Two Evils

by Christina Moore

  “I want to cut a deal,” he said suddenly. “To, uh, turn state’s evidence. Isn’t that what you Americans call it? For immunity from prosecution, I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Billie scoffed. “Which is what? You’re a low-level hitman for your grandfather and you aren’t even any good at it,” she countered with a sneer. “What could you possibly have to offer that would be of interest to me or my government?”

  “I could tell you how we found out who you really are,” Andre replied. “Dedushka was livid when Dyadya Piotr left the family. We quickly discovered that a recent acquaintance of his, Nastasja Aldorev, was responsible for convincing him to betray us. Dedushka searched for her endlessly and found nothing—it was as though he were chasing a phantom. And then one day not very long ago, he got a phone call. Not only had this person given him the location of the traitor Piotr, but also that lakhudra Nastasja—who was, in fact, an American who was a soldier before she was a spy. The two of them were hiding out together, tending bar on the beach as though they had not once been each other’s enemy.”

  Anger and pain surged through her at his callous disregard for his own uncle. Sergei was someone else she missed terribly, someone else she had lost to a violent, senseless death.

  Like Travis. Like Eddie.

  Billie looked at her father. His breathing was even but a little shallow, his eyes wide with a fear she knew he was trying his best not to show. Even now, when a madman had a gun to his head, he was trying to be strong for his little girl. Her heart swelled with love and pride, and she hated the fact that he had ever been exposed to the violence that had become part and parcel in her life. She vowed then that not only would she get him out of this alive, but that she would do her damnedest to make sure he never had to go through something like this again.

  “You’ll tell us anyway if you want to live,” she said at last. “Telling us everything you know might just get you a new identity for your extended stay as a guest of the United States. That should keep you safe. But make no mistake, kozel, you will go to prison if you walk out of here.”

  Andre pushed the gun in his hand into the back of her father’s head. “No prison! I get freedom or you get nothing!”

  She tightened her grip on the Glock. “You’ve killed at least three people in as many days, Andre: your own uncle, a teenage girl, and a young woman. Your dead or dying friend over here shot my brother, and if he dies, I guarantee you won’t live another day.”

  The gun at his skull was used to push her father’s head forward. “And if I kill your father?” Andre asked in Russian.

  “Kill him and you won’t live long enough to take another breath,” she replied coldly in the same language.

  A sadistic smile crossed her opponent’s features. “Then it would seem we are at an impasse.”

  “Seems pretty clear to me what should happen next,” Billie retorted. “You let my father walk out of here, and then you give yourself up. You’re cornered, Andre. Langley SWAT’s probably got the house surrounded, which means you only have two ways out available to you: walk out on your own two feet, or get carried out in a body bag.”

  “Get me the deal and I will gladly surrender,” he told her. “Otherwise, your father joins me in taking option number two.”

  Billie’s mind raced. Andre might be a bottom-rung thug in the grand scheme of things, but he was a member of one of the most brutal criminal organizations in the world—was a blood relation to the founding family, even. What little he did know about the inner workings of the Sardetsky mafia could possibly prove useful to somebody. He knew names. He knew faces. Identifying even a small number of the family to the authorities was enough to put a serious kink in their operation, and she was well aware that there were a number of law enforcement agencies around the world who would be willing to give him immunity for that alone. Including hers.

  But she wasn’t. She couldn’t look past the faces of those that had died at his command, could not forgive him for Kevin’s injury or for threatening her father’s life. She simply didn’t have it in her to be charitable. And she suddenly knew without a doubt that if Andre surrendered, he would most likely get the immunity he was demanding. She couldn’t be a part of that. He would simply go on playing wanna-be mob kingpin under a new name. He would continue to push drugs, sell guns, traffic women and children. Countless more people would suffer if he was allowed to go free, and she refused to have those lives on her conscience. It meant there was only one thing she could to do to stop him…

  …she would have to kill Andre Sardetsky in cold blood.

  “I know what you’re doing over there,” Andre needled her. “You are calculating whether or not you can kill me without harming your father. If you shoot me, will I merely drop the gun? Or will my hand flex in reaction to the trauma, thereby contracting my finger on the trigger and blowing a rather large hole in daddy dearest’s cranium? Are you willing to take the risk of finding out, She-Devil?”

  “Wilhelmina.”

  Billie looked again to her father, who until now had been silent. His expression as he gazed up at her was resolved. It was devoid of the fear that she had seen moments ago, and she realized that he understood what needed to be done. Thomas Ryan had figured out what allowing Andre to surrender would mean: he’d get away with murder. Sergei, the brunette girl in St. Thomas, Lydia Ellis—Kevin, if the worst should happen. In his steely blue eyes she saw that he could no more be party to giving Andre the freedom to kill again than she could.

  “Yes, Dad?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about me. You do what you have to do, sweetheart,” Thomas said.

  A nod was her only reply, and she prepared herself to add another execution to her long list of lives taken.

  SEVENTEEN

  The ringing of the telephone broke through the tension.

  Andre started at the unexpected shrill sound. Thomas chose that moment to take action, throwing himself backward into his captor. Billie’s heart stopped even as she was moving forward, dropping her gun without thinking and throwing herself across the space that separated her from the two, colliding with them as they fell. Two legs of the wooden chair Thomas had been sitting in snapped as they all crashed together on the linoleum. She was on top of her father and gripping Andre’s right arm at two of the main pressure points—gori and shokai—in order to keep him from pulling the trigger of his gun, now pinned between him and Thomas. The gangster screamed in pain.

  “Dad, get out!” Billie hollered. “Go now!”

  Thomas quickly extricated himself from between them, taking a blow or two from Andre’s left fist as he did so, pulling the remains of the chair with him and tossing it aside. Only when she heard the front door open did Billie release the shokai pressure point to slam her own fist into Andre’s face. He responded by striking her in the right kidney. She growled through gritted teeth, determined to get him to release his weapon so he couldn’t use it.

  Andre continued his assault on her lower right side. Billie reached between them and grabbed his gun, yanking it free and throwing it out of reach before wrapping her free hand around his throat and using his body as leverage to get to her knees. Andre lifted a leg and caught her in the ribs with his knee, the blow hard enough to knock her off balance. Forced by momentum to let go, she rolled to the side, hitting the wall under the window. Andre was scrambling to his feet, aiming himself in the direction of the guns on the floor.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” she muttered, hurrying to her knees again and reaching out to catch one ankle in her hand. Yanking hard, she pulled him off balance and he slammed to the floor with a grunt. Rolling to his side, he then jerked his foot free and kicked her in the face. Billie’s head snapped back and sharp pain exploded across the side of her head; she also felt a couple of her teeth loosen and tasted blood. But she fought against the pain and grabbed his ankle as he tried to kick her again, this time grabbing it in both hands. She pulled him toward her across the tiled floor, letting go so that she cou
ld punch him in the balls.

  He howled but did not cover his genitals as Wayne had done. Instead he sat up, grimacing against the pain he obviously was in, and struck back, his fist slamming into the side of her face not already in agony. Stars exploded behind her eyelids and she went down across his legs, fighting the urge to pass out. Andre grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked hard enough to make her cry out, lifting her up so that he could slap her. After another slap he threw her away from him. Billie landed on her side, coughing against the nausea that had crawled into her stomach, as Andre got to his knees and came at her.

  “If only there was time to do to you what Mikhail wished to do with your lovely neighbor,” he said as he advanced. “I could show you then what a woman’s place is.”

  It was then that he noticed her jacket had fallen open, exposing her weapon harness. The holster on the right side still held a Glock and he lunged for it, drawing it as she rolled to her back, her hands closing around his. Andre growled again, his eyes full of malice as he looked down on her and they fought for control of the gun. Both were able to get a finger around the trigger, and before she even knew it was happening, a shot rang out.

  Andre’s eyes widened, and he slowly looked down. Billie had managed to turn the gun around enough that when it fired he was the one the bullet struck. Blood spread quickly around the wound and he continued to stare at it as though he could not believe what he was seeing. Billie then wrested the Glock from his hand and put it to his forehead, sure this time when it went off that she was the one who had pulled the trigger.

  In seconds the house became filled with people. John raced to her side and gathered her in his arms as she was getting to her feet, holding her tightly to his chest. For a moment she allowed him to do so, because she wanted—needed—to be held. And then taking a deep breath, she settled her nerves and pushed away from him.

  “Miss Ryan, I’m Captain Brody,” said a man in full body armor as he approached, SWAT written in large white letters across his tactical vest. “I’m afraid I need to ask you to surrender that weapon.”

  She saw another officer gathering up the other guns, including the one she had dropped. She looked down at the gun in her hand, then looked at Brody as she placed it in his. “It’s no problem. I’ve got another gun,” she said, stepping around him and walking out of the kitchen.

  Speaking to no one, she walked through the living room and marched up the stairs, going into her bedroom and retrieving the Sig from the nightstand drawer she had placed it in, as well as a belt holster and a magazine pouch. After slipping the gun into the holster she set the two aside, took off her jacket and removed her shoulder harness, then laid it on chair by the bed. Next she unfastened and pulled her belt clear from all but one loop, affixing the belt holster to it on her right side. She then slipped the belt back into place, adding the double magazine pouch with two 15-round 9mm magazines for the SP2022 over her left hip. She was refastening her belt as she turned around to leave and found John standing in the doorway.

  “Where’s my father?” she asked, picking her jacket.

  “He’s being checked out by paramedics. You should be too, it looks like you took a beating,” he replied, his expression full of concern.

  “I did,” she said as she brushed past him, slipping the jacket back on. Though her mouth seemed to no longer be bleeding, she could still detect the metallic taste of blood on her tongue.

  Outside, Billie marched up to the open back end of the single ambulance she saw, where her father was being evaluated. “What the hell were you thinking?” she demanded, fisting her hands on her hips.

  Thomas held her angry gaze, saying plainly, “That I needed to help you do what you had to with a clear conscience.”

  Yeah, he’d known all right, she mused sadly. Her father had correctly deduced that she’d planned to commit murder in order to save the countless lives not yet affected by Andre’s brand of cruelty. He had endangered himself in order to spare her any guilt, and she knew that despite deserving to die for his crimes, killing Andre for those he had not yet committed was the wrong kind of justice. She would indeed have felt guilty for taking his life, no matter how much of a bastard he’d been.

  Her ire instantly deflated and her chest squeezed tight with emotion as she considered the chance her father had taken—for her. “Well it was still a stupid move. You could have gotten yourself killed,” she told him.

  The look in his eyes told her he understood that as well, but like her, he’d done what he felt was necessary. Deciding to let it go, Billie switched her concern from one family member to another. “Have you heard anything about Kevin? Was he awake when they took him away?”

  Thomas shook his head. “No one’s told me anything yet.”

  “Kevin wasn’t conscious, but he was breathing,” John spoke up then. “His pulse was still dangerously low and his condition critical. Medics thought the bullet punctured a lung.”

  Brushing away the paramedic on his left aside, Thomas launched himself off the fender of the rig and threw his arms around Billie. “It’s okay, Dad, he’s going to be fine. He’s a Ryan,” she reassured him, though she was certain she was as scared as he was.

  “I could have lost you both today,” her father replied hoarsely.

  “But you didn’t. I’m a little banged up but I’m fine. And Kevin will pull through, I know he will,” Billie said, doing her best to keep her voice even in spite of the lump forming in her throat. Squeezing her father’s shoulders one more time, she stood back and looked into his eyes. “Now you let these guys get to you to the hospital. Go be there for Kevin so he knows we’re rooting for him. I’ll get a hold of Teddy so he can meet you there. Is Andy still in town?”

  Shaking his head again, her father replied, “No, he left for Boston early this morning.”

  “I’ll call him anyway, he needs to know. Won’t be able to call Tommy because I don’t even know how to get in touch with him, but I’ll give it my best shot.”

  Thomas smiled as he cradled her cheek in his hand, then turned for the ambulance. “Gentlemen, if you’d be so kind I’d appreciate a lift. I need to be with my son.”

  The medics both nodded. “Certainly, Mr. Ryan,” the taller of the two said, helping him climb into the back as his partner headed for the front.

  “Thomas, the police will still need to take your statement, so be prepared to receive a detective soon,” John called up to him.

  Her father nodded, and after a short wave to Billie, the medic closed the door. The driver put the rig into gear and then pulled away, flipping on the lights and tripping the siren to get people to move out of the way.

  “You should let me take you to the hospital so you can get checked out,” John said.

  Billie shook her head. “Like I said, I’m banged up but I’m fine.” At the skeptical eyebrow he raised, she amended that to say, “Okay, I kind of have a splitting headache now. A boot to the face will do that to a person.”

  “Fuck, Billie,” he swore, taking her chin in hand and turning her head gently to one side, then the other. “You’re going to have a couple of nasty shiners by tomorrow. Are you sure you don’t want to have a doctor take a look at you?”

  “John, don’t push your luck,” she warned him. “My father was a hostage, one brother’s been shot, and I just killed number one seventy-two. I have my own statement to give to the police and my other brothers to contact. I’m not in the mood for being poked and prodded by a doctor who will only tell me the same damn thing you just did.”

  “Take something for the pain, at least,” he said.

  “That I will certainly do,” she conceded.

  John glanced down at her waist. Billie followed his gaze and saw that Andre’s blood had stained her shirt and jeans—why hadn’t she noticed that before?

  “As an aside…as soon as the cops are out of my house, I think I’ll change my clothes. You might want to do the same—you got blood on you when you hugged me.”

  He g
lanced down at himself. “At least it’s only a little transfer; means it’ll wash out. You’re probably gonna have to burn those clothes. And you might want to consider bathing as well—a shower would probably do you wonders,” he said.

  Billie knew he wasn’t suggesting that she smelled bad, but said “Screw you, Courtney,” anyway as Captain Brody and a detective in a blue blazer approached them.

  He smiled wickedly, leaned close, and whispered, “You already have—twice.”

  

  It took an hour and several repeats of the events, including the shootout from yesterday and the two incidents in St. Thomas, but the police finally left with the promise of sending a clean-up crew. Billie had sighed and declared she would take a ten-minute shower before changing so they could get back to work. John had shaken his head as she walked back up the stairs, floored by her tenacity. She’d just been through a traumatic event, and here she was already talking about getting back on the job. Simply amazing.

  After jogging out to the Explorer for a change of clothes for himself, which he changed into in the downstairs half-bath, he straightened the furniture in the living room and then stepped into the dining room. The bodies of Andre Sardetsky and his cohort had been hauled away by the coroner, but evidence of their deaths remained. At the dividing wall there was a long smear where the man who’d shot Kevin had apparently slumped down as his life’s blood began to drain out of him. Where he came to rest there was a trail of it down the wall and a large, sticky pool on the linoleum. Bits of skull and brain matter had spread as far as the kitchen due to the bullet from Billie’s gun blasting through Andre’s head. Blood had sprayed everywhere. Seeing the carnage again in the aftermath, he felt his heart stop, thinking of just how close Billie had come to dying.