The doorman looked up. “Beg your pardon?”
Demetriou leveled the gun at him. “A little fucking girl. Did you see her?”
The man shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, man, I swear to God.”
Demetriou shot him anyway. The sound echoed through the lobby, half deafening. Demetriou let the doorman slump to the ground. Then he walked back to the elevator and considered the empty car, thinking.
140
CATALINA STARED OUT at the hallway, confused. She’d pressed the first-floor button in the elevator, but the doors had opened on a hallway identical to the Dragon’s upstairs. There were doors to apartments. A thick carpet. Soft lighting. No escape to the street.
The apartment closest to her was apartment 112. Beside it, 113, and so on. This was the first floor, she realized. The lobby must be below her. She was still one floor too high.
The elevator doors started to slide closed. Catalina reached for the L button, then thought better of it. Instead, she slipped out into the hallway. Too much time had wasted. The Dragon might be waiting for her in the lobby already.
She could hide. She could knock on an apartment door until somebody answered, then burst in and hide until the police came. But that could take hours. She couldn’t speak any English. Probably the men had friends in the building. They might take her to the Dragon themselves.
She needed to get out of the building. The Dragon wouldn’t follow her into the streets, and even if he did, she could lose him. New York was huge. And this building was deadly.
She crept down the hall, her knife at the ready, felt her stomach turn as she remembered how easily it had cut through the maniac’s flesh.
She came to the fire exit. Opened the door slowly and listened. No sounds. Nothing. She slipped into the stairwell, peered up through the center, then down. Saw no hands on the railing. Heard no footsteps coming for her.
Cautiously, Catalina descended. Reached the lobby level, the heavy steel fire door. There was a window, a porthole to the lobby. She stood on her toes and peeked through it. Saw nothing. The lobby, pristine and deserted. The elevators.
She pushed the door open and slipped through. Hugged the wall to the side of the doorway, and looked out and saw the front doors, the dark night beyond. Cars and pedestrians, almost within reach.
He’s not here, she thought. He’s gone. Run five meters and you’re safe. Then she saw the smear of blood behind the doorman’s front desk.
Shit.
Nothing moved in the lobby. The doorman was gone. Somewhere, a clock ticked, earth-shatteringly loud. The Dragon had been here, Catalina knew. Now he was gone.
She crept out of the alcove and hurried for the doors. Made it halfway before she felt him behind her.
“Târfa,” he muttered. Whore. His hand gripped her shoulder and he wrenched her back toward him.
141
VOLOVOI PULLED HIMSELF off the hardwood, struggling to slow the flow of blood from his wounds.
Pavel had shot him three times in the stomach. The wounds bled black. They burned, a blinding-hot fiery pain. His shoulder ached where Bogdan Urzica had shot him at the gas station. It seemed like years ago.
The apartment was silent around him. The walls were strafed with shrapnel from Pavel’s gun, the furniture shredded. Catalina Milosovici was gone. The Dragon had chased after her. The apartment was empty.
Volovoi couldn’t hear the police yet, but he knew they were coming. Somebody would report the gunshots. The NYPD would arrive. Sooner or later, they’d make the connection, and then the FBI would show up, and if Volovoi didn’t die, he would spend the rest of his life in jail.
This was okay, Volovoi decided. This was not the worst-case scenario.
The Dragon was the worst-case scenario.
He’d been stabbed. Catalina Milosovici had somehow overpowered him, put a knife in him. She’d managed to escape. But the Dragon wasn’t dead. And as long as the Dragon survived, Volovoi couldn’t rest. Not with his family still out in the world. Not with his nieces at risk.
Volovoi pushed himself to his feet. Propped himself against the couch and gathered his strength. In a closet by the front door, he found a couple shirts, a coat. He tore a shirt to shreds, wrapped it around his torso. Pulled the jacket over top and clutched it around him. Held his pistol tight and hoped he had the strength to point it at the Dragon when he saw the chance.
Leaning against the wall with his good shoulder, Volovoi limped toward the Dragon’s ruined door. Edged out into the hallway and saw nothing, no curious neighbors, no onlookers, no cops. Not yet.
Perfect.
He struggled into the hall. Made his way down the corridor. He felt better now, a little, now that he was upright. Now that he had a goal in mind.
He would find the Dragon. He would kill the Dragon. Then, if he had any strength left, he would figure out a way to get out of this city.
Volovoi reached the elevators. Pressed the call button and waited, fighting waves of nausea and dizziness, that fire-poker pain in his belly. The elevator arrived. Volovoi slipped inside. Leaned against the mirrored walls and pressed the button for the lobby. He was leaking all over the polished floor. More blood. Big deal.
The elevator door closed. The car dropped toward the lobby. Find the Dragon, he told himself. Kill him. And get out of Manhattan.
142
IN THE CHARGER, the siren screaming, lights flashing, Windermere’s foot to the floor.
Stevens checked his phone. “Shots fired, Seventy-seventh and Park,” he said. “Someplace called the DuPont.”
Windermere glanced at him as she slalomed through traffic. “Where the hell are we now?”
“Madison and—” Stevens strained for a glimpse of a street sign. “Seventieth. Better step on it, Carla.”
“It’s stepped on,” Windermere said, urging the car faster. “So help me, Stevens, it’s stepped on.”
143
THE DRAGON gripped on to Catalina’s shoulder. “Not so fucking fast.”
She spun at him with the knife. Felt resistance, just slight, as the blade sliced his hand. Beyond him, she could see the open elevator door. Realized he’d been hiding there, waiting for her.
No time to think about that now.
The Dragon howled as the knife cut him. Released his grip. Catalina shook free and ran for the doorway.
The glass door exploded ahead of her. The gunshot echoed through the lobby. Catalina kept running. Felt her bare feet crunch on broken glass. Felt the shards slice her skin. She didn’t slow down. She couldn’t.
She zagged just as he fired again. Slipped, caught her balance, stumbled out through the ruined doorway. The Dragon fired some more, shattering a window on a parked car in front of her, triggering the car’s alarm. Her feet were on fire now. Every step was a fresh agony.
There were sirens. She could hear them in the air, but she knew they wouldn’t help her in time. Catalina ducked away from the doorway. Ran down the street toward an intersection in the distance, the Dragon’s heavy footsteps behind her. His ragged breathing.
He fired again. This shot barely missed. Catalina ducked and kept running.
144
WINDERMERE SCREAMED the Charger up to Seventy-seventh and Park, slowed as she reached the intersection.
“Where am I going?” she asked Stevens. “Which one’s the DuPont?”
Stevens scanned the rows of tall apartment buildings lining Park Avenue, their doorways marked by covered awnings jutting out to the sidewalk. He couldn’t see a name anywhere.
Then Windermere punched the gas. “Whoa,” he said. “Find it?”
“I figure it’s the one with the shot-up front glass,” she said, steering the car through the intersection. “And the bloody thug staggering out the doorway.”
Stevens reached for his Glock, his heart already pounding. Across the
intersection, an imposing brick high-rise. A girl running barefoot on the sidewalk, a man chasing behind her. A tall, terrifying man with a black, wiry beard and a big pistol. The Dragon?
Windermere pointed. “Is that little sister?”
Stevens gritted his teeth. “Sure looks like it.”
The girl ran for the street corner. The Dragon raised his pistol, murder in his eyes. Windermere squealed the Charger to a skidding stop. The Dragon didn’t take his eye off the girl.
Stevens was on the pavement before Windermere stopped the car. Drew his Glock and fired at the gunman, quick. Too quick. The shot missed. The gunman didn’t blink. Drew a bead on Catalina Milosovici and fired again, a deadly barrage.
Stevens didn’t check to see if the gunman hit his target. He pulled the trigger again twice, a double tap. This time the gunman paid attention. He staggered backward, clutching his wounds, his eyes searching for the shooter.
Stevens let him find him. Watched the gunman’s eyes darken as he registered his face. Watched his mouth curl in a frustrated snarl, watched him spin the gun toward him.
Stevens shot him again. This time, the gunman fell.
Stevens hurried across to the sidewalk, covered the man with his Glock, ran to him, kicked his gun away and stood overtop, breathing hard, wanting to say something, something to really underline what an evil piece of shit the guy was.
So long, you evil piece of shit, something like that.
But the gunman’s eyes were lifeless, his blood soaking the pavement, and Stevens had something else on his mind. “The girl,” he asked Windermere. “Catalina. Where’d she go?”
Windermere spun toward the nearest intersection, Seventy-seventh Street. Stevens followed her gaze. The girl had been hoofing it that way when last seen, when the gunman had fired his last shot. Stevens hadn’t stopped to see if the man had hit his target, had been focused on putting him down.
Now, though, he looked again. Saw nothing. Empty space. Shot up or not, Catalina Milosovici was gone.
145
VOLOVOI RODE THE ELEVATOR to the lobby. Saw the carnage as soon as the doors slid open. The doorman lying dead behind his desk. The shattered front entrance, bloody footprints in the shrapnel glass. More blood on the walls, on the marble floor, a massacre site. But no sign of the Dragon or the girl.
Outside, police sirens. Flashing lights. Volovoi limped into the lobby and eyed the empty doorway, saw two FBI agents standing over a body on the sidewalk, gesturing down the street. It was the Dragon’s body. The fool had chased Catalina Milosovici right into their bullets.
Volovoi ducked out of the doorway as more police cruisers screamed to a halt outside on Park Avenue. The cavalry was arriving. The Dragon was dead. The police would have the neighborhood in lockdown soon enough.
His pistol was hot in his hand, slick with blood and sweat. Volovoi contemplated his escape. His next move. His last move, perhaps.
He could go out shooting. Step into the doorway and raise the pistol and attempt to kill as many of the FBI insects as he possibly could, blast a path to the BMW at the curb and try to muscle his way out through the cordon of police cars. No doubt, the FBI agents and their NYPD companions would cut him down where he stood. There were too many of them. The BMW was parked too far away. It would not be a prudent course of action.
And anyway, the Dragon was dead. Volovoi felt a sudden freedom, a weight lifted from his chest. He imagined his life without the gangster watching over his shoulder, without the bastard’s hand in his wallet. A life without worry. A second chance.
Volovoi realized he didn’t want to die, not tonight. He wanted to get the hell out of Manhattan and try again.
He turned away from the front doors. Crossed the marble floor to an interior doorway, and followed a long, narrow hall through the bowels of the building to a rear exit and a quiet, tree-lined courtyard. He was limping. His heart was a runaway train. He was bleeding everywhere, and he was dizzy as shit. He would slip free from the police cordons. He would hijack a car. He would find a way out of Manhattan.
He would fucking survive.
Wouldn’t he?
Volovoi navigated the courtyard, past the high-rises that neighbored the DuPont and back through the shadows and away from the sirens and the shouting and the chaos, until the courtyard doglegged and he came to a little gate and, beyond it, Seventy-seventh Street.
He pushed the gate open. Stepped out onto Seventy-seventh Street, a narrow, leafy roadway lined with parked cars and off-duty ambulances. There was a hospital, he remembered, a few buildings down. Nurses and bandages and medicine—and he, outside, with serious wounds, and no time to tend to them now.
The street was quiet. To his right, on Park Avenue, hell was breaking loose. Police cars screamed up. Voices shouted. High above, a helicopter. But Seventy-seventh Street was dark, and the noises were muted. Volovoi stood in the shadows and surveyed the block. Then he heard her.
Thin, gasping breathing. Feet slapping the sidewalk. A hushed cry of pain with almost every step. The sounds of a scared teenage girl, a girl who’d walked on broken glass to escape her captors.
Catalina Milosovici was across the street, in the shadows, barely twenty feet away.
Volovoi watched her, had an idea. The girl had been trouble for him for days. Now she would be his ticket to freedom, his hostage. He hoisted the pistol and clutched the jacket around his wounds. Started across the street to intercept her.
146
“AROUND THE CORNER.”
Stevens and Windermere left the remains of the Dragon in the hands of the NYPD uniforms now arriving on-scene. Pistols in hand, they ran for Seventy-seventh.
Be okay, Stevens urged Catalina as he searched the Park Avenue sidewalk for any sign of her. Just hold out. You’re almost safe.
At least the girl wasn’t bleeding out beneath a parked car on Park. Stevens and Windermere reached Seventy-seventh Street with no sign of her, and Stevens hoped that meant the Dragon hadn’t shot her. Meant she was still alive, still okay.
“Catalina,” he called down the street. No response. “Shit,” he said, turning to Windermere. “You see her?”
Windermere squinted into the darkness. Then he heard her gasp, and followed her eyes to the sidewalk.
Blood. Fresh blood.
Shit.
147
HER FEET WERE KILLING HER.
Every step felt like a hundred more knives. The sidewalk was gritty and hard, her feet bloody and raw. Catalina wanted to scream. She kept quiet. She knew the Dragon would find her.
She stopped in the shadows to try and wipe the grit from her feet. Tried to tear the hem of the T-shirt to make some kind of protection. The fabric was thin, but it wouldn’t tear. Her hands were slick with blood. She was shaking with fear.
She had to keep moving.
She crept out of the shadows and hurried down the block. There were ambulances beside her, dark and empty. A bright light up ahead, a red cross. A hospital. They would have police there probably. They would protect her.
The light seemed miles away. She heard voices behind her, police sirens. She didn’t dare look back. Didn’t dare turn around. She moved forward. Kept running. Fought to reach the light.
A police car pulled up to the hospital entrance. A police officer got out, a fat man with a mustache, a kind-looking man. Catalina ran toward him. “Halp,” she cried out. “Halp me, please.”
The police officer stiffened and reached for his gun. Saw her emerge from the shadows, and picked up the radio on his collar instead. Then the world blew up behind her.
The cop’s eyes went wide. He looked down at his shirt, at the crimson blossoms that had appeared on his blues. Catalina threw herself sideways as more shots burst out. This was a different gun than the Dragon’s; it was louder, slower, but more powerful. A big weapon. Deadly. Catalina crawled between an ambulance and
the police officer’s cruiser, heard gunshots echo on the building walls around her.
The shooter was behind her. She could hear him approaching, knew she couldn’t stay still. She gripped the knife tight and contemplated an ambush. Knew she didn’t stand a chance against his gun.
Quiet as she could, she crept toward the street. Dodged around the police cruiser, her head down, her knees scraping the pavement. She reached the front of the car and glanced back as the shooter lurched forward, steadying himself against the ambulance.
It was not the devil-faced Dragon. It was the other man. The silent one. Volovoi.
She wondered what had happened to the Dragon, if he was still hunting her, too. She imagined both men stalking her on this narrow, dark street. Imagined escaping the Dragon only to wind up in the arms of this other man.
Behind Volovoi, far up the street, police lights and sirens. Loud shouting. She’d heard gunshots behind her as she’d run from the apartment building. A police car screeching to a halt. Maybe the police had killed the Dragon. Maybe only Volovoi remained.
If that was the case, then Volovoi was the only man who knew how to save the other girls. If he died, Dorina and the others would disappear. They would suffer the fate she’d escaped, with men as evil as the Dragon.
She would have to disarm him. Knock his gun away, and force him to tell her where the Dragon had moved the girls. She would have to hurt him.
Volovoi was coming closer. The police car sagged from his weight as he leaned on it, limping his way out into the street. Catalina crouched as low as she could, realized too late she was as good as naked in the light from the hospital doors. He would see her instantly. There would be no surprise.
She pulled herself to her feet. Heard Volovoi’s breath catch as he saw her, heard his pistol boom again. Then she was running.
The Stolen Ones Page 27
