by Box Set
I step over him, straddling his chest and squat down to look into his face. “You thought you could touch what’s mine and live?” I ask, but don’t expect an answer. He’s grabbing for his throat, wiggling beneath me in pain.
Moving down the length of his body, I press the silencer to his groin. I look up at him, catch his horrified look as I pull the trigger, sending a bullet through his balls. I send another one through. Blood pours from his groin onto the gravel beneath him.
Between the neck wound, and groin, he’s going to live another few minutes. Long enough to feel every bit of the pain I put him in. But just to be sure, I press the heel of my boot to the wound. Stepping on his balls makes his body shudder with pain. He’s lost too much blood now to do much else but lie there and moan.
“Kristoff! C’mon,” Carlos calls me.
I shove my boot into Viktor’s groin one last time, not getting any reaction out of his lifeless eyes, and turn back to Carlos and Magdalena.
Her eyes are on me and her mouth is parted.
“I told you I’ll kill them all. They will all pay,” I say to her and press a kiss to her cheek. “Now, let’s go.”
We get to Carlos’s car and I get her strapped in with no arguments from her. She’s still staring at me like she’s just seeing me for the first time.
“Magdalena, you listen to Carlos okay? Don’t fight him, even if what he asks you to do seems scary, okay? He’s going to keep you safe until I come for you.”
She nods. “You’ll come for me.”
“Right.” I press another kiss to her forehead. “I love you. I need you to know that before you go.” Because there’s a chance she may not see me again, I may not survive this attack.
Her brow furrows again in confusion.
“I know, it makes no fucking sense to me either, but it’s true.” I look at Carlos and nod. “You listen to him, or you’ll answer to me when I see you.”
She starts to say something, but I close the door. If it’s an argument, I won’t listen to it anyway, and if she’s going to tell me how she feels about me, I don't want to know. A monster like me doesn’t deserve such an innocent angel like her.
16
We make it through the main gates of the property, but I can sense Carlos getting nervous. He’s checking the rearview mirror too often.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, my stomach rolling with nausea.
“Nothing, everything’s fine,” he says and looks over his shoulder at the cars behind us in traffic.
“Doesn’t seem that way,” I say wondering why Kristoff would put me in this man’s care if he was so skittish.
“Everything’s—”
A high pitch squeal hits my ears just before the crunch of metal. I’m thrown to the right, straight into Carlos. The car is dragged up the sidewalk and into a pole.
I hear Carlos screaming, but I can’t see him. Where is he? A woman walks up to us, while I struggle to get out of my belt. My door has caved in. Blood covers my shirt on my side, and the pain is unreal, but I have to get out.
“Carlos!” I call for him. He’s on the sidewalk outside the car, glass is sticking out of his arm.
A woman walks up to the car. Her hair is pulled back, silver-blond, and tied off behind her neck. She’s wearing thick round sunglasses, so I can’t see her eyes when she sticks her head through my window. Shards of glass cover me. Her car is still wedged into my door.
“Help my friend,” I say pointing to him. She looks past me to where Carlos is starting to get to his feet.
“Sure,” she says and leaves me, walks around the car to where he’s scrambling to his feet.
She looks familiar, her walk, her voice. I shout a warning, but it’s too late. Carlos is shot in the head. Blood sprays the sidewalk, his legs spasm then go quiet, but I’m still screaming. And stuck. I can’t get the fucking seat belt off of me.
The woman yanks his door open more and bends to look at me. “C’mon sis, we got to go.” She flashes me a smile. One I’ve seen millions of times since I was born.
“Danuta?” I ask, unbelieving.
“Let’s go, Maggie, I’m on a schedule here.” She points her gun at me. My sister. I’m her fucking sister, and she’s pointing a gun at me.
“Danuta, what are you doing?” I ask, making my way over the center console of the car. The gear shift shoves into my hip and I curse. There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t hurt.
She grabs hold of my arm and pulls me out. I stumble but manage to get to my feet. I check my side, pulling the tear in the sweater open to see the wound from the door. A nasty gash is bleeding. I hiss and press hard against it.
“Let’s go,” she says again and pulls me away from the wreck. I glance over my shoulder, at Carlos. He said he owed Kristoff a great debt, but I doubt his life was worth it.
I don’t fight Danuta. She’s my big sister. She’ll have a reason for what she’s done.
She puts me in the front seat of her car, a large black SUV that has taken minimal damage from ramming the Volvo Carlos drove. Once the door is slammed shut, I lean back against the seat.
“He was helping me,” I tell her when she’s pulled the SUV away from the accident, leaving Carlos alone and bleeding all over the pavement.
“No, he wasn’t. That’s why I killed him,” she says so casually the words don’t compute at first.
“No, he was. How do you know?” I ask, shaking my head. “Danuta, why would you—”
She sighs in frustration. “You really are a fucking idiot, Maggie. I told you to stay away from here. Didn’t I?” she smacks her hand against the steering wheel and gives me a glare.
“You did.” I nod. “My side hurts. It’s cut bad,” I say, looking down at the blood staining the sweater.
She barely glances before turning down another road, picking up speed. “Carlos wasn’t helping you, he was taking you to another safe house where he’d keep you until it was time for you to be transported to Maksim.”
“What? No. Kristoff said he trusted him.” I rub my head. I’m getting so dizzy and she’s talking too fast.
“Of course, he did. That’s why Andrei paid Carlos a shit ton of money to take you and hide you from Kristoff until the sale was complete.” She turns down another road and I hit the door from the severity of the turn.
She can’t be telling the truth. Kristoff wouldn’t give me to someone that would double cross him.
“How do you know this?” I ask, holding onto the dashboard when she takes the next turn, so I don’t hit my side again.
“Because.” It’s the only answer I get.
“You said you weren’t looking into Andrei right now, you told me you were focusing on a larger ring in Russia.” I remember the last real conversation we had - months ago.
“Just relax. We’re almost there,” she says and flips her phone out of her back pocket and starts a call.
“I have her. No, she thinks I’m saving her. It’s fine. Yes, I’m about to enter the tunnel, I’ll be there in five minutes,” she speaks in Russian.
She doesn’t know I learned the language. I never told her. After I finished college, she was so busy with work we rarely had real conversations. I must not have told her - or she’s forgotten.
“Who was that?” I ask, letting her stick with her misconception.
“My partner. He’s going to meet us just through here.” She points at the tunnel coming up.
Too many scenarios run through my head. Who’s telling me the truth? Did Carlos work for Andrei or was he truly loyal to Kristoff? Why would Danuta pretend to help me? Isn’t she the good guy? She’s CIA for fuck’s sake.
The darkness of the tunnel clears and we’re pulling into an underground lot. Danuta parks the car and hops out of her side. I push open my door and gingerly start to move, but then she’s there, yanking me to my feet.
I cry out from the pain, but she doesn’t notice. Or she doesn’t care. She takes me into a building, and we bypass two men standing guard at the m
ain door. I get a quick glance, but I recognize them. They are Andrei’s men.
I yank back on her hold, but she’s ready for it and pulls out her gun.
“It would be a shame to have to lug your dead body all the way down the hall,” she says with her teeth clenched together.
I’m pulled into a room, the same room I woke up in when Andrei had kidnapped me. The smell hasn’t changed. But the captive in the chair has.
“Andrei!” Danuta lets me go and runs to him. His eyes are both swollen shut, he can’t see her. His hands are bound behind him and his jaw is bruised.
Someone has beaten him and left him for her to find him.
“Who did this? Where are your men? Why haven’t they come in to help you?” Danuta rattles off her questions like a hysterical girlfriend.
Andrei mouths words, they come out jumbled and more like dolphin sounds. Getting frustrated with himself, he sticks out his tongue. The front half has been cut off.
My stomach rolls and I take a step back, holding my belly and taking deep breaths.
Danuta only gasps at the sight before she starts to work the ties on his hands. “Who? Your bastard son?” she demands, and he nods.
“I assure you my father was married to my mother when she gave birth to me.” Kristoff walks in the open door. Blood covers his shirt and his arms. I press myself against the wall, unsure of where to go. “He was also married to her when he cut out her tongue and beat her to death.”
I sink to the floor, grappling for something to keep me upright. The dizziness is getting worse.
“Kristoff. You can’t do this. He’s your father. You have a duty,” Danuta rants at him, waving her gun at him.
Kristoff walks to her as though the gun won’t end his life if she raises it just a hair higher and pulls the trigger.
“You speak of duty? Your duty was to your sister. To raise her and care for her and protect her. And what did you do? You sold her! You gave her over to Andrei, so he could make money off of her, and you could be rid of her.”
I watch my sister, waiting for her to deny his accusations. He can’t be telling the truth.
“You don’t know anything.”
“Your parents left you both a trust fund. And once Magdalena turns twenty-five, she’ll inherit a million dollars. Just like you did. But if she dies - the money’s yours.”
“No. Kristoff, there’s no money.” I shake my head and push myself back to my feet.
He stiffens at my voice but doesn’t turn to me.
“There’s no money, right Danuta? You would have told me,” I say, knowing after seeing her eyes frantically look for a place to run, that Kristoff is telling me the truth.
“I don’t understand.” I stumble and grab my side. The bleeding has slowed, but the pain is there - so much pain. Kristoff looks at me then, seeing the damage done to me and his face hardens.
Before I can explain, before I can plead, he pulls his hand back and whips his knife at my sister, striking her square in her chest. She staggers back, a look of shocked horror frozen on her face as she falls to the ground.
I scream and try to run to her, but Kristoff holds me back. She’s dead. She probably was before she hit the ground, his aim was spot on - straight to her heart.
Air won’t come to me, I can’t get it inside my body. Crumbling to the ground, Kristoff sets me against the wall. “Don’t look, baby. Don’t look,” he says and leaves me, pulling another knife from his pants.
I can’t see past him. Kristoff blocks my view of Andrei, but it only takes a second for me to know what’s happening. A strangled cry and then it’s over, blood pours down to the floor, pooling around the chair, over Kristoff’s boots. Like a river, it heads for my sister and mingles with her blood now flooding around her body.
She’s dead. My sister didn’t save me.
Kristoff wipes his knife off on his father’s suit jacket and re-sheaths it. He steps to me, squats down.
“It’s over now, baby. All over.” He sounds soothing. Like I should be happy. I should be calm.
I look at my sister, lying lifeless and limp. So much blood.
My stomach rolls and I fall to my side just as the contents are emptied on the floor. A fire burns in my side and I whimper, but I have no more energy for screaming.
Sleep. I want sleep. Long hours, days, months even. As long as it takes for time to rewind and for all of this to go back to normal.
Back to when my sister was just a CIA agent too busy to talk to her little sister. Back to when I was scrounging around places I shouldn’t have been to try and get a story. Before I bought plane tickets to England. Before I heard of Andrei Dowidoff.
“It’s okay, I have you,” Kristoff says, but I’m too far away to respond. Playing in the darkness.
Dark is good.
It hides me so well.
I think I’ll stay here for a while.
17
Dr. Morrow waits for me in my office. He’s helping himself to a glass of vodka from my wet bar when I enter.
He finishes pouring when he notices me and offers me one.
I shake my head. No amount of vodka will take the edge off.
“Is she safe?” I ask, throwing myself into my chair. My father’s old chair. I hate it, it’s lumpy and caved in from where his ass made a groove. I’ll replace it later. Once I’m finished tying up the loose ends.
Dr. Morrow nods. “She’s been admitted to Mount Sinai. I have access to her records and the attending physician is keeping me updated. She’ll be just fine once she wakes up.”
I don’t like medical induced coma’s, no matter how much Dr. Morrow tries to convince me they are safe. It scares the hell out of me, but she never would have gotten on that plane willingly.
“The gash on her side?” I ask, trying to block out the image of all the blood saturating her sweater. She lost so much of it, Dr. Morrow was surprised she’d been conscious for as long as she had been.
“Deeper than I would have liked to see her travel with, but the stitches held. She lost a lot of blood, though, Kristoff. She’ll need some time to recover.”
“And her other injuries?” I’m listing these items like I’m getting a report on projects I’ve asked him to handle. I’ll deal with the reality of it all later. Once he’s gone and I can finish what needs to be done. Then I can drown myself in vodka.
“All healing. They’ll wake her tomorrow. I’ll know more then.” He assures me everything’s going to be fine for her, but he can only answer the physical questions. Magdalena was put through hell while here. The mind can only handle so much horror, so much betrayal.
“Once she’s released, I want her set up with the best therapist in New York. She’s to have round the clock access for help.”
Dr. Morrow’s brows shoot up. “She’s going to be very confused, Kristoff, and while I agree she’ll need someone to help her sort out everything that happened to her while she was here - she’s going to need answers. And she’s not going to like waking up to find you’ve left her.” His voice is that of a chastising old woman trying to guilt me into doing the right thing.
But I did the right thing. I protected her, I saved her from those that would see her dead, then I sent her away.
“Seeing me would only be a reminder. She needs to figure out a way to forget.” I push off the chair. I think about her too much, and this conversation is only needling a wound I can’t treat. There is no fixing it, and I don’t deserve for it to be cleaned and bandaged. I deserve the pain and the infection. Because that’s what I am. An infection. If I were to stay with her. If I hadn’t sent her back to New York, I would have festered in her life and destroyed her. I’ve already stolen her innocence, I won’t be responsible for ruining everything else.
“I don’t think she’ll agree,” he says into his glass as he takes a sip.
“You’re probably right, but it’s not up to her. I know what’s best for her and I’m taking care of it.” I sound like a man who has any right to mak
e decisions on her behalf. I don’t. I’ve not earned that privilege. But fuck it, I don’t care. I won’t allow any more hurt to come to her. And all I bring is pain.
“She’ll need assistance dealing with her sister’s estate,” he reminds me of another item on my list. Danuta. CIA agent turned human trafficker. It still boggles me. My father complained about the Americans getting their nose into everything for years. Danuta was a particular thorn in his side. Apparently, it only took the scent of money to lure that bitch away from the rest of her pack.
“Put a man on it. I don’t want her to have to deal with anything on her own. She’s to have full support. Get her an apartment, she gave up the one she had when she came here for her story.” After everything that’s happened, I’m still irritated that she’d been so foolish in coming to England to snoop around. “I want the rent paid for the year, and after that, if she wants to stay, I want the bill paid. She’s not to want for anything, do you understand?”
He nods in agreement. I’ve given him duties well outside his physician skills, but he’ll see it’s done.
“She’ll have questions,” he prods me again.
I head to the door. Talking about her has made the dark cloud appear again, and I need to finish what I started downstairs.
“She’ll have a roof over her head, and safety. That’s all she needs.” I yank the door open and head to the stairwell.
As I head down to the pits of the house, I can already hear the moans and cries of the four men I have waiting for me. Peeling off my shirt, I head into the first room. Into the cell I’d kept Magdalena when she first arrived. Matvei is restrained, facing away from me in the cell, his naked ass greeting me when I walk in.
“Are you ready?” I ask him.
“Kristoff,” he pleads, frantically trying to turn his face to me, but he’s already received some of his punishment. He can’t see me, no matter where he looks. One eye has swollen shut, the other has been cut out.
