Murder Aforethought

by Parker St John

  Maksim shook his head. The sudden shift of conversation bewildered him, but anything that got Val opening up and talking about his experiences was a good thing.

  “You calculate the sound delay. You estimate range between the time a bullet passes you and the crack of the rifle shot. There’s no ducking. The quickest reflexes in the world can’t save you. You don’t hear a thing until you’re already hit. Anyway, they knew where we were, but we just couldn’t spot them. I damn near got shot in the head that day. I just felt the bullet pass me, close enough it burned my cheek, and then the crack of the rifle. If I’d been half an inch to the left, I wouldn’t have lived long enough to hear the shot.” He swallowed convulsively.

  Maksim watched his Adam’s apple bob. He said nothing, just waited, though he didn’t release Val’s hand when he tried to tug it away. The telltale flush of shame was once more creeping up the back of Val’s neck.

  “Uh, the thing is, I get really uncomfortable on top of buildings now,” Val floundered. “My apartment complex has a patio on the roof. One of those urban garden projects, right? But I feel like I’m going to puke any time I go up there. It’s like you and the money, you know? Something just gets into your brain, and you can’t shake the fear, no matter how crazy it is.”

  Maksim brought Val’s fingers to his mouth and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

  “Thank you for understanding,” he said simply.

  Val cleared his throat and looked away. “It’s getting late. We should call Miguel and see if he’s heard anything.”

  Maksim retrieved his cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail.

  He hung up and tried again, then a third time.

  You’ve reached Miguel. I’ll only call you back if I like you.

  He very precisely pressed the end button and set his phone on the table.

  “He’s probably on the other line. I’ll try back in a few minutes,” he said with a calm he didn’t feel.

  Val snatched up the phone and punched in a number from memory. “Reese! Where the fuck are you?” he barked.

  Maksim observed him closely, the unsettled feeling growing in the pit of his stomach at Val’s grim expression. As he listened to whatever his friend was saying on the other end of the line, his eyes met Maksim’s. The look in them was enough to make him sick.

  “Get back there,” Val commanded through his teeth. “They’re not picking up the phone. We’re on our way.”

  The keys were in Maksim’s hand before Val had even finished speaking. “They’re probably playing video games and didn’t hear us,” he said, but it sounded pathetic.

  “Yeah,” Val agreed. His face was remote as he tucked his handgun into his waistband. “Let’s go.”

  23

  Val

  Maksim tried Miguel’s phone twice more on the drive into the city, but Val knew the results, even before he saw the strain in his expression.

  This was the first time he’d ever seen Maksim anything but cool and collected. Even ducking bullets and hot-wiring cars, he’d always maintained an air of control that Val had only seen in the very best Marines. But the idea of Emma being threatened, and him not being there to control the outcome, had him unraveling.

  His long, strong fingers tapped the steering wheel every time traffic bottlenecked.

  They didn’t talk. Val stared out the window and watched highways and bridges flash by. He thought about his parents.

  They would have liked Maksim. Well, his mother would have, anyway. Pop would have thought Maksim was a jerk because of his money and education. He always had an inferiority complex. They would never meet him, though, because they were rotting in the ground, along with any dreams Val had for a normal life.

  Maksim was about to learn the hard way that everything Val touched turned to shit.

  God, he hoped that little girl wasn’t dead. If she was, Val was going to rip the throat out of every fucker responsible. A bullet would be too good for them. Those bodies in the ground might actually help him sleep better, unlike the rest.

  Reese would never sleep again, though. Val had never heard the cold, hollow fear that had seeped into his friend’s voice when he’d heard they’d lost communication. He’d blame himself for not being there, even though Miguel was the one who’d asked him to go.

  There had been an emergency in the Acosta family. Miguel’s teenage nephew had gotten himself roughed up by some gangbangers, and his family was in total meltdown.

  He’d been half out the door before Reese could stop him and point to Emma, who was near hysterics at being left alone with Reese. She didn’t trust Reese like she did Miguel, and her stress response just couldn’t adapt one single bit further.

  The men had agreed it was best for Reese to go smooth things over while Miguel stayed behind with the girl. He hadn’t been gone more than an hour.

  Like Val, Reese already had too many deaths on his conscience. One more would break him. There would be no coming back from it.

  He cracked his neck and took out the box of ammo he’d purchased. He ejected the magazine from his Glock and began thumbing bullets into place one by one. The ritual calmed him, even as it seemed to wind Maksim up even tighter. He checked the safety and tucked the pistol back into his waistband, just as they were pulling onto Miguel’s tumbledown street.

  “Why the hell does he insist on living here?” Maksim muttered. “Nobody calls the cops in a neighborhood like this.”

  His phone rang, and he hit the accept button before the sound had even registered to Val. “Hello?”

  “Get up here.” Reese’s voice blasted from the Bluetooth synced stereo. “They’re gone.”

  Val’s throat tightened. “Dead?”

  “I don’t know. They’re not here.” The call disconnected.

  “Fuck!” Maksim punched the dashboard. Then he punched it again and again.

  Val closed his eyes and turned his face to the window. It wasn’t raining, but there was a fine mist in the air. It beaded on the windows, warping his view.

  He listened to Maksim’s harsh breath, noting the tick when it began to steady.

  When he’d calmed, Val said, “You stay with me.”

  “You’re the one with the gun,” Maksim said grimly.

  Reese had already made it inside, so the chance of a sniper waiting to take a shot was slim, but the risk was still there.

  He visually swept the area and catalogued all the vantage points that could support a shooter. They were out in the open with a hundred ways to take a bullet. He kept Maksim to the inside of the sidewalk, hoping if an inexperienced sniper took a shot at them from across the street, he’d have to go through Val first. But there was really no way to completely protect him.

  Maksim was tense beside him, but he didn’t look nervous. Val felt the anger radiating from him. He kept it locked down, though, and that impressed Val. The man was tight. He would have made a great soldier.

  The high end lock on the door was busted. With little more than a tap, the door swung open to reveal a dark stairwell.

  Even though he knew Reese was already upstairs, he cleared the building before flicking his fingers at Maksim to follow.

  Reese’s clipped report had already made it abundantly clear that the situation was bad, but Val’s gut clenched as soon as he laid eyes on the splintered frame of Miguel’s door.

  “Two on entry!” Val declared.

  “Clear,” came his captain’s response.

  They entered an apartment that looked mostly untouched. Reese waited for them in the hall, arms crossed, face hard and blank.

  He looked good, though. He wasn’t hungover, at least, for the first time in weeks. But his eyes were simmering with pure chaos, and he chewed a piece of gum so hard his jaw was audibly popping.

  He stood aside to let them in the narrow bathroom. The mirror was cracked above the sink, and there was a long, scarlet smear of blood down the glass. Val imagined someone’s head being rammed into it. More red streaks decorated the sink, a
nd a small, purple pool of blood congealed on the floor.

  “He’s a fighter, your friend,” Reese said softly. “They only got him because they caught him by surprise.”

  Maksim swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed. His complexion had lost at least two shades of color the second he spotted the blood. He nodded vaguely at Reese’s commentary, but didn’t reply.

  He wandered down the hall, checking the other untouched rooms.

  It broke Val’s heart to see him standing in the empty living room, head bowed, more at a loss than Val had ever seen him.

  He approached from behind and reached out a hand to touch his back, but Maksim moved at the last second, bending to retrieve something from beneath the couch.

  He held a shattered smartphone in his hand. The screen was marred with bloody fingerprints.

  “Fuck,” Val cursed.

  Maksim let out a wounded roar and grabbed Val by the shirtfront.

  Reese was at their side in a blink, but Val held him off with one hand.

  “Son of a bitch!” Maksim yelled. “We should have called the cops from the beginning! Why the fuck did I listen to you? I fucking know better!”

  He flinched as he met the full brunt of Maksim’s anger. He wrapped his hands over Maksim’s fists, but he didn’t remove his grip. There was no escaping the condemnation. He deserved it.

  “I’ll get them back,” he promised.

  Maksim gave him a single hard shake. “You can’t promise that. You don’t even know if they’re alive.”

  “They’re alive,” Reese interjected, “or they would have left the bodies.”

  “Whoever took them is tired of playing games. If it’s Mary, we forced her hand by witnessing what happened with Russo. This is their way of drawing me out.”

  “We’re calling the cops,” Maksim hissed through his teeth.

  “No.” Val grabbed him by the head and jerked him close. “If you want to see either of them alive again, we will not call the cops.”

  Maksim snarled and tried to jerk his head away, but Val hung on tight and forced him to look at him. “Even if a new leak doesn’t immediately feed them the info, what can the cops do for us? It’ll take them hours of combing this apartment before they might find enough proof to swear out a warrant, if they find anything, at all. By then, Vito will have taken Miguel and Emma out to the forest and killed them. Do you understand me?”

  He shook Maksim’s head for emphasis. “The only way we win this is by playing dirty. They’ve been hunting us. It’s time we hunt them back.”

  Maksim tore away from his grip. “We don’t even know for sure who they are,” he snarled.

  “We’ve got a pretty good idea,” Reese drawled in his Texas accent. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “Miguel spent most of last night making calls. I don’t think the man slept a wink.”

  “What did he find out?” Val asked.

  “Homicide has been swarming that club like ants on a picnic, for starters. That back room is a petri dish of body fluids and fingerprints, but according to Miguel’s source, one set of prints popped in their system as a girl picked up for petty larceny back in the early nineties named Mary Donica.”

  “AKA Mary Russo?” Maksim asked.

  “Bingo.”

  “She’s our shooter from the other day?” Val had a hard time believing it.

  He’d met the elegant, middle-aged woman with a penchant for color coordinated twinsets only once, back when Russo had invited him to his home shortly after hiring him. He’d wanted to look Val in the face after his first hit. She hadn’t struck him as the kind of woman willing to get her hands dirty.

  “Maybe,” Reese shrugged. “Maybe not. Her prints were all over Esposito’s skeezy sex room. You do the math, brother.”

  Russo’s last words echoed in his head.

  Some things are personal.

  Family can break your heart.

  Maksim whistled through his teeth. “The wife of a mob boss and an ambitious underling. If she made a habit of meeting him at his club, your father was bound to see them together, Val. If he was as loyal as Russo believed…”

  “They took him out to keep their affair secret.”

  “Perhaps that explains the powerful men in the family who have been turning up dead. The lovebirds were planning a coup. They could have been trying to sway Russo’s capos to their side. When they misjudged their mark, they killed him, rather than risk word getting back to Russo.”

  The ringing of Maksim’s phone broke their concentration. He pulled it from his pocket and stared at the screen.

  “Unknown caller,” he said blankly. “Probably spam.”

  “Put it on speaker,” Val ordered.

  Maksim did.

  “Hello, Mr. Kovalenko.” A woman’s tinny voice rattled from the speaker. “I hope you don’t mind us getting your number from your office. Don’t blame your assistant. We can be very persuasive.”

  “Mary,” Val said.

  “Oh, you’re there too, Valentine? Good. You’re the one I wanted to talk to, anyway. You’ve been difficult to find lately.”

  “Taking them was a dumb move, Mary,” Val warned. “This isn’t just a few vanishing mobsters. A little girl and an ex-cop? You’ll have badges swarming up your ass. Media will be all over this city, scrutinizing all the major players.”

  “I’m aware of that. Unfortunately, Vito’s poor aim left me no choice. Many people are very unhappy that Dominic is dead, and you’re the only ones who know I’m responsible. I’m just out of options, dear.”

  “I had no idea who was responsible until you killed him right in front of me!” Val exploded. “Hell, even then I didn’t want to believe it!”

  A sigh quavered over the line. “Oh, that’s really a shame. We intended to kill Dominic and his driver and leave them out there in the middle of nowhere, nice and neat. If only you hadn’t showed up.” She sounded genuinely sorry.

  “What do you want?” Maksim asked.

  “I can’t have you running to Dominic’s allies. If I’m being honest, your clever friend will probably need to go, as well. The girl, though? She’s harmless. I may consider releasing her if you turn yourselves in to me. I have a soft spot for young women. We don’t have it easy in this world.”

  “You want us to turn ourselves over so you can kill us?” Val asked incredulously. “Are you fucking insane?”

  “Not at all. I’m trusting in your good character, Valentine. I’m the one who talked Dominic into hiring you in the first place, you know. You hated him for it, of course, and I thought you might consider coming to work for me. I’m obviously the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.” She clucked her tongue regretfully. “I’m at our Portland house. You have one hour to get here, or I’ll have Vito kill your handsome friend.”

  “We need some proof of life,” Val said.

  “I thought you might. Hang on.”

  They heard a rustle and muffled voices. Val tried to differentiate tones, but all he could pick out was one male and one female.

  A moment later, Miguel came on the line. His voice was slurred, like maybe he was talking through a mouth of broken teeth. “They got the jump on me, brother. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you okay?” Maksim asked sharply. “There’s blood all over the bathroom.”

  “Slammed my head into the mirror, s’all. Those guards downstairs are a couple of bruisers. Is Reese there?”

  Val glanced at his friend, who seemed as startled as he was.

  Reese cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I’m here.”

  “This ain’t your fault, man.”

  Reese’s eyes flared. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He just shook his head and walked away. He laced his fingers behind his head and stared out the window with his back to them, but he was listening.

  “Emma?” Maksim asked.

  “She’s fine. She’d take the trio up here with her bare hand
s if she knew how to get out of zip ties.”

  Another rustle.

  “They’re full of spirit, as you can see. I can’t guarantee that for much longer. Be here in one hour. That should be plenty of time to get through traffic.”

  “We need two hours,” Maksim said quickly. “We’ve been taking public transportation.”

  “What happened to that beautiful truck?”

  “The radiator took a bullet. It barely made it back to the city.”

  Val held his breath at the long silence on the other end of the line.

  “Very well,” Mary sighed. “I don’t suppose it makes any difference. You poor boys have nowhere to turn. We all know what will happen if you contact the police. Over the years, Dominic turned disappearing bodies into a work of art. Two hours.”

  She disconnected the call.

  Maksim took a deep breath. “What do you want to do?”

  Reese turned to look at him from his place by the window.

  Val cracked his neck. “We go in.”

  “Miguel was clever as hell, feeding us numbers like that,” Reese remarked grimly. He looked nothing like the laughing, devil-may-care leader Val knew from the Corps, but it only took one look into his eyes to see he was fully invested. He felt responsible.

  Well, that made two of them.

  “A couple guards downstairs, and then a trio keeping an eye on them. So, five total,” Val said.

  “That he knows of,” Maksim interjected, ever practical.

  “It’s all we’ve got to go on. We’ve had much worse odds.”

  “Talk to me about layout,” Reese said. “Can we get you up high? Anywhere you can pick them off?”

  Val closed his eyes and visualized the Russo mansion. He remembered a dark tile roof and decorative gables. He saw the artistically overgrown shrubbery that would make decent cover during a night op, but it did them zero good during the daylight. The house had seemed only one level removed from the Winchester Mystery House.