Confidently, I whisper again, “Stop wasting our time, Nikolai. Take this anger out on the person responsible for their deaths. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? That’s why we’re together right now.” I lift my hands like he has done many times with me and hold his cheeks firmly between my palms. My eyes are piercing, and my words are determined. “Together, we’re going to get the bastard who murdered our families.”
He looks deeply into me. The intensity reaches the darkest caverns of my soul and wakes them from the decade long sleep. We met through blood, yet we connect through our pain.
I fall willingly into his vast, icy pools, the agony and loathing bleeding from his broken eyes. He reaches for my hand, threading our fingers together against his face.
His voice is low and gruff when he confirms assertively, “Together?”
I lean my head down, brushing our foreheads together. The closer I get to him, the more intoxicated I become. I fall completely in.
My inner demons are awakened. I don’t suppress them. I allow his scent to feed them. I can’t be the person society expects of me, not when I’m searching for my father’s killer, not when I’m with him. I need to be the person who has been living dormant.
My body is drenched in everything that is Nikolai Petrov when I whisper, “Together.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nikolai
August 11, 2015 1:40 a.m.
The city lights disappear behind the hills as we travel out of Blythe Harbor. I look out the windshield, hypnotized by the white lines etched on the road of the interstate. The sheen of moisture glistens off the wet pavement shining off the asphalt. The air is left cool and damp from the early morning shower. The sky is black, not a single star shining in the vast abyss. In many ways, my inner core mirrors the sight in front of me: dark, bleak, empty.
I have nothing left inside of this wretched soul of mine. Nothing. Perhaps I never have. My brother and his family were the last piece of solace I had left.
When I looked at those pictures, the small fraction of peace left inside me extinguished like a candle in an open window. The dancing smoke and smell of ash is all I possess within me now. The glimmer of light my family kept ablaze blew out, leaving me with nothing.
My head is swimming with random emotions. Shame for thinking my family was safe from Stravinsky’s grasp after believing he would never learn of their whereabouts. Along with the sorrow that has settled in my chest from knowing of my family’s demise, an emotion I haven’t connected with since I was a young kid.
My brother’s body was left in a bloody, unrecognizable heap on the floor. My biological daughter, given to my brother to raise, had her innocence violated and was marked with the letter V of the Vory V Zakone. The notion of Boris destroying her from the inside sends volts of seething hate down my spine. I held her picture in my hand for several moments, trying to keep a lid on my boiling rage, one of two pictures I had ever seen of her. The first being her photo in the paper when I read about their deaths. She was beautiful, the spitting image of me as I studied the black and white photo. Her eyes were my eyes. It sickens me to think of what those beautiful eyes last saw—Boris’s disgusting face as he ripped her from this earth.
Then I thought about Mary. She was carrying my child when she left with my brother. I chose the Thieves over both of them. It was my brother Roman who took on the responsibility of raising my child as his own. When I helped them escape, I never thought the weight of my decision would bear so much pain on me now. I was certain the risk was worth taking. Roman wanted to get out, Mary wanted to protect her child, and I was dedicated to the fucking man who ordered their murder.
The hate rises to the top of my throat, threatening to burst out of my mouth in a furious rage. I want to scream until my lungs explode and my voice becomes hoarse. It feels impossible, but I swallow the jagged fury down.
Gripping the steering wheel firmly, I can sense how brittle the bones in my hand feel. My skin is taut as my white knuckles toy with piercing through.
I look over at Josslyn, wondering if she sees my inner struggles, but she’s oblivious. She has her feet on the seat, her knees tucked up to her chest as she holds them tightly to her body. The only time she has spoken was to provide me directions out of the city that would put us on the fastest route to San Francisco.
She is the leverage I need to get to Stravinsky.
I know Stravinsky. I have witnessed his reactions in situations that could jeopardize his freedom. He’ll stop at nothing to keep himself out of prison. When he finds out Josslyn is the sole witness to a crime that could put him away for the rest of his life, he’ll bend over backward to make sure she’s dead. Stravinsky is curious and sadistic, though. He’s not as sick as Boris, but he’ll definitely want to get his hands dirty; he’ll want to handle Josslyn himself.
The plan sounds simple, really. I will offer Josslyn to Stravinsky in exchange for my freedom. I will give him this one peace offering for the lives he has already taken and the threat against my own. In order to get her in his clutches, he’ll need to renounce the hit against me, and theoretically, I will walk out alive. However, when the time comes for us to shake on the deal, I will hand Josslyn over to Stravinsky and kill him in the process.
We will probably die, but as long as he goes down first, that’s all that matters. There is a small possibility I can get myself and Josslyn out alive—a very, very small chance—and I will attempt it, yet the odds are against us.
Yet, it could all blow up in our faces. Stravinsky may shoot her in the head and take away the only bargaining tool I have. It’s not how I want things to happen, but it’s a viable scenario. Either way Stravinsky decides to handle the Josslyn situation, I will be in the same room with him. I will stand in front of him, and before the last breath escapes my body, I will watch him take his. This is the mission. In fact, it’s been the only emotion consuming me for the past five years, ever since he tried to have me killed in prison—a merciless rage toward Stravinsky.
The resentment for this man has moved from a slow, rolling boil to an eruption of enmity. I want nothing more than to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze. I want to suck the life out of his eyes until his breaths taper off. Then I will release his throat, only to choke him again and again and again.
My hand aches to have my Bowie knife firmly clutched within it. It twitches with excitement to have the blood of my mentor cover the blade. If his goons kill me in the process, so be it. With my knife soaked in Stravinsky’s blood, I will fulfill my obligation to myself, my family, and Josslyn.
When her name runs through my thoughts, Josslyn must have sensed it. She turns her head, her eyes barely open. She looks exhausted and emotionally spent as her brow furrows. The light from the stereo shines against her flawless skin as she tries to decipher my thoughts. It unnerves me.
I glance back at her and recognize another relentless sensation—vulnerability. More than once, I have let my hidden feelings become exposed to the woman sitting next to me. She has seen me unravel as I become unsteady with rage, yet she has never let me fall. She held on and brought me back from my emotional abyss. She has the ability to truly see what’s living deep inside. When it comes to her, I have this amazing weakness to open the door and let her inside. My darkest secrets are exposed to her, and I don’t know if I can blind her from them. The thought is disconcerting to say the least.
.*.*.*.
August 11, 2015 6:00 a.m.
After nearly five hours of driving, my eyelids feel as if they are lined with lead. I don’t remember the last time I actually fell asleep. It’s probably been since my time spent in Seattle when I was preparing for my trip to Blythe Harbor, and that was days ago.
We make it out of the city limits before I spot a small motel just outside Eugene, Oregon. I drive the Challenger onto the exit ramp. Josslyn, who has been almost mute the entire trip, jolts up in her seat in a panic. She looks over at me as I pull in front of the motel office.
�
��What are we doing? I thought we had to go to San Francisco.”
“San Francisco is almost a sixteen hour trip from Blythe Harbor, and I need to sleep.” I look down at my dirty, blood-covered clothes. My feet are still shoeless, black from the mud, and sore from everything else. “I also could use a shower.”
“I can drive if you want to sleep.”
I only smirk. That’s not happening.
Rolling her eyes, she says, “Okay, then go and get us a room.”
Motioning to my current state of dress, I try to contain my annoyance. “Look at me, Josslyn. I can’t walk in there covered in this.” I pick up the side of my shirt and continue, “If the clerk’s smart, he’ll suspect something is up, and we can’t afford that.”
“Well, I don’t have my wallet. You need identification and a credit card to rent a room, so now what?” She rolls her eyes, defiant as always. Nothing pisses me off more than someone who refuses to see the bigger picture.
I lean back and get my briefcase from the back seat. Opening it up, I pull out the wallet that holds my Vincent Black life. Credit cards, driver’s license, and cash are all there for her to rent us a room. However, I want to see how she’ll do in a situation like this. I have everything we need to rent a room, but I want to know if she can think on her feet and persuade the clerk to give us a room, no questions asked, only a cash transaction required. If you phrase it in a way the clerk will understand, they will comply.
I pull out two hundred bucks from my briefcase, concealing my wallet inside. “Here.” I push the money into her hand as I point to the door. I can feel my patience barely hanging on. “You have to make it work, Josslyn. Go in there and get us a damn room.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Josslyn
August 11, 2015 6:07 a.m.
I slam the car door shut, creating a much louder noise than expected on this quiet night.
Nikolai frustrates me to a point of insanity. This was his idea, his plan to get the man responsible for killing our family, yet I’m the one doing all the identity exposing work. It’s one excuse after another with him, and it’s really starting to piss me off. If this is how his plan is going to go, then there is no way I’m getting out of this unscathed.
On the car ride here, the visions of blood and the coldness of murder kept my eyes popping open in a terrified fright instead of allowing me to succumb to sleep. Even if I had wanted to, there was no way I could fall asleep. I’m not sure I will ever sleep soundly again.
What Nikolai isn’t saying is why we are going to San Francisco and who we are looking for. I still don’t know the identity of the man responsible for my father’s murder. He’s said nothing. The only thing I do know to be true is I’m riding shotgun with a killer. My lead is his lead.
It’s clear I don’t know what I’m doing. What normal, thinking human would agree to go on the hunt without getting the details? I let my impulsions take over—my bloodlust for my father’s murderer. Still, I agreed to follow him down this dark, dangerous path, and I will follow through with it. All I ask from Nikolai is that I go back to my life before I met him. I want it back.
In all reality, I haven’t been rational or normal since I was a fourteen-year-old girl getting her innocence ripped to shreds. After that, it was a day-to-day struggle for me to fit in at school and be just another teenage girl in the crowd. I bottled up so much anger and rage I didn’t know what to do with all of it.
Once my mother and I relocated to Blythe Harbor, I decided my calling needed to be my dad’s. It was up to me. I had to be the third generation police officer. It was my duty to capture his killer, but after years of trying to unearth the smallest of clues to find the men responsible, I gave up. My mother was ill and dying from cancer, my career demanded more of my time, and I had to take a break from it all. Now Nikolai is handing the murderer over on a blood-covered platter.
I would never be able to live with myself if I didn’t take Nikoali up on the offer. I have to see this through to the end. I need to watch him die just as he watched me die. It’s the only way I can finally move past that night.
My thoughts are soon erased when I pull open the office door to the motel and walk through the small lobby. It’s like I walked out of the present and back into the seventies. From the old, tube television sitting in the corner to the orange and olive green furniture sitting in a circle in front of it, every bit of it is something from that decade.
How does one approach getting a hotel room without handing over formal identification? Criminals always find a way, so I suppose it’s time for me to think like one. For a moment, I think I could slam the clerk’s head on the counter and threaten them within an inch of their life, but that would probably draw too much attention or harm someone. Then I think about flashing the clerk my badge, telling them it’s official police business, but that won’t work because my identity is on the other side of the leather wallet-like case. Consequently, I guess plan C will have to be it—act like a mindless bimbo and pretend I don’t have the first clue what I’m doing. Let’s hope the clerk is receptive to that.
The clerk walks through the beaded curtain covering a doorway and smiles at me eerily. Oh, shit. My creep radar skyrockets when the corners of his mouth practically reach his eyes.
The experience on the police force has put me on alert for men who seem to have an alternate agenda. Currently, it’s written all over his viciously smug expression. In all actuality, I assumed I would see a little, old man emerge from behind the beaded curtain, someone who has been running this motel since it opened. Instead, I get the creep standing before me.
I clear my throat and roll my shoulders back, my natural, authoritative stance; however, it makes his smile gleam. Okay, so the bimbo act will work, but I need to sex it up more.
When the man turns around to grab a pen off the back table, I take the opportunity to unzip my hoodie slightly. My breasts peeking out of my tank top are full enough to entice him … hopefully.
“How can I help you, miss?” His voice matches his smarmy smile.
By sheer willpower, I smile back at him, attempting to hide my repulsion.
“I need a room, please,” I reply in a ditzy tone.
“Sure, I can help you with that.” His dark brown hair is combed over in an attempt to cover the massive bald spot on the top of his head, but it’s his wicked eyes and yellowish teeth that make me cringe. “How many nights do you need, because check out time is noon, and that’s in less than six hours?”
I panic for a moment. We never discussed how long we would stay. I assume not more than a day. Whatever, it’s not my money; it’s Nikolai’s.
I make a guess and say, “Two nights, then, I guess.”
“Perfect, Miss …?”
Oh, shit! What am I supposed to tell him? I can’t afford to give out my real name, but my mind is blank. The heat in my cheeks is rising up, and I can’t think. Why the fuck did I agree to do this? Nikolai is the obvious skilled liar, not me.
The inner sweat factory turns on underneath my skin, and I can feel it slicking my brow. I need to think of a name quickly. I look out the window behind him and see the nothing but the night.
“Miss? Your na—”
“Knight!” I interject, making his shoulders jump. “Amelia Knight.”
He crinkles his brow as if he is questioning my answer.
Leaning slightly forward, I give him a better glimpse of my tits. Then I gently bite down on my bottom lip, hoping like hell I’m channeling the inner sex kitten I’ve never had to use before.
I really can’t believe I’m doing this. I despise the empty-headed stigma that comes with being a blonde, yet here I’m, working the stereotype with everything I have.
The clerk’s face eases into the smug look he had seconds ago, and I pick up a fallen strand of hair and twirl it around my finger. This man is clearly an asshole who obviously has too much time on his hands. He probably needs female companionship, but I’ll be damned if it comes from me. Sti
ll, I push forward with my plan to secure a room.
“And what’s your name, sir?” I ask as I place my hands on the counter and beam a dazzling smile, cringing on the inside.
His smile radiates even more, and he pushes his hands closer to mine. They are smaller than I expected with short, stumpy fingers and practically no nails, which tells me he likes to chew on them—a disgusting habit as far as I’m concerned. When he places his palm on top of my hand, it’s all I can do to keep from breaking his nose.
“My name is Gary.” His sweaty hand squeezes mine, sending chills down my spine. “I have the perfect room for you. It’s quiet and located at the corner of the building, away from the other guests. Will that be good?”
“Sounds amazing, Gary.” I clench my fists under his hand, keeping my rage capped. “How much do I owe you?”
“Two nights would normally be one hundred and twenty dollars, but I will let you have it for one hundred. How does that sound?”
“Perfect.”
The vomit rises in my throat as he leans in closer. I need to escape. He is invading my bubble, and I will come out swinging or puking. Either way, it will be a disastrous outcome for Gary.
The clerk turns for a moment to get the key off the wall, letting go of my hand. I jerk my hands off the counter and put the money on top.
“Room twenty is at the end of the building and very, very quiet if you know what I mean.” He winks, but I dismiss it. I ignore it all because I need to get the hell out of this room.
Grabbing the key from his hand, I make a break for the door and walk toward the exit. “Thanks, Gary!” I shout, hustling back to the car.
Away with You (The Revenge Series Book 2) Page 13
