In For the Kill

by Shannon McKenna

  It had happened so fast. She still couldn’t believe it.

  Pavel stepped forward. She’d only seen him once, eleven years ago. He and Sasha’s mother, Marya, had come to the place where the children had been held after their rescue. Pavel had looked bad then, and he looked worse now. His face was grayish, pitted, sagging.

  He stared at his son with naked loathing.

  “Traitor,” he snarled to Sasha. “Get down on the ground, like the turd that you are.” Bam. He fired a shot between his son’s feet.

  Sasha danced back. One of Pavel’s men struck him against the back of his head, sending him stumbling forward. A kick to the small of his back planted him face-first at Pavel Cherchenko’s feet.

  Pavel kicked his son in the face. Sveti cried out in protest, Sam flinched. Sasha did not make a sound. He drew himself into the fetal position, huddling to protect the most vulnerable parts. A trick they had learned with Yuri, and his thick boots. Yuri had liked to kick, even the little ones. Sveti and Sasha had drawn his attention away from the smaller children whenever possible. Sometimes at great cost.

  Pavel hooked his son by the collar of his shirt and yanked him up without much effort. Sasha couldn’t weigh much more than Sveti did. He looked at Sam. “Put down your weapons, slowly,” he said in English. “Or he blows the girl’s kneecap off.”

  The gun jammed deeper into the soft spot under her chin so hard, it was impossible to speak. She locked eyes with Sam, wishing she could tell him mind to mind how beautiful, how valiant he was. How grateful she was. How sorry that she’d gotten him into this.

  The thoughts were locked in. A swarm of terrified birds frantically beating their wings against the bars of their cage.

  Sam crouched and laid the Glock 19 on the ground.

  “Kick it away from yourself,” Pavel said.

  Sam did so.

  “Search them,” the boss barked in Ukrainian. “Cuff him.”

  One of Pavel’s men ran his hands over Sam’s body and made a triumphant sound when he found the ankle holster with the snubbie. He took the revolver and jerked Sam’s arms back, ratcheting plastic cuffs around his wrists. Josef ran his hands over Sveti’s body, pinching and groping. He growled when he found the pistol strapped to her leg, and pinched her thigh viciously as he ripped the Velcro strap loose.

  Pavel walked over to Sveti. “So, my son. At last I have my hands on something you care about.” He lifted up a lock of her hair, fingering it. “So this is the famous Svetlana. Scrawny, ey? Hardly bigger than when you both came out of Zhoglo’s black hole. Have you fucked her?”

  Sasha did not answer. Pavel kicked him again, this time in the ribs. He shuddered but did not cry out.

  “No, you have not fucked her.” Pavel sounded exasperated. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you like girls? My men will be happy to try her. Josef can hardly wait. But he had better go last, considering what he has in mind.”

  Sasha rasped the words, in one explosive breath. “Don’t hurt her!”

  “Tell me where you hid the thermal generators, if you don’t want to see this cunt cut into stew meat.”

  Tears rolled down Sasha’s face. He nodded, jerkily.

  “Where?” his father thundered.

  Sasha looked up. “Here,” he whispered. “I’ll take you to them.”

  Pavel squinted. “You hid my generators on Camorra property? Shit-brained fool.” A kick to Sasha’s kidney. “Get up. Lead on.”

  The seven of them formed an odd procession following Sasha. Sveti willed the boy on the bike to stay away. Magpies darted, insects hummed. It was warm, even at dusk. The smell of festering weeds in a ditch prickled her nose. Weirdly peaceful. Just their feet, crunching on gravel, broken glass as they walked around the decaying foundry.

  Huge chunks of wall were missing, windows were smashed, the roof had caved halfway in. Birds swooped high in its vaulted rafters.

  “Faster,” Pavel growled.

  On the far side of the building was a large, asphalt parking space, cracked and sunken. Ramps and loading bays. A long, low building with many doors that could have been storage, garages.

  Sasha led them to the last door, through the thick foliage that had grown up around it. Prickly pear, fig. A tangle of dusty, dry-looking vines covered everything, twining over the boughs of a wild orange tree that bristled with long, brutal thorns. They tore at her skirt and her legs as Josef dragged her along.

  Sasha stopped. Josef pinned her against the concrete wall. Thorns stabbed into her back, her arm. A branch fell over her shoulder, draping like a stole. It stabbed its stiff spines into her neck.

  Sasha indicated the metal door. Tried to speak. Choked on it.

  “Where is the key?” Pavel demanded.

  Sasha cringed. “I do not have it.”

  “Who does?”

  Sasha’s mouth worked. Sonia, he mouthed.

  Pavel cupped Sasha’s head and slammed his face into the door. Sasha fell to his knees, leaving a bloody splotch on the door.

  Pavel gestured to the man who carried a shotgun. He swung the weapon up, taking aim at the lock.

  “Stop!” Sam yelled. “Holy God, there’s pulverized strontium-90 in there! You’re going to shoot right into it? Really? Do you want to die?”

  The man with the shotgun hesitated, exchanging glances with Pavel. The vor shrugged and made a swift gesture.

  The guy shifted his stance and shot the door at a sharp angle.

  Boom. The sound hit Sveti’s body like the mallet of a gong. The heavy door swung inward, a jagged hole where the lock had been.

  The dark room was empty.

  They stared into the space, silent. Everything was so clear. Every leaf, every thorn sharply outlined. The bird calls were crystalline and shrill. The orange-yellow of the prickly pear fruit glowed in the half-light of dusk, hanging voluptuously out of the leathery, scarred cactus.

  Sveti flexed her hands to see if she could touch Liv’s ring, and Josef’s grip tightened inexorably, until the bones ground.

  She somehow managed not to scream. After Yuri, she knew that reacting to pain only excited such monsters. Made them want more.

  Sasha’s face, beneath the flow of blood from his nose, was a mask of blank bewilderment.

  “You dare to make a fool of me?” Pavel asked softly. “Still?”

  “No,” Sasha said. His mouth shook. “It . . . it was here.”

  Pavel grunted. “Then the sneaky bitch moved it. She trusted you as much as I do. Good judge of character, ey? Even at betrayal, you are a failure.” He looked at Sveti. “Can you tell me where my property is?”

  Sveti shook her head.

  Pavel gestured at Sam. He was jolted forward by the gun between his shoulder blades. “You,” he said in English. “Petrie, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know where the generators are,” Sam said flatly.

  “Very well. Since no more business can be conducted, we will move on to the entertainment of the evening,” he said in English. “Josef, take Svetlana into that room and teach my son the price of betrayal.”

  “No!” Sasha yelled hoarsely, lurching to his feet. “Tato, no!”

  Josef made a thick, snarling sound in his throat and picked Sveti up. He hauled her toward the door.

  “Wait,” Sam said sharply.

  All eyes swiveled to Sam. “I wouldn’t do that,” Sam said to Pavel. “She’s the only one who could find your property for you.”

  “Could she?” Pavel said. “She could tell us nothing in Portland. Granted, you showed up before Josef could show his skill, but still.”

  “Sonia sent her a letter.” Sam’s gaze darted to her, full of urgency. “Full of clues. She’s been working them out. It hasn’t quite jelled yet. But she’s the only one who could put it together.”

  Pavel turned to Sveti. “Do you have this letter?”

  “It’s at the hotel,” she said. “With my things. In my suitcase.”

  “You are lying.” Pavel gestured at Josef. “Go on.
Begin.”

  “It’s The Sword of Cain, right?” Sam said. “It’s all in the letter. Numbers, directions. She just has to crack the code. Don’t be so quick to kill the golden goose, like you did with Sonia. Sveti’s the key.”

  Sveti’s body clenched with dread. Shut up, shut up, please. Do not draw that man’s lethal attention upon yourself any sooner than you have to. But it was too late. Pavel had turned his snakelike gaze on Sam.

  He was considering Sam now. Evaluating how much pain he could inflict. With him, upon him. How best to inflict it.

  “You are smart boy, hmm?” Pavel said. “Her father thought he was smart, too. You know what I think? I think you’re a lying prick. You’re trying to buy time. There’s no time for sale. You are of no use to us, except as incentive. It appears she likes you. We studied you, after Portland. Spoiled rich boy, playing at being cop, no?”

  “If you say so,” Sam said evenly.

  “What a stupid game to play.” Pavel walked around him, appraising him. “I was there, the day Sergei Ardov’s guts were ripped out and piled onto his chest. I’m sure she told you the story.”

  Sveti made a barely human sound. The realization was so sharp, like a knife stabbing. The reason she was so terrified of loving Sam. The reason she panicked and always held herself back.

  It was because of this. It was her worst, depths-of-hell nightmare, and she had made it come true. With her own hands.

  A muscle twitched in Sam’s jaw. “I heard about that, yes.”

  “I will slice you open right here. Pull your bowels out while you watch,” Pavel mused. “Just like her father. It seems appropriate. The cunt can watch us begin and then hurry back to her hotel with one of my men to fetch her letter. We will see how long it takes her to solve this puzzle while we unravel your guts. She’ll have a time margin, you see. Sergei lasted, oh, the better part of a day, but he was a tough old bastard, with Cossack blood. You Americans are soft. I give you three hours, maybe less. You’ll die of shock, and fear.” He smiled. “And surprise,” he taunted, “that it’s actually happening.”

  He looked at Sveti, enjoying her panic. “We’ll cut him carefully,” he said. “He won’t bleed out. He’ll lie here with his abdominal cavity wide open, intestines spread out for the flies to sample. Are you motivated?” He chuckled. “Yevgeni, show them the knife you’ll use.”

  “Tato,” Sasha begged. “Don’t. Please.”

  “And you!” Pavel backhanded his son, sending him reeling. “I will think of something special for you, too. You thought you were so clever, hiding here? You think you are smarter than me? We just followed her!”

  “You are exactly like Zhoglo,” Sasha said to him with surprising clearness. No hesitation, no stutter, no cough.

  “No, I am not!” Pavel hissed, stung. “I killed Zhoglo! I defeated him for you! It was all for you, you ungrateful piece of shit!”

  “You defeated nothing.” Sasha’s broken nose bubbled with blood with each breath, but his voice rang clear. “Zhoglo just found a new body to inhabit. Yours was perfect, because no one was home. He possessed you. He owns you. You are pathetic.”

  One of the men slapped Sasha on the back of the head, sending him stumbling forward again.

  “Let the boy speak,” Pavel said. “It’s just the sound of a baby whimpering when he does not get his mama’s tit.”

  “Don’t speak of my mama. You killed her, too.”

  For that one moment, everyone’s attention was focused on the emotionally fraught interchange between the vor and his son.

  Sam twisted, sprang up. His forehead smashed into the face of the man holding him.

  Josef’s grip slackened for an instant. Sveti jerked her hands free, seizing the thorny branch. Josef grabbed her wrists again. She pulled back against him, with all her strength . . . and then reversed direction suddenly, driving the long, stiff thorns straight into Josef’s face.

  He screamed. So did she. Bam. Bam. His gun went off in her ear.

  A shower of prickly pear fruit pulp rained down on them. Joseph clawed at his face. Blood streamed from one of his eyes. He was screaming, but the gunshots had deafened her. She barely heard them.

  Sam’s foot spun through the air, connecting with Josef’s gun hand, but he lost his balance, stumbling to his knees. He rolled back up again. Josef’s gun bounced and spun on the broken asphalt.

  Pavel’s mouth was wide, in the deafening silence. His gun swung in strange slow motion to aim at Sam.

  Sasha leaped up and flung himself in front of Sam.

  Bam, bam, bam, bam. A heavy vibration thudded, deep in her body. The bullets jerked Sasha this way and that. He crumpled on top of Sam, bearing him backward, onto the ground.

  Sveti dove across the broken asphalt for Josef’s gun. Pavel swung his pistol around. “Do not move a muscle, whore.”

  Sveti froze, then drew her hand back slowly. She could not tell if Sam was alive. Sasha made wheezy, sucking sounds. Shot in the lung. Sam had been shot in the lung once. She remembered it so clearly. It was right after she’d met him. And fallen madly in love with him.

  Thoughts spun in her head, buzzing and frantic, uncoupled from the events that were unfolding. Pavel walked around Sasha’s slight form, still sprawled over Sam’s legs and torso.

  “I wish you had never been born,” he said to his son.

  “Me too.” Sasha’s hand jerked out from under his blood-drenched shirt. Bam.

  Pavel stared down, astonished, at the revolver in Sasha’s hand. Then at the small hole, right in his heart. Blood leaped out, arching and spattering. Flooding down his shirt.

  He crumpled to the ground on top of Sasha, eyes blank.

  “Tato,” Sasha whispered.

  “Vor!” the guy with the shotgun bellowed.

  Bam. Bam. Bam. Sveti opened fire on the man, with Josef’s gun. The guy’s shotgun fell to the asphalt, bouncing out of reach as his legs buckled, folded.

  He sank to his knees, sagged to the side on his ass, clutching his belly. Blood seeped through his fingers. His eyes were wide.

  There was only the sound of labored breathing. From all sides.

  “Sveti.” It took all his energy to punch the sound out to her. He was leaking, blood pressure dropping. “Baby. Look sharp. Talk to me.”

  Sveti jerked her gaze from the guy she’d gut shot. Josef’s Beretta PX Storm compact bobbed dangerously in her shaking grip. “What?”

  “Baby, it’s me. Sam.” He made his voice louder. “I need you.”

  The stunned blankness in her eyes vanished, and she jolted into movement. “Sam. Oh, God. Sasha.” She scrambled over to them, on bloodied hands and knees, laying the gun down. “You’re shot?”

  “Don’t know, exactly. I can’t use my arms. I don’t want to move, and jar him. Get Pavel off, and lift Sasha so I can crawl out.”

  Sveti heaved Pavel off with a grunt of effort and slipped her arm beneath Sasha’s blood-drenched body. He made a thin keening sound.

  Sam crawled out from beneath Sasha. His shoulders felt torn from their sockets. He glanced at the gun that had fallen from Pavel’s hand. A Kahr PM9 Black Rose.

  “You’re shot, too? Oh, God, Sam!”

  “I think most of the blood is his,” he said. “I caught a couple bullets that went through him.” He looked down, evaluating as best he could without his hands. Chest, upper thigh. Lucky his femoral artery wasn’t nicked.

  Sveti’s eyes widened in horror. “Sam! Your chest!”

  “Must have caught on my rib,” he wheezed. “Hurts like a motherfucker, but I can still breathe okay. How about him?”

  She lowered Sasha to the ground and struggled out of her crocheted sweater. Sasha’s red, sticky hand lifted, seeking blindly. Sveti clasped it while she pressed the shrug against his wounds.

  Sam scooted over. His wrists were bleeding, he felt the hot slickness, though his fingers were numb. But Sasha was way worse off.

  The guy’s eyes were open, and brilliantly lucid, considering the si
ze of that pool of blood. Chest. Gut. Groin. All bullets he’d taken for Sam. Sam’s death wounds, intercepted.

  He caught Sasha’s eye. “Thank you,” he said. “You crazy bastard.”

  Sasha coughed. Flecks of blood and lung spattered over his lips and chin. “Not for you,” he croaked. “For her. Save her.”

  The previously hidden force of Sasha’s character blazed out along with that directive. “Yes, I will.” If she’ll let me. She’s fucking hard to help. He left that part out. No point tormenting a dying man.

  Sasha tried to speak, but there wasn’t enough air to vibrate his vocal folds. Sam leaned down to hear him whisper. “What?”

  “I didn’t . . . join the club,” Sasha whispered.

  “What club?” Sam demanded.

  “Of the people who let her down.”

  Sam stared into Sasha’s eyes and felt like ten different kinds of shit. “You sure didn’t,” he said, feeling helpless. “You saved her.”

  Sasha turned his head and whispered something to Sveti in Ukrainian. She whispered back. Then Sasha’s haggard expression softened into a look of dumb relief. He was gone.

  Sveti pressed her finger to his throat. Tears ran down her face, mixing with blood. Sasha had lasted longer than most would have.

  But now was not the time for mourning. Enough being a pussy-whipped asshole. This girl was going back into the vault, with Tam and Val and Nick and all the rest of them to guard her until this mess was cleaned up. Completely, and for all time.

  “Baby, you have to get these restraints off me,” he said.

  Sveti looked up. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I . . . I didn’t think.” She scrambled unsteadily to her feet and looked around. “How . . . ?”

  “A knife,” he reminded her gently. “They took mine, but these guys will all have them. If they were going to gut me, they have to have good blades. Go on, search the one I head-butted.”

  She knelt by the man’s still form. “He’s dead,” she said, as she rummaged through his pockets.