by Lexi Blake
Brody was telling him if he wasn’t willing to fight then get out of his way.
Fuck.
The minute Brody moved, Nick ran, sprinting across the garage so they weren’t close together. Two targets were harder to hit than one. Brody would be smart enough to duck behind the car, he hoped.
He heard cursing and then shouts in Russian to kill them both.
Nick dove for the car beside him as the world exploded in gunfire. He felt heat lash his side, but he rolled to his left. He hit the tire, the smell of rubber telling him he could stop. He ignored the pain in his side and pulled his gun, flicking the safety off.
He flattened himself against the car and took stock.
The garage had gone deadly silent.
Shit. Was Brody dead? Had the big dumbass gotten himself riddled with bullets?
“Only two left, mate.”
The sound of that thick Aussie accent echoing against the concrete was the best thing Nick had ever heard. Brody was somewhere to his right, but Nick would bet he was close to the Benz. Nick was huddled against some kind of sedan, though the car on his other side was a smart car and wouldn’t offer much protection at all. The bad guys would simply lift it up and use the thing as a weapon against him if he gave them a chance.
Where was everyone else?
He could see some of the floor, but the car was low to the ground. Good and bad. He couldn’t see much further than a few feet but then to see him, one of them would have to get low to the ground.
“This won’t work, Markovic. You do nothing but seal your friend’s fate,” a dark voice said. “Find them.”
He heard the sound of shoes thudding against the concrete. Apparently Brody was hiding on the other side of the lot and now they were both being hunted.
But sometimes the prey had a better vantage point. Nick could see under the car, a small stretch of visibility that might give him the advantage. As the steps came closer, a pair of black boots came into view.
Five more steps and he might be able to see Nick over the car in front of him. The bloody tiny smart car. If this was happening in an American parking garage, he would be surrounded by massive trucks and SUVs, not shoved in between two tiny cars that had to be powered by hamster wheels.
Calm. He had to stay calm. He’d spent the majority of the last year working easy assignments, assignments where no one shot at him. He’d brought down corporate spies, and they didn’t usually try to murder the man coming after them. He’d gotten soft and comfortable.
He took a deep breath and let a nice chill settle over him. He had to reclaim the predator he’d been before finding his home here in London. All that mattered in the next few moments was to take down the other men. Any way he could.
Nick went still, his firing arm out and flat against the concrete. Normally that would be a bad thing, but he intended to use it to his advantage. He knew exactly what he would do if he were in the same position. He would use that car as a shield and pick off the man on the floor. It was an easy, simple way to solve the problem, and the risk would seem minimal.
It wasn’t going to work out that way for the other man.
“I’ve called in backup, Nikolai,” a dark voice said. “They will be here in seconds and they will be annoyed because you pulled them away from their lunches. All you do now is make this harder on yourself and your friend. Perhaps we will bring him along, too. The boys like to have their fun, no?”
He was sure there was a crew on its way down right this second. They would enter from the same door Boris had fled through. They would be at Brody’s back, and Nick wasn’t sure how safe his partner’s hiding spot was.
Time once again was not on his side.
Nick stayed calm, stayed still, his eyes on that thin strip of visibility between the concrete and the car’s undercarriage. Those black boots began moving again, easing their way toward the car.
Closer. A little closer.
“We will have some fun games with your friend and take you in alive,” the leader was saying. “You will not enjoy your trip back to Russia. Once we’re there, my boss will take you apart as you did his son.”
Shit. He didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t right now. He certainly wasn’t going to point out that whatever aging mobster had sent these men his way should understand that his son had ripped apart a beautiful young woman who’d had her whole life ahead of her. His son had been a monster, and a monster had come for him.
It was the awful, painful circle of life in the Bratva.
“You had to keep the bloody keys, did ya?” Brody blasted across the garage.
His shout was followed by gunfire.
So Brody was at the car. Excellent.
He couldn’t panic, couldn’t lose his shot or they would do exactly what that asshole had said they would do. Kill Brody and take him in for long hours of torture, and not the fun type.
He let the world slow, stopped thinking about anything but getting the perfect shot.
The boots moved closer.
One more step.
“Ty proigral,” the man in the black boots said from above.
Nick didn’t look up, merely stared forward and fired straight into the asshole’s ankles. Once and then another a few centimeters to the left. He heard a shot go wild overhead and then the inevitable happened. The man cursed and fell, his ruined ankles unable to hold up his weight. The man’s body dropped like a rock, his head banging against the concrete.
The minute he hit the ground, Nick fired again, this time hitting him square in the head.
He would not get up again.
Nick flipped onto his back in time to catch the boss racing up. He didn’t bother to keep a car between them, merely ran until he was standing right in front of Nick. From his place on the concrete, Nick fired and the other man’s shoulder flew back. Adrenaline coursed through Nick’s body, giving him energy and focus.
Nick fired again, but the big bull managed to stay on his feet. Somehow he managed to raise his weapon and aim at Nick.
Pain lashed at Nick’s side, but he managed to roll to his left before his assailant fired again.
Nick looked up, ready to fire until he ran out of bullets or until too many hit him.
Win or die. It was all him now.
The other man moved in.
And then his opponent’s body went flying as the Benz plowed into him. One minute the boss had been standing there, ready to end him, and the next there was a sickening crunch and then the sound of something hitting the opposite wall. The squealing of tires echoed through the garage. The passenger door crashed open and Brody stared at him.
“What are you waiting on, mate? Get in.”
Nick forced himself to move. His left arm was bleeding, but he couldn’t stop for a bandage. Every muscle in his body ached as he rolled over to get to his feet. He banged a knee against the concrete and reached for the open door.
Behind him a door slammed open and he could hear a smattering of Russian curse words. He jammed himself into the passenger seat and managed to pull the door closed just as the rear windshield shattered into a million pieces.
Brody hit the gas, flying past parked cars and concrete columns. Nick rolled down his window, the smell of burning rubber crashing into him.
They weren’t out of here yet, and he was sure the sound of a gunfight hadn’t gone unnoticed by the guard downstairs. Still, he couldn’t help but turn to Brody. “I thought you needed the keys.”
Brody faced straight ahead, his lips quirking up. “Had a bit of an interesting youth. Decided to stop waiting on your lazy arse. What else was I supposed to do when you’re taking a nap somewhere? Hang on.”
Nick slammed back against the seat as Brody made an insane turn down to the lower level. The back half of the car fishtailed and Nick braced himself. “It wasn’t exactly a nap.”
“So you say. You all right? You look a bit bloody,” Brody said. “Where did you get hit?”
“It’s not bad. I think I got
grazed in the beginning.” He was fairly certain it wasn’t bad. He could move all his limbs. That was a good thing because it looked like he was going to need his right arm.
Up ahead, light filtered in from the street, but Nick could see the gate being lowered and the guard stepping out with a gun in his hand.
Brody cursed and hit the gas.
It would be close. The guard fired, but it went wild. He stood his ground in front of the gate. Nick leaned out and started firing.
Fuck. They weren’t going to make it. He fired again, trying to get the guard out of the way. Any hesitation might make the difference between getting out of this garage and crashing into the gate. They would be sitting ducks for whoever marched down that ramp.
The guard jumped back and there was the terrible sound of metal scraping across the roof. Brody turned onto the street and raced through the red light, putting distance between them and the men running after them.
He took his first deep breath since the whole fucking thing had started.
Nick slumped against the door. He was getting too old for this shit.
Brody turned on the next street, grinning wildly. “Damon’s going to kill us, you know.”
Yes, Damon wouldn’t be the only one.
* * * *
Hayley slipped into the chair beside Charlotte and looked over at the elephant in the room. The super-hot, might-still-drag-her-back-to-Seattle-in-handcuffs elephant. Besides Charlotte, Ezra Fain was the only other person there. “What’s he doing here?”
Charlotte turned her way, her eyes widening slightly.
Probably because she’d sounded like a brat. Still, she had a right to know. “You said I shouldn’t spill secrets to him. I didn’t get what you meant when you told me he was a company man. That was because he’s with the CIA, right? Well, I already talked too much. And he doesn’t like Nick.”
He’d made that plain.
Charlotte placed her laptop in front of her. “He’s here because I need his authorization to look at some video. Adam read about it in one of the public reports and thinks it could be helpful, but hacking the Seattle PD will take some time and there’s a certain amount of risk we can avoid because of the access Ezra has. I made the decision to bring him in instead of exposing Adam to a risk we don’t have to take. He takes plenty of them all on his own.”
“Why would he have access to the Seattle PD? He’s CIA. He isn’t supposed to work on domestic soil.”
“I have a lot of connections, Hayley. And if you think I don’t keep an eye on what happens in the States, too, then you don’t understand the nature of my job. I can leave if you like. I’ll get Charlotte what she needs and then leave the two of you alone,” he offered.
Charlotte looked her way. “I don’t know what the two of you talked about while I was gone, but Ezra’s smart and he’s read the files. Normally I would wait and let Damon deal with this, but he and Ian got pulled into a meeting with some government bigwig about a security consultation for some royals and they won’t be back until late. Penny’s up to her ears in code, Ariel’s in session, and Kayla is out working a case she’s been following for two months. And Brody went out with Nick. It’s me and Ezra or just me, and believe me, Ezra has more experience. If this were about either assassinating a rival mobster or convincing two cranky toddlers to go to bed, I would be your girl. I’m strictly behind a desk at this point. I run the company so my husband can shoot things.”
She hadn’t meant to be rude. “I’m sorry. I understand. I’m touchy since I found out about the warrants out for my arrest.”
Charlotte opened the laptop. “You just found out about that? Why didn’t Nick tell you?”
That was such a good question. “I don’t know, but I do want to be updated now.”
She’d had a wonderful several days where she hadn’t been forced to think about the fact that her life was in ruins. It was time to wake up again.
Charlotte started working over her keyboard. “All right, I talked to Alex and Eve. They’re the two Dallas operatives we sent up to Seattle to see if we could find anything out. They went to the police and told them Eve was your cousin on your mother’s side. We got next to nothing out of the police. They are definitely treating you like someone they believe killed a police officer.”
“That sounds bad.” Maybe she didn’t want an update. Maybe she wanted to go back to that moment she rolled out of bed. She shouldn’t have left the apartment. This was what Nick had been trying to keep from her. Not the information but the sinking feeling that everything was going to hell.
“They didn’t tell Eve anything at all. They aren’t going to break rank when it comes to a fallen fellow officer,” Charlotte explained. “And I understand that. So I’m going to send in a friend of ours. She’s a reporter and she’s going to see what she can find out about our mystery officer who isn’t on the rolls.”
“One of the important things to do in a case like this is to manipulate the media.” Ezra sat back, looking calm and collected as he talked about playing chess on an international level. “Whoever is behind this knows what they’re doing. He or she has put you in a position where no police officer is going to help you. I’m not saying they would actively harm you. Not at all, but your shot at getting one to listen to you before they shove you in a jail cell is gone.”
“And once I’m in a cell, I’m a sitting duck,” Hayley surmised.
“More than likely.” Ezra crossed one long leg over his knee and continued. “Which is why I’m advising that we do a bit of manipulation of our own. We send in a bona fide reporter to start asking questions. There’s nothing the press likes better than a good conspiracy theory. In this case, it’s all true. We send in our reporter, show some of the pictures of our would-be kidnapper around, and shake some things up. See what falls out of the tree.”
It sounded like an interesting idea, but she couldn’t stand the thought of someone else getting hurt over her. “What happens if one of these people comes after the reporter? They killed a police officer to set me up. They won’t hesitate to kill a reporter.”
“This reporter is quite good at taking care of herself,” Charlotte explained. “She’s my sister-in-law and her husband will be with her every step of the way. Not much gets past Case, so don’t worry about it. I couldn’t get Mia to give it up if I wanted to. She smells a story.”
“I don’t want her hurt.”
“She’ll do almost all the work remotely. The good news about journalism today is they don’t need boots on the ground for something like this,” Charlotte continued. “Mia can make her inquiries and shake things up from her comfortable and safe condo in Dallas.”
That made her feel a bit better. “All right. So you think if these people feel threatened by Mia’s questions, they might make a mistake.”
Ezra glanced at Charlotte’s laptop as she turned it to him.
He touched a few keys and shifted it back her way before speaking. “Yes, we’re trying to draw them out one way or another. We’re still working this from the criminal angle, too. We’ll be talking to contacts in both the intelligence community and some in the criminal underground.”
“I’m worried that’s what Nick’s doing today.” Charlotte’s face was grim as she worked over the keyboard.
“What do you mean? You think Nick’s out talking to criminals?” That would explain why he wouldn’t tell her anything about what he was doing except that he had some errands to run.
“He’s probably talking to his Bratva connections,” Ezra replied.
Charlotte looked up. “He wouldn’t do that. We discussed this. I can handle that part with far more ease than he can. It might take me a few days, but I already called my cousin. He agreed to put out some feelers.”
Something deeper was going on than a mere argument about how to move forward. Charlotte didn’t appear angry that Nick might be going against her advice. She looked worried.
“Why would you be the better person to deal with the Russian
mob? I know Nick has some ties. He would have met them when he worked intelligence.”
Charlotte’s lips were tight, her whole body tense as she replied. “My cousin is an active member of the Bratva. He’s the pakhan of the Denisovitch syndicate. That’s like a godfather. He should be able to get us some intelligence, but he has to be careful about how he does it so it could be a few days, maybe even weeks.”
A derisive chuckle huffed from Ezra’s mouth. “And that’s why Nikolai is out there right now doing something stupid.”
Charlotte shot Ezra a look that could have peeled paint off a wall. “You don’t know that.”
“Ping his phone,” Ezra challenged. “What do you want to bet me that he’s somewhere in Little Russia?”
Hayley wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but it scared her. “Why would it be bad for Nick to do the same thing you asked your cousin to do? Please don’t sugarcoat it. Tell me the truth.”
“The trouble is Nikolai is reckless and he won’t be careful the way Charlotte’s cousin will be. Then, of course, there’s also the fact that Charlotte’s cousin didn’t brutally assassinate an entire syndicate.” Each word out of the CIA agent’s mouth felt like a bullet peppering her flesh. “Charlotte’s cousin doesn’t have a bunch of mobsters who would want to kill him on sight.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say Dusan is a saint, but he isn’t reckless.” Charlotte’s voice had gone slightly hoarse, as though she was struggling to keep it down. “As for Nick, that’s his story to tell and I won’t let you take that from him. I trust him. Ian and Damon trust him. If you have a problem with that, the door is that way and I don’t expect to see you again.”
“You think I’ll walk away from those men downstairs? We have no idea what kind of assets they could be,” Ezra argued.
