Two Cuts Darker

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  I’d never see him again.

  Worse, he knew it too. And he was still tempted to let them take me away from him.

  I loved him. But in that moment, I wanted to kill him too.

  The longer he stared at me, the more I shivered. I couldn’t help it. He radiated a bleak coldness, like he’d already departed, never to be seen again. I’d never been a very good poker player, so I didn’t dare look at Matheson and betray myself. I had the winning hand, and I knew it.

  “You promised.”

  His eyes flared. His shoulders relaxed. He held out a hand to me and I immediately stood up and clutched his hand fiercely. “So I did. Sorry to wreck your plans, Jill. I’ll just have to find Vlasenko on my own.”

  I risked a quick glance at Matheson and her jaw was closed tight, her head down, though she still braced her palms on the table. At least she hadn’t drawn a gun on us. “I’ll be adding a picture of her dead, mutilated body to this file, Charlie. Is that what you want? A letter carved into her stomach?” She pushed away from the table and shoved the dead girl’s picture into Charlie’s hand. “Someone else’s mark?”

  “Be glad she’s going with me.” Charlie pulled me tighter to him and Sheba kept a fierce eye on the two men between us and the door. “No one else can pull me back from the brink but her. If I’m going after someone like Vlasenko and his Ghost, I’ll need my anchor, or you’ll be looking to hire someone to bring me down next. We’re going to our cottage now. Thank you for an excellent dinner.”

  “Good luck.” She managed a weary smile, but it was tinged with sadness. She already expected me to die, and probably cause his death too. “Ranay, do you want me to pass along anything to your parents when we take your body home?”

  Enough with the bullshit. I gave her a bright smile. “No. I’ve said everything to them that I care to say, until they accept me for who I am.”

  My heart pounded and my brain insisted we needed to break into a dead run for the boat off this island as quickly as possible. Instead, Charlie shook hands with the two men and then we calmly walked out of the restaurant without a backward glance. A line of small electric cars waited out front to drive the guests to their private cottages. Charlie gave our names and we climbed into the back with Sheba. I pressed my face against her for a few moments, letting all the emotion and adrenaline drain away.

  “Be calm,” Charlie whispered so softly I had to strain to hear him. “Remember they may have bugged our room. We’re not staying here tonight.”

  In a few moments, we climbed out of the car and the hotel employee wished us good-night. Our cottage was lit up and wide open to the gentle island breezes. Huge palm trees sheltered us, making it seem like we were the only people on the island as soon as the car drove back toward the main buildings. Inside, our single bag waited on the bed.

  Charlie stepped into the bathroom and turned on the water in the shower.

  “I think Sheba needs to potty first,” I called out from the bedroom. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Don’t be long, kitten.” He strode toward me, grabbed the bag and then we slipped out the back patio entrance. He’d asked for a cottage with private beach access, as secluded and remote as possible. Trees blocked the view to the front of the cottage, so hopefully we escaped to the beach undetected. As promised, a man in a small rowboat waited for us. We climbed in and Charlie whispered something to the man in Spanish. In moments, we pulled away from the island and headed across the channel toward the larger landmass. Ugh, the small boat bounced on the waves created by the other boat traffic. My stomach heaved and I leaned over, hugging my knees. Maybe if I kept my head down, it wouldn’t bother me so much.

  “I wish I knew what the name of that hotel was. Do you remember anything from the picture? I was too busy memorizing their faces.”

  “It was Royal something. I couldn’t read all the name.”

  He blew out a disgusted sigh. “There’s probably only a dozen Royal-something hotels in the Caribbean.”

  “Oh, wait, there was a dolphin in the logo. A black dolphin.”

  He grinned and squeezed me, drawing my head up to his chest. “I knew I kept you around for a reason.” I didn’t say anything, but he knew my moods as well as his own. He rubbed his mouth against my hair, slowly working his way to my ear, waiting for me to tip my head for him. Of course I did. “Thank you for holding me to your promise.”

  “Would you have really let them use me against you like that?”

  He sighed, ruffling my hair against my cheek. “Common sense insists that Jill’s right. I should send you as far away from Vlasenko as possible. But I couldn’t bear to send you away, kitten.”

  “But if I hadn’t made you promise to take me with you, would you have let her take me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Even though that’s not what I wanted to hear, his honesty melted the last of my hurt away. I didn’t want him hiding anything from me—even if he thought it’d only hurt me. “I don’t want to lose you, ever. I don’t want to think about you being alone and miserable for one second. But if that meant you’d be alive...”

  I turned in his arms and burrowed against him. “I’d rather be dead than lose you.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he whispered hoarsely. “I have to take care of you, especially when you can’t or when you refuse to take care of yourself.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Royal Reefs hotel

  Cable Beach, Nassau, Bahamas

  Vincent

  Coming down sucked. Especially the shaking as adrenaline wore off and exhaustion set in. Getting called into the boss’s private office in the middle of a raging argument made Vincent’s headache even worse.

  “I told you something like this would happen.” Marko paced back and forth in front of his father’s desk. “Are the police investigating?”

  “Of course not.” Vlasenko stared out the window at the evening lights of tourism. The ocean was only feet away, but with all the late-night entertainment, it was impossible to enjoy the view of nature. “The Tkaczuks want that as little as we do. They set the fireworks to counteract the gunfire, with the intent of stealing our shipment.”

  “Shipment.” Marko’s lip curled with disgust. “They’re women. Human beings. Yet you sell them like cattle.”

  “You’re old enough to understand that some people will always be a commodity. They will either be left to rot to death, or used and sold by someone. Why not us, if we use that income to make a better life?”

  “I don’t want this life. Not paid for in blood and tears by others.”

  Vlasenko whirled and slammed his fist down on the desk so hard that a framed picture of his family toppled over with a crash. “Then leave. Make your own life. But go and never come back to whine and cry to me about how difficult the real world is.”

  Marko quivered, his hands balled into fists as if he wanted to tear his father apart with his bare hands.

  “You can’t possibly understand the sacrifices your mother and I have made for you.” Straightening, Vlasenko smoothed his hands over his suit. “Go. Ask your mother to tell you how she had to flee to America alone, poor and pregnant with my child, while I struggled to build a name and life for us. How long we feared for our very lives, let alone putting food in our family’s mouths. You aren’t my only family and I must take care of them all. After this attack, I must call brokenhearted wives and children to tell them we lost some great men tonight.”

  Marko inclined his head and started to turn toward the door. “Maybe I should call Uncle Toma. I’m sure he could use me.”

  Vlasenko laughed. “Who do you think backed me in the first place? Let me make one thing very clear.” He softened his voice, but each word vibrated with intent. “I will find the person responsible for this. And they will pay for the deaths of these brave
men with their own. One way or another.”

  “I hope you find the guilty party, Father.”

  That name. Toma. Vincent kept his face blank, but he might have just found the first clue to the reason he’d been sent to a Russian prison three years ago. Langley suspected Vlasenko’s father of being his silent partner in the Russian government but didn’t have any proof. General Mykail Vlasenko had lost clout over the years, putting that theory into question. If Toma had backed Vlasenko in the first place, he had to be the primary contact in power. Uncle might not be blood, though, which would make tracking down the contact harder. Vlasenko didn’t have any brother other than Feliks, according to the file.

  Once the door shut behind Marko, Vlasenko turned to Vincent. “Oryol already made a report on our casualties. I want to know what you saw.”

  “They knew your routine perfectly, keeping out of sight of the scouts, but planting guns in exactly the right places to keep anyone from coming out and helping. Even the fireworks. They didn’t just know a time, but every detail of the operation.”

  “You saved the second car. How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “It didn’t feel right. I lagged behind, watching, and saw them coming out of the van across the street just as our SUV pulled up.”

  “Oryol said you just walked into the gunfire, like you knew they couldn’t hurt you.”

  Vincent laughed. “All this blood is someone else’s.”

  Vlasenko allowed a small smile to crease his face but his intensity didn’t lessen. “We only managed to retrieve one girl. The other two...” He snapped his fingers. “Poof. Gone. Did you see how they escaped?”

  “The blonde Kozlov brought in helped her. I saw them running but couldn’t stop them.”

  Vlasenko’s focus never wavered. “Did they have help? Someone inside, perhaps?”

  “Could be,” Vincent drawled, keeping his body loose. “They did hop into a car. Couldn’t see who was driving, though. Maybe the Tkaczuks planted one of them to learn some of our more...delicate procedures.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Careful. Vlasenko was no fool. Vincent let his face and shoulders sag with weariness. “I have a few leads. I’ll get cleaned up and see what I can track down.”

  “Good. Keep me posted. For now, we’ll be moving operations elsewhere.”

  Naturally he didn’t say where, not when he had someone leaking information to a rival gang. Turning toward the door, Vincent allowed a grimace to twist his face. His leg was definitely going to need some work.

  “Take care of yourself, Ghost.”

  Surprised at the sentiment, he paused with his hand on the door but didn’t turn around. He didn’t trust that he’d be able to keep the impatience off his face. He wanted to do some research on exactly who Toma was, but more, he wanted to find out where Mads had gone. Who was she working for? Did they have anything to do with his mission? The Tkaczuks? Or something else entirely?

  “I’m not a very patient man and I’m even less trusting. If you betray me, I won’t give you that nice, clean kill we talked about.”

  “Careful, boss.” He flashed a quick smile over his shoulder. “You know how much I like to bleed. I’m not your leak, but I will find him.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Vincent

  At a seedy hotel far from the glitz of Cable Beach, Vincent jimmied the lock to room 208 and slipped inside.

  Vlasenko employed his own IT department to hack into police and monitoring systems, so it’d been easy to find details about the car Mads had jumped into. The car had been leased by Jeremiah Silva and security cameras led Vincent to this hotel. A little digging had revealed Silva was an ICE agent, which meant Mads was probably his partner in justice, though Vincent wouldn’t be surprised if she was an FBI agent or had at least trained there for a while. They were a long way from home, so they’d probably joined a couple of Interpol officers too.

  Vlasenko would shit a brick when he heard that an international task force was closing in on his trafficking business. Unless nobody told him about it until it was too late.

  The fucking balls on the blonde, to let herself get picked up by the Russian mafia so she could gain intel on them. Pretty fucking amazing.

  Almost as amazing as his blood splattered on her in the moonlight.

  Speaking of blood, he hadn’t taken time to change his clothes, let alone properly dress the various wounds he’d picked up. Or eaten. Or rehydrated. All things he’d been taught long ago. If he didn’t take care of the body, it’d break down on him. He felt pretty shitty at the moment. Chilled, hurting, vaguely nauseated after losing so much blood without replenishing any of his reserves. But he had to find out what she was up to before she fucked up his entire mission.

  He didn’t bother with searching through her things or finding a hiding place. He knew the most important thing about her already and the last thing he wanted to do was hide. No, he’d be the first thing she saw, and maybe, if he was lucky, she’d be the last thing he saw.

  When she finally opened the door and stepped inside, she didn’t turn the light on, which seemed strange. No woman came into a strange hotel room alone and deliberately stayed in the dark. Vincent hovered near the door, only a foot away. So close he could smell her. Not a sweet feminine scent, not after the stress she’d been through and a long update with her team, but a darker, earthier smell. Fuck with her and—

  She whirled toward him, even though he hadn’t made a sound. Her forearm pressed against his throat, her momentum carrying him back against the wall. He didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t want to stop her. Especially when she replaced her arm with steel that dug into his throat.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  She didn’t let up, even though he wasn’t trying to escape. The sharp edge burned into his skin, tempting him to press against it until the warmth of blood slid down his neck. “Waiting for you. How’d you know it was me?”

  “You smell like blood. How’d you find me?”

  “I followed you.”

  She dug the tip of the knife into his skin. The small prick was like a lover’s bite, a promise of so much more. All his pain and weariness washed away under a fierce surge of emotion. He hadn’t felt anything like it in so long that he didn’t immediately recognize it. To feel something, anything, other than the heavy certainty that he was turning into his father and the ravenous thirst for violence and blood...

  “Vlasenko sent you?”

  “No,” he whispered, closing his eyes. He even lay his head back against the wall, arching his throat against the blade so she unintentionally stabbed him a bit deeper. “I’m not here for him.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “For you.”

  “Bullshit. You came here to find out who I’m working for.”

  “I’m curious, yeah. But I already figured that out. That’s not why I’m here.”

  She shoved against him harder, making it difficult to breathe. “So who do I work for, tough guy?”

  “Silva’s ICE, so I guess you are too.”

  “Shit.” She backed up, removing the knife only to replace it with a gun. In the dark, he couldn’t tell if it was the one that he’d given her or not. “Our whole operation’s fucked. How the fuck did you find out his name?”

  “I have my ways.”

  She was silent for a few moments but her intensity didn’t lessen. Tension vibrated from her and he could almost feel her finger tightening on the trigger as she weighed her options. Kill him now and save what they could of their operation? Or...

  “I’m willing to provide certain sensitive information about Vlasenko’s business.”

  She shoved the muzzle into his chest and he grunted with pain. “In exchange for what?”

  “Information for myself.” About you.


  She snorted. “Like I could trust you.”

  He didn’t give her any warning, no tightening of muscle or holding of breath that might tip his hand. Lunging up from the wall, he grabbed her, whirled her around and slammed her hard against the wall where he’d just been. Then he ducked hard to the side, instinctively avoiding the bullet as her finger spasmed on the trigger. The pistol deafened him, powder burning his neck and shoulder. The flash gave him a glimpse of her face: her eyes wide but steady, rattled by his attack but not panicked. He leaned down so his mouth hovered above hers. “I didn’t have to let you escape. I could have killed you a dozen times before you ever opened the door.”

  The door crashed open and a man bounded inside, weapon drawn. “Mads!”

  Vincent backed away and raised his hands. “She’s unharmed, Agent Silva.”

  The man lowered his head and charged, picking Vincent up and carrying him to the floor like a linebacker. The man weighed as much as one, too, deliberately using his two-hundred-plus pounds as a weapon. Silva raised one meaty fist, ready to plow him into the ground.

  “Stop.” She didn’t have to raise her voice to get Silva’s attention, and the man held position, waiting. Interesting. Evidently Mads led this team, or at least this partnership.

  “You know this asshole?”

  “He’s the one who gave me his gun.”

  Silva got up and Vincent hauled in a breath. Damn, that was one big motherfucker. Vincent lay on the floor. Every single injury he’d received in the past hour suddenly hurt like they’d been dealt all over again, and he had none of the adrenaline to help counteract the pain.

  “One of Vlasenko’s?” The distinct clip action warned him without opening his eyes that he had yet another gun pointed at him. “How’d he track you down?”

  “He followed me.” Her hand grazed his forehead. So, the tough agent had a compassionate side too. “He’s a little shocky. Let me guess, tough guy—you didn’t even stop to see if you needed stitches, did you?”