“Anyway, I drugged this one just enough to immobilize him. I enjoyed seeing him helpless, with no choice but to hear all about how my dear sister-in-law discovered his treachery. Well done, by the way.” She reached out and patted Kathleen’s hand. “He was staggered to find out that the woman on the Pakhan’s arm was the one who discovered his treachery. We had a little chat, then he became acquainted with my ring. Up close and personal, you might say. Of course, Yafon was most solicitous, helping him breathe through his nose at the right time. So, alas, the bookkeeper is long gone,” she said merrily, holding her glass aloft as if in a toast, “and here I am.”
“I can’t believe you’re really here. You’ll be here from now on,” Roksana marveled aloud.
“Yes, Glazov says we get to keep you,” Kathleen chimed in.
Vladimira smiled coyly as she swirled the vodka around in the tiny, delicate glass she held between her red-tipped fingers. “Yes, I am here for as long as I am needed. I have been feeling restless of late and was considering a change of scenery, so my brother’s timing was, as always, impeccable. But as for the bookkeeper, it only proves what I’ve said all along, ladies: never underestimate the enemy. It could mean your death if you do.”
Chapter Twenty Two
Bazarnik made his way back up to the hill and stood on the same spot where he’d shot the video of the explosion. He rewound the video, pinpointing exactly where he had seen her. He then jumped back on his bike and rode around to the location, hoping like hell he could find a trace of who the mystery woman was.
He glanced around, making certain no one had followed him. He usually never returned to the scene of a crime. But this was different. He had to find her. Not only his job but his life depended on it.
He got down on his hands and knees and began methodically looking through the tall grass. He crawled through brittle, dry grass and weeds a short distance away from the acrid pile of ash and rubble that had once been the warehouse. As he was moving brush aside, he stopped and a slow smile spread across his face. There it was, the clue he needed. He had hit the fucking jackpot, too.
A cellphone.
He had thought he saw her drop something as she ran from the building, just before she went out of the camera’s frame, but he hadn’t been sure until this moment. The cops were really sleepwalking through their investigations if they missed something like this. Good to know.
It looked like that bitch, fate, that had so many times been his enemy was choosing to look down on him with favor today. Maybe after all these years of going solo and being an outcast, hooking up with Bratva was making the fickle bitch cut him a damn break. It was about time.
He jumped back on his bike and headed home. As much as he dreaded the conversation, he knew he couldn’t withhold this kind of information from the team, especially Oleg and Roksana. Now that he had proof, he would be held accountable if something went wrong. He’d seen it all before, close colleagues going from friends to enemies before they ever saw it coming.
There was one thing in Bratva that would get you killed for sure: disloyalty. For the first time in his life, he had something to live for. A family unlike any other. He didn’t want to lose that. Something unexpected was awakening inside his calloused, blackened heart: the ability to give a fuck.
Up until now, he had been a loose cannon with a death wish. There was no one in his life to care if he lived or died, and so he gambled with his life accordingly. Now he had other people to worry about, people who had taken him in when no one else cared. He wasn’t going to put them in a position of going to prison if this woman decided to go the police. Glazov had a good portion of local and federal law enforcement in his back pocket, but there was only so much they could overlook.
This woman, whoever she was, was the only witness to the explosion; he couldn’t let her live. He was disgusted with himself for not seeing her escape that night. The only thing he could do now was track her down and kill her, but not before he found out if she had already run her mouth. Part of his job, after all, was damage control.
Chapter Twenty Three
“How the hell did we miss that shit!?” Roksana’s voice boomed off the soundproof walls.
Dmitriy ducked just in time to avoid the crystal ashtray that now lay shattered on the floor. “Damn it, Roksana! I’ve told you not to throw shit in my computer room. Do you have any idea how much this equipment costs?” The sound of laughter had him cutting his eyes in warning at Anastasia, who was doubled over holding her stomach. “It isn’t funny, Anastasia.”
“Yes…yes, it is,” she barely managed to get out as she struggled to catch her breath. “And you shouldn’t smoke, Dmitriy.”
“I smoke the occasional cigar. It’s not the same thing.”
With one look over at Oleg, who was glaring at his wife as he stood against the wall, arms calmly folded in front him, she broke out in a new fit of hilarity.
Roksana’s husband was accustomed to his wife’s fiery nature, and in the right circumstances he even reveled in it. If he wasn’t on the receiving of her wrath, he saw no reason to get involved. Plus, he figured Dmitriy was a big boy and could take care of himself.
“Excuse me. I think we’re getting off track here, people.” All eyes were on Bazarnik. “I’m serious…I’m finding this bitch, and when I do I’m locking her ass in the dungeon. She’ll stay down there until I find out what the hell she was doing at that warehouse. Then I’ll fucking kill her.”
“As I understand it, that ain’t all that goes on in that there dungeon,” Anastasia said, doing her best hillbilly accent before succumbing to another uncontrollable fit of laughter.
“Seriously, this isn’t funny, Anastasia.”
Roksana’s rebuke dampened Anastasia’s humor and then some. Something had her best friend shaken up. Even though Roksana had a temper, she wasn’t one to go off for no reason.
“You guys don’t get it,” Roksana went on. “Everybody has the misconception that I have some ‘in’ with my father that makes me exempt from pissing him off. What happens is that I incur his disappointment and, believe me, that is worse than you could ever imagine.”
“Well, when you put it like that, it does sound worse. You know we’re here for you. Nobody here is going to throw you under the bus. We’re a team. The four of us—” Anastasia stopped and looked pointedly at Bazarnik before continuing, “the five of us, we’re a team. The chick’s either part of their gang or she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. We’ll deal with her accordingly.”
“Damn straight, we will,” Roksana growled. She wasn’t going to have her father’s Bratva legacy come crashing down because some bitch couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
“I’m asking all of you to trust me and let me deal with this woman, whoever she is. She could be beneficial to us.” Bazarnik turned to Oleg and Roksana. “When you brought me on as part of this team, you trusted that I knew what I was doing when it came to Bratva business. You were right to trust me. Let me prove it. Let me handle this.”
They both nodded their agreement. The decision wasn’t based on anything they knew with any certainty; it was just intuition that somehow the mystery woman would provide them with insight they would need in the future. Trusting one’s instincts was critically important in the Bratva life. Roksana and Oleg knew not to take it lightly.
Dmitriy held out his hand and Bazarnik passed him the cell phone. As their resident technology expert, Dmitriy could get past any lock on any phone. By the time he was finished, he’d know more about the owner of the phone than she knew about herself.
Chapter Twenty Four
Tatiana sat in her efficiency apartment on the edge of town. It was so efficient, in fact, that the electricity had been cut off the day before. Candles provided plenty of light for her to study what had once been an angry red slice on her wrist. It was still there but had healed over, leaving behind a raised, deep pink ridge of thick skin.
When that bastard Hector killed her sister, she had blame
d herself. She had always watched over Tadita, shielding her from the lustful, leering attention of their father and his friends. Tatiana had been so intent on keeping his hands off her little sister’s innocence that she’d been blindsided when her father sold the girl’s virginity outright.
How could she have not seen it coming? Tatiana was the oldest by only a year, but still, she had considered it her responsibility to take care of Tadita. She took a deep breath to ward off the guilt and shame that always hovered around her like a shroud when she thought about her sister.
Tatiana had thought killing him would silence the demons once and for all, that the accusing whispers in the darkest corners of her mind would finally be silenced. She’d been so certain she would feel better. What she hadn’t expected was to feel nothing. Absolutely nothing. The cavern of emptiness in her chest was numb.
Damn it…I killed someone. Where’s my reward? I deserve to feel something. Hell, even if she felt fear at the thought of being caught, it would be better than…nothing at all.
She ran a fingertip over the raised scar -- an everlasting reminder that she’d tried to end her life just to get the voices in her head to shut up. Why did life have to be so fucking hard? Why couldn’t she just be normal?
Fuck it! Maybe normal was a relative term. She wasn’t normal and she’d never feel normal. Right now, she’d settle for just feeling connected to something, anything. She couldn’t go back to Russia and she had no one to turn to for help here. She had spent months pickpocketing and breaking into houses to get enough money to come to America and rescue her sister. There wasn’t a lock she couldn’t pick. She was the best. More than once she’d had offers to put her skills to work for other people, but Tatiana was a lone wolf.
When she killed her sister’s tormentor, she hadn’t felt any guilt. Wasn’t a normal person supposed to feel bad about committing murder? Then again, Tatiana was starting to think ‘normal’ was overrated.
Chapter Twenty Five
“You’re not doing this by yourself.” Oleg wasn’t a man to speak up about every issue, only the ones he thought were truly important.
“I don’t want to pull you all into this shit storm. I’m the one who fucked up. I should have known a witness had gotten away.” Bazarnik shook his head, still in disbelief at how things could have gone so far off track.
“With all the chaos that was going on, anybody could have missed it.” Oleg wasn’t one to stroke a man’s wounded ego, he was only stating his objective take on the situation. No one could have predicted that someone would escape before the explosion. And Oleg wasn’t entirely convinced the mystery woman was part of the Sinaloan cartel.
For starters, she didn’t have the typical gangbanger look that one usually saw with the Sinaloan groupie types. They usually managed their hair and makeup in a trashy, overdone way that shouted to the world that they belonged to the cartel. From what little they could discern from Bazarnik’s video, this girl didn’t look like she was part of anything at all.
Bazarnik couldn’t help but wonder if his fixation with the fire had distracted him so that he missed such an important detail, made such an important mistake. This lifestyle didn’t allow for mistakes and neither did the Pakhan. Depending on how this turned out, Bazarnik knew he risked a brutal ass whipping, if not death. He tried to push those thoughts from his mind. The best he could hope for was to find this girl and interrogate her.
Why the fuck did this have to happen on my first job?
Oleg’s voice was smooth and level as he spoke. “There’s strength in numbers. We’ve got your back on this.”
Although Bazarnik was glad the crazy bastard had his back, it still didn’t ensure that the Pakhan and his psycho cousin would feel the same way. One thing about organized crime was that you never knew when the boss might want to make an example of you to the rest of the crew.
“Yeah, well,” Bazarnik muttered, “let’s just hope the Pakhan is as understanding as you four are.”
Roksana chuckled, going for a little levity. “This won’t be the first time one of us has fucked up and the others had to come to their defense. Consider yourself part of the team now—officially.”
“So, you have to fuck up to be part of the cool kids’ club huh? Good to know.” For the first time since all this had happened, Bazarnik smiled.
As the cool metal moved in a steady rhythm between his fingertips, Novak took note of the fact that he was using his Russian coin to buy himself time to consider what he wanted to say. There really was a first time for everything.
“For fuck’s sake, spit it out, Novak. What have they done now?”
“Well, fuck. How’d you know?”
“You are the one who’s always laughing about the Bratva gods; I like to think I have a direct line on occasion. In all seriousness, we have been around each other since we were kids. You are closer to me than a brother; I can read you. Now, tell me what is going on so we can fix it.”
Novak slipped the coin into his pocket, took a deep breath, and regarded his cousin for a long moment, then said grimly, “There’s a witness.”
The sound of Glazov’s fist hitting the desk reverberated around the room like a thunderclap. “Son of a bitch!” he roared.
“Bazarnik caught it on video that night, somebody was running from the building. A woman.”
“This job was a necessary evil, as far as I’m concerned,” Glazov fumed. “I didn’t like doing it. When we make a move like that, we are meticulous in controlling who gets targeted. How in the hell did anyone get out alive?” He didn’t give him any time to answer as he seethed, “Damn it. Motherfucker!”
“There is some good news. The woman in question dropped her phone. Dmitriy’s hacking the device as we speak. Do you want to put a hit on her?”
“Not until we find out what she knows.” A knock on the door caused them to both look up. “Enter!” Glazov settled back in his chair as Bazarnik walked in.
“What, boy?” Glazov barked out irritably.
“Pardon the interruption, sir.” He looked from Glazov to Novak and his shoulders dropped on a deep exhale. Shit. He was too late. “I wanted you to hear this from me,” he stammered, then glanced at Novak.
“Hey, asshole, you’ve got balls of steel coming in here to look the Pakhan in the eye to tell him you fucked up,” Novak said, approaching Bazarnik and standing deliberately in his personal space. Novak poked him in the chest and grinned because he could practically see Bazarnik’s hackles rise. “But you’re my job. Keeping an eye on you is what I do. You got a fucking problem with that? You should have known damn good and well I’d know what was going on.”
Bazarnik didn’t back down but looked Novak straight in the eye. “Like I said, I wanted to be the one to tell him.”
“Manning up and telling the Pakhan, face to face, that you fucked up…now, that I respect.” Novak returned to his seat.
“I have to agree with my cousin,” the Pakhan stated quietly. “I respect your coming to me instead of trying to hide behind my daughter and her husband. There are some things you can’t put a price on; loyalty and honesty are two of those things. It’s true that you fucked up, but I’m not so sure this isn’t a good thing.”
Bazarnik looked up from the area he’d been studying on the carpet, frowning as he tried to keep up with the course of this conversation.
Glazov clarified, “This mistake was an opportunity for me to see what you’re made of—I like what I see, Bazarnik. Now, go find this woman and bring her back here. Lock her ass in the dungeon and find out what she knows. We’ll decide how to deal with her after that.”
“Yes, sir. And, sir…thank you.”
Glazov waved him off with a dismissive flick of his wrist. He had what he needed, and that was the confidence to know the kids would deal with it in an effective way—one he would be proud of. He wasn’t going to be around forever; they needed to be able to carry on the Bratva legacy when he wasn’t there to look over their shoulder.
&nb
sp; Yes…it was time for the kids to put into practice the lessons he’d spent a lifetime teaching them. He would systematically loosen the reins. When they needed him he would be there, but it was time to see if they’d been paying attention.
Bazarnik waited until he was down the hall and out of earshot before he breathed a sigh of relief. He’d done the right thing by facing the Pakhan. But even as he had looked into those icy blue eyes, the voice in his head had been telling him he was crazy. He didn’t need an inner voice to reveal that truth to him; he already knew it.
Chapter Twenty Six
Tatiana had been tossing and turning for the last hour. The sheets had become tangled around her legs. Frustrated, she kicked her legs until she freed herself and the sheets slid off the bed to the floor. The restlessness she was feeling was infuriating. She stormed out of her bedroom into the kitchen, got a glass out of the cabinet by the sink, and turned on the tap to get a drink. She looked out the window, absently noticing a stray cat as it darted across the yard, barely visible in the moonlight.
She wished she could turn off the endless onslaught of thoughts going through her mind. Over and over, no matter how she tried to make sense out of all the crap that had gone on over the last three months, she couldn’t come up with any solutions. No money. No family. Nowhere to go.
How ironic, considering how much effort Tadita had put into convincing her husband to secure immigration papers for both her and Tatiana. Tatiana had no idea how the rich American had managed to pull it off, but he had. The whole thing had her worrying about just how powerful the man she’d killed really was. She wondered if someone would come looking for her. She had no ties to him now, but that didn’t stop her from worrying.
That wasn’t the only thing that had her concerned. She had no idea who was responsible for the explosion that had sent her enemy straight to Hell. She wouldn’t be so worried if she knew where her cell phone was. If that phone got into the wrong hands, she was as good as dead. There was no going back to Russia, no future here, and no undoing what had already been done.
Jaded Jewels (Born Bratva Book 7) Page 10
