by Nic Saint
Bruno stepped into the room as Jackie stepped out, and eyed his friend wearily. “Trouble in paradise?”
“You can say that again,” he grumbled as he raked his fingers through his mane. Then he wheeled on Bruno. “Couldn’t you have locked the door?”
Bruno shrugged. “Sorry, bud.”
“God,” Erik groaned. This was so not happening! This was exactly what he’d feared. And she’d found out in the worst way possible. Actually saw him wrap up the dead guy!
He knelt down next to the tarp and held out his hand. Bruno dumped the duct tape into it and he tore off a piece with his teeth, then started the tedious task of taping up the plastic flaps, making sure the body wouldn’t leak onto the carpet.
“She liked me—she really did,” he reminisced, conveniently forgetting for a moment he’d already decided not to get involved with the woman. “We really hit it off, you know? And now she’ll never want to come near me again.”
“Professional hazard, bud,” opined Bruno as he gave him an owlish look. “Not many women are into the hired killer thing, know what I’m saying?”
“Which is exactly why we never tell them!” he snapped.
“Don’t look at me, man. I told you not to go after her, remember? That’s one cold bitch, buddy. Remember the look she gave you last night?” He shivered audibly. “Brrrr!”
He gritted his teeth. “She’s not a cold bitch! She’s nice!”
“Nice. Riiiight,” chuckled Bruno.
“And she was interested. Just seeing this made her change her mind.” He gestured to the asshole they were taping up.
“Yeah, seeing a dead body will do that to a girl,” Bruno muttered. He scratched his nose. “Where do you think we should dump him?”
“Who the hell cares?” Erik muttered.
“Hey, why don’t we toss him into one of em’ Mayan temples?” The big guy’s face lit up at the idea. “Those places are full of skeletons, right? We just bury him under a shitload of old bones and skulls and shit.”
Erik shrugged. He was beyond caring what happened to the son of a bitch. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, buddy.”
“Or we could deliver him to the poh-lice station,” suggested Bruno. “Send those fuckers a message, huh? Tell his little buddies there’s a bigger fish in the pond, and if they don’t stop prowling there’ll be hell to pay.”
“Better not,” said Erik after giving Bruno’s idea a whirl in his mind. “They might come out in full force, and then we’d be in a heap of trouble.”
“Yeah, better pick em’ off one by one,” muttered Bruno as he finished securing his end of the tarp.
Erik thought back to his father’s words, that a Petrov should never try to find a woman outside the familiar circle of friends and acquaintances. It would only lead to trouble. He’d had his own ideas about that. His brother Alex had only recently gotten involved with a showgirl, not exactly the mobster type. She wasn’t even remotely involved with the kind of work they did, nor did she have ties to any of the other families. And still love had blossomed and he’d never seen Alex happier than he’d been these last couple of weeks.
So he knew it was definitely possible to ignore Dad’s advice. Getting involved with an outsider was a risk, he knew, and the family advised against it. Laura Armstrong had inadvertently stumbled into the mess his brother Alex had created when he’d accidentally offed her boss, and that’s how things had progressed. He didn’t see how that was possible in his situation, though. He’d seen it in her eyes. She was horrified and scared shitless. Scared of him. Scared that he would hurt her.
It was that look of sheer terror that decided him. He should let her go. He now knew he’d been merely dreaming. No way would she ever fall for a guy like him. Knowing what she knew now, she’d run as far away from him as possible, nor could he blame her. If he hadn’t grown up in this life—if he hadn’t seen his father and uncles and cousins get their hands dirty from an early age, he’d have probably been horrified as well.
He heaved a deep sigh, securing the last flap on the sturdy plastic. The dead guy wouldn’t harm anyone now. A small consolation for losing his chance with her.
“Where do you want him, bub?” asked Bruno, who’d been suspiciously silent the last couple of minutes. The usually garrulous man recognized heartache when he saw it. Or a pissed off Petrov, always a dangerous animal to tango with.
“Let’s wait until nightfall,” he suggested. “We don’t want to be seen carting stiffs around.”
He walked to the window and stared out at the clear blue waters of the Caribbean Sea. Its color reminded him of Jackie’s eyes, the white sand of the beach of her hair. He muttered an oath. Everything in this place reminded him of her. Every last thing.
With some effort, he wrenched his mind back to the business at hand. “I think we should simply bury him. Stuff him into a hole deep enough that no one will ever find him again.”
“I like the Mayan temple thing,” muttered Bruno, a little crestfallen.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I like the Mayan temples too, buddy. But not for dumping stiffs. Before you know it, he’ll stink up the place, and then we’re sunk.”
Bruno displayed a pout and grumbled, “Oh, all right. Let’s bury him, then.” It was obvious he thought his friend and colleague showed little appreciation for his idea. Then a thought seemed to occur to him. “So…now we go after the others?”
“Yes, we do,” growled Erik.
“Goodie,” muttered Bruno, his smile returning.
All five of the other members of the gang were cops, just like the one they’d rubbed out. It wouldn’t be long before questions would be asked, the others discovering their colleague missing. Then they’d come looking, and before that happened, they’d better be ready.
On days like these, he regretted ever having chosen this line of work. It was gratifying, of course, to rid the world of its most noxious scum, but on the other hand, he would give his left arm for a nice quiet evening at home with the wife and kids, enjoying the sort of family life not usually awarded the members of the Petrov clan. But then again, if his mom and dad had managed, perhaps one day he would too. Only it wouldn’t be with Jackie Bouchard, he knew, who by now was probably already halfway to the airport, her friend in tow.
CHAPTER 10
Jackie stormed into her room, and immediately went in search of her friend. “Susan!” she bellowed when she didn’t immediately find her. She waltzed into the bathroom, and was relieved when she found Susan staring back at her in the mirror as she touched up her eyebrows.
“What’s the matter?” Susan muttered as she carefully plucked a recalcitrant minuscule hair from her left brow. “Is the place on fire or what?”
“What happened?” Jackie breathed, as she gestured feebly. “I saw Erik and Bruno just now across the hallway. They said…” she stopped, not understanding how Susan could remain so calm. “They said you were attacked!” she finally managed.
Susan arched the one eyebrow she’d been plucking. “Attacked? Oh, you mean that horrible little man who tried to kiss me just now?” She laughed one of her throaty laughs. “I wouldn’t exactly call that an attack, honey. More like a desperate attempt to get me into bed.” She returned her attention to the mirror. “Good thing Bruno showed up, though. The little pissant was a lot stronger than he looked, and very persistent, too.”
“What happened!” cried Jackie, not able to contain her anxiety any longer.
Susan frowned, creasing her suspiciously smooth brow in the process. “Well, like I said, this guy came on to me in the elevator, and I didn’t seem to be able to shake him. So I told him I was here with my husband, and he was due any minute now, but that didn’t seem to deter him. Then we arrived on our floor and he tried to kiss me, so I slapped him across the face.” She grimaced. “I don’t mind being kissed, but only on my terms, darling, you know that, right?”
“Uh-huh?” said Jackie, breathless now with anticipation.
“Well, the guy didn’t s
eem to want to take no for an answer, for he followed me as I strutted down the corridor en route to my room, and when I was about to enter, he shoved me inside, and started that horrible kissing routine again, and all of a sudden sprouted a dozen arms, all of them all over me! Lucky for me the door hadn’t closed, and when I looked up, the large and very impressive figure of this Bruno guy was hovering over us.” She laughed. “Well, he simply plucked the louse from the bed and dumped him on the floor, then proceeded to smack him around a little, kicking the living shit out of the little shit.”
“And then he killed him,” Jackie concluded, sinking down onto the edge of the bathtub.
“Well, no, nothing drastic like that, of course. He simply showed him how to treat a lady by giving him a couple of punches, then shoved him out the door.”
“What? But—”
“Yeah, I don’t think the guy will be back for seconds, if you ask me.” She gave Jackie a cheery look. “And how did things go with you and Mr. Petrov, I wonder?”
Jackie slowly shook her head, the question hanging between them. Why hadn’t Bruno told Susan that he’d actually killed the guy? Duh. To ask the question was to answer it. What kind of killer goes around advertising the fact? Only Jackie had been so dumb to catch them in the act.
Then she noticed Susan giving her an odd look. “Huh?”
“The guy? Erik Petrov? A real catch, right? Did you hit it off?”
In spite of herself, Jackie had to laugh. “Oh, we hit if off all right.”
Susan smiled. “Great. I knew you would. He seems like such a nice man, doesn’t he? Just goes to show that looks can be deceiving.”
“Huh?” she repeated, once again having missed part of the conversation.
“Looks can be deceiving? Remember you told me you thought he was Mafia? Or some crazy stalker? I simply thought he was cute. And hot! God, did you see the body on that man? Holy moly!”
“Yeah,” she muttered, at the moment not really interested in anybody’s body, and most definitely not the one of a known killer.
“Anyway, my plans went down the drain when that little creep attacked me. I thought about surprising Bruno and perhaps having a little adventure of my own? Too bad. Though I got a rain check from the man.”
“The creep?”
“No, Bruno, of course. My very own personal knight in shining armor.”
A ripple of alarm went through Jackie at these words. “You’re not planning on seeing him again, are you?”
Susan laughed. “Of course I am! A great catch like that? I’d be stupid to stand him up, wouldn’t I?”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “Stand him up? You’re meeting him?”
“For dinner,” Susan nodded. She pointed to herself. “Which explains the paint job. Wanna look my best for my savior.”
“But, but, but…” She didn’t even know where to begin. “We can’t stay here!” she finally blurted out.
Susan frowned, something she rarely did, as it spoiled the Botox treatment she’d had a week before their departure. “Can’t stay here? Honey, we still have two full days on our schedule and I plan to make the most of them.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she pleaded. Then decided to take the plunge. “That guy who attacked you?”
“Mr. Stalker Guy? What about him?”
“They killed him.”
Susan gave her a blank look. “You lost me, honey. Who killed whom?”
She was pacing the small bathroom now. “Bruno and Erik. I saw them.”
“You saw them kill the creep?”
“No, not exactly.” She bit her lip. “I saw them and I saw the body.”
Susan started to frown again, but then thought better of it. “You saw…what exactly?”
The words tumbled out all at once. “I accidentally walked into the room across the hallway and I saw Bruno and Erik bent over a dead body. It must have been that stalker of yours, because Erik said he attacked you. And then he said they did this sort of thing for a living. That they were both hired guns for the Russian Mob and this hotel belongs to the Russian Mob, and they do this sort of thing all the time, and there’s a gang of local cops targeting tourists, and they’re simply making sure they don’t harm anyone else, and, and, and—”
“Now wait a damn minute,” said Susan, closing her eyes and holding up her hand. Then she crossed to her and placed a hand on her brow. “Are you sure you didn’t drink too much of that cocktail, honey? You sound positively delirious!”
She slapped her friend’s hand away. “I’m not delirious! I saw the dead body and Bruno and Erik and…” She placed her own cooling hand on her brow now, knowing how all this must sound.
“I think you better lie down a minute,” advised Susan, snatching her purse from the vanity. “You don’t look too well and you don’t sound too good either.”
She took a hold of her friend’s shoulders. “You don’t understand. There’s killers everywhere!”
Susan gave her a strange look, and patted her arm. “Sure there are, honey. Sure there are. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a dinner date, remember?”
She followed her friend into the bedroom, and sank onto the bed, realizing she wasn’t getting through to her. Susan took a seat. “Are you sure you’ll be all right, hon? Perhaps it was the sun? We did spend an awful lot of time by the pool today.” She shook her head. “I knew we should have taken those seats near the big parasol. You might have a sunstroke, you know.”
“I’m fine,” she groaned in a low voice. “I’ll just…take a nap or something.”
“You’ll join us later, won’t you? You need to get some food into you. You haven’t eaten since lunchtime.” She snapped her fingers. “That’s it. You had that cocktail on an empty stomach. Never drink alcohol on an empty stomach,” she admonished, then swiftly rose, her hunky dinner date beckoning. She wavered. “I hate to leave you like this, Jackie.”
She waved a hand. “It’s all right. Just have fun. Don’t mind me. I’ll just lie here for a bit. You’re probably right. It must have been the cocktail.”
Relieved, Susan walked to the door. “You never could hold your liquor, could you? We’ll see you after, all right? And try to get some rest. There’s aspirin in the bathroom mirror cabinet,” she added for good measure, then softly closed the door behind her until it clicked into its lock.
God, Jackie thought, now her friend thought she was a lunatic. Great! How would she ever be able to convince Susan that they needed to haul ass and get the hell out of here as soon as possible? She wouldn’t, she knew. They would spend the last two remaining days here, with a gang of rapists on the one hand, and two Mafia killers on the other, and with them smack dab in the middle.
She flopped back onto the pillow as she released a desperate groan.
Her dream vacation had just turned into the perfect nightmare.
CHAPTER 11
Erik hesitated for a moment before he shoved his key card into the slot and stepped into the darkened room. He knew Jackie was in here somewhere, for she hadn’t been down for dinner and Susan had. He strode into the room, and walked over to the bed, not surprised to find her inert form. For a moment, he feared the worst, and leaned over her, placing his finger on her wrist. Relieved to find a pulse, he lingered for just a moment, reveling in the soft feel of her velvety skin under his fingers.
She’d sustained a pretty nasty shock. Coming upon a murder in progress was not something for the faint of heart, and definitely not something for one as sensitive as Jackie. He felt his breath hitch in his throat at the sight of her, and his cock twitch. The woman was the absolute antithesis of himself, the opposite of the kind of life he led, and yet he wanted her so badly it physically hurt.
Opposites attract, his mother always told her friends when they wondered how she could stay married to their father for thirty-two years, and she was right on the money. Jackie was as different from him as night from day and yet he’d never wanted anyone more in his life.
He brushed a tendril of flaxen hair from her brow and wondered what the best course of action would be. He knew she’d want to get away from him as soon as possible, but Susan was eager to prolong her sojourn so she was stuck.
As he watched her sleep, the steady breathing and the rise and fall of her chest providing him with a sense of calm he hadn’t hitherto felt, he vowed to keep a close eye on her for the next couple of days. Until she left this hotel, he would make sure no harm would come to her—make sure she was safe until she walked out of his life again.
He would never have her, he knew. Would never devour those luscious lips, never stroke his hand along those divine curves, or have his way with her. But the sweet sorrow he felt at this realization faded when he thought of what could have happened to her if not Susan but she herself had been attacked by the creepy little fuck they’d taken out. And what would have happened if no one had been there to stop the attack.
At the thought, his breathing became ragged and rage made his jaw tighten and his fists clench.
Jackie Bouchard lived in a different world than his own, and never had to worry about the dark side of life encroaching on the light that she was. Well, he was that dark side. He lived there, had made his home there, and he would make sure nothing touched her. He would make sure he didn’t touch her, or any part of the world he represented. She’d caught a glimpse and that had been enough to scare the living daylights out of her. No more. From now on, he’d keep an eye on her from the shadows, guard her with his life if he must, but make sure she could spend the rest of her stay absolutely safe from harm.
He slowly lifted his hulking frame from the bed, and softly padded to the door. Bruno had installed a small camera after the attack, so they’d be warned if the gang of thugs made their move again.
“Rest safe,” he murmured before slipping from the room.
It was then that he noticed a man of small stature eyeing him from the end of the corridor. He set his face, recognizing him instantly. So they were watching him now, were they? Well, they had good reason to. This was a Gornakov hotel, and he’d be damned if anyone targeted its guests. With a growl, he set foot for the creep. But before he’d gone five yards, the shadowy figure had vanished into thin air, not waiting around for the big enforcer to grab a hold of him.
