The Profilers (Born Bratva The Lost Years Book 2)

by Suzanne Steele

  “You know that shit’s bad for the enamel on your teeth, right?” Novak said.

  She jiggled the ice in the glass. “A girl’s gotta be able to indulge in some things she enjoys.”

  He pulled his jean jacket on and walked over to her. “They also say that chewing ice is a sign of sexual frustration. Hey, I’m not judging, but it does beg the question. Seriously, why doesn’t a woman like you have a man?”

  “I do. I mean, I did. Until recently. But he was a self-absorbed, low-life asshole.”

  Novak raised his glass. “Good riddance, I say.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think he would have been able to handle all this, anyway. I’ve got some serious scars now. This body isn’t exactly ready for prime time at the moment, you know?”

  Novak shrugged. “A real man won’t care about that. Or so I hear.”

  “Yeah, well, all things considered, I was already thinking about just taking a break from men for a while. Too much bullshit, you know? And honestly? I don’t think they make the kind of man I have in mind, anyway.”

  Novak smirked. “Ah, this is where it gets interesting. Tell me about your perfect man. Who knows, maybe I’ll meet him and send him your way.”

  Tee laughed out loud. “Oh, I just don’t see you as a matchmaker, Novak. Doesn’t the Bratva have a nosey little old lady somewhere who does that? I don’t know if I could handle the men you might send my way.”

  Novak thought of Glazov’s childhood nanny, Irina, and smiled. She remained convinced that Glazov and Kathleen had been a love match from the start and she wouldn’t hear otherwise. Then he frowned. “Hey, what? Bratva men are good men, Tee. They’re tough as nails but they’re good men. Glazov doesn’t tolerate men who don’t treat their women like the queens they are.”

  “Ah…good to know. Well, let’s see. I know this sounds superficial, but I like nice suits. White-collar guys, I guess. Not necessarily your corporate type, but a snazzy dresser. But the suit needs to be hiding the kind of muscles that can take out a threat without breaking a sweat. An older man with a good head on his very broad shoulders. And I like ‘em big; I wanna feel protected.”

  Her eyes had gone soft and unfocused as she imagined the kind of man she was describing. Novak exhaled and slowly shook his head. She talks tough, but the kid’s a hopeless romantic.

  When she looked up sheepishly a moment later, Novak’s face had resumed its usual impassive expression. She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m particular. It’s not an easy combo to find.”

  He cocked his head to the side in understanding. “And I bet they’re all married. I mean, the guys who come into the club.”

  “You got it,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Yet another reason why I don’t go for guys I meet at work. I don’t do ‘homewrecker’.”

  “No wonder we get along. We’ve got the same problem. I’m attracted to self-made women who don’t need a damn thing from a man but know what they want. No businesswoman in her right mind is going to have anything to do with a Bratva man.”

  “Kinda funny to hear a tough guy like you admitting something like that. Tell you what; you can be my brudda from another mudda if you want to.” She laughed but then her face lost all traces of humor. “I hope that means you’re going to protect me while you’re dangling me out there as bait to lure Benzo out from hiding.”

  Novak lifted her chin with one finger, locking eyes with her. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. But in the meantime, how about I do you one better than that? I’m going to kill him for you.”

  Chapter Fifty Five

  The junkie’s head jerked up awkwardly from where it had been lolling against her chest. She had passed out from the pain of yet another beating. This one was particularly vicious. Over and over again, he’d punched and kicked her. It was like a nightmare that never ended, and each time she woke up it just got worse.

  Her skin stung from hundreds of tiny cuts he’d delivered with his knife. She’d stopped counting after twenty-five. Some were deep slices, some were blunt stab wounds, but the ones that hurt the worst were the papercuts. Tiny pricks and slices that he had so intricately applied on her skin, as if he were painting a sadistic mural on her flesh.

  The hit of heroin she’d gotten on the way to this hell hole had worn off hours ago. It had lost its impact right around the time he’d began rubbing a mixture of salt and lemon juice into her open wounds. That was how the sick bastard liked to wake her up.

  She watched him through swollen eyes that had been blackened with fists of fury by a madman. She wanted to ask him who he was, what his name was, even though she was pretty sure she already knew. But as long as she didn’t know for sure, there was still a chance he’d let her live.

  As if reading her mind, he leaned in close to her face and confirmed her worst fears. “I. Am. Benzo,” he cackled, but it might as well have been a war cry of victory.

  Of course he was. Who else could be this deranged? She’d managed to capture the attention of the monster who had been terrorizing the streets of Louisville. She’d seen the news, heard the other working girls talking about how they weren’t going off alone with johns who weren’t regulars. They weren’t junkies, though. They still had the luxury of a choice. Addiction had a way of making you see the most obvious bad decision through rose-colored glasses. Life on the street as an addict was just a relentless cycle of doing the drug to numb the shame of fucking strangers, and then fucking strangers to get more of the drug. Maybe death wouldn’t be so bad.

  “I won’t tell anybody. I promise, I won’t.”

  “Do you know who you are?” he asked pompously, ignoring her promise to never breathe a word if he’d just let her go. He’d heard it all before: I promise I won’t tell. I’ll do anything, just please don’t kill me. I’ve got kids, a family. Blah, blah blah. He couldn’t understand why they never got it: it wasn’t about them. It was all about him.

  “Do….you…know…who…you…are?” he asked again, emphasizing each word with a deep stab of his knife, hitting random places on her legs and abdomen. He danced around her, waving the knife through the air like he was conducting an orchestra. “You are ‘No Name’.” One quick nod of satisfaction, as if he’d solved some deep mystery of the universe, then, “Nobody cares about you. They wouldn’t even cover your death in the media if it wasn’t for me. I’m the superstar. I’m the star of this show. You can’t even fucking dance.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  He rushed over to where she was chained against the wall. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and began pounding her head against the concrete wall with every bellowed word. “Because. You. Can’t. Dance!”

  He stared at her as if waiting for a response, then rolled his eyes irritably and muttered, “You stupid bitch. You passed out again?!” He raised the hunting knife high and brought it down with a roar.

  Blood spurted out from her neck like an arterial blowhole. He watched admiringly as the streams and droplets spattered against the wall. He was an artist and she was his masterpiece of blood and gore. It didn’t get any better than this; not like when he killed that old bitch. That had been utterly unsatisfying. She’d broken her hip when she fell, so she hadn’t even been able to fight back. She never stood a chance, of course, but it took all the pleasure out of the experience.

  “Sorry, what did you say?” He canted his head slightly, his gaze almost clinical as she gurgled and choked on her own blood. All those little oxygen bubbles gave testimony to his transformation. He was a god. He decided who lived and died.

  Benzo frowned. He felt a twinge of regret about beating her so very badly. Once he’d started, he just hadn’t been able to stop. Despite being malnourished and dehydrated, she’d bled beautifully. With his expectations so low, he’d been positively entranced by all the blood. But he’d taken it too far and now he couldn’t watch the light in her eyes go out because her eyes were too bruised and swollen.

  Oh, well�
��these things happened sometimes. He’d just have to find another victim to share that particular intimacy with. And he knew just who he had in mind. He'd never gone back for seconds before, but, then again, he’d never had someone escape before…before her.

  He couldn’t let the blatant disrespect of Tee’s escape go unanswered. Killing her would prove to everyone that he truly was a god; that he was smarter than all those feds. The citizens of Louisville would know that you didn’t try to make a fool out of Benzo and get away with it.

  But right now? He needed a drink. Lucky for him, he knew just the place.

  Chapter Fifty Six

  The three FBI agents sat in the shadows of the darkened cop bar talking about their latest case. Profiling was a big part of their job, so when a serial killer’s MO changed mid-stream, they always picked the details apart. When you worked together as closely as these three did, ego got tossed to the side. It didn’t matter who solved the case as long as the sick bastard was taken off the streets.

  Nobody was safe as long as Benzo was free to roam the city. He was like a ghost; he came and went at will with no fear of being caught. The arrogant asshole like to rub it in the agents’ faces how easily he could elude them. Any agents worth their salt would take offense at that. It was all a fucking game to him.

  Richardson picked at the label on his beer, tearing it off in strips as if it would somehow help him better understand this madman. “I mean, it’s obvious he was in a hurry. He just choked that woman across the hall from Tee. We all know how much he prefers spending quality time with his victims.”

  “He was caught off guard. Had to be. He was trying to get into Tee’s apartment and the neighbor saw him. So he got her into her own apartment and killed her. Simple,” Turner said, taking a swig of his brew.

  “Before or after he entered Tee’s apartment?” Rene asked under a heavy sigh of regret. No matter how long she had been an agent, kids and senior citizens always hit her harder. Like a hard punch in the gut, the inescapable reality that evil was alive and well practically took her breath away. This Benzo guy had no soul; just a big gaping hole where one should have been. “I mean seriously, what does the guy do in his free time? Kill kittens and puppies for entertainment? All the more reason to kill the bastard,” she finished quietly.

  “Have to agree on the animal front. I’m an animal lover too. As far as when he killed Tee’s neighbor, I dunno. If it was before, it was because she opened her door and maybe questioned what he was doing there. Benzo hadn’t been able to resist entering Tee’s private space, even after killing her neighbor. Anybody with a brain would have gotten the hell out of there after the neighbor was dead. But not our boy. The bastard truly doesn’t think he’ll ever get caught. No, he wasn’t going to leave behind any witnesses, even if it meant killing a little old lady. Fucker.”

  Rene shook her head, an action she often did when some small part of her brain could still be shocked over the atrocities she witnessed on a daily basis. It took a certain kind of person to be able to compartmentalize the criminals, crimes, and even the victims they encountered along the way. It was one of the reasons why she’d chosen not to have children. As the years went by and she witnessed more and more deviant behavior—each act more heinous than the last—she’d solidified her decision to not have children. What kid would want a paranoid FBI agent for a mother, anyway?

  Richardson leaned back in his hardback chair, his eyes narrowing. “Listen, we can all sit here and cry in our beer over all the fucked-up shit we see every day, or we can catch the bastard and cut his lights out. Then…we can go home feeling all warm and fuzzy because we made the world a better place.”

  “Here’s to being heroes.” Turner raised his bottle.

  They looked at each other, nodding as they clinked their bottles in a grim toast to just how far they were all willing to go to rid the world of scum.

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  “Here’s to bad boys and good girls and us finding our significant others.” Tee raised her shot glass of chilled vodka and Novak tapped his against it. She’d stopped counting a while ago, deciding after the third shot that numbers weren’t all that important, anyway. Tee flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I hope you’re my designated driver, gangster man, because I’m getting drunk off my ass tonight.”

  “Baby, I can always call one of the boys to pick us up. I’m getting drunk with you. Speaking of my boys, I could always find you a suit easy enough. We’ve got some sharp dressers in the brigade,” he laughed. “And I can vouch for the muscles. We grow ‘em big around here.”

  She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t know. It would be kinda like being married to a cop.”

  “How in the hell do you figure that?” His hearty laugh rang through the air. She liked the sound of it. Knowing that a man like Novak didn’t have many friends, it felt good to make him laugh.

  “You know, you’ve got the nice house and the white picket fence with all the little gangster babies running around. He kisses you goodbye to go to work. You tell him to pick up a gallon of milk. And then…you wonder if he’s going to come home alive.”

  “Yeah, good times.” Novak nodded at the waitress to bring them another round of shots.

  “Make it doubles,” Tee shouted out to her. “Fuck it, just bring the bottle.”

  “You can get hit by a bus crossing the street. A piano could fall out of a window and crush you. Anything can happen. You can’t base your life on fear, Tee. It’ll consume you and steal any chance of happiness you might have.”

  Tee laughed. “A piano on my head? Now that’s fucking funny.”

  Novak raised a brow. “Happened to one of our guys. The dumbass was walking down the sidewalk and the hoist the movers were lifting the piano with broke and crushed him. That was some bad luck.”

  “Is that why you carry that Russian coin around all the time?”

  “Well, now, I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”

  “Friends trust each other.”

  “Then maybe that bitch fate will smile on me and see to it that I have a reason to tell you one day.”

  Tee frowned as she slung back another shot.

  ~~~

  Benzo couldn’t believe his eyes or his luck. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. He tipped his beer toward the two women at the bar eyeing him. Well, eyeing him up and down, and then indulging in a little whispering and giggling.

  If only they knew. But could he pull it off? If he did, it would be The Ultimate. Two kills at one time. Boy would that ever sock it to those agents. Talk about a newsworthy story. He’d be even more famous than he already was, and he wasn’t just talking about Louisville.

  He nodded toward the waitress and when she came over he told her to send the two women another round of whatever they were drinking. As she walked away he fingered the trusty capsules in his pocket. Normally he liked his victims to be somewhat coherent so he could listen to them beg for their life and then beg for him to kill them. Funny how the mind could shift gears when pain overrode the will to live. It was all so interesting, it made him wonder why everyone wasn’t a serial killer. It really was the best job in the world.

  Bingo. They were headed in his direction, new drinks in tow.

  “Hey.” It came out more like Haaaaay; definitely from the South, this one. Her friend clung to the whore dressed in red as if she were a lifesaver in a stormy sea. Would she be able to save her from the world’s most notorious serial killer? He doubted it. What he didn’t doubt for a second was that he would go down in a blaze of glory and live forever in the portals of eternity. Life was good. Power was better.

  “Hello, ladies,” he said with all the smooth manners of a gentleman. “Please, join me. Your timing couldn’t be better. I was getting lonely.” He looked them up and down. “The more the merrier, right?”

  Shrill giggles rang through the air like an irritating tinkle of broken glass, and he barely suppressed a wince. Dumb bitches. Amazing what a woman would
do just to get a man to notice her.

  He smiled his most endearing smile and set about going to work. After all, this was his job and a man had to keep up his pace. The agents would never be able to figure why his kills were happening so close together now. Oh sure, they’d have the cliché answers like ‘he’s escalating’, but they would never be able to figure out how he could be so bold. Nah, they’d probably have a cliché answer for that, too: our killer is escalating, he has narcissistic personality disorder. Blah, blah, blah.

  Regardless, the media would have a field day with it. It would never occur to them that these bitches had delivered themselves to him on a silver platter. And, really, who was he to refuse?

  Chapter Fifty Eight

  Tee fumbled with the key dropping it twice before she looked up at the bodyguard Novak had called to drive them home—who was now standing there looking at her with a twinkle in his eye as he swung her keys between two fingers. Teasing her, no doubt. He was 6’3 250 pounds of pure rock solid ‘I wanna fuck you’.

  Her eyes roamed his torso before venturing lower, eventually landing on the unmistakable outline of an impressive…package. It wasn’t like her to stare, but she couldn’t help it. As she tried to force her unrepentant eyes away from his obvious manly charms, those charms became even more obvious. Not a lot, but enough to confirm that he’d noticed her attention…and liked it. At the very least, he sure didn’t seem to mind. She swallowed hard and lifted her eyes to his face, where an arrogant smirk awaited her.

  Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna happen. There will be no drunk fucks tonight that turn into tomorrow morning’s regrets. But you can bet I’m gonna check you out when I’m sober, big boy.

  Novak snickered and she shot him a scowl over her shoulder as she teetered on slightly unsteady feet. Right, like he or the big boy over there could possibly know what I’m thinking.

  She conquered the lock and fumbled her way through the door. “Okay, boys, off ya go. You can leave now.” She gestured grandly toward the door.