Out of Plans (The Mercenaries #2)

by Stylo Fantome

  “My dear, I have been waiting a very long time to meet you.”

  Lily had never actually met Anatoly Stankovski. She'd only seen him at a distance and through pictures. She had expected him to have an accent, like his wife. His late wife. But he didn't – his voice was deep, and soft, and very polished sounding. His eyes were even bluer than she'd thought, his hair even blonder, and he was a ridiculous amount taller than her, possibly even as tall as Kingsley. A very imposing man, in every sense of the word.

  “Really? Odd, you run away every time I get close,” she managed to chuckle, struggling to breathe under his weight. He was silent for a moment, his eyes traveling up and down her length. Then he gave a small laugh, almost under his breath.

  “You know, you don't look like her very much,” he commented.

  “Who?”

  “Your sister.”

  Lily's blood ran cold.

  “No. No, unfortunately, she was blonde.”

  “Yes, I do love my blondes. But she had these same eyes,” he sighed, and with his free hand, he ran a finger down the side of her face.

  Lily had her fingers curled around his arm, and with a shout, she wrenched his wrist away from her. He cried out in pain and his free hand wrapped around her throat. She gave a sharp kick to his shin, then an elbow to the side of his head, but he caught that arm, and before she even knew what was happening, she was flying through the air. He tossed her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing and she landed hard on top of the desk, the air knocked from her lungs. She watched as Stankovski dove for the bodyguard – he couldn't get to the rifle as the heavy man had fallen on top of it. But he was able to pull her knife out of the man's shoulder. Still gasping for air, she rolled off the desk top and backed into a corner, keeping the piece of furniture between them.

  “I should've guessed you'd put up a good fight,” she coughed out, trying to catch her breath.

  “You don't build an empire the size of mine and then just give up,” he assured her. She nodded.

  “Good point. Maybe that's why your wife fought till the end.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yes. I was impressed, until I shot her fourteen times.”

  “Fourteen? Seems overkill.”

  “Har dee har har. I never thought you'd be funny, either.”

  “I'm a man of many talents.”

  He threw the knife at her and Lily barely managed to dodge it as she whipped her Glock out of its holster on her back. She planted four bullets in the spot where he'd had been standing just seconds before; he'd managed to slip out the door before she'd pulled the trigger.

  She bolted around the desk and ran out into the walkway. Stankovski was jogging away room her, shouting something in Russian. She wished she'd spent some of her time learning the basics of the language, she was sick of not understanding things. She sighted her gun on the back of his head. She would much rather he have been looking at her, watching as she ended his life, but she would take what she could get. She stopped moving, not wanting anything to ruin her shot, and she held her breath as she began squeezing the trigger.

  Suddenly, gun fire. All around her. She screamed as something sliced down the side of her bicep, then she leapt to the side, hugging the wall. Someone was above them. In the ceiling. Was there an attic!? They were shooting down, using some sort of automatic weapon. A bullet had grazed her arm, a lot closer than she would have liked, and she pressed a hand against the wound.

  “Sweetheart!”

  Marc was yelling as he charged through the stable doors. She wanted to scream no. He was always trying to be her hero. He should've waited outside – that had been the plan. If she'd needed him, she would've called for him. But of course, neither of them were very good at letting the other risk life and limb, so when he'd heard her scream, he must have come running.

  Stankovski was waiting just inside the door, and he'd acquired a gun. Lily managed to get out one good shout before Marc was shot in the shoulder. Her shout turned into a shriek. She'd watched him get shot before; in Africa, Ivanov had shot him in the chest. But she'd known he was protected by his bullet proof vest, then. His shoulder didn't have the same security. Hearing the shot and seeing the blood, it sent a shock wave through her system. Marcelle De Sant was, it turned out, very mortal. Suddenly she was fear and rage and sheer terror, all rolled into one.

  That was your fault. If he dies, it will be all your fault, and then you'll be all alone, for real. No more jobs. No more road trips. No more Marc. Don't let that happen.

  Impressively, Marc didn't go down, though he did stagger to the side. Before Stankovski could get off another shot, Lily was firing her own gun. The Russian dove back so he was hiding behind the very first stall. Marc was across from him, crouched behind some boxes of ammo.

  “You okay?” Lily asked, checking her magazine. Shit, only seven bullets left. The bottom bullet was from the original magazine, the one she'd almost emptied into Roksana. She was still saving it for him.

  “Good thing I'm a righty,” Marc laughed loud enough for her to hear.

  “Duly noted! I'll aim for the other arm next time!” Stankovski yelled back.

  The gun from up above opened up again, this time closer to Lily. She swore and dashed forward, trying to keep ahead of the bullets. But then Stankovski leaned around his corner. She had no choice but to throw herself over a stall door, narrowly avoiding a shot to the face. She landed hard on the ground. The kids in the corner screamed and cried, all fleeing to the wall opposite her.

  “Shut up! Just get down!” she yelled at them.

  She could hear Marc shooting at Stankovski, or maybe they were shooting at each other. The gun was still firing from the ceiling above them, but it still hadn't found her. Then it sounded like a small missile flew through the stables. She recognized the sound from Africa – Kingsley was shooting into the building. She ground her teeth together and pressed herself flat against the dirty floor, trying to mime to the children to do the same.

  What the fuck is he thinking!? I told him not to shoot at the building!

  Another shot was high, she could hear it ripping through the roofing. Footsteps thundered across the ceiling and she risked peeking over the stall door. Marc and Stankovski were embroiled in a shoot out, preoccupied with each other. She turned and watched the other end of the building as a hidden trap door was opened in the ceiling. A gun barrel poked out and a heavy burst of gunfire ripped down the walkway. Once the gunman felt confident that he'd cleared the area, he began lowering himself out of the opening.

  Clearly, he hadn't seen Lily's eyes peeping over her stall door. She jumped to her feet and leaned into the walkway, immediately firing two shots into his back. He yelled once and fell to the ground, then didn't move at all.

  She took a deep breath and unlatched the door, kicking it wide open. Then she crouched down, waiting for gun shots. Nothing happened. Marc and Stankovski had stopped shooting. The stables were eerily quiet, even the kids had managed to quiet down.

  So when the explosion happened, it was even more startling. Something went off, and very close, judging by the way the building shook. Lily was thrown to the floor, completely exposed in the middle of the walkway. A couple beams fell out of the ceiling, some of the paneling came off the walls, and a cold breeze ripped through the stables. She watched as Stankovski stumbled and grabbed one of the doors, trying to hold himself upright.

  “Not yet, you idiots!” he yelled, then he pushed himself outside.

  “NO!”

  Lily was on her feet. She was vaguely aware that the back wall of the stables was now gone, and that was probably important, but all she could focus on was getting to Stankovski. If he got outside, he could get away. She couldn't let that happen. Her whole universe was focused on him, on not letting him get away.

  Marc let out a shout as she ran past him, but she didn't listen. She burst through the doors, sending them flying open, and was in for a shock. Stankovski hadn't run away. In fact, he was standi
ng just a few feet outside the entrance to the stables. Lily barely had time to skid to a stop before running into him, and even less time to notice the gun he had pointed at her. The snow on the ground worked to her advantage and her feet began to slip, so she simply fell to the side. He lowered his gun as he pulled the trigger, but wasn't fast enough to correct his aim, and his bullet ripped through the side of her thigh. Not a clean shot, thankfully, but still much more than a graze.

  Holy shit, that's way more than a graze.

  She screamed, she couldn't help it. There went her streak of never getting shot. She pressed her palm over the gash in her leg, warm blood oozing around her fingers. She kept trying to scramble backwards, and when she glanced up, Stankovski was reloading his gun. Her own gun had fallen out of her hand, lost in the snow somewhere.

  Marc came bursting out of the stables, took one look at Lily, then barreled into Stankovski. While the two men wrestled around, Lily managed to climb to her feet. She could see a black figure running down the hill towards them. Kingsley. At first, she was shocked that he'd left his hiding spot and thought he was being stupid and rushing to her rescue. Then she saw what had caused him to flee. Men, pouring out of the woods behind him. A lot of men, from god knew where. Kingsley tucked and rolled, dodged and weaved, but there were so many behind him.

  Get your shit together, Liliana! Think!

  Explosives. The back of the stable had gotten blown up and Stankovski had yelled something. “Not yet”. The explosion hadn't necessarily surprised him, but its timing had; was there a plan to blow the building? It made sense – an insurance policy of sorts. If the feds ever came knocking at his door, he could just hit a button and boom, evidence gone. Maybe once Marc and Lily had stormed into the building, he'd instructed his men to blow it as soon as he got clear.

  Which he is, right now.

  “Get away from the building!” Lily screamed, clutching her bleeding leg as she hobbled towards the corner of the stables.

  “Run for it! I'll take care of him!” Marc called back. She turned towards him, hopping backwards as best she could, and watched as Stankovski wrestled Marc closer and closer to the entrance of the stables.

  “No! No, let him go! Get Kingsley, just run!” she yelled, trying to wave him away.

  “I'm not leaving while he's still -”

  “Just do it! He's going to blow -”

  BANG.

  Everything went quiet, and Lily let out a deep breath. Once again, time slowed down. It had started snowing again, and she watched as fat snowflakes fell lazily in front of her, swooping down in wide circles. One landed on her eyelash, and she smiled, trying to blink it away.

  How strange. It doesn't hurt. Not at all.

  “LILY!”

  It wasn't Marc screaming her name, but Kingsley. As she fell to her knees, she watched as the dashing British man sprinted towards her. But he couldn't make it. There were just too many of them. He was tackled from behind, his weapon flying out of his hands. Marc went to dash towards her, but Stankovski had recovered his own gun, and shot Marc in his left shoulder again. This time, he was at a much closer range. The bullet ripped through flesh, knocking Marc to the side and sending him crashing into the stable door.

  Lily looked down at herself. Her tank top was black, but she could see the darker patch spreading across her abdomen, stemming from a point on her right side. She brought a hand to her back and felt at the blood spot there, as well. Could feel blood running down her back and side, soaking the top of her pants.

  No, getting shot certainly wasn't as exciting as Kingsley had made it out to be.

  Of course, every time Kingsley had been shot, he'd always escaped to tell the tale. Lily had a distinct feeling her story would die right along with her.

  All my plans, and they were both right. I never once planned for the possibility of failing.

  The bodyguard who had shot her came out from around the side of the building and he pressed the barrel of his gun to the side of her head. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see her guys. Their shouting and yelling was bad enough. She'd let them down, so much. She felt awful. But then Stankovski's voice came in above it all.

  “No! Leave her for me!”

  When she opened her eyes back up, it was to find him walking towards her. Marc was on his knees, his hands bound in front of him. Kingsley had it worse – he was face down on the ground, all but screaming obscenities while a bodyguard effectively hog-tied him. When he was rendered immobile, the guard stomped on his back a couple times.

  “Stankovski,” Marc's voice sounded ragged. “You hired me to steal those diamonds. I took her hostage, I got rid of them, I'm who your fight is with. Let them go.”

  “De Sant, really, you think it's that easy? Do you think there's anyway I'm going to let any of you go? No, it ends tonight, for all of you. Actually, I think it's worked out rather well,” Stankovski began, moving to squat in front of her.

  “Really? Doesn't seem that way from my point of view,” she managed a laugh. One side of her was freezing, holding so still in the chilly air, snow falling on her. The other side was warm from the blood that was quickly soaking through her clothing.

  “I suppose it wouldn't. You see, when I began using this property to funnel my trade through, I had this building outfitted with explosives. Enough to obliterate anything inside it. Destroy any evidence, as it were. When you showed up at my shop, I escaped through the sewers and came straight here. I meant to come here to destroy everything. When I realized you had shown up, I figured why not kill two birds with one stone – if you all stormed the stables, I'd just blow the whole thing.

  “But conveniently for me, you're all outside and incapacitated. So it's seems I don't have to destroy all my product. I can just get rid of all my witnesses. All I've lost is the back end of my building. Pity, as it is a rather old building that I had painstakingly restored. But you shot the idiot who blew the explosives without my command, so you've done me another favor. Really, I suppose I should be thanking you,” he finally finished. Lily took a deep breath.

  “You're very welcome. But you forgot some things – you've also lost your Manhattan business, and you've lost your wife. NYPD must be crawling all over that building by now,” she pointed out. He shrugged.

  “I own half the NYPD, that is no problem, and Roksana was already costing me far more than she was worth. Again, you've done me a favor.”

  “Any time,” she sighed. He suddenly reached out and dug his index finger into her bullet hole. She cried out and lurched forward. He was so close to her that she had nowhere else to go, so her head fell onto his shoulder and she clutched his bicep.

  “I know De Sant is lying,” he whispered. From behind him, both Marc and Kingsley began shouting and struggling again. “I know it was you who threw away my diamonds. I now know that it was your plan all along, wasn't it? All for you darling sister. Pity. She was an amazing fuck, I would've like to have seen how you compared. But blood play isn't really my thing.”

  Just when she thought she was going to throw up, he pulled his finger away and abruptly stood up. She fell forward onto her hands, her vision swimming. She almost passed out, but she clung to consciousness. She may have failed in all other aspects of her plan, but she would see this through to the end.

  “Too bad. I'm amazing in bed. Maybe you should give me a chance,” she suggested, and he laughed loudly.

  “I will have to take your word for it. I'm sorry, my dear, but you're damaged goods, and as hard as it is to believe, I hate to see a woman suffer. I much prefer to put them out of their misery,” he said, and she managed to push herself upright in time to see him cock his gun. She almost laughed when she realized what gun he was holding. A Glock 22. Her own, if she wasn't mistaken.

  How fitting.

  “Can we be done talking now? This really hurts,” she groaned, pressing a hand against her side.

  “So bold!” Stankovski sounded surprised. “Still not scared, even when faced with death! No
last goodbyes?”

  Lily thought about it as the Russian leveled the gun on her forehead. Then she looked past him, to where Marc was on the ground. He was still shouting, still trying to crawl towards her. Two large men were holding him down, and were clearly struggling with the task. She smiled.

  So strong. Even injured. Even held down. Still fighting, still moving. I wish … I wish I could've been more like you, Marc. I wish I could've had more time to learn from you.

  “Sweetheart,” she chuckled, and he stopped moving so he could look her in the eye. “I don't know if it's love, or what love is, but I have to tell you – you became everything to me in Africa. You still were, afterwards. You still are, right now. You are, without a doubt, one of the best times I've ever had in my whole life. So thanks for that.”

  “That's very sweet,” Stankovski cooed. She nodded.

  “Wasn't it, though? Now how about we cut the shit and fucking end this, cause I'm getting really tired of talking to you.”

  Gun shots rang out, and Lily fell to the ground.

  DAY TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE

  Lily hit the ground and Marc was pretty sure he started screaming.

  How can this be happening? How did it all get so fucked up, so fast? And did she just say she loved me!?

  Stankovski hadn't pulled his trigger – the gun fire was coming from the trees behind the building. They must have cut across Lily's back. She was laying face down on the ground, and she wasn't moving. In the cold air, he could see steam rising off her back. Rising away from the blood.

  She can't be dead. I didn't get to say it back to her. She can't be gone. Our plan isn't over yet.

  There wasn't a thought in Marc's head, he went on auto-pilot. He jammed his shoulder back, catching one of his captors right in the nuts. The man groaned and fell into the other guard, so Marc took the opportunity and jumped to his feet. He body slammed into Stankovski and they both fell to the ground. Marc's wrists were still tied together, but he didn't let that deter him.