Half Empty (First Wives Series Book 2)

by Catherine Bybee

Jeb handed the driver’s phone over to Wade. “Reed.”

  “Hey.”

  “How ya doing?”

  Wade wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. “Not bad for a man about to walk into a trap.”

  “I just landed on the helipad on the top of the Golden Nugget. There are four of us. We are dressed like tourists and armed like ISIS. When we break silence, you will know it. Take cover and get out of the way.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “You have to trust that we are watching you. I have your phone on radar.”

  “What if they take that?”

  “Are you wearing your boots?”

  Wade looked at his feet. “Yeah.”

  “Right buckle.”

  Sure enough, there was a decorative stone that wasn’t on the left boot. “Stalk me anytime, man.”

  “I only bug people I like. Follow their directions. And, Wade . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “They need your mother alive to get to you. When they get to you, they get to Trina.”

  “Is Trina safe?”

  “Yup. Okay, we’re on the ground floor, spreading out.”

  “I owe you a beer, Reed. Keep us both alive so I can buy it for you.”

  “You’re on.”

  Wade hung up as the car pulled to a stop off Fremont Street. The famous Fremont Experience was midway through the light show in a canopy over one of the oldest streets in Vegas. The crowds were busy craning their necks to watch the show. Some were lying on their backs, heads resting on towels or blankets to keep the grime off their clothing. None of them seemed to notice a dark sedan pull up and idle.

  Wade’s phone buzzed.

  Step out of the car, alone. Leave the phone. Lose the hat. Turn in a circle, hands where we can see them. Put on your bodyguard’s coat and walk towards the Plaza Hotel.

  “I’ll follow.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  Jeb pressed his lips together.

  “You know they will spot you. Reed has a better chance of going undetected. Ruslan still thinks he’s in LA.”

  “You pay me to protect you.”

  Wade grabbed the door handle before he lost his nerve. “Fine. You’re fired.” Wade pushed out, dragging Jeb’s coat behind him. He had some hope he wouldn’t instantly be shot when he didn’t see a red dot on his chest as he turned around.

  He shrugged into Jeb’s oversize coat, turned up the collar, and started walking down the street. He weaved through the crowd, avoiding eye contact in hopes that no one would recognize him. People passed by, most holding drinks and looking at the lights flashing above their heads. The music from the show deafened his ears more than the speakers he had onstage. Or maybe he was hyperaware of every sound and every sudden movement.

  He felt the weight of eyes and started to look around. If he could just see Reed, he’d feel so much better.

  No, instead he noticed a man wearing a black leather jacket watching him from across the street. He didn’t look away when Wade met his eyes.

  The stranger nodded to the right.

  Wade looked around before he complied.

  His heart pounded loud enough to dwarf the music.

  There wasn’t a deserted alley off Fremont, but the side street he walked down was close. He followed Leather Jacket Man as he turned in to the back door of a Korean barbeque kitchen. He stepped around the tables filled with pots and pans and odiferous food without so much as one employee looking up to see who walked by. If there was one time in Wade’s life he wanted to be noticed, it was when he was walking toward what could be a life ending experience. Apparently, that wish wasn’t going to come true.

  Leather Jacket Man up close looked like a cross between a crack addict and a meth head. Twitchy, without a lot of teeth. Wade couldn’t help but think he was someone Ruslan used to lure Wade to their current location but would probably have him tossed off a bridge before the night was over. Wade had a strange compulsion to warn the man.

  He decided not to push his luck.

  Leather Jacket Man stood in front of a tiny elevator with the door open. He waved Wade inside, pressed a button, and stepped out before the doors closed.

  Leather Jacket Man wiggled his fingers in a comical goodbye and sealed Wade inside. “Top floor.” Which was only six stories. It was old Vegas, and outside of the hotels, many of the buildings were old construction with low ceilings and tiny elevators.

  When those tiny elevator doors opened, Wade took a cautious step outside.

  Someone grabbed him from the side, threw him against the wall, and started patting him down.

  Wade’s instinct was to push back.

  He squelched it.

  The man checking every pocket and touching every part of him was nothing like Leather Jacket Man. This guy was a house. Bald head, dark skin. Slavic? Hispanic? Wade wasn’t sure. Or maybe he was American and his parents had been in the circus.

  Either way, this man wasn’t twitchy or timid. “Where’s my mother?”

  Baldy pushed Wade toward a lone chair in the virtually empty room and turned on an old television set.

  Vicki sat in a chair, in a room that looked a lot like the one Wade was in now. She pulled at the restraints holding her. Her mouth was stuffed with some kind of towel, and duct tape wrapped around her head.

  A voice through the speaker of the TV sounded like Donald Duck after he inhaled helium. “Sit down, Mr. Thomas.”

  The last thing Wade wanted to do was sit.

  Then two more of Baldy’s friends stepped into the room.

  Wade lifted his hands and sat. “Okay. Sitting.”

  “Let’s begin.”

  “Let her go.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Thomas. Do you think you’re in charge?” The voice was almost impossible to take seriously.

  “If you want my help, you’ll let her go.”

  Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

  His mother stopped struggling and stared off camera. Without warning, someone the size of Baldy walked over to Vicki, grabbed her middle finger on her left hand, and dislocated it.

  Wade yelled “Stop!” while his mother screamed through her gag.

  “God damn you!” Wade kicked the chair across the room.

  Baldy moved in with one of his friends and held him while the third man reminded Wade why he avoided bar fights. Two hits to the gut without the ability to guard himself, and he felt the need to throw up.

  Baldy shoved him into a chair.

  “Let’s try this again . . .”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It wasn’t a trap.

  Trina and her band of travelers arrived at her closest neighbor’s house, half an hour away from hers. It was cold, and dark, and she was a little surprised they didn’t get shot at. Chances were if they had arrived in a car or on foot, they would have seen someone with a gun at the door. But six people and three horses, some in their pajamas . . . they looked like a homeless troupe instead of bandits.

  Once they were safely inside the neighbor’s home, Cooper called in to his headquarters.

  When he got off the phone, Trina pounced on him for information.

  “Well?”

  “Reed has eyes on Wade, they are scrambling to find Vicki. They have her located in the same building, they’re going floor by floor to find her.”

  “And Ruslan?”

  “Radio silence from Sasha. We have to assume she’s waiting for the all clear.”

  “What about my parents, Wade’s aunt?”

  “Everyone is accounted for. Lori and Avery’s building has a mysterious fire and has been evacuated. A bomb threat will follow to clear the building before anyone can go back in.”

  “Shannon?”

  “Safe.”

  Trina stared at Avery. “Now what?”

  “We wait.”

  “I knew you were going to say that.”

  “Why don’t you do away with the Disney voices and make your demands like a man, Petrov?”
/>   Wade’s comment earned him another punch.

  “I want what is in that safe, and I want the letters.”

  “The safe in Arizona?” Wade looked around the room, purposely stalling. Where the hell is Reed? “When we break silence, you’ll know.”

  Well, break the fucking silence already.

  “What about the letters?”

  “Trina doesn’t have the letters.”

  “You’re lying.”

  He looked at the camera. “I was told she didn’t have them.”

  “Katrina lies.”

  Keep him talking. Buy time. “Says Donald Duck.”

  Wade saw the punch coming, tightened his abs.

  He coughed several times, felt bile rise in his throat. “Fine, whatever. Someone have a phone? Let’s call her right now. Of course, she’s bound to call the police once she realizes what’s going on.” Wade calling her would give them the trace they needed to find out where she was, which wasn’t a risk Wade was willing to take.

  “You’ll have to convince her not to if you want to live to see another concert. If you want to see your mother alive again.”

  C’mon, Reed.

  “You could have a career in music, Petrov. I’ll be Alvin, and you be the chipmunks.”

  Wade’s head flew back with the punch. “Not the face.”

  “Clearly you’re not taking me seriously, Mr. Thomas. Let’s see how well your mother likes looking in the mirror after I remove her ear.”

  Vicki started to shake her head, and the next thing Wade saw was the floor as the camera fell and went blank.

  At the same time, Reed’s team broke the silence.

  Wade used the distraction, buckled his knees, and dove for the floor. Between attempting to hold Wade up and pulling their guns out, the men holding Wade let go.

  The window on the east side of the room crashed open and someone kicked in the door.

  Wade covered his head and ducked around a half wall and heard a few soft popping sounds and the heavy thud and grumbling of men.

  The room grew silent outside of Donald Duck’s voice. “Zakhar?”

  Wade looked up to see two men wearing street clothes and face masks that made it difficult to see the color of their eyes. One of them had to be Reed, but Wade couldn’t make out which one he was.

  They hadn’t shot and killed the men in the room, but they would be wiping their asses with their left hands for some time to come.

  The team worked quickly and quietly, wrapping bloody hands, feet, and mouths together.

  “Which one of you—”

  “Uh-uh.” One of the masked men put a finger to his lips, tossed Wade the duct tape.

  “Zakhar?”

  Wade ignored Donald Duck.

  That is, until a woman’s voice came through the speakers.

  “Hello, Father.”

  Wade froze. So did the other men in the room.

  Donald’s voice was replaced by something much more serious.

  Ruslan’s.

  “Natasha?”

  One of the team turned to Wade, their voice altered, but not in a duck kind of way. “You have no idea who we are.”

  The masked man Wade assumed was Reed turned to leave.

  “Where is my mother?”

  The man pointed out the door. “One floor down.”

  As fast as the masked men arrived, they left.

  Wade ran out into the hall.

  He was staring at the living dead.

  A zombie, and vampire . . . Natasha was at the bottom of a cliff with a broken neck. Only, the woman staring at him now was her, reincarnated and calling him Father.

  “You seemed surprised to see me.” She walked around the chair in the sitting room, her long, lean legs enveloped in black spandex.

  “Natasha is dead.”

  “You would know that, since you killed her.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  This woman’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t insult me.”

  A memory burned bright in his head. “You’re the daughter.”

  She held a hand to her chest. “I’m touched. You remembered.”

  Ruslan looked beyond her, toward the door, and called out to his men in Russian.

  The woman laughed, responded in Russian. “They have drugs so powerful in Africa that one drop into the bloodstream and phew! Down you go. I have waited my whole life for this moment, do you think I’d let two thugs at the door stop me?”

  “What do you want?” Ruslan asked in English.

  “You dead would be ideal, but I’ll settle for life in prison without a chance for parole.”

  He kept his hands from reaching for the gun he had at his hip. “How do you plan on managing that?”

  “I waited until you screwed up. You’ve been doing that quite a lot since you killed my brother.”

  “Mama?”

  Wade lifted his mother off the floor and into his arms. The pain in his side told him not to walk very far.

  “I should have stayed home,” she said as she dropped her head on his shoulder.

  “Are you okay?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes swollen with tears. “I didn’t want them to hurt you.”

  He took care in setting her back in the chair, although seeing her there made him want to run out of the room.

  Sirens grew closer.

  “Wade? Vicki?” Jeb’s loud, booming voice, along with the sound of running footsteps, came from the hall.

  “In here.”

  Jeb paused at the door long enough to take in the situation. He kicked the side of a wounded man lying on the floor, his body bound in a way to keep him from moving until he had assistance.

  “Help is on the way.”

  Wade looked around the room. “Help has already been.”

  Vicki lifted her eyes to Wade. “Do they have Trina?”

  The mere mention of her name brought pain to his chest. “I don’t—”

  “Trina is fine,” Jeb announced.

  “They showed me a video of my sister’s house. Did they get to her?”

  “They’re fine, Miss Vicki. Bomb squads are already there, and Mavis is far away.”

  They all paused when they heard a woman and a man arguing through the communication system Ruslan had put in the room.

  The scene from miles away unfolded for them to hear.

  “Fedor committed suicide.”

  Sasha watched the irises in Ruslan’s eyes contract as he continued his lies. “Fedor ate a bullet, but he didn’t put the gun into his mouth willingly. You were there, snuck up on your son to try one final time to get him to come over to your side. You even convinced the housekeeper to let you in.”

  Ruslan’s jaw twitched, his fingers rubbed together.

  “The police know all about Cindy. How long had she been on your payroll?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “What happened, Father? Did your weak son protest a little too loudly? Did he manage to get a punch or two in?” She moved slowly to the front of him, buying a little time as she brought his crimes to the surface. There was no way Reed had mistaken her all clear. It was only a matter of time before he arrived with backup.

  “Or did he slice you open? The knife he used to carve his trinkets never was found. An observation that will come out now that this death has been labeled suspicious and homicide is involved. Your blood had to have been shed, or why would you have brought in a team to clean up your crime?”

  A bead of sweat pooled on Ruslan’s forehead.

  His hand twitched.

  “Fedor cut you, and you repaid the favor by blowing him against the wall. Didn’t that hurt? Just a little?”

  “I lost my son long before he died.”

  Get him talking. A confession, even one that would likely be thrown out, was better than no confession at all.

  “With Fedor dead and Alice having tea with the grim reaper, you were weeks away from throwing her entire estate to the courts to get your shar
e.”

  “You can’t prove that.”

  “Cindy was your informant on the inside. The housekeeper always knows what’s going on. You knew about the separate bedrooms and the lack of noise coming from the honeymoon suite. You made sure the housekeeper knew how she would die if she said anything. You paid her off. Since no one was around, poking questions, she kept quiet. She was a loose end you had to tie up. But a bad brake job? Really, Father? I knew then you were close to the breaking point . . . you don’t make those kinds of mistakes.”

  “I had nothing to do with her accident.”

  “No, but Zakhar did. I doubt your man’s loyalty will go so far as him allowing you to stay free while he rots in jail. Much like you tracking all the players, I have been watching you.”

  Ruslan ran a palm on his pants, her words penetrating his brain.

  Her pulse ticked a steady beat in her neck. Every muscle in her body was ready for him to pounce. He was big, but she was faster.

  “You intercepted Avery’s call. You learned about the blood left in the room and hired a drugged-out murderer who couldn’t follow instructions and a cleaning crew that wouldn’t know the term stealth if they looked it up in a dictionary. You wanted Avery out of the picture since she saw what you left behind. But your bankroll has been dwindling, can’t quite afford the help you once had.”

  “You can’t prove anything.”

  “Did you miss the part about me tracking you? Alice hired me to keep her son and daughter-in-law alive.” The desire to get in the man’s face and smash an elbow into his nose was so strong Sasha could taste it. “Once you killed Fedor, that only left Trina. With the support of her new family of friends, that gave me time to watch you . . . watch and wait for you to fuck up. With everything I’ve found, and the evidence left behind by your unassuming ex-wife, you’re going to be mopping the floor in prison with your hundred-year-old ass.”

  Ruslan kicked the coffee table over as he stood and reached for his gun.

  Finally!

  One round kick and his gun was sliding across the hotel floor. Her second kick to his chest was pure satisfaction.

  She moved in, fast. Managed two blows to his face before he blocked her elbow by shoving his shoulder into her torso.

  Sasha used his move to capture his head and force it to her knee, repeatedly. “That’s for Avery!”