brother wouldn’t have done this.” But I would have.

  He didn’t say it aloud, but the way Matheson watched us both so carefully, and had stared at the cuts on my chest, I knew she’d heard his self-recrimination as clearly as I had.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Vince never liked hurting other people. He’s not a sadist.”

  “Like you?” Matheson whispered.

  He jerked his head up and gave her a hard look that tightened her lips. She gripped the tabletop—as if to keep herself from going for a gun. Sheba let out a low, soft rumble that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. I turned around and saw the two men standing, walking toward us. Sheba watched them too, her ruff bristling as they neared. She took up position between us and the door, but she was too well trained to attack without a word from Charlie.

  “Like me,” Charlie agreed. I didn’t have to see his eyes to know the cold, dead predator look had chilled his gaze. “Vince is a masochist. Always has been.”

  “A masochist who kills people?” Matheson scoffed as if Charlie had told her a joke. “Because you and I both know that he’s had plenty of kills to his name.”

  “I don’t care how many people he’s killed. He’s not a sexual sadist. He wouldn’t have gotten off on something like that.”

  “Fine. But do you think he might have done it? Who else would want a G carved into a woman?”

  Charlie stood. I started to join him, but his hand came down on my shoulder, a clear order to stay whether he said the word or not. He stepped around my chair, moving to my left side as he trailed his hand across my back to my opposite shoulder. “How should I know? Maybe Vlasenko has a George in his ranks, or perhaps one of the buyers. Do you even know that Vlasenko’s men picked her up in the first place?”

  “We have our suspicions.”

  “But no proof. If you had proof, you would have already moved on Vlasenko’s operation, but you’ve got nothing.”

  Matheson stood too. With her shoulders square and her weight shifted forward on the balls of her feet, she exuded cop confidence despite the beautiful dress. “I’ve got you.”

  Charlie’s fingers tightened on my shoulder. Stay down, stay seated, stay safe. I knew that’s what he wanted, but he was facing three agents alone. For all I knew he didn’t even have a gun on him. Would he have seriously walked into a meeting like this without a gun? I should have asked him, but I’d assumed he’d be armed. I’d assumed that Matheson was my friend, as much as an FBI agent would be, anyways. But the way she stared at Charlie, level and cool and poised to grab a gun from her bag and blow him away...

  “I don’t think so,” Charlie replied in that same light voice that still managed to convey an icy threat. “Nothing you’ve showed me says that man is my brother. If you want to hire my services to bring down Vlasenko, I’ll give you a decent rate. But he certainly won’t be going to jail if you send me after him.”

  “You’re at least curious, so you’ll go take a look and see if Ghost is Vincent Gyres. Assuming you can find him.”

  “I can and will.”

  Matheson shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt.” She planted her hands on the table and leaned toward us. “Only a fool would take Ranay into such danger.”

  He didn’t say anything but his fingers jerked on my shoulder in a slight twitch that betrayed him.

  “You know what Vlasenko is capable of. You know what he does to the women they kidnap. Is that what you want for Ranay?”

  “She won’t be anywhere near him.” His voice didn’t change, but my shoulder ached from his grip on me. “I wouldn’t allow that to happen.”

  “I’ve got you,” she said again, more confidently. “You won’t risk her. You’ll do as we need because we can keep her safe. I give you my word I’ll see her safe and sound, back to her family, until you’re finished.”

  “No,” I retorted, pushing upward to stand. But he pushed me back down, his painful grip on my shoulder bringing tears to my eyes. “I won’t go with you.”

  “You know it’s the right thing to do,” Matheson said softly, completely ignoring me. “If something happens to you, they’ll sell her overseas. I’ll never be able to find her. She’ll be gone. Is that what you want?”

  “You’ll keep her safe—but only to ensure I do exactly what you want.”

  A sound escaped my lips, a desperate choked cry that neither of them paid any attention to. It was my worst nightmare come true, short of Charlie being injured or even killed. They were using me against him, separating us.

  He immediately released me, as though he’d only just then realized he had to be hurting me by squeezing so hard. I didn’t care. He could rip my arm off for all I cared—as long as we were together.

  I wanted to stand up and plaster my body against his, making it impossible for
them to separate us. But something held me back. Pride, maybe. I didn’t want these agents to see me that weak and afraid, clinging to my man like a helpless, brainless victim. Clinging to him, begging him to take me—I didn’t want to be that weak in front of them. Besides, if he was seriously considering his options...

  It would kill me. But I had to know.

  I turned in my chair so I could see his face. For a moment, his calm, confident mask slipped and his mouth twisted with pain and rage. His eyes blazed. His hands clenched into fists at his side. I started to rise—I couldn’t help it. I had to go to him when he was hurting like this. But he snapped his fingers and Sheba came to press against my knees.

  “Where is he?”

  “Let us get her to safety and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

  “You mean take me hostage, right?” My voice rang with bitterness but I didn’t care. “I’m not going to sit here and let you use me against him.”

  “You won’t be a hostage.” Matheson took a step closer and Sheba growled at her. I wanted to throw my arms around her neck and sob into her fur. At least someone was fighting for me. Fighting to keep me. “Vlasenko won’t play at bedroom slave stuff, Ranay. You’d be a slave for real. Sold to the highest bidder. They’ll hurt, rape and eventually kill you.”

  I turned back to Charlie and stared up at him. He vibrated with tension, fighting some great silent war. To leave me? Or to take me? I couldn’t say. “No one hurts me but my Master.”

  His eyes chilled, weighing his options. He probably had enough information to figure out where Vlasenko’s operation was now, without letting the FBI take me. But he’d wanted to protect me from the beginning. Matheson was only helping to convince him that I was an albatross around his neck. A helpless slave girl to be sold to the highest bidder.

  Nobody would be there to balance him out. If Ghost was his brother, and he killed him, he’d already warned the Charlie I knew and loved would die too. He’d kill and kill and kill, lost to me forever. He’d never come knocking on a safe house door to take me back to Belize.