Cody could have laughed. Except that Belkin would have heard him, for sure.
He looked over his shoulder. Viktoria gave him a wry smile and shook her head. Leaning into Viktoria, Cody pressed his mouth to Viktoria’s ear. “Let’s move in closer,” he said. “This might be the best chance we have.”
They stood directly opposite Belkin. The scent of cigarette smoke was faint, but unmistakable. Cody flipped through his catalogue of ways to deal with Belkin. He found only one suitable course of action.
“We need a distraction that can get us in the house,” Cody whispered into her ear. Her scent surrounded him. Who knew that the combined scents of sugar, mint and wood smoke would be so damned erotic?
“I know what will work,” Viktoria said. “Wait here. You’ll know what to do.”
Before he could ask a single question, she had disappeared—becoming nothing more than a mist in the gathering storm.
Chapter 7
There were two pillars upon which Viktoria had built her life—her love for her son and her tenacity as a New Yorker. While neither had prepared her for dealing with Belkin, living in a city of millions gave her a unique perspective. One was that until she arrived in Telluride, Viktoria had never experienced complete silence. At first, the lack of noise was unsettling, but it took no time to become used to the beauty in quiet. That also led to a heightened sensitivity to noise and interruption. She hoped that, like she, Peter Belkin now appreciated a soundless night and would instinctively do anything to bring it back.
Following Cody’s example, Viktoria stayed well into the trees and continued to circle the A-frame house. The twin to the SUV she and Cody had used to escape the cabin sat in the middle of the circular drive. It was all Viktoria needed.
Careful to make sure she was far down the drive, thus hiding footprints left in the snow, Viktoria crossed the driveway and approached the vehicle. She pulled up on its door handle and tensed, turned and made ready to run. The alarm she hoped to hear never came. She pulled again and again, harder each time. Exertion and irritation mixed. Sweat collected on her brow, her lip and pooled at the small of her back. In frustration, Viktoria kicked the front panel. The SUV rocked. Ah-ha.
Aiming carefully, Viktoria kicked her heel into the headlight. The plastic covering slipped back. A second later, the horn began blaring and the lights flashed. Viktoria didn’t waste any time congratulating herself and melted back into the surrounding trees.
* * *
The sound came from the front of the house. Belkin flicked his cigarette over the rail. The glowing ember hissed as it disappeared into the rapidly gathering snow. The honking continued, screeching with urgency. Turning on his heel, Belkin entered the rented house, careful to lock the door behind him.
Dusting snow from his hair, he wondered what kind of faulty system had caused the SUV’s alarm to turn on without reason.
Unless there was a reason.
As far as the kidnapping went, he’d thought of everything. And yet it would be asinine to let his guard down now.
The blaring alarm grew louder, now a cacophonous and shrill beep that Belkin knew could be heard at the neighboring houses, even though the closest one was a full kilometer away. Still, he took a minute and paused at his laptop. After saving the information on RMJ, he quickly placed the electronic document in a password-protected file. The Cody Samuels file was still open, yet the noise from the SUV grew. Belkin simply closed the document and powered down his computer, leaving it where it sat.
Using the peephole, he spied the car and saw nothing amiss. Still, prudence kept him from opening the door. The SUV’s key fob sat in a nearby cubby. Through the door, Belkin pointed the fob at the blaring and flashing automobile. He hit the alarm button. The lights and noise ceased.
He took a moment to watch the thick, downy flakes fall outside. How odd that this mountainous state would remind Belkin strongly of his homeland. He longed to feel the frozen air of Moscow bite his face, or watch the ice floes on the Moskva River from the middle of the Borodinsky Bridge.
With one last look at the sky, Belkin turned from the door. He never saw the person who rushed toward him from behind. All he knew was a searing pain in his head along with warmth on his face. And then, nothing.
* * *
Cody shook his hand out to loosen his knuckles as Belkin tumbled, unconscious, to the floor. Two knockouts in one night. Not bad, thought Cody—better than his record as a member of the University of Colorado boxing team. He pulled the Russian mobster across the foyer and opened the front door before stepping out onto the stoop. Viktoria materialized from the shadows and sprinted across the driveway. She took the stairs two at a time and entered the house. Cody closed the door behind her and engaged the lock. He whipped off Belkin’s belt, using it to bind his wrists, before turning to Viktoria.
“There are levels both up and down,” he whispered. Until he had a chance to search the house, he couldn’t be certain that Belkin was alone. He drew his gun, his arm tense and ready to shoot. “I’ll search right away, but first we need to take care of this guy.” Cody nudged the prone Belkin with his foot.
“Take care of him how?”
Was he going to have to list all of Belkin’s misdeeds to justify to Viktoria that Belkin might deserve to die? “Listen, Peter Belkin is a bad man. His job is to make all the Mateev family’s problems go away. He might not pull a trigger or sell a gram of illegal drugs personally, but he makes it possible all the same.”
“I know,” said Viktoria. “It’s just...”
“Mommy?”
Cody whirled around at the sound, his firearm raised. A bleary-eyed Gregory Mateev stood at the edge of the foyer. He lowered the gun as Viktoria rushed to her son, lifting him into her arms as silent tears slid down her cheeks. She nuzzled his face and he rested his head on her shoulder, mumbling about being kidnapped by bad men.
Cody’s throat tightened at the sight, and, figuring that mother and son needed a moment of privacy, he checked all the rooms upstairs and downstairs. The house was as he had assumed all along—empty, save for Belkin and Gregory. Cody finished his search in the kitchen. Viktoria and her son followed only a moment later. Cody couldn’t miss the striking resemblance between the two.
“That one, the one by the door, was the worst. And then,” continued Gregory taking in a deep breath, “that same bad man put a needle in my arm. It hurt a lot, and I think I fell asleep because I woke up in a bed upstairs. Can we go home now?”
“They drugged you?”
Horrified, Viktoria held her son close again, as Cody’s gaze skimmed the room. On the kitchen counter, next to the stove, sat three syringes filled with a clear liquid. To get her attention, Cody tapped the marble countertop next to the needles. Viktoria looked over. Her eyes narrowed.
“Who’s he?” the kid asked of Cody.
“Gregory, honey, I want you to meet my new friend, Cody Samuels. He’s the one who helped me find you.”
Gregory nestled into his mother’s arms farther, hiding half his face in his mother’s shoulder. “Hi, Mr. Cody.”
Beyond a niece and nephew, whom Cody hadn’t seen in over a year, he never spent time with kids. “You can just call me Cody.”
“Gregory, can you sit at the table?” Viktoria asked. “Cody and I have to have a quick word before we leave.”
Gregory held his mother’s neck for a moment and then slid down and walked to the table. He traced his finger over the lid of Belkin’s laptop.
Viktoria moved closer to Cody. “Kill the bastard,” she hissed.
“I can’t shoot Belkin with your son in the house,” said Cody, surprised by his own quick change of mind. “That will give the kid all kinds of nightmares for the rest of his life.”
She sighed and leaned against the counter. “So what do we do with Belkin now?”
That was the real question, wasn’t it? “I don’t like the idea of just leaving him here. He’ll call for backup as soon as he comes to,” said Cody. “But taking him with us is risky. Belkin’s dangerous and I don’t want to worry about controlling him while keeping you and Gregory safe at the same time. We obviously can’t take him to the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office and I don’t know if we can drive to another county in this weather.”
“So, we stay here and keep an eye on him?”
“That’s no good, either. What if one of the thugs shows up?”
She tilted her head and sighed. “We have another shoot-out, but this time we might not get away.”
“Put him in time-out,” Gregory called from the kitchen. “He definitely needs a time-out.”
Cody looked at the kid. “Time-out?”
“Let me guess,” said Viktoria with a smile. “You don’t have any kids.”
“You got me.” He lifted his hands.
“Time-out is like when we were younger and grounded. But time-out is only for a few minutes, not a whole week. I usually send Gregory to his room.”
“Sounds like being a kid is a whole lot easier now than it was when we were young.” Then Cody groaned. “That makes me sound like an old fart, doesn’t it?”
Gregory laughed. Cupping his hands, he used a stage whisper and said, “Cody said fart.”
Cody would have to watch what he said in front of the kid. He picked up on everything and was smart, too. In fact, maybe so smart that he’d given them the best solution to their problem. “You know, Gregory. You actually might be on to something. Time-out sounds like the perfect place for Belkin.” He looked at Viktoria. “If we lock Belkin in a room, we don’t have to worry about him contacting his other thugs. Nor do we have to stay here, which might be dangerous.”
“Or take him with us, which also would be dangerous,” Viktoria said.
“Exactly,” said Cody.
He moved to the open pantry and rapped his knuckles on the door. “It’s solid wood, and unbreakable. The lever handle can be easily held in place by a chair back or tied together. It’s a simple place to hold him. But we don’t need fancy, only effective.” The rest of his plan, Cody didn’t share.
He grabbed the three syringes of sedative that sat on the counter, planning to fill Belkin’s veins with whatever he had given the kid. And if three doses were too much for a body to handle? Well, Cody hardly cared if Belkin quietly died.
“Where are you going?”
Cody opened his palm to reveal the needles. “I think Belkin needs a long winter’s nap.”
Belkin’s prone figure was sprawled across the floor. Blood leaked from his misshapen nose. Cody’s chest filled with searing heat, his mind with images of death. A fist clamped around a throat. A hand placed over a nose and mouth. Or even an air bubble in the syringe... The list of quiet ways to dispatch Belkin was endless. Yet for him to slip away in a dream would be too easy for a monster like Belkin. He needed to be brought low—and to know that Cody had caused his downfall. He removed the plastic coverings and plunged all three needles into Belkin’s arm.
The prudent thing would be for Cody to return to his truck for a set of flex-cuffs. Yet, he didn’t like the idea of leaving Viktoria and Gregory alone. It was more than a real concern that she might slip away while he was gone. Cody now saw it as his responsibility to keep mother and son safe, which meant he would neither leave them alone with Belkin nor make them traipse through the growing blizzard. It left Cody improvising with what was on hand. He returned to the kitchen and conducted a quick search of the drawers but didn’t find anything useful. Maybe he’d be forced to cut the cord off a light or an appliance.
Looking around for something handy, his eye was immediately drawn to Viktoria. She sat at the kitchen table with Gregory on her lap, Belkin’s laptop resting next to her elbow. He’d been using it right before they’d arrived. What kind of business had kept him awake after midnight? The desire to know what insider info Belkin might have on his computer about Mateev burned fiercely inside Cody. But they had more immediate problems. Then again, the laptop might provide just what he needed right now.
It took Cody only a few minutes to secure Belkin’s hands with the cord from the laptop and drag him to the large pantry. He shut the door and placed the back of a kitchen chair under the doorknob. For good measure, he cut the cord from a lamp and tied the pantry handles to each other.
Cody found the phone line outside and jerked it from the wall, making it impossible for Belkin to call for help—even if he escaped.
Cody returned to the kitchen. Viktoria and Gregory remained at the table. “Let’s get out of here.”
Viktoria rose, with Gregory in her arms. The computer sat on the table. Cody stared at the laptop, fisting his hands, reminding himself the DEA followed strict protocol when seizing evidence. There was a chain of custody that maintained the integrity of the evidence for a fair trial, and hopefully a conviction.
But Cody wasn’t with the DEA anymore—because of Belkin—and that meant that the rules no longer applied. He grabbed the computer and headed to the door. Viktoria followed.
“I’m so glad you found me, Mommy,” Gregory said, as he held tight to his mother. “Those men were really scary.”
She planted a soft kiss on the top of his head. “You’re safe now, Captain Kiddo.”
Gregory was returned to his mother, and Belkin would soon be arrested. It was a win for the good guys.
Then why did Cody feel so miserable?
“I’m ready to go, Mommy,” Gregory said.
“I know, Captain Kiddo. I know.” She sighed. “I’m not sure where we can go.”
Damn. She was right. Cody could hardly take them back to the cabin where they’d been hiding out. Aside from the dead guy in the living room, the other thug might still be in the vicinity. A hotel was a possibility, but they’d need protection in such a public place. That left Cody with only one option—although truth be told, it was his preference—for professional reasons, as well as personal. “If you’re ready,” said Cody, “I know someplace real special.”
Gregory lifted his head from Viktoria’s shoulder. “Yeah? Where?”
Cody smiled. “You and your mom are coming to my house for Christmas Eve.”
Chapter 8
Viktoria quickly reviewed her options.
She’d come to trust Cody. He had offered his home. On a practical level, staying with him made complete sense. All the same, Viktoria’s insides quivered with excitement and trepidation. Now that Gregory was safe, Viktoria could no longer ignore the raw and primal draw of Cody Samuels. Her feelings were a tangle of wariness and desire. He was deadly and she was damaged.
Then again, she had no other choices.
“If you’re sure,” she said. “I don’t want to put you out.” Wow! That was weak.
Cody shook his head at her protest. “I insist,” he said. He slipped out of his polar fleece jacket and draped it over Gregory’s shoulders. Left only in a tight-fitting black turtleneck sweater, the muscles in his arms and shoulders were well-defined.
“We have a little bit of a walk to the truck and you need to stay warm,” he said to Gregory.
Her son leaned his head on Viktoria’s shoulder. She kissed his soft hair, swearing that she’d never let anything hurt her son ever again.
“Thanks, Cody,” Gregory said, his voice muffled and small.
Cody’s gesture was chivalrous, but the cold was a problem for everyone—Cody included. Especially as Viktoria was still wearing his coat. “Here.” Viktoria began to maneuver Gregory so she could take off Cody’s parka. “You need this.”
“Keep it,” said Cody as he opened the front door. “I’m tough. In fact, let me carry your boy.”
It had been so long since she’d
had anyone consider her comforts along with the needs of her son that she wanted to give in, even though she knew she shouldn’t.
Cody reached for Gregory.
Her son began to wail. “No, I want Mommy.”
Gregory’s heartbeat raced; she felt fluttering in his chest. Viktoria smoothed back her son’s hair. “I won’t ever let you go,” she assured him, promised herself. “He’s had a rough night,” she said to Cody.
“No need to explain,” said Cody. “I get it.”
With his arm on her elbow, he kept her steady as she maneuvered down the snow-covered steps. Again, her eyes were drawn to Cody’s toned chest and arms. As she stepped into the storm, the snow swirling and the wind howling, Viktoria decided that a little admiration of his physique wasn’t bad, especially if she only looked.
They followed the road to where Cody had parked the Range Rover. Viktoria did hand Gregory to Cody, and watched as her son was settled in the back seat, the large fleece jacket serving as both blanket and pillow. Viktoria snuggled into the passenger seat, resting her arm on the center console. Cody eased the Range Rover down the hill and then placed his arm next to hers. It was so close that she could feel the heat radiating off his skin. Viktoria looked down. Her fingers rested next to his, close and yet not touching.
Her lips still tingled where they had kissed. His taste was on her tongue. Her skin still remembered the feel of his hands as they traveled down her body. These past few months Viktoria had seen herself only as a mother. Yet, being this close to Cody made her remember that she was also a woman with needs that went beyond the maternal.
Perhaps it was the months of solitude that drew her to him, and not his eyes or his chiseled profile or his broad shoulders. And maybe her awakened desire had more to do with overcoming death and a need to live than Cody’s sense of duty, honor, or the way every nerve ending had responded to the press of his hard body against hers. Yet as brief scenarios of seduction played out in Viktoria’s mind, she knew that her simple explanation was far from true.
Her Rocky Mountain Hero (Rocky Mountain Justice Book 1) Page 8
