by Nic Saint
Rob cocked an eyebrow. “Ten to one she’s talking to the cops right now.”
“No, she’s not,” mumbled Alex.
“I hope you’re right, little brother.”
They carted the carpet out the back door and had reached the parking lot without laying eyes on a single soul. Saturday morning. Best time for hauling dead bodies around. Now, if only Laura would do her part, they were home free.
As Laura raced down the corridor in search of the mop she’d been instructed to find, she thought about recent events. Alex was right. They couldn’t risk being seen. She trusted the police, but she didn’t trust the other men Boris employed. They were brutal, the lot of them. Gornakov scum. Alex was different. Though he was on the Gornakov payroll, he had managed to retain an honesty that was rare in this cesspool of perdition. Somehow, she felt safe around him, and knew he would never hurt her. Never cause her harm.
What made him different?
She didn’t know, but if she were to hazard a guess, she would have said he had a heart that was pure. A soul that had retained its integrity. She didn’t know how he’d managed, but there was an honesty to him that the others lacked.
She found the room with the cleaning stuff and rolled out the trolley. Finding the bucket filled with dirty water, she decided it should suffice and sloshed the mop in and then through the wringer.
She didn’t have the time to do this well. Any moment now, the first staff members could arrive, and soon this place would be crawling with people. She flopped the mop to the floor and started swiping along the bloody trail, mopping up as much of the sticky stuff as she could. It was just ketchup, she told herself. Just a trail of ketchup left there by a careless caterer or a hot dog fanatic.
She bit her tongue as she forced herself to zigzag a trail along the bloody mess. “Just ketchup, Laura,” she sang. “Juuust a little ketchup!”
In spite of her best efforts, her stomach suddenly lurched, and a wave of nausea washed over her. With some effort, she managed to keep the remnants of her breakfast down. Gulp. “Juuuuust—”
Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out behind her. “Hey, little girl, what’s up? Cleaning lady sick or what?”
It was one of the men who took care of the girls when Alex was off duty.
She managed to plaster a feeble smile on her face. “Hey, Gennady. What are you doing here so early?”
The big blond guy came ambling up, his hands in his pockets, a bored expression on his pockmarked leathery face. “Alex asked me to take over for him. Something to do with Darlene’s folks.”
“Oh. Right.” She’d just reached the end of the corridor, the last remnants of blood disappearing beneath the mop. She’d wanted to give it a second run, but it was too late for that now. She leaned on the handle and wiped her brow. “The cleaning lady didn’t show up today, so Boris asked me to take care of this.”
Gennady smiled. “Maid of all work, huh?”
She clucked her tongue, trying to suppress the nerves that were doing somersaults inside her belly. She’d just spotted a big droplet near the baseboard. “You got it. Um, Gennady? Would you fetch me that trolley over there?”
To her relief, he ambled over and did as he was told. Keeping her body between the spot and the burly man, she feverishly swiped at the last traces.
“Place is so quiet,” he said. “Where are the others?”
“It’s still early.”
“Why are you here, then?”
“I had my audition today.”
She licked her lips as she inspected the floor. It would have to do.
As he sauntered up, pushing the trolley along, a smile spread across his face. “Oh, right. How’d it go? You got the part?”
“I got the part,” she confirmed miserably.
He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t seem too happy about it.”
She did her best to look cheerful, thinking being an actress was actually a lot harder than it looked. “I’m happy as a clam. Couldn’t be happier.”
To her horror, Gennady suddenly pointed to a spot behind her. “Hey, what’s that?” he called out.
Her throat constricted as she noticed she’d missed a spot. A small puddle of blood was still in obvious evidence near the door. Before she could stop him, Gennady had squeezed past her in the narrow corridor and was moving toward it, then crouched down, his eyes narrowed.
“Looks like blood,” he concluded, then cast his eyes up at Laura. He was looking none too friendly all of a sudden. “What happened here, Laura? Why is there blood on the floor and why are you mopping it up?”
CHAPTER 6
Laura’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, not knowing how to respond. She stared at Gennady, whose eyes were narrowed into pinpricks. Only now did she notice the scar above his left eye. It burned red and angry, and she could see how his fingers twitched as he threw her a look of accusation.
“I asked you something, Laura. What the hell is going on here?”
Suddenly, the door swung open behind her, and Alex stood in the doorframe, big as a house.
“You coming, Laura?” he called out.
Then his eyes flicked to the other man. “Gennady. Thanks for coming in.”
“Something’s wrong, Alex.” He pointed to the small puddle of blood, and the trail of what was left after Laura had drawn the mop along the corridor. She hadn’t had time to properly clean up, what with Gennady darting all over the place. Faint traces of red were still splotched along the white tile.
There was a pregnant silence, filled with Gennady tapping the floor and Laura thinking this was the end. This was the moment she’d been afraid of ever since starting work for the Gornakovs. Tomorrow the cops would find her body, mutilated beyond recognition, in a dumpster downtown.
“Don’t sweat it, buddy,” Alex said. He pointed behind him, where Rob appeared. He was holding a tissue to his nose, blood seeping through his fingers.
“Wouldn’t you know it,” he spoke nasally. “Got the old bloody nose again.”
Gennady’s face lit up and he burst into a loud peal of laughter. “That’s too bad!” he cried out. He beamed a smile at Laura. “Why didn’t you tell me you were cleaning up after these two bozos? You should have said no! Let them clean up their own mess!”
“I know, right?” agreed Laura, gulping down something that appeared stuck in her throat. While the men were discussing Rob’s misfortune, she plucked the bottle of Mr. Clean from the tray, and sloshed an ample amount along the floor, covering everything that looked even remotely like blood, then quickly dragged the mop across it one last time, desperately trying to keep her hands from shaking.
She looked up when Alex’s fingers circled her wrist, and he removed the mop from her death grip. “I think that’ll do,” he said softly. She gave him a nervous smile as he returned the mop to the trolley, then proceeded to lead her to the door.
“See you later, Gennady!” he called out.
“Yeah, see you, buddy.” He tapped his watch. “Are you sure you’ll make it? If I know Darlene, she’ll be mighty pissed if you show up late.”
“Don’t I know it,” returned Alex with an eye roll.
“I hope you know what you’re getting into!” laughed Gennady, then retreated down the corridor, shaking his head.
Laura, who was now feeling as if she’d personally been drawn through the wringer, her stomach one massive knot, trotted after Alex.
“That went well,” she remarked. “Now what happens?”
“Now you come with us.” Placing an arm on her shoulder, he turned her to him. “This part of your life is over, Laura,” he spoke seriously.
She frowned. “What do you mean? I’m still coming back here tonight, right?”
He studied her face. “Not a chance.”
“But…”
“You’re coming with us, Laura. It’s not safe for you here. Very soon now, they’ll find out what happened.”
“But how? I cleaned up everything.”
&nbs
p; Alex grimaced. “You can never clean up everything. No matter how hard you try. All you did was buy us some time. It won’t be long before they know the whole story.”
She shook her head. “That’s why we have to go to the police. We have to tell them what happened and they’ll protect us. We’ll be safe.”
“Is she coming or what?” Rob called out from the car. He was getting antsy.
“She’s coming,” returned Alex in a voice that accepted no challenge.
She felt a shiver running along her spine as the import of his words became clear. “Coming? With you?”
He nodded slowly. “They’ll know what happened, Laura. They know you had an audition so they know you were there when Boris died. They’ll find traces of blood, and Gennady will tell them he saw you clean it up.”
She closed her eyes, the realization dawning. “Oh, God.”
“I’m very sorry, Laura,” he said in a low voice, giving her shoulder a tight squeeze, “but it’s just not safe for you here.”
Two conflicting emotions were warring inside her: the urgent desire to be far away from this horrible place, and the temptation to simply ignore the realities as Alex had sketched them out and carry on as if nothing had happened.
But then that choice was taken away from her when he took a firm grip on her arm, and steered her toward the truck.
“Let’s go,” he urged.
“Hey!” she protested. “You can’t make me go with you.”
“Watch me,” he grumbled, and pushed her into the truck, then slammed the door behind her. Instantly, the locks sprang up.
“Hey!” she yelled. “Let me out!”
From the front of the car, no answer came. Then Rob shoved the truck in gear, and they were peeling away from the parking lot, gravel spewing in all directions.
Before she knew what was going on, they were on their way to a destination unknown, a dead body in the bed of the truck, two bad-tempered Russians in the front, and her future looking bleaker and bleaker with every passing minute.
CHAPTER 7
Alex threw a glance over his shoulder at the irate woman moping in the backseat. She wasn’t too happy with this twist of fate, but there was simply no other way. She couldn’t stay on at the club. Not after what had happened. And they couldn’t allow her to return home either. It was the first place Gornakov’s men would come looking.
Until this mess was cleared up, she was stuck with them.
Out of habit, he and Rob had lapsed into their native tongue.
“They’ll never dare come look for her at our place,” Alex said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. It won’t take them long to figure out where she is, and then they’ll be all over us.”
“Not a chance. They would never touch a Petrov.”
Rob let out a curt bark at that. “Now who’s the naive one, little brother? There’s a war going on right now, or haven’t you heard? The old Gornakovs are out, a new generation taking over. No one is safe, not even us Petrovs.”
Alex doubted it. His family belonged to an old clan of Russians who’d come to America a long time ago, and had faithfully served the Gornakovs all these years. All of his siblings worked for the organization, as did his father and most of his uncles. They were well respected within the community and had built up a reputation for being the most reliable and loyal soldiers. The rock upon which Yury and Vladimir Gornakov had built their American empire.
He shook his head resolutely. “They would never touch us. Laura is safe.”
“Then why did you spirit Sarnovsky’s body out of there, huh? If you trust them so much, why didn’t you just call Roman and tell him what happened?”
Alex hesitated. It was gut instinct that told him to remove all evidence. Gut instinct and… something more, perhaps. He stared in the rearview mirror. Laura glowered at him, the morning sun catching her hair and sparking flecks of burnished gold along her face, wrapping it in a halo of shooting flame. God, she was beyond gorgeous.
“I don’t want her to get hurt,” he said softly as he gazed upon her striking blue eyes, insolently staring back at him. His eyes dropped to the faint dimple in her chin, and along her sensuous mouth which lent her an irresistible beauty. As he spoke, she raised that chin mutinously, clearly not happy with the fate that had befallen her.
Rob shook his head. “You like this girl, don’t you?”
“I do,” he admitted. “But in a sisterly way. As a friend.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Perhaps you might even start believing it.”
Alex’s temper rose. “I never laid a hand on her.”
“Not yet.”
“You seem to forget about Darlene.”
“No, you seem to have forgotten about Darlene,” Rob shot back.
“We’ve got more important things to deal with right now,” he grumbled.
Rob laughed at that. “You can say that again.” He looked over, his fingers tight on the steering wheel. “When Pop hears about this, he’ll be furious.”
Alex didn’t respond, but merely stared out the windshield as Rob’s Ford ate up the miles. Pop would be furious. He didn’t like it when one of his sons got into trouble, and neither did he like complications. “He’ll just have to deal with it.”
“As will we all.”
He hadn’t missed the angry undertone. “Rub it in, will you?”
“Last time I checked, no one else offed Gornakov’s favorite cousin, Alex.”
“It was an accident,” he bit back.
“Yeah, right. He tripped—he fell—he died. It isn’t as easy as that, bro.”
“No, it isn’t,” Alex agreed, his eyes darting back to Laura. Things were never that easy. Rob sure was right about that.
He looked up when his phone chimed. Checking the display, he groaned.
“Darlene?” Rob ventured a guess.
Alex nodded, wavering whether to pick up.
“What are you gonna tell her?”
“What do you think?”
Rob shrugged with a mischievous grin. “That you killed her boss and now you’re on your way to get rid of the body?”
“Good one,” he grumbled, then pressed the disconnect button and shoved the phone back in his pocket. He wasn’t ready to deal with his girlfriend just yet. First they had to figure out what to do with Boris, and then there was the small matter of the young woman in the backseat, whose life now depended on him.
“You’re in a heap of shit, buddy,” laughed Rob.
Truer words were never spoken. “Thanks for the heads-up,” he grunted. “Now tell me something I don’t know.”
From the backseat, Laura was yelling something. He really couldn’t deal with her either right now. First things first. They needed to make Boris Sarnovsky disappear. Even though Gennady and the others would eventually figure out what happened, as long as they didn’t have a body, they would have a hard time pinning this on Alex or Laura. It would buy them some time to figure out a strategy.
And that was the hard part, as it involved fessing up to Pop.
Then, and only then, would he know what to do with Laura Armstrong.
As his eyes were irrevocably drawn to the young woman, he wondered if he would ever know what to do about her.
CHAPTER 8
Laura didn’t like this one bit. First, these Petrovs had forced her to come along, then they’d locked her up in this… this horrible room!
After a seemingly interminable drive, the car had finally pulled to a stop in front of some sprawling and rambling old clapboard house, and an older man who looked a lot like Alex had appeared in the door, exchanging a few brief words with him.
The lock on the truck’s door had popped up, and the man had escorted her out, announcing in accented English that she was to follow him if she wanted to live. When she’d started to protest, telling him she couldn’t just disappear like this; that she needed to talk to her aunt and uncle, that she had classes tomorrow he’d merely set his jaw, taken a firm grip on
her arm, and had practically shoved her through the door, where he’d proceeded to take her to a small drawing room in front of the house, and had the gall to lock the door!
She’d slammed her fists against the panel, but to no avail. For all she knew, there wasn’t another living soul in the house, and finally she’d had no other option but to plunk down on the upholstered sofa and fume in silence.
The room he’d locked her up in was sparsely decorated, pictures of what she assumed were relatives adorned the walls. A window looked out onto the small strip of front yard. She tried to pry it open, but it was painted shut. The wallpaper was a ghastly pea green, the Persian rug threadbare. The only concession to style was an antique glass-door China cabinet showcasing the family’s best porcelain, along with more pictures.
She dismissed them, figuring they were probably all gargoyles. Then her eye fell on a picture set of a young family, and she stared at it. The man in the picture was the same man who’d ushered her in. As she studied the others, she noticed they all shared Alex’s green eyes. It was a portrait of his family. Seven brothers and one sister.
She rose from the sofa to study the other pictures. They all depicted the Petrov brood through the years. There was a picture of what could only be Alex, riding a wooden pony, then another one of him riding his first bike. She had to smile at the goofy expression on his face, almost as wide as the band-aid on his brow and the size of his black eye. It had apparently taken him some effort to master this particular skill.
Next was a picture of him on a bigger bike. A Harley. He was looking into the lens with the cocky expression of a teenager ready to conquer the world, sunglasses casually perched on his tousled dark brown hair. He looked both dapper and absolutely fearless, his shoulders already broad, his features rugged.
She took the picture from the cabinet and studied it. He was handsome, she decided, though not in the classical sense. His were not the features of a male model, but of a man, the hard planes of his face neither symmetrical nor perfectly shaped, his left eyebrow sliced, his nose slightly crooked. He was actually more than gorgeous, exuding energy that greatly appealed to her. A strength of character and raw male power that captured the onlooker.
