Hers to Tame

by Rhenna Morgan

  “Then perhaps it might be wise for you to warn me in advance?”

  Pulling open the door to the bar’s interior, Roman shook his head. “Nyet. I’ll tell you in the car.” The door shut behind them with a stern thud that echoed in Kir’s gut, and Roman’s voice dropped another notch. “I like this bar, and they won’t let us back in if they’re introduced to your ugly side.”

  Chapter Three

  One thing about New Orleans—it catered to nearly every walk of life. Young. Old. Rich. Poor. Boisterous or somber. The sinners and the saved. Everyone had a place, and each of the many neighborhoods that made up the city had their own flair and feel.

  Kir stared out Roman’s passenger window. Up and down Tchoupitoulas Street, bright lights, music and laughter from bar hopping patrons beat back the cloud-shrouded night, but the Mississippi River rolled dark and murky in the shadows not a tenth of a mile away. A deathly black ribbon of whispers more appropriate for his mood.

  Roman steered them down Washington and into the heart of Irish Channel toward the Victorian-style house his computer whiz, Kevin, had sealed the deal on just four months ago. It’d been the first property he’d ever owned.

  As of tonight, it would also be his last.

  Four men stood out front, two on the raised wood porch and the others just behind the knee-high wrought iron fence that fronted the tiny yard. Every one of them zeroed in on Roman’s Ford Raptor as he parked directly in front. The beast of a truck was black and as gritty and intimidating as its owner.

  An avtoritet didn’t lose their composure. Didn’t act without purpose, or speak without thought. Especially when those he led looked on.

  But Kir wanted blood. Wanted to let loose the furious howl building behind his sternum and deal the killing blow for whoever had dared to touch one of his own.

  Roman killed the engine and unbuckled his seat belt. “They will watch you. Whatever tone you set, they will echo.”

  He forced himself to speak. Willed the air in his lungs to give voice to the mantra he’d repeated to himself the whole drive over. “I will not dishonor my pakhan, or the peace he’s created, and move without reason.” He met Roman’s stare. “But this injustice cannot stand. You know it. Sergei knows it. Kevin will have his vengeance.”

  Outside, the scents of cigarette smoke, moss, and freshly laid mulch hung thick in the air, held trapped by the oppressive humidity with no hope of a breeze to sweep them on their way. The fine weave of his button-down rubbed uncomfortably against his skin, and his suit jacket hung heavy on his shoulders, but the weight of his Glock stashed in his holster was a comfort.

  His men fell in beside him and Roman as they strode to the door, each offering a nod, but keeping their silence. Mikey waited by the front door, his mouth clamped tight and his gaze bright with rage.

  Kir met him on the porch. “How long ago did you find him?”

  “An hour.” Mikey opened the ten-foot-tall wood door, stepped back for Kir and Roman to go through, then followed. “Reggie and I were gonna pick him up and meet the rest of you at Cure. We found him in his bed. Knife to the heart.”

  The home might have been a classic, but the interior was clearly that of a bachelor. The living room mostly consisted of a huge flannel couch that several of their men had crashed on in recent months, an oversized leather chair beside it and a state-of-the-art flat screen mounted on the wall. With little else to absorb the sound, their combined footsteps on the restored wood floors ricocheted off tall ceilings. “Forced entry?”

  “None.”

  “Struggle?”

  “No.”

  Kir kept moving. Past the half bath in the hallway and the mostly restored black and stainless steel kitchen to the staircase at the back of the house. “The police?”

  “Haven’t been notified. The men have combed the streets and are keeping an eye out for anyone suspicious.”

  “There will not be anyone.” The finality behind Roman’s quietly muttered words was absolute, fueled by a lifetime of experience. “No struggle. No forced entry. Whoever did it—Kevin knew them, and their act was planned.”

  The upstairs was simply laid out. Two small, plain bedrooms that overlooked the meager backyard, and a nice-sized master suite that fronted the street. Kir strode toward the master, his gut roiling higher even as his muscles braced for the visual impact of what waited inside.

  He paused at the threshold, as did Roman, years of detached experience pushing past his anger. The gold curtains that had been left behind when Kevin bought the place were drawn shut. The unremarkable painted gray dresser and space-age computer desk seemingly untouched. The only things out of place were the discarded T-shirt on the floor, the pooled blood on the rumpled comforter and the bare-chested dead man staring up at the ceiling.

  “He hasn’t been moved,” Roman murmured in Russian. “He could have been caught sleeping.”

  Kir shook his head and prowled deeper into the room. “Nyet. The lamp beside his bed is on. It would not have been if he were asleep. He was also fastidious. He would not have thrown the shirt aside unless something else had his attention, or he was told to.”

  “A woman?”

  “Perhaps.” Kir stopped at the foot of the bed and studied his slain soldier. Short messy brown hair and a tall, yet lanky body that came from too many hours behind the computer and forgetting to eat. He was only twenty-five and, unlike the majority of his men, had always had a childlike innocence about him. A goofy smile usually graced his face, but tonight that smile was gone, his mouth slack and his skin void of life. “Or a woman as a diversion.”

  Kevin’s computer sat open on the desk, the front edge of the laptop perfectly horizontal to the edge.

  Odd.

  Where Kevin might make sure everything was in its perfect place the vast majority of the time, his computer was seldom out of reach.

  Kir turned to Mikey and Reggie both waiting just inside the doorway. “Has anything been moved?”

  Reggie dipped his head toward the far side of the bed. “Just that piece of paper on the floor. I knocked it off when I checked for a pulse. Everything else has been hands-off.”

  Kir rounded the bed. At the far side was a simple piece of white copy paper that had once been folded into quarters lying facedown on the hardwoods. Grasping it by one corner, Kir flipped it over.

  Alfonsi’s Downfall stretched across the top of it, topped only by the television station that had sourced the picture and the author who’d penned it—Cassie McClintock. The picture was a candid one of Sergei walking on a neighborhood street, his gaze aimed over one shoulder as though he sensed a camera on him. The quality of the print job was grainy at best, but the frown on Sergei’s face indicated he hadn’t been in the best of moods when the picture had been taken.

  Kir knew the article intimately. Had seen the original broadcast that went with it and read Cassie’s print version many times over.

  Roman studied the paper over his shoulder. “A message.”

  “So it seems,” Kir said. “And not a very subtle one at that.” Carefully setting the paper aside on the desk, Kir pulled the chair out of his way and swept his fingers over the laptop’s mousepad to activate the screen. His young soldier had been one of the most enthusiastic and creative hackers he’d seen in a long while. He’d even hinted to Sergei’s brother from Dallas, Knox Torren, that Kevin would give him a run for his money one day. To give him that chance, Kir had been more than willing to finance whatever technological request he made. The one thing that had been a nonnegotiable term from the get-go was a full share of passwords, infrastructure and data storage.

  Mikey inched closer to Roman. “What message?”

  “Someone knows we’re responsible for Alfonsi,” Roman said. “Whoever it is isn’t happy about it.”

  “Can’t be a huge number of people in that camp,” Reggie murmured from the doorway.
/>
  “More than you think.” Kir checked one directory after another, every one of them coming up empty. “Alfonsi had a lot of side businesses. Our direct competition and those he blackmailed might have been happy to see him gone, but those on his payroll are still reeling.”

  “What are you looking for?” Roman said.

  He checked the last directory, exited the DOS prompt and faced his old friend. “Whoever was here wasn’t just sending a message. They wanted information.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because Kevin had a failsafe on this laptop. Any more than four attempts on logins destroyed any data stored on it, along with any connections to our shared drives. There’s not a thing on this machine.” Beside the computer, the photo of Sergei sat waiting, the scowl on his pakhan’s face likely matching Kir’s own expression this very moment.

  Alfonsi’s Downfall.

  Kir focused on the author’s name beneath it.

  Cassie McClintock.

  So zeroed in on the text in front of him and the thoughts spinning through his head, he didn’t sense Roman closing in until his lowered voice sounded right behind him. “What are you thinking?”

  That he couldn’t find the person who’d killed Kevin fast enough. That when he found them, they would pay in the most gruesome fashion possible.

  And that while death might have taken one of his own, it had also delivered a tool to ensure vengeance.

  He twisted enough to commit Kevin’s corpse to memory. To let the coppery bite of so much blood imprint itself on his lungs. “I’m thinking the fastest way to find who has the biggest motive is to talk to the person who’s already done most of the footwork.”

  Chapter Four

  What the hell was wrong with her? Cassie knew better than to rush her segues from the forecast or sports back to the news, but she’d been disconnected and bordering on dismissive with her peers tonight. Enough so her editor had caught her coming off set to ask her if something was wrong.

  On the bright side, he didn’t mention the three different times she’d butchered names she’d gotten right several times before.

  She strode down the hallway toward her desk in the newsroom, the sharp raps of her heels with each step showing about as much mercy for the stained concrete floor as she showed her performance.

  God, the newsroom was hot today. If she’d known it was going to be this stuffy, she’d have forgone the ice-blue suit for something a little more lightweight. And what was that smell? She’d swear someone left a tuna salad sandwich lying out overnight again.

  An overly cheerful voice shot down the hallway. “Hey, Cassie! Wait up.”

  Fuck.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Tempting as it was to ignore Lizbet and her fake let’s be besties routine, Cassie slowed her steps, pasted on a professional smile and turned. “Hey, girl. What’s up?”

  “Well, I was going to ask the same thing of you.” Lizbet’s smile was perfect—an ideal blend of concern and kindness—but there was definitely calculation behind her brown eyes. She slowed as she got closer. “You seemed a little angry on set tonight. Everything okay?”

  Ding. Dig number one.

  Cassie waved her hand and snickered. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Just got a little distracted. There’s a new story I’ve been noodling and a few angles popped in my head. Bad timing, but you never know when you’re going to get good ideas.”

  “True.” Lizbet cocked her head just enough the tips of her dark bob played around the edges of her perfectly painted red lips. Cassie couldn’t pull off a harsh red like that if her life depended on it, but Lizbet could and did frequently. She’d swear half the men on staff fantasized about what it would take to get her lipstick stains on some very tactical body parts. “If there’s anything you want to bounce off me, I’d be happy to brainstorm with you. I think it’d be great if we teamed up.”

  Right. Because that wouldn’t be an idea that would come back to bite me at all.

  Cassie at least tried for a decent smile to go with her playful response. “Wow. Could you imagine? The two of us working together? That’d be a dangerous combination, for sure!” Dangerous as in a cat fight, or an all-out bloodbath, but at least she hadn’t lied or blindly agreed to something she’d never actually do. She checked her watch, knowing perfectly well it was only ten minutes past six. “Oh, shoot. I’ve got to run and get something to eat across the street before my seven o’clock. You staying for a bit, or are you done for the day?”

  “Oh, no. I’m done. Running down that last story wore me out. I’m headed home for Netflix and ice cream, but I’ll be sure and watch you at ten.”

  Watching and jabbing her Cassie McClintock voodoo doll was probably more like it. Cassie hustled to her desk midway into the newsroom for her purse, but kept talking. “Well, have some extra for me. Especially if there’s chocolate involved.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I forgot you were a chocoholic.” Lizbet leaned one shoulder against the wide opening that led from the hallway to the newsroom and crossed her arms across her chest. “Maybe you ought to stop at the store on the way back from dinner and grab a bar. That might perk you up a little for the ten o’clock.”

  Ding. Dig number two.

  Slinging her purse over her shoulder, Cassie forced a casual pace and a carefree attitude. Better that than swinging her overstuffed hobo bag at the bitch’s head like she wanted to. “Nah. A little Mexican food and time to flesh out my ideas should do it.” She strolled into the hallway, casting a polite wave back at Lizbet. “Have a good night.”

  “You, too.”

  Just a few more steps and she’d be in the lobby and well out of killing distance.

  “Oh, Cassie?”

  Fuck.

  Cassie paused at the glass door and looked back to Lizbet.

  Her nemesis hadn’t budged an inch, but her smile was all smug satisfaction. “Don’t let the bungled names in the last newscast get to you. The higher-ups rarely pay attention to things like that—unless they happen a lot.”

  Ding. Dig number three.

  Be classy, Cassie. Do not stoop. Do NOT stoop.

  “Thanks for that. Always good to get the wisdom of someone who’s been there many times before.” She pushed open the door and took one step across the threshold, silently reveling in the flash of irritation on Lizbet’s face. “Have a good night!”

  The door whooshed shut behind her and the iceberg conditions of the reception area rushed in to cool her flushed skin. “Good grief,” she said to the part-time woman manning the front desk. “Now I know why it’s so hot back there. They’ve got all the good air directed up here.”

  “You think that now, but you wouldn’t if you were up here for more than an hour,” the woman said. “At this rate, I’m gonna end up with work-related frostbite.”

  Cassie giggled and paused at the double doors that led outside. The woman wasn’t the perfectly coifed mannequin and soft-spoken variety they usually hired to man the front desk. Rather, she had ruler straight hair to her shoulders that bordered between dark brunette and deep auburn and wore almost no makeup. Then again, with her pale blue eyes, adorable freckles and pretty features, she really didn’t need it. “You’re new here, right?”

  “Yep. Just started last weekend. My temp agency sent me over on a last-minute deal. I guess the person before me got a better offer and quit without notice. Probably found someplace with a better thermostat.”

  The sharp bark of laughter the new girl’s comment drew out of Cassie did a lot to erase the lingering grime from her interlude with Lizbet and the bumbles in her newscast. “Well, nice to have you here. I’m Cassie McClintock.”

  “Bonnie Drummond. Glad to have a paycheck.”

  Yep. She’d definitely called Bonnie right. Spirited, funny and right to the point. “Are you here because you’re looking to work in broadcasting?�
�

  “Aww, hell no.” Bonnie paused and checked either side of the desk like she half expected a profanity censor to tromp out and kick her out from behind the desk. “I mean, heck no. This place is a little uptight for me, but it also beats standin’ on my feet for twelve hours waitin’ tables, so I’ll take it as long as I can get it.”

  Cassie jerked her head toward the street. “I’m heading over for cheap Mexican food. You want anything?”

  Bonnie’s gaze slid to the restaurant across the street and her smile dimmed. “Nah, I’m good.” She lifted her chin and pinned her attention back on Cassie. “Got a gourmet PB&J chillin’ in the break room fridge. No way I’m passing that up.”

  Cassie knew that look. Had felt the stark want and hunger painted all over Bonnie’s face before she’d wiped all vestige of her reality away and put on a brave mask. If she was truthful, she’d put herself at risk to be right back in those shoes by moving out of her aunt’s house. All to prove a freaking point. “I’ve got one of my own waiting back there, too, but after the day I’ve had, I need a little indulgence. You sure you don’t want some? When I say they’re cheap, I mean I’m willing to swing for a few tacos as a welcome to the party gift.”

  For a second, Cassie thought she’d refuse. In the end, Bonnie swallowed hard and dipped her head. “I’d appreciate that.”

  Definitely good people. “Deal. See you in a few.”

  Two minutes and a walk across the street later, she was second-guessing her urge to leave the television’s air conditioning behind. She was definitely going to have to give her hair and makeup one heck of a touch-up before her next round in front of a camera.

  The bite of spices and simmering sauces hit her the moment she opened the door, followed by the urgent chatter of employees behind the counter racing to fill orders. With no drive through, crazy reasonable prices and decent food, El Torro was almost always busy. The post-bar crowd was especially fond of the longtime family-run restaurant, though how anyone dared to eat Mexican food after a hard night of drinking, Cassie couldn’t fathom.