In For the Kill

by Shannon McKenna

  The next one was from Lily and Bruno’s wedding, years ago. There were several from that party. Him talking. Him smiling. Him drinking. Him staring moodily into the ballroom at the dancers. All pairs, first the original, then the enlarged, cropped version. On, and on, and on.

  He scrolled down. Counted. One hundred and sixty-eight originals, one hundred and sixty-eight edited versions. Three hundred and thirty-six photos. Bigger than his own stalker stash of Sveti photos.

  She had him beat. By a country mile.

  It should be a balm for his ego, but his ego was past soothing. It was six feet under. All that was left was raw meat, exposed nerves. Pain.

  Three hundred and thirty-six fucking jolts of it.

  He had to close his eyes and just try to breathe. He was tempted to call the nurse and make a noisy, agitated fuss, until she put him down with some powerful opiate or other. Bring on the cosh.

  But that made him think of Sasha. He’d given his life for Sam’s. Sasha had done the hard thing, the brave thing. Out of respect, he’d do the same. No more morphine derivatives were going into his veins today.

  He clicked on the folder “Mama.” Childhood photos of Sveti and her parents. Sveti got the cheekbones and the dark coloring from her father. Sergei Ardova had been a severe-looking man. A sharp, measuring look in his eyes. He’d have been an ass-kicking, terror-inducing father-in-law, in some happy parallel universe.

  Baby pics of Sveti were hard to look at, and equally impossible to look away from. It hurt, to imagine her that small, that defenseless. Pictures of her as a beautiful six- or eight- or ten-year-old had the same effect. He shrank from looking at that hopeful, delicate face, those big, innocent eyes, knowing what was in store for her.

  Oh, fuck this. He was indulging in pure, distilled masochism, but he just couldn’t stop himself. His crush on Sveti was his first experience of helplessly compulsive behavior. He was strung out on her scent, her touch, her glance. The caress of her breath against his chest, her slender limbs twined around his body. Warm and relaxed and trusting.

  He covered his eyes for a while. Then clicked onward into the “Mama” file, just for something to do. Anything at all.

  There it was, the fateful photo of her mom that had started all this. Her eyes were so compelling. They gazed out of the photo at him with haunting urgency. Begging him to do something, now, please, fast.

  He was working himself into a state. Stress hormones messing with his head. He clicked off Sonia’s silent plea. Opened another.

  This one wasn’t much better. It was that shot of Sergei, complete with Zhoglo’s smirk behind his shoulder. About which he’d made those arrogant, butthead pronouncements about choosing your thoughts, choosing who got into the frame. Trimming out the undesirable.

  Like he knew what the fuck he was talking about. Like he had even the most basic, elemental clue how to choose his own thoughts.

  He recognized Sveti’s heart-stopping smile in her father’s grin. He was raising his glass, toasting that scum Zhoglo, and the other guy, the mystery dude, who—

  What the fuck?

  He stared at the phone, looked closer. He rubbed his eyes. Blinked furiously. No way. Oh, no fucking way. Not possible.

  He used the camera’s zoom function, clicked in closer.

  The third man was Hazlett. Much younger, hair darker, but it was him, no question, complete with the dimples, the whitened teeth, the charming smile. He was not aware that he was being photographed. The picture had been taken from an interior, focusing out the window to where the three men stood on an outdoor veranda.

  He had no idea what the hell this meant, but Sveti was in danger, more than he’d ever dreamed. And he’d ordered her to walk away from him and straight out into it, just because she wouldn’t be a good little girl and toe his line. He couldn’t even call and warn her. She was naked, incommunicado, in the mouth of the beast. Holy flipping shit.

  He searched through Sveti’s phone until he found a number for the Villa Rosalba, the one Renato had given her the day of the gala. Renato Torregrossa was probably dirty, too, but whatever. He had to try.

  He dialed the number, waited while it rang. “Pronto?” a man said.

  “Have I reached the Villa Rosalba?” he asked in Italian.

  “Si. E lei chi è?” Yes, and you are?

  “I’m Sam Petrie. I’m looking for Svetlana Ardova. Is she there?”

  “Mi dispiace, but the Signorina Ardova left late last night and has not been back.”

  His heart thumped, hard. “Did she leave alone?”

  “I do not know, signore.”

  “Do you know where she—”

  “No, I do not. No one knows. Buona sera, signore—”

  “No! Wait! How about Hazlett? Is he there? Or Torregrossa?”

  “Neither of them are here.” The voice was frigid with distrust. “Buona sera, signore.” The connection broke.

  Sam cursed viciously into the dead phone. It could be true, or it could be a brush-off. He tried the hotel where they were still checked in. They informed him she hadn’t been back.

  If only she’d taken one of Simone’s minions with her to Villa Rosalba. If only he’d had the presence of mind to give her back her phone. He could have warned her, or even traced her, with the help of her family. No way would that crowd send off their precious damsel fair to Europe without a trace in her phone. They protected what they loved.

  Unlike himself. He ripped out the surgical tape and the IV needle, letting the tube dangle and fluid drip forlornly out onto the floor.

  He struggled to sit up. Had to roll to his side, strangling a groan. Fiery bolts of pain ripped through him with every hitching breath. His groin was swollen like someone had stomped his balls with a giant boot.

  He was in no shape to pull off a grand rescue, even if he had the faintest idea where she was. He shoved his legs off the bed so that their dead weight would give him some ballast for the push—and sat up.

  He almost passed out. Blood spotted his bandages. Thigh, ribs.

  The suitcase Connie had brought taunted him from across the room. Fresh clothes, shoes. Twelve feet of floor. It looked like a fucking mile.

  And where did he think he was going, once he dressed himself? The only people who might know where she was were Renato and Hazlett. It could take days to track them down. Sveti was all out of days. They were closing in on her. Like they had at the foundry.

  That had been bugging him. A puzzle needing to be solved, when he had the time, and the bandwidth. How the fuck had Cherchenko and his mafiya hit squad followed them, after the complicated evasive moves he’d pulled? Someone must have planted a trace, but how, when, and on whom? Simone had bug-swept the car and hadn’t detected anything. To be absolutely sure, they would have to dismantle the vehicle to its smallest component parts. Who had the time?

  Pavel was dead, and the others. There was no asking a dead man. But what about Misha? Sveti had said he was a tech geek.

  Of course, Misha might well have been the one who sold his brother out in the first place, by spilling the info about the gelateria. But Sam couldn’t blame a fourteen-year-old for being intimidated by a dad who would cheerfully disembowel people. Misha was orphaned, brotherless, maybe stricken with remorse. Nervous about his future. Scared shitless.

  Misha might know something useful. And this vague, formless plan was the only possible course of action Sam could think of.

  One did not find a mafiya vor in the White Pages, but there were those silent calls Sveti had been convinced were from Misha. He’d chalked that notion up to wishful fantasy. Sveti wanted so badly to save the world, sweeten the bitterness. He’d been such an arrogant prick to rag on her about that. It made him squirm to think of it.

  But maybe it wasn’t a wishful fantasy. Maybe Sveti had insights from sources he couldn’t imagine. Maybe he should have listened more carefully. Been more respectful of her feelings, hunches. In retrospect, it was a marvel she hadn’t blown him off sooner, as dic
kish as he’d been.

  He pulled up Sveti’s call log. The first silent call had been, what, the day before yesterday? It felt like weeks. He dialed it. It rang four times. The line clicked open. There was a heavy, attentive silence.

  Sam clenched his fist. “Misha?”

  The line clicked, went dead.

  Shit. Needles of pain stabbed through his temples, jabbing every which way. He opened a message and swiftly texted.

  pls pls I need your help Sveti in danger.

  He sent it and sat there waiting. A minute went by. Then two. The phone burped softly in his hand.

  He thumbed the message open with a trembling hand

  y do u have svetis fone

  He texted back, getting the letters wrong with his swollen fingers. His thumb so goddamn thick and shaking violently.

  she left it with me by mistake

  Misha’s response was swift and succinct.

  u r both stupid

  True to form, arrogant little shithead. But Sam could not afford to get his back up about Misha’s manners today. He sucked it up, and texted again.

  pls. talk 2 me. pls.

  Another minute passed. Two more. Seconds measured by the thud of his heart in his torn, stitched, bruised, or otherwise fucked-up tissue. The smartphone buzzed. He clicked open the line. “Misha?”

  No answer. For the love of God. He hung on to his temper. The kid had just lost his entire existing family in a gun massacre. “Misha,” he said. “This is not going to work if you’re just going to breathe into the phone.”

  “I am here,” Misha said. His voice was clipped, robotic.

  “Good.” Sam groped awkwardly for something to say to the kid. “I know it’s a hell of a time to ask for favors. I’m sorry about your father—”

  “Don’t be,” Misha said. “He was a monster, and I am glad that he is dead. I would have killed him myself, if I had a chance.”

  Wow. That was cold. But it was better that they were both on the same page about his father. “Your brother, then. I’m sorry about him.”

  “Are you? I was told he died jumping out in front of you. To save you.” Misha’s voice had an accusing tone. As if he considered it a poor trade.

  “I couldn’t stop him,” Sam said. “I would’ve saved him if I could.”

  Misha made a sharp, pained sound in his throat and didn’t reply.

  Sam was all out of segues. “I’ve lost Sveti,” he said. “I can’t call her, because she left the phone. She’s in danger. I think she’s with the guy who had her parents killed, but she doesn’t know what he did.”

  “So why are you calling me?” Misha’s voice was utterly remote.

  “Because someone must have planted a trace on us, at some point,” Sam pressed on. “Maybe your father. They caught up with us and Sasha at that old foundry, and I can’t see how he could have followed us otherwise. Unless he already knew where Sasha was.”

  Misha was sullenly silent.

  Sam’s knuckles were white. “Did he know? Did she have a trace?”

  “He did not know,” Misha said heavily. “And, yes, she did.”

  His heart thudded, like a horse galloping downstairs. “Where? Shoes, purse? Where?” His voice was getting louder.

  “Not in her clothes,” Misha said. “On her body.”

  His control snapped. “What the fuck are you talking about? How could it have been on her body? No one’s touched her body but me!”

  “On her head,” Misha said.

  Sam gaped. “Huh? Her head? How . . . ?”

  “They put a trace under her scalp, day before yesterday,” Misha said. “I listened in on a phone conversation. Seems strange to me that she did not notice. Such a thing should be painful, no? The incision ?”

  “Wha . . . but who? Who?”

  “I do not know his name. He is a man who has worked with my father for many years. The client and my father both wanted something that they thought Sveti could find. My father wanted Sasha, and The Sword of Cain. They put a trace so they could follow as she searched for these things. Perhaps she is out finding them right now.”

  It smashed into him, head-on. So fucking obvious. “That fall, in the atrium. They said she fainted. Bumped her head. They drugged her and tagged her. Those fucking bastards. I’m ripping their arms off.”

  Misha grunted his approval. “Do something more permanent.”

  “I’m on it,” Sam promised. “Do you have her frequency?”

  “I could have found it for you,” Misha said. “But not anymore.”

  “Why not?” he bellowed. “You have to!”

  “I am bolted inside a basement room in my father’s house,” Misha said. “Papa locked me in before they came after you and Sveti. Josef came to tell me Papa was shot through the heart, and Sasha ripped apart by bullets. All Papa’s men have gone. He said I would die of thirst, unless the police found me. If I had the strength left to call out when they arrive. Then he left. I yelled for help. But it’s true. I am alone.”

  “Wow,” Sam said inanely. “They let you have a phone in there?”

  Misha snorted. “No, fool. I keep my SIM card taped to my leg. I hid a charged phone in this room. I knew I might end up here. He’s locked me in before. Sasha spent months in here sometimes.”

  One life-threatening disaster at a time, for the love of Christ. “So why haven’t you called someone to let you out? You’re just sitting there? Doing what, Misha? Sulking? When you have a phone on you?”

  Misha was maddeningly silent.

  “Damn it, Misha!” he yelled. “Talk to me!”

  “I do not have anyone to call,” Misha said. “Only Sasha and Mama would have cared enough to come and let me out, and they are both dead. There’s no one left. They’re all gone.”

  Sam felt it settling over him, like a smothering blanket. The unwelcome load of fresh responsibility. He could not field this right now. He had Sveti to worry about. Lord knew, she was enough of a job.

  “Not possible,” he snarled. “No one?”

  “No one that will risk it.” Misha’s voice was eerily tranquil. “Knowing my father’s men, what they are capable of. I called Sveti, but I did not talk to her. She could not help me, I know. She has problems of her own. I just called to hear a voice in the dark. She said nice things.”

  He was being jerked around, big time. And he knew just exactly where this was going. “So call the cops! They’ll get you out!”

  “They don’t give a shit about me,” Misha said.

  “They’re bound by oath and law to protect the citizenry, no matter who their father is! And it’s better than starving to death in a closet!”

  Misha made a noncommittal sound, clearly not convinced of this.

  “You’re going to sit there in a cage with the charge on your phone dying because the world hurt your fucking feelings?” Sam bellowed.

  Misha’s stubborn silence made him frantic.

  “Call the cops!” he urged. “I’ll make a deal with you. Ask for their help, and I promise, I will personally make it my business to make sure that from now on you will always have someone to call if you’re locked in a hole.”

  “Bullshit,” Misha said. “No one can make such a promise.”

  “Kid, I just did. And I meant it.”

  “You are a cop,” Misha said. “You come and get me.”

  “Jesus, Misha! Right now? You catch me at a bad time!”

  “Hah, do not talk to me about bad time. Forget Sveti’s trace if you cannot be bothered. Besides, I cannot call them now anyway. The charge on my phone has finished, and I cannot—”

  Suddenly, he was gone. His phone’s battery was dead.

  Sam wanted to howl. He could call the cops for Misha himself, but everything in Cherchenko’s house, most particularly the computers, was possible evidence in any number of crimes. He could explain the situation, get the local cops’ help, but it would take time to straighten things out, get an all clear. He didn’t have time. The only way to keep Svet
i absolute top priority was to collect Misha and the trace himself.

  He made a guttural, barely human sound as he lurched to his feet. Agony made everything go black . . . then the lights flickered back on in his mind, just in time to catch himself from falling. He launched himself toward the suitcase. So far away. The pain was sickening.

  But the fear was worse.

  CHAPTER 27

  Michael Hazlett’s smile was no different than it had ever been. It was her vision that had changed. A filter had been lifted. Now she saw him with the stark, torn-open clarity of the twelve-year-old girl she had once been back when they were about to tear out her heart.

  It seemed impossible, that she had not seen the ice in his eyes.

  She ignored the gun pointed at her face, intensely conscious of the Micro-Glock, pressing against her hip inside her jeans.

  “It was you,” she said. “You had my mama killed. You built that lab. You murdered all those people.”

  He kissed his fingertips in a mocking salute. “You clever, beautiful thing. I have been struggling with this all day.”

  “Struggling with what?”

  “Letting you go,” he said. “I’ve become so attached. That doesn’t happen to me often. I don’t bond easily, you see.”

  Bond? She would have laughed if she hadn’t been frozen in stark horror. A leech or a louse did not bond with its host. It just fed.

  But there was no point in saying it. He only heard his own voice.

  “Renato and I have been arguing,” he said. “He’s put out with me, letting base animal desires stand in the way of business. But reason has prevailed.”

  “And just in time, too, I see!”

  Sveti turned as Renato strode into the room, and gazed at his scowling face for a long moment. “I always thought you were a prick.”