The Darkest Hour (Running with the Devil Book 1)

by Jasmin Quinn

  They showed no signs of trying to stop him or box him in. At red lights, they maintained their distance, didn’t get out of the car, didn’t approach him on foot. They were waiting for him to get to his destination first.

  How did they know where to find him? The connection had to be Kelsie – two calls on her phone, one to the judge, the second from her father. Not the judge, he didn’t think. Otherwise they’d have been on him yesterday. But there was nothing, not until he called his son-of-a-bitch handler. But he was using a burner cell. And he wasn’t anywhere near the motel. Maybe dad got suspicious, called the cops and reported her missing. Her SUV stolen. But cops don’t tail stolen vehicles, they stop them, and haul the thief out, drag him away in handcuffs. No, this wasn’t the cops. None of this made any fucking sense.

  Dean traced the car chase in his mind. Once he was in Vancouver, heavier traffic helped separate them – he sped up as much as he could, then made a sharp left across oncoming traffic on a light that had just turned green. He knew they would know that they were made, but they couldn’t follow him, the oncoming traffic would block them. He turned left again, nudging through the cross traffic and down an alley, then darting out of the alley, left again, causing a small collision as other drivers had to slam on their brakes to avoid him, and then left, one more time. Now he was behind the tail and could just see as they turned left, where he used to be. He forced his way into the right-hand lane, then turned right and disappeared into the stream of traffic.

  He allowed himself a small grunt of satisfaction. It was the easiest car chase he’d ever been in. Had to be the Russians. They couldn’t chase a tail if it was attached to their asses. He was holding the burner cell in his hand, trying to decide whether he should call Kelsie, tell her to get out. She hadn’t called him, so he had to assume she wasn’t in trouble. When the Russians realized they lost him, would they go back for her? If they even knew where she was. Or that she existed at all. None of this made fucking sense. He had to make some decisions now.

  He flipped through his options. Go back to the motel and get Kelsie out of there. Call Kelsie, tell her to get out. Call Kelsie’s father, tell him where she’s at. Meet with his handler, determine if he’s clean. If the handler’s clean, get Kelsie into protective custody; then plan the assault on the Russians. Kill Savisin. That would throw the Russian mob into chaos.

  He put the burner cell back in his pocket. If Kelsie was a target, the Russians would have her by now. He had no choice – he had only one option. He had to know if his handler could be trusted. He had to get to Savisin. Otherwise, Kelsie would never be safe. Once the Russians knew she was his vulnerability, she would be in danger for the rest of her life. Then he parked that thought, compartmentalized it. It was time for him to be the cold, calculating bastard he was trained to be.

  He started the SUV and slid out of the shadows. He’d lost a lot of time eluding the Russians, drawing them away from Kelsie. It was stupid, he realized now – he’d been thinking with his heart, not his head. He had to get to the meet site and get himself set up, find a good vantage point. But he had to ditch the SUV first, find some new wheels. He pulled into the parking lot of a hardware store, parking in an isolated spot, near some trees. He went in and picked up a couple of screw drivers. Then back into the traffic, pulling into a residential section and driving through the rabbit warren of streets until he was deep in houses. He kept his eyes peeled for tails, but there were none.

  He pulled the SUV to a curb in a shaded area, opened the glove box and pulled the registration and insurance out and tucked them into his jacket. He looked around the interior, nothing else in it that would lead anyone quickly back to Kelsie. Then he got out, taking his tools with him. He walked to the back first, removed the licence plate, then to the front and did the same thing. Then he slipped into an alley, making his way quietly along the fence line. About a half-block in, he found what he was looking for, an older model mustang, parked in a back driveway, more or less hidden from prying eyes by a fence and a few trees. Lots of shadows. Dean removed the plates from the mustang and then he kept walking, through the alley, until he saw another car, a Volvo, in a similar setting as the mustang.

  He repeated the exercise, taking the plates off the Volvo, but this time replacing them with the plates from Kelsie’s SUV. He moved forward again. Down another back alley, then another, then another. He finally found the car he was looking for. It was a nondescript silver Nissan pathfinder, a few year’s old. More importantly, it was sitting behind a house that was shrouded in darkness. No one was home, he was sure of it. Too early for the owners to be in bed; too dark to not have lights on.

  He slid his hands along the back fender. Nothing. Then the front fender. A little good luck as his fingers landed on a magnetic key box. Nice. And the key was in the box, like a sitting duck. He took the plates off the pathfinder and replaced them with the Volvo’s plates. Then he retraced his steps back to the mustang, putting the pathfinder’s plate on the mustang. Then back to Kelsie’s SUV, where he screwed on the mustang’s plates. This caper wasn’t foolproof, he knew, but it would buy him the time he needed. With a little luck, the owners of the pathfinder were out of town for a couple of days.

  He walked back to the pathfinder, slowly and deliberately, like he was out for an evening stroll in his neighbourhood. At the pathfinder, he used the key to flip the locks and slid into the driver’s seat, slowly and with purpose. As if he had every right to be there. He started up the vehicle, drove it slowly out of the alley, into the street and out of the residential area. He stayed slightly above the speed limit as he merged into highway traffic, heading to Surrey.

  He was feeling the pressure; it was well after 8pm now, he was losing time fast. He needed to get to the meet point soon or his opportunity to scope it out would be lost.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Kelsie lay in the back seat of the car, trying not to get tossed around too much as Anto took corners a little too fast and didn’t slow much for the bumps. Anto and Lukov were talking to each other, in Russian. Occasionally, an English word thrown in that she recognized, like fucking. They used that a lot. She tugged at the bindings on her hands, trying to loosen them a bit, but they were tight, and they cut into her wrists if she twisted them too much. She knew she could kick off her boots, which would free her feet, but for what?

  They’d stop the car at a red light, she’d jump out in bare feet, blindfolded and wrists bound and then what? Run into traffic blindly, sack still over her head, get mowed down by a delivery truck? She didn’t dare move her hands to the sack on her head. It was loose so she could breathe, but there was a cord around the opening of it, knotted around her neck. Even if she could somehow manage to untie the knot without strangling herself, by the time she figured it out, the Russians would be on her.

  It was a long drive, well over an hour, so she knew that she was out of Richmond. She could hear a boat’s horn in the distance and thought that they must be heading toward some sort of dockyard. The car was still moving, but Anto had slowed considerably. She could hear Lukov calling someone on the phone, speaking in Russian, hanging up. Grunting to Anto in Russian. A few more minutes, and then the car stopped.

  Doors opened, men’s voices. All men. Then the back door opened, and rough hands pulled her out of the car. She tried to stand, but whoever was holding her picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, her body hanging downward, blood rushing to her head, his arms circling her thighs, against her ass. He held her hard and bruising. At least he wasn’t going let her fall.

  She could smell the scent of seawater, knew that they must be near docks. So not the Russian’s home back in Vancouver. A place of operations, close to a waterway, where they could throw her cold dead body into the bottom of a boat and drop her somewhere out in the ocean. She jerked up at this thought, kicking out at the man holding her. If she was going to die, she may as well die fighting. She felt a sharp slap on her ass and the low warning of Anto’s voice. “Be stil
l. Now’s not the time for hysterics.” He carried her forward, she knew the minute she was inside. The smell of dankness, mustiness and cigar smoke invaded her nostrils.

  Another 30 feet or so, through two doorways, one that clinked as it opened. Then Anto stopped, speaking in Russian to Lukov. Shouting orders in English. “Bring me the chairs and the small table.” Anto dropped her suddenly, on a concrete floor. She landed with a solid thud, on her knees, scraping her palms as she used them to keep herself from pitching forward. She felt a knife on her throat, felt the cold steel of the blade against her neck, thought this was the moment she would die, but then the cord fell away and Anto pulled the bag off her head. She blinked up at his shuttered face. He reached down with his knife and cut the binds at her hands and feet.

  “Get up,” he said flatly.

  She scrambled to her feet, looking around. The room was big, the size of a small warehouse. Doors behind her, where they came from. A large overhead door at the back. For loading and unloading. A few boxes, not many though. Some tables and chairs at the end of the room, next to a staircase leading up to offices on the second floor. It was cold, a big empty room with no heating; Kelsie shivered. There were five men standing in the warehouse. Three Russians, Anto, Lukov and some other guy and two Chinese.

  What the fuck? The Chinese guy with the spider tattoo was watching her. She knew him, the guy from the pawnshop. Her eyes widened in understanding as she stared at him. He stared back, then smiled easily at her, and shrugged. “How – ” she started to say, but Anto grabbed her by the upper arm and propelled her forward.

  “Shut the fuck up,” he snarled. Then to the other Russian, “Where are the fucking chairs?”

  The Russian moved quickly, carrying three chairs out to the middle of the room, placing two of them so they faced each other. He said something to Anto in Russian. “English only, Viktor,” Anto snapped at him loudly. “We agreed, so our Chinese friends know we are not talking about them.”

  “Yes,” Viktor said, nodding a little subserviently as he turned away. Anto pushed Kelsie into one of the chairs and bound her hands to the arms of the chair, her feet to the legs. The two Chinese men moved closer as Viktor returned with a small table. He placed it next to Kelsie’s chair, and then placed a pair of pliers on the table.

  Kelsie felt her stomach knot up in fear. What the fuck were they going to do with those? She looked up into Anto’s eyes as he sat down on the chair, facing her again, Deja vu of the scene back at the motel. “Let me tell you a few things, Kelsie. To make you not so afraid.”

  Lukov grunted something in Russian as he sat down on the third chair and scooted it close to the table. Anto glanced up at him and grinned. “I know,” he said to Lukov. “You’re right.” Then he flicked his eyes back to Kelsie. “But nothing I am going to say will stop her from screaming when it’s time.”

  Kelsie felt herself quaking, what was he going to do to her? And then, thinking she had nothing left to lose, she felt her resolve harden and she spat at him. “Why don’t you just get it the fuck over with, Anto?”

  The Chinese laughed. The Russians did not. Anto reached out abruptly with his right hand, wrapping it around her neck, applying pressure to her throat, squeezing the breath out of her. She had no way of stopping him, her hands were tied, she couldn’t grab his wrist. She thrashed her head, trying to loosen his grip, bucked her body, gasping for air, but Anto didn’t let go. She felt herself losing consciousness. She was going to die.

  “Anto.” She heard Lukov’s low voice through the haze and then Anto dropped his hand. She took deep gulping breaths, trying to steady herself. She felt tears spill into her eyes.

  Then Anto said to the others, “See, she doesn’t really want me to get it the fuck over with.” And they all laughed.

  “I hate you,” Kelsie croaked, her breath coming in gasps.

  Anto shrugged. “Kelsie. Here’s what happened.” He scraped his chair on the concrete, moving it closer to her so that he held one of her shaking legs between his thighs. He placed his hands on her knees, kneading them with his fingers. “You and your boyfriend, whoever the fuck he is, walked into my Chinese friend’s pawnshop.” He glanced up at Dehui and then back to her. “And your boyfriend gave him the address of our boss’s house. His house! Where his wife and his children sleep. Not a nice thing.” Anto shook his head. “Sending men to slaughter the women and children.”

  Then the other Chinese man spoke up. “Does he think we are that stupid that we would start a war with the Russians? How does someone know the personal residence of the Russian boss? And then share it with us. That’s fucked up.”

  “Yes,” Anto agreed. “Fucked up. And stupid. It told us where he was and who he was with. Dehui, here, got your plate number. Easy to track the information down. Who you were.” He paused, then added. “Which was very interesting information for our boss.”

  Kelsie listened, trying to stay impassive, but they were right. Why did Dean do that?

  Anto went on. “My Chinese friend here told his boss.” Kelsie’s eyes went to the Chinese man who had just spoken. Anto laughed. “Not him, the bosses don’t get their hands dirty if they don’t have to. This guy,” he motioned with his head. “His name is James. Good solid Chinese name. Think of him as the equivalent of Lukov, here.” Kelsie drew her eyes back to Anto’s. She hated him, she thought. More than any other person in this world, she hated this Russian.

  “Anyway, our bosses had a long chat. Decided that there was an opportunity. We won’t stay friends forever.” He shrugged. “But right now, they want to move some goods, some blow, I think, through our territory and we are more than happy to help them. Call it what you like. A thank you for their information. We’re like that, you know, good allies, brutal enemies.”

  Lukov grunted. “Enough Anto. Get the prick on the phone.”

  Anto reached into his jacket and pulled out the burner cell that Dean left for Kelsie. “One phone number in here, Kelsie. My guess is if I call it, your boyfriend will answer.” He pressed the number with his thumb, then put the phone on speaker. As he set the phone on the table, he said, “You better fucking hope he picks up.”

  The phone rang three times, then Dean’s voice, clear through the speaker, “Kelsie?”

  Anto placed his index finger to Kelsie’s lips, a warning look on his face, silencing her.

  “Dean, you fucking prick.” Lukov leaned forward toward the phone.

  Silence on the other end, then Dean. “Lukov, you asshat. Is that you? I’ve missed the pitter patter of your little feet as they run back and forth to the bathroom to take a piss, every time you take a shot of vodka.”

  Kelsie held her breath as she listened to Dean’s self-possessed voice. What was he doing taunting Lukov like that? How did he think that would help her situation? He was going to get her killed!

  Lukov didn’t smile. “Anto and I have someone who wishes to say hello.”

  Anto said softly, “Say hello, Kelsie.”

  Kelsie looked at him, in his eyes, looking for a hint of humanity, of mercy. But there was nothing there. Anto’s eyes were dead, hard and unyielding. He reached over and squeezed one of her knees, hard enough to make her gasp in pain.

  “Dean,” she said despairing, “please...”

  There was silence as everyone waited. Then Dean, angrily. “Do you think I’m a fucking fool, Lukov? Do you fucking think I care about who you have with you? She was a fucking convenience. Because you fucking shot me, you Russian prick. And I needed her to keep me from bleeding to death.”

  Kelsie recoiled back in her seat, no tears, not now, she told herself, biting her bottom lip. But, how could he be saying this about her, after everything. Was it true or was he posturing? She couldn’t believe it. But if it was true, he was going to get her killed. If he didn’t come for her, why would the Russian’s keep her?

  Dehui leaned towards the phone. “We don’t think that, big guy. We know it. Remember me, from the pawnshop? You bought wedding rings, man.
Why’d you do that if you didn’t give a fuck about her?”

  A pause and then Dean, his deadly voice reaching out like a viper. “I will burn your fucking pawnshop to the ground, you fucking prick!”

  Anto held his hand up and stopped Dehui’s flow of words. “Dean,” he said, leaning towards the phone. “Let’s stop playing games. I’d like to track you down and put a bullet in your brain. I owe you for that kick to my nuts you gave me the other night. But Savisin, he says no. Not until he’s back. He wants to do you himself. I’d like to kill you now, you piece of shit. But that’s why I am the grunt. No big picture. You know what I mean?”

  “What the fuck do you want, Anto?” Dean said, the hostility clearly emanating from the other end of the phone.

  “I want you to listen,” Anto said as he picked the pliers up off the table.

  He drew closer to Kelsie, squeezing her right knee between his legs and taking her right hand in his, stroking her fingers, looking into her face, watching her as he selected her middle finger. Kelsie closed her eyes, her stomach churning, her body trembling. And then the cold grip of the pliers on her knuckle, pulling it first, and then yanking it sideways. Either breaking it or dislocating it. It didn’t matter. The pain sliced through her, hot and piercing. It ran down her arm, through her spine and up into her brain. She screamed, it hurt so bad she thought she might vomit. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the cruelty of this moment. And as she screamed, she felt the sobs escaping her. Between her screams. And then as they subsided, a low keening that she couldn’t contain.