In For the Kill

by Shannon McKenna

  “Yeah, I know,” Sam said wearily.

  She found a knife and hurried over, sawing at the plastic.

  The cuffs came loose, along with the wave of pain. Oh, fuck. Fuck.

  The first thing he did when he could use his fingers was to close Sasha’s eyes, after which he just sat there, in slack-jawed overload. Sveti clutched the knife in her shaking hand, shoulders hunched.

  He put his hand on her shoulder and tried to make his voice gentle, but it was too thick to sound anything but harsh and aggressive.

  “He’s gone, baby. We can’t help him now. We have to go.”

  “We have to get you to a hospital,” she said.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m not at death’s door.”

  “You have been shot!” she snarled. “Don’t you dare play your bullshit macho games with me!”

  “I’m fine,” he repeated, breathing down the nauseous giddiness. He looked around the grisly scene and his guts twitched, uneasily. The math did not add up. “Hey, Sveti. Where’s the other guy? Josef?”

  Sveti struggled to her feet and looked around. “I don’t see him.”

  That zinged him right out of his trance. “That sucks ass,” he said.

  She helped him struggle to his feet. “I’ll call an ambulance?”

  “While we wait for Josef to bring back some of his friends? We’ll be better off if we move ourselves. Can you imagine trying to give directions to the medics? I don’t even know where the fuck we are.”

  “Then I’ll get the car and bring it back,” she said.

  “I don’t want you out there alone, with that scumbag around.”

  “I’ll take a gun,” she said. “I can handle a gun.”

  “I noticed that,” he said. “What’s with your hand?”

  She looked down at her bloody hand and forearm. “Oh, I grabbed a thorny branch. Shoved it into Josef’s face. I think I got his eye.”

  “Wow. My warrior princess.” He took a step, but his legs were rubbery. Sveti caught him, and he almost brought her down with him.

  “I’ll go get the car,” she said, her voice shaking. “Wait here, Sam.”

  “No, we stick together. Find our guns. Get that Saiga, too. See if he has another ten-round mag for it, too. Check his pockets.”

  She scrambled to gather it all up. His Glock, back into the waist holster. His ankle holster. The snubbie. Her Micro, in the thigh strap. He’d leave the Black Rose and the PX Storm for the cops, but he wanted that shotgun, at least til they were home free. Sveti gestured at the man she had shot, who was now only barely conscious. “What about him?”

  Sam’s own belly scar tingled nastily, just looking at the guy. He remembered how it felt. Innards torn up, life leaking out. Death rising like a swift dark tide. The man panted, with swift, shallow breaths. His frantic eyes met Sam’s and then fell to the gun in Sam’s hand.

  Sam shook his head. “He would have raped you and ripped my guts out in front of you. Let him die alone, in his own good time. We’ll tell the authorities about him. Let’s go.”

  “One last thing.” Sveti crouched beside Sasha, straightening his limbs. She folded his arms over his chest and bent to kiss his forehead.

  Sam stared at the body of the man he’d judged and scolded. He swallowed over the tight, burning ache. “Hurry,” he rasped.

  The trip back to the car was a nightmare, without the guidance of the kid on the bike. They got disoriented, which doubled the agonizing trip. Sam shuffled like a zombie, leaving a trail of blood, but giving up wasn’t an option. He was too heavy to drag, and he dared not leave her alone.

  At one point, the boy popped up and skidded to a stop, eyes huge.

  They must look like horror movie escapees. Sveti’s white dress was plastered to her body. Her hair hung in blood-matted strands. Sam looked worse, draped over her shoulder. Shotgun clutched in his grip.

  Sam fixed the kid with a menacing stare. “Hai visto un altro tizio in giro?” Have you seen another guy around here?

  The kid nodded. “Se ne andato con la macchina.” He left with the car.

  “Ti ha visto?” He saw you?

  The child shook his head violently.

  “Bene,” Sam muttered. “Vattene. Sparisci.”

  The boy didn’t need to be told twice. He pedaled frantically away.

  “What was that about?” Sveti asked.

  “He says the guy drove away, and didn’t see him,” Sam said. “I hope to God it’s true.”

  Their car came into sight. Then came the task of prying the key out of Sam’s blood-stiffened jeans pocket, it being unpleasantly close to one of his nastiest wounds. Sveti pried them loose, to the tune of his foul, virulent cursing, and dumped all their weapons into the trunk.

  She unlocked the car, now smeared with blood where Sam had sagged over it, and strapped him into the passenger’s seat. She got the car onto the road and floored it. He almost instantly started to drift off.

  Her voice sounded far away. “Stay with me, Sam! Don’t pass out!”

  “Call the cops.” He put the words in a bottle and sent it bobbing gently across the ocean stretching out between them. Wider, wider.

  “First, let me find you a hospital! Damn it, Sam! Look at me!”

  “Castellana,” he muttered. “Follow . . . signs. Ospedale.”

  “Yes! I’m not an idiot! I know that much!” she snapped.

  He gathered all his energy to launch another bottle into that swiftly widening ocean. “Sveti. Tell me . . . something.”

  “What?” she prompted. “Anything! Keep talking! Stay with me!”

  “The last thing Sasha said. In . . . Ukrainian. What was it?”

  She tried to speak, but her words choked off into a sob. “He said, be happy. Goddamn him! It’s a sick joke. Your best friend is bleeding to death in your arms, and he says, be happy? Fuck that! Fuck happy!”

  “No.” The water was so wide now, so vast, but he had to say this to her. It was so important. “Don’t. Sasha’s . . . right.”

  “What?” He could barely hear her high, frantic voice. “Stay awake, Sam! I need you! Don’t leave me alone!”

  “It’s not . . . too much to ask.” His voice was groggy. “Happiness. . . for you. I want that, too. I’m with him. I want that.”

  “Fuck!” She swerved out of the path of an oncoming car. Its shrill horn dopplered out behind them. “Goddamnit, Sam! This isn’t helping!”

  But he couldn’t understand her anymore. He was looking at Sasha’s face now, on some mysterious plane of existence between life and death. The dead man’s dark, direct gaze burned right into him.

  He looked back, chastened. Nice move, dude. Hell of an exit.

  Sasha had done it. He’d pulled off another shining moment of pure, high-octane heroism, and Sam had to love him for it, even though it was a brutal fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on.

  As well as a mortal challenge. Sam could practically hear the guy say the words as he sank down to a deeper layer of consciousness.

  Top this, dickhead. Go on. Knock yourself out. I’ll be watching.

  CHAPTER 23

  A golden thread in the darkness led him through the maze of evil dreams. Blood, violence, gunshots, guts, screams. Dead, empty eyes.

  He clung to the thread, following it blindly. Trusting it.

  Shrill beeping, smothering gauze on his face. People manipulating his body. So much pain. He finally clawed his way up close enough to the light to frame the sensation. To name it.

  The clasp of her hand. That was it. Sveti’s hand was the golden thread, and the touch of her skin on his was the sweet, unspoken promise that there was something worth waking up for.

  Even so, he regretted opening his eyes. The light hurt.

  Several attempts later, he kept them open long enough to place himself. A hospital room. Scarred metal bedstead. Walls painted a pale, industrial green. A crucifix hung on the wall in his line of sight.

  He swiveled his eyeballs in his head, w
hich was harder than it should have been. They felt swollen and dry, as if they had sand embedded under them. An IV was stuck in his arm. He shifted, experimentally. He was not intubated, nor did he have a catheter up his dick. Excellent. Things had been far worse for him than this.

  Sveti sat beside him. Her left hand was bandaged. She had bruises and scrapes on her face, her arms, the unbandaged hand.

  “Hey.” She gave him her brief, lovely smile. “You’re awake.”

  “What day is it?” he croaked.

  “It’s Tuesday. You’ve been out for more than a day. You had a bullet against your ribs, and you have stitches everywhere. You’re a hot mess.”

  “Police?” he croaked.

  “Of course. I talked to them for hours. I told them everything I know. The guy I shot was dead when they arrived on the scene.”

  “Josef?”

  “Disappeared,” she said. “No trace of him.”

  Then someone needed to hover over her with a gun. “Where’s Simone?” he demanded.

  “He’s here. I called him right away. I was sure you’d want that. He’s right outside your room.”

  He sighed his relief. “Have you called Val and Tam and Nick?”

  “Simone talked to Val. They’re all coming day after tomorrow. Your father and sister should be here, too, early tomorrow morning.”

  He jerked like he’d been stuck with a pin. “Who? What?”

  “I called him,” she said. “He was beside himself. He just texted me their arrival times.” She indicated her phone.

  “Let me see that.” He took her phone, which had a new starburst shatter marring the screen. Sure enough, there was his father’s private number. An arrival time, an airport code. His dad’s usual stern synthesis. He let the phone thud onto the mattress.

  “Sweet God,” he muttered. “Just kill me now.”

  “They’ll just scold you,” she said gently. “They love you.”

  “Never mind them. How about you? Are you good?”

  She dropped a sweet little kiss on his hand. “I’m fine.”

  He was horrified to feel the tears well into his eyes. He was still so fucking scared. All stoved in and fucked up, and if Josef or whatever other asshole wanted to hurt her walked in, he’d be helpless to stop him. “You have to go home, Sveti,” he said. “Now. You can’t stay here.”

  Sveti’s gaze slid away. “Soon,” she soothed. “Not quite yet. I needed to talk to you about that. I couldn’t leave until I let you know—”

  “Leave?” He jerked up and fell back with a hiss of pain, his ribs screaming. “Leave for where? With whom?”

  “Calm down. I’m just going to the Villa Rosalba for the night. You know. To look under that tile. We talked about that.”

  “Fuck, no!” He tried to jerk up again.

  Sveti murmured in dismay and pressed him back down onto the pillows. “Sam, be calm! I’ll be fine!”

  “Hold it right there,” he said, voice shaking. “Let’s touch back down into the realm of reality, just for one goddamn second, okay?”

  Her mouth thinned. He knew he’d lost her, right then. She wouldn’t hear him talk. She’d do whatever she damn well pleased, just like always. “I see reality very clearly,” she said.

  “Yeah? You’re aware that Josef is out there, pissed as hell about the thorns in his eye and his sudden change in career prospects,” he said. “And that he’s now convinced that you know where tens of millions of euros’ worth of dirty bomb materials are, or at least that you could figure it out, given the right incentive. You know firsthand that he is an expert at providing that kind of incentive. And you propose to wander off alone, maybe tour some Roman ruins? Go to a spa?”

  “Do not trivialize what I am doing,” she said.

  “Then don’t trivialize the danger! You need to stay with Simone! You need bodyguards on you, twenty-four/seven, until Tam and Val and Nick can take over! You cannot be alone! Ever!”

  “I won’t be alone,” Sveti said.

  “Excuse me?” He paused as realization sank in. “And just who exactly will be keeping you company, babe?”

  She squeezed his hand. “Sam, it’s just for one night. And I—”

  “Hazlett,” he cut in. “Hazlett’s going with you. Moving in on you while I’m out of commission. That’s great. That is just fucking classic.”

  She winced. “Oh, God, Sam. Please.”

  He suddenly noticed her clothes, which were incongruously elegant, with her scrapes and bruises. The coral silk blouse, the loose linen pants, perfectly pressed. “Where did those clothes come from? The last time I saw you, you were covered in blood. I don’t remember that outfit. Where the fuck did you get those clothes?”

  Her face stiffened. She crossed her scratched, bruised arms over her chest. “Michael brought them to the hospital for me.”

  “Michael, billionaire philanthropist and personal shopper?”

  The chin went up. “I’m sure Nadine picked them out.”

  “Aw. How sweet. And you’re going to spend the night with him now? Tell me you’re shitting me. Please, Sveti.”

  “I’m not going to spend the night with him! I am going to look under that fucking tile, because I can’t eat or sleep until I do!”

  “So tell the cops! Let them look! I do not give a flying fuck what secrets your mother hid there! All I know is, she died for them, Sveti, and Sasha did, too! You are not getting in line to be next!”

  She gave him the regal empress look. “You heard what Sasha said, about the dirty bomb? The lab where innocent people were murdered? The grave where their bodies are hidden? And you don’t think it’s important enough to follow up?”

  “Sure, it’s important, but it’s not your job to do it! And that’s only assuming that what Sasha said was true!”

  “Pavel appeared to believe it. Why shouldn’t we?”

  He shook his head and hissed at the ensuing whanga-whanga inside his skull. “I can’t even begin to count the ways that guy was messed up,” he said. “Maybe he was dreaming up things he wished he’d done. He didn’t have the nerve to do anything like that alone.”

  “He wasn’t alone. And my mother had nerve for ten,” she said.

  “True, but really? Sasha saves the world while putting the shaft to his mean, evil dad? Talk about a wish-fulfillment fantasy. I’ll believe it when I see the bomb materials with my own eyes.”

  “It didn’t look like a fantasy to me when he was bleeding out on the ground,” she said frigidly.

  “I am not diminishing his sacrifice,” Sam said through his teeth. “And I’m not saying bomb materials weren’t stolen. I’m just questioning if he could actually have been the one who stole them. Your mom isn’t around to corroborate. And they sure as hell weren’t where he left them.”

  “He throws himself in front of a hail of bullets for you, and yet, you continue to underestimate him,” she said.

  Oh, fuck, ouch. Sveti had the art of the merciless zinger nailed.

  “This is about more than me staying safe,” Sveti went on. “Sasha didn’t lay down his life after asking me to hide under the bed until it’s safe to come out. Mama gave up everything for this!”

  “And she got a jack shit return on her investment! I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about bombs and labs and bodies. All I care about is getting you someplace safe. Go. The fuck. Home.”

  Her mouth trembled. “So,” she whispered. “Here we are again.”

  “Yeah, here we are. But my job now is not to pander to your suicidal whims. It isn’t even to fuck you senseless, much as I enjoy it. My job is just to keep you in one piece. That’s all. That’s it.”

  Her face crumpled for an instant, before she got herself back under control and smoothed it out. “That’s the problem,” she said. “I’m not in one piece. I’m in a million pieces, Sam. I have been for years.”

  His stitches pulled, stabbing lines of fire jabbing in his guts, his rib, his thigh. “I’m sorry about that,” he s
aid awkwardly. “But you can put the pieces back together in the safety of Cray’s Cove.”

  She threw up her hands. “I won’t be in danger at Villa Rosalba! Michael’s security team will be all over the place!”

  “Great. That makes me turn cartwheels for joy.”

  “Sam, haven’t you ever had a thing burn in your mind? A thing that just won’t let you go? Remember Elaine, in college? That’s what this is for me! If you care about who I am inside, you’ll understand!”

  He grabbed her hand and held up three fingers of his other hand.

  “Three things,” he said. “One. Your family trusted me to keep you safe.”

  “My family does not dictate—”

  “Two.” He held up his second finger. “This one’s more important. You’re my woman now, like it or not. Being in a gun battle with you clinches it. It’s my evolutionary duty, mandated by the incontrovertible laws of nature, not to let you eat a bullet, if I can help it.”

  “Sam—”

  “The third thing,” he proceeded relentlessly. “Your crazy friend Sasha laid some very heavy karma on me. If you get hurt, he will haunt my ass into the next life and beyond. And I’m in no condition to pay my debt to him right now. Can you not give me that much, while I’m lying here with a fucking IV drip in my arm? Is that so much to ask?”

  She wiped at her eyes. “I will be completely safe,” she insisted. “Please, be reasonable, Sam. I’ll always be grateful. You saved my life.”

  His bark of laughter hurt his chest. “Yeah, well. You are my life.”

  She gazed at him, eyes soft, openmouthed. “Oh, Sam . . .”

  “Yeah, I know,” he snarled. “Don’t start. I know. You don’t have

  it in you, you’re too damaged to love me, blah blah, fuck you very much, let’s have more wild sex now. I’m in love with you, Sveti. I’m out of my head. That’s my only excuse for some of the shit I’ve pulled.”

  “You? You’ve done nothing but protect me!”

  He grunted in disgust. “Yeah? The ice-cream date, at Castellana Padulli? Going to the death-trap address on that note? Seriously? Coming to Italy at all was dumber than shit. I should have just trapped you in my bed in Portland, like a good sex maniac. I can’t believe I shoved my head that far up my ass, and left it there for so long.”