The Romanov Legacy

by Jenni Wiltz

  “You’ve had a stressful day,” he continued, moving to stand behind her. “I think you’ve earned the right to relax.” He groped her neck, searching for the elastic band that held her hair in place. His cold fingers sent slithers of unease across her shoulders.

  “What do you care if I’m happy?”

  He found the elastic and pulled it from her hair. His hands covered her shoulders, strong thumbs grinding into her back.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “Just calm down.”

  “I’m already calm.”

  “Don’t lie to me, pet.”

  “Why not? You do it all the time.”

  “I’m trying to be kind to you. This is my apology in advance.”

  “Most people apologize for things they’ve already done.”

  “I’m not sorry about any of that rot. But I do feel badly for what’s about to happen.”

  She felt her heart pulse too quickly. “What’s that?”

  He bent close to her and whispered, the warm breath from his mouth tickling her skin like a feather. “Constantine will die once he’s given us the letters. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Belial won’t let you do that.”

  His fingers paused in their kneading, moving to encircle her neck. “Starinov wants everyone who has seen the letters to die.”

  “Including you?”

  “Starinov can’t kill me.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  Viktor chuckled and came around the settee to face her. “For a nutter, you’ve quite a good sense of humor. If only you’d met me first, lamb, you’d have fallen for me instead of him. Think how different your life would be right now.” His index finger traced the diagonal path of her cheekbone and she shivered.

  “Your finger is cold.”

  “I’m sorry.” He placed it in his mouth, licked it, and stroked her cheek again. “Is that better?”

  She held herself still, willing herself not to pull away. “You can still do the right thing, Viktor. Let my sister go.”

  “This is Russia, darling. No one gives a damn about the right thing. All they care about is money.”

  “Starinov isn’t going to give you any of Nicholas’s money.”

  “He will. Or I’ll leak the story to the press.”

  “What story?”

  “The story of how he killed a pair of American sisters to get his greedy hands on the Tsar’s secret account.” Viktor smiled ruefully. “You’ll be another Daniel Pearl, my dear—cut down by a rabid nationalist desperate to take out his hostility on the United States. I promise not to behead you, though. I’ll leave your pretty face intact.” He motioned with his hands, as if he were tying a knot. “Like the bow on a package, tied up ever so neatly. Merry Christmas to me.”

  “It’s July, asshole.”

  “Hardly matters when you’re about to become a billionaire, does it?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Oh, cheer up. Here, I’ve got something for you.” He moved over to the desk and picked up his suit jacket, flung over the back. One hand slipped into the pocket and pulled out a handful of things that sparkled. “I took the liberty of searching your purse when Sergei and his men brought you onto the plane. I was quite surprised to find your little cache.” He dropped the handful into her lap. “Put them on. I know you want to.”

  She combed through the pieces, making sure they were all there: the buckle, hairpin, the earrings, the brooch. Jesus, she thought. I almost lost this. All Grigori’s sacrifice would have been for nothing. As much as she hated to indulge Viktor’s whim, wearing the jewelry was the only way to make sure he didn’t take it away from her. She put everything on except the shoe buckle, which she tucked into the edge of her bra for safe keeping.

  “You know, I can’t see that last one,” Viktor said. He gripped the fabric of her dress and ripped it until the buckle’s diamond gleam peeked out. “That’s better,” he purred. “Carbon suits you, my dear.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  July 2012

  Moscow, Russia

  From the outside, the Ussov building looked no different than any other on Profsoyuznaya Street. This area of southwest Moscow had become a business park, home to some of Russia’s richest oil companies, banks, and engineering firms. The newer buildings had curving shapes, more floors, and a strange lack of architectural resonance. The Ussov building was older and simpler. Perhaps, at the time, the Ussovs had actually meant to do business in it.

  Like many powerful Moscow families, the Ussovs learned that power came not just from money but from connections. They forsook grand dreams of a luxury railway empire and threw in their lot with Cobalt, a private security company that eventually allied with the FSB. The Ussov sons stopped coming to work and started taking roofs from their network of suppliers. Their private empire of railways and cars became invaluable to the government during the first and second Chechen wars; Constantine remembered seeing boxcars painted with their logo perched on tracks just outside of Grozny.

  After the wartime profits made him unspeakably rich, Ussov leased the building to the FSB in secret. It became an unofficial fortress used as a halfway house for valuable foreign prisoners. Ordinary citizens drove past it on their way to eat at the Goodman Steak House or work at the Paleontology Institute, never dreaming its innocuous surface held secrets the government would kill to keep.

  Constantine pulled the bureau-issued Volga onto the access road paralleling Profsoyuznaya Street and studied the building. Vympel would never drag captives, conscious or unconscious, through the front door. The underground garage would be their best point of entry. He shut off the car and left the doors unlocked, keys under the floor mat.

  At the bureau, he’d cleaned and taped his shoulder and changed into fresh uniform of black turtleneck sweater, cargo pants, and combat boots. Vadim pressed him to take the Walther, but Constantine refused. Vympel would strip him of weapons once they caught him and he didn’t want to hand them more ammunition than they already had. His only weapon lay in the pocket of his t-shirt, beneath the sweater, folded into a small rectangle.

  Natalie, he thought. Please be all right. The letters in his pocket were her life and he would do anything to complete the exchange safely. He headed straight for the driveway that led to the subterranean garage. Two guards sat in the booth next to the gate, dressed in non-governmental security officer uniforms with FSB standard-issue M2s at the hip. They made brief eye contact and sat up straight as Constantine continued to walk toward them.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” a guard asked.

  “Upstairs,” Constantine said. “Your boss is waiting for me.”

  The guard came out of the booth, pointing the M2, and Constantine raised his arms. “Against the wall,” the guard said, shoving him onto the glass of the booth and kicking his feet apart. As the man patted him down, Constantine observed the guards’ monitor bay, noting the number and placement of cameras. One square on their screen was black—all the others displayed empty rooms inside the building.

  The guard finished his inspection and turned Constantine around by the shoulder. He gave the man his name and waited for the call upstairs and relay of instructions. The process ended with the first guard marching Constantine to an elevator. When the doors opened, he saw a large brown-haired Vympel man holding a TT pistol. “Get in,” the man said.

  Constantine obeyed and the elevator rose to the twelfth floor. When the doors opened, the man jammed the muzzle into his back and pushed him forward. As he proceeded down the marble hallway, he felt a strange electricity on the air, as if the building had been struck by lightning. She’s here, he thought. She’s still alive.

  At the Vympel man’s urging, he pushed open a second set of double doors and walked into an executive suite. A black-suited figure stood with its back to him, staring out the sun-drenched window. He ignored it, searching for the only figure he cared to see. He found her, huddled on a backless couch with her feet drawn up
to her chest, spangled with diamonds in her hair and on her ears. “Natalie! Are you all right?”

  The figure at the window snapped its fingers and the Vympel man behind him pistol-whipped the base of his neck. “I didn’t give you permission to speak.”

  When he heard the voice, a wave of leaden fear engulfed him, as cold and deep as Lake Baikal. “No,” he said. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?” Viktor said, turning around. “Didn’t find a way to make something of myself in this godforsaken country?”

  “We were friends, Viktor!”

  “Were we?”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “I think the one making a mistake is the one with a gun pointed at his head, don’t you? Just give me the letters and we can get this all over with.”

  “Don’t,” Natalie warned, standing up. “He’ll kill you if you do.”

  Viktor backhanded her and she fell down onto the couch.

  “You son of a bitch!” Constantine leapt at Viktor with a roar.

  The Vympel guard behind him sprang to action, too, clubbing him with the pistol. He stumbled with the blow and spun on the balls of his feet to face the attacker. He kicked the guard’s hand to knock away the gun and rammed him head-first in the gut. They fell to the floor together and scrambled for position.

  The guard wrapped one thick hand around Constantine’s neck while his other hand reached into his pocket. In an instant, he’d flicked a carbon fiber knife into action and pressed it forward. Constantine caught the man’s knife hand with both of his and held the knife away. The man switched tactics, jerking their linked hands to the right. The tip of the blade made a long, shallow groove across the right side of Constantine’s chest.

  “Enough,” Constantine growled. He slammed a fist into the man’s nose. The man lost his concentration long enough for Constantine to roll away and stand up. He could feel the blood leaking from the slash in his chest, but the anger he felt masked any pain. “You,” he said, pointing at Viktor. “Hit her again and I swear you will not live.”

  “Neither will you,” Viktor said. “Yakov, take him.”

  “No!” Natalie cried. “If you hurt him, Viktor, I swear I’ll give you the wrong password.”

  “The hell you will.” Viktor pointed at Yakov, who was still holding a hand to his bleeding nose. “You! Call Ivan and tell him his presence is requested.”

  Yakov wiped his reddened blade against his pants and reached for his phone. Constantine kept his eyes on Natalie, searching for signs of strain. There were no marks on her that he could see. An empty glass of vodka sat on the table nearest her and he wondered if she’d had another attack or if Viktor was medicating her preventatively.

  Behind him, the office doors were pushed open by a blond woman with her hands tied behind her back and a scarf looped around her mouth. A little girl followed her, similarly bound. Marya, he thought. A tall blond man with dark red lips and crooked teeth brought up the rear, a TT pistol pointed at the little girl’s head.

  “Beth!” Natalie cried, launching herself toward her sister.

  “Not yet.” Viktor clamped his fingers around her wrist and jerked her back. “Not until I have what I want.”

  Ivan marched the captives to the conference table and pulled out a single chair. Beth sat down and Marya scrambled into her lap as best she could with bound hands, leaning into Beth’s chest and keening softly. As soon as Ivan pulled down her gag, Beth spat at him. “Get the fuck away from me, or so help me God, I’ll gut you with my toenails.”

  Constantine’s stomach muscles clenched with a renewed wave of fear. When had they kidnapped Natalie’s sister? Now there were three captives he had to get out safely. With Viktor’s help, it would have been difficult; now it felt impossible. He scanned Beth and Marya’s bodies, looking for any incapacitating wounds, but he found none. Beth’s face bore four deep scratches and her blond hair was streaked with grease and grime, but she appeared physically intact.

  Viktor cleared his throat and made a courtly bow in Beth’s direction. “I apologize for detaining you against your will, my dear, but I assure you it is absolutely necessary. Your sister holds the key to our nation’s biggest treasure, unclaimed for nearly a hundred years. She’s going to help me get it and save your life in the process.”

  Marya began to whimper and rub her head against Beth’s chest, loosening her gag until it fell down around her neck. “Where’s my grandpa?” she cried. “I want to go home!”

  “Be a good little girl,” Viktor said, “and let the grown-ups talk now.”

  “But I want to go home!”

  “She’s just a child,” Beth said. “If my sister and I are the ones you want, fine. Leave her out of it.”

  “Please let me go!” the girl shrieked. “I want my mama!”

  “Oh, for the love of God,” Viktor snapped, “someone make her shut up.”

  The blond Vympel man, Ivan, stepped forward and smacked Marya across the face. Beth strained against her bonds, but with her hands tied, all she could do was hold up her leg to keep Marya from falling off the chair. Marya wailed and then fell silent, curling into Beth’s chest and moaning. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she said. Then she looked up at Ivan. “After I gut you, I’ll cut off your balls and feed them to you one at a time.”

  “Beth,” Natalie said weakly. “You’re not helping.”

  “Somebody has to,” her sister snapped. “Nat, what the hell is all this about? Did you really find the tsar’s password?”

  “Not quite. We found letters from Olga and Marie to their lovers on the outside. They coded the password, and a boy carried them out of the Ipatiev House. His family’s had the letters ever since.”

  “Jesus, Nat, how did you get them?”

  “It’s a long story. Check your messages.”

  “Messages,” Ivan said, turning to smile at Natalie. “Da, I forgot to thank you for helping us find the old man so easily.”

  Natalie’s face drained of all its color. “You heard my message?” Constantine saw her control falter. Her eyelids fluttered and she swayed on her feet. “What did you do to him?”

  “What do you think?” Ivan said, smiling. “We killed him, of course.”

  She turned to Viktor. “Did you order this?”

  “Don’t look at me.”

  Constantine kept his eyes on Natalie. Something strange was happening. It looked like she was shaking, sobbing without a sound. Her forehead creased, as if she were in great pain. Belial, he thought. He’s talking to her. “Which one?” she asked.

  “Yakov did the honors,” Ivan said. “Go ahead. Ask him.”

  Natalie turned to the other Vympel man. He was large, like a wrestler, with a bristly brown beard stained with blood from his broken nose. “You did this thing?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “How was it done?”

  “With a pillow.” The big man shuffled his feet, as if he were uncomfortable. “H—he didn’t feel it. He wasn’t awake.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Natalie blinked and two tears fell from her eyes. She closed them and tilted her head to the ceiling. The light from the office’s huge window washed over her like a sunrise and Constantine felt his muscles tense up. What if Natalie lost control and Belial took over, the way he had in the motel room? Would Viktor shoot her? He caught Beth’s eye and noticed the same look of dread on her face.

  Finally, Natalie tiled her head back down and opened her eyes. They were almost white with unshed tears. “Belial says you’re lying to me.”

  “I’m not,” Yakov said, glancing at Ivan for support. “Tell her!”

  Beth tucked her chin over Marya’s head, holding the girl against her chest. “Don’t look, sweetheart.” Constantine flexed his fingers and balanced on the balls of his feet. Be ready, he thought. Here it comes.

  Natalie took one step towards Yakov, who was standing in front of the fireplace. “It’s not me you have to convince. It’s Belial. Do you know
who he is?”

  Yakov shook his head. Constantine looked to Viktor to gauge his reaction, but his former friend was watching the proceedings with a bemused smile.

  “He’s an angel,” Natalie continued. “Bad things happen when you make him angry. He lives in my head, but sometimes he gets out.” She blinked and two more streams of tears fell down her cheeks. “Grigori was a good man.”

  “I was doing my job,” the big man protested. He looked to Viktor for help, but Viktor’s gaze was locked on Natalie, entranced. Constantine glanced around the room. They were all watching her, succumbing to the strange energy that surrounded her. Like gravity, she drew everything to her.

  “Have you ever seen an angel when he’s angry?” A smile played at Natalie’s lips, like that of a predator encouraging the false hope of her prey. “His face looks like lightning.”

  “Stop talking to me!”

  “And did I tell you that angels read our blood? It tells them everything about us. Like whether we’re sorry for the crimes we commit.” Yakov took one step backward, toward the fireplace. Natalie followed him, holding one hand to her breast. “Are you sorry for what you’ve done?” she asked, peering up into his face. “For murdering a man who never hurt you?”

  “Y—yes,” Yakov mumbled, crossing himself.

  “Are you telling the truth?” she asked, leaning even closer to him.

  Yakov couldn’t back up any further without inserting himself into the fireplace. “I am. I swear.”

  “Let me see.” Her fingers slipped up from her heart to her shoulder. Then, quick as lightning, she pulled her hand away and slammed it into the side of Yakov’s neck. Over and over, she slammed her wrist into his neck until thin streams of red began to flow between her fingers. “Read it, Belial!” she screamed. “Read it and tell me how sorry he is!”

  Yakov’s eyes widened with horror as he saw the red on her fingers. He roared in pain and pushed her to the floor, reaching for his gun.