Russo Saga Collection

by Nicolina Martin

  Doctor? “Why?” I try to lift my head, but immediately regret it as an arrow of pain stabs right through it. “What happened?” I ask as I clutch my forehead.

  “You are… ehm, were drugged.” She struggles to find the words. “You almost robbed, but a hotel… recepcionista reacted and called la seguridad. You were taken here to rest, you need to sleep to be good. Hurt?” She gestures to her own head.

  Drugged! I’m more offended than anything else. “Yes.” She stands. I grab her arm. “Nurse, my things, are they…”

  “They are safe. Policia arrested him. He took nothing. You were lucky.”

  I fall back onto the pillow with a groan and squeeze my eyes shut. ‘Lucky’. I’m also an idiot. I remember his hands on me and nausea rises. Lucky doesn’t cover it, I realize with a shudder.

  The friendly nurse clears her throat. “They want to speak with you, Señora. They have been waiting.”

  My eyes fly open. I must have slept again. “Who?” But she doesn’t have to answer. Behind her I see two young men in impeccable gray uniforms. I nod and attempt a smile. “Of course.”

  It’s early evening when I’m finally cleared to leave the clinic. I’m furious with myself. I have missed the whole afternoon because I’m naive and plain stupid. “How do we go about the paperwork? I have insurance,” I say to a new nurse that took over a little while ago.

  “Oh, no worries, Señora, the hotel has taken care of everything. They have also arranged and paid for a transport for you.”

  “Oh, okay. Thank you for everything. So… I’m cleared? Do I have anything here? Passport? Wallet?”

  “Everything is at hotel for you.”

  I get up and am satisfied to notice I’m not dizzy anymore. I give the nurse a hug. She stiffens, pats my back awkwardly and begins to usher me out. The taxi driver doesn’t speak a word of English and the nurse gives him instructions.

  “Buenas tardes,” I say. “Es una hermosa noche.” It is a lovely evening, but I’m mostly being polite. I’m too tired to take much notice.

  He looks surprised and then his face splits into a big smile. The driver talks and talks and I answer the best I can. I look at the city while block after block passes by, gradually waking up from my lethargic state. It’s picturesque, beautiful, with warm colors on the facades, merchants, street musicians, people singing and dancing at little makeshift bars, the ones not meant for tourists. I smell delicious cooking and my stomach growls, making me realize I haven’t eaten since on the plane.

  The sun is setting on the horizon when we pull up outside the hotel entrance. The driver smiles at me, I smile back and thank him. “Adios. Gracias.”

  “De nada. Buenas noches, Señorita.” Then he pulls back out on the street and leaves.

  In the lobby I’m immediately surrounded by front desk staff.

  “How are you, ma’am? We are so sorry. This should not have happened. Let us help you to your room. We have dinner for you and let us know if there is anything you need.”

  I find all my belongings perfectly in place. My room has been cleaned and there are no signs of the assault.

  “Everything to your satisfaction?” The man who escorted me all but wrings his hands.

  “Who saw me? Who saw that something was wrong?”

  “One of our staff at reception. Maria.”

  “Is she here? Can I speak to her?”

  “She has left for today. She will be here tomorrow morning. If you want, I can let her know then?”

  “Yes, please. And dinner? Is that in the restaurant?”

  “If you want, but it is crowded now, and we thought you might want to sit on your patio? In peace. We can bring anything you want.”

  Neat. “I’ll go with that. It sounds great.”

  He smiles. “Let us take care of you. It was a frightening incident for both you and us.”

  “Oh yes.” I nod.

  He closes the door and I fall on my back on the bed. Tomorrow is a new day. I’ll leave this behind me as a valuable lesson and look forward instead. I’m not scared. I’m angry. But I don’t want negative emotions to ruin my few days here. I’m happy the police took him.

  I’m jerked out of my thoughts by a rap on the door. Outside stands the same man with a trolley filled with food. I step to the side and he puts a tray on the table on the patio, also producing a bottle of white wine and a glass.

  “I hope it will be to your satisfaction. Call for us if there is anything else you need, ma’am.” He performs a little bow and disappears before I can even thank him.

  I find an assortment of ham, olives, vegetables, fish, and fruit. I pour some wine and dive in, trying not to wolf it down. When I’m comfortably full I sit with the book, that somehow also found its way back to my room. I mean to catch the last rays of sun but get restless. I have been on my butt or my back basically the whole day. Instead, I jump up and grab my iPhone and earbuds, then I pull the doors shut and lock them carefully. With upbeat Mozart in my ears I start walking barefoot along the beach. It’s getting dusky. The sky and the ocean are competing with each other in hues of flaming orange, making my skin glow. With the hotel still in view I sit on the beach, burying my toes into the still warm, fine-grain, white sand. I wistfully think of Nathan Russo. It would have been nice to see him again. Or… nice doesn’t quite cover it. My body tingles at the memory and something in my chest aches. Whatever it was, it was interrupted too early and I clearly haven’t gotten him out of my system. It’s been a weird start to my holiday, to say the least, and I promise myself that the rest of this trip will be calm and uneventful. I’ll look at the monuments from the colonial era, find a guided bus tour, eat great food, have some wine, read books, and relax.

  Pushing Nathan out of my mind I rise, brush the sand off my pants, and turn back to the resort.

  Nathan

  It’s early morning. I’m tired as fuck. I barely slept. I was a total mess yesterday, and if I don’t get back to myself, I’ll be doing a shit poor job here.

  Kicking the high-tech espresso machine into action, I make a cup of coffee and sit down at the kitchen table, then I make today’s first phone call.

  “Yeah,” the man at the other end answers.

  “Shakes, what’ve you got for me?” I can almost hear him sit up straighter. Shakes is a man I’ve worked with on and off over the years. He’s young, but experienced. He grew up in Romania, post Ceausescu, and got involved in gang related crime at an early age. It’s a nearly lawless land there. He turned out to have a knack for it and worked his way up. Now he’s freelancing. He’s a quirky guy, never serious about anything, seemingly, but he does his part of the job with a machine’s efficiency. Behind his goofy facade he hides some serious brains.

  When he speaks there is a smatter of words, delivered with an indefinable accent. “I need you to come to the west side, to a warehouse,” he says. “It’s where we’ll meet up. We’ve prepared everything and will be hitting them one by one tonight. The equipment these guys have, Russo… It looks like we’re going to war. I almost came in my pants, seeing it.”

  “We are,” I say and snort. “The targets will be heavily armed. A shit ton of security.”

  “Yeah. I guess that’s why we’ll blow up the houses.”

  We’re actually not blowing anything up. Shakes tends to be overly dramatic. I look at my watch. I have two hours. “We shouldn’t take this further on the phone, Shakes. The line is secured, but it doesn’t matter.” I’ll have time for a shower, breakfast out at some cafe, and still get there well in time. Time enough to scope out the surroundings before I enter the premises.

  “True, I’m stupid,” he says. I can picture him slapping his forehead.

  I roll my eyes, not commenting on that statement. “Leave the address with my driver. Have someone physically deliver it to him in one hour at the latest.”

  “Consider it done,” he says.

  I hang up, take a large swallow of coffee, draining the cup, then I head for the bathroom. It�
��s decorated in much warmer colors than the rest of the apartment. The tiles on the floor and walls are dyed in nuances of brown with streaks of gold in it, bordering tacky. I let the shower run for a while as I shed my jeans. I can’t help thinking of the woman on the plane. Sydney Lewis. I’ve tried to keep her off my mind since last night, but standing here naked, about to take a shower, I’m unable to think about anything else. I want her in that shower, her skin slick and warm, whimpering as I take her from behind, braced against the wall, my hands kneading her breasts. Oh, for fuck’s sake, my cock goes rock hard in a second. I don’t fucking do this when I’m on a job, but I’ve got to jerk off. I step under the hot stream as I stroke my hard length. Images of her rush through my mind: her lips on me, my hands in her beautiful hair, my cock buried deep inside her, the mad rush of heat in that restroom on the plane, and I come so hard I gasp.

  Fuck.

  I skip the towel when I’m done. I’ll dry within minutes anyway in the rising heat. I make a second cup of coffee, have a few swallows and then go put on my suit.

  It’s time.

  Chapter 9

  Nathan

  The driver waits outside the house. I toss my bag next to me on the seat and close my eyes as the car speeds off. I know the documents by heart. I have a photographic memory. It helps a lot. I know every name of every person we’re about to hit, every house layout, street names and numbers, escape routes, the mapped-out time schedule.

  It’s also my downfall since I, in addition to that, see Miss Lewis before me as clear as if she was sitting on my lap.

  We stop at a large nondescript building by the docks. There’s a large rusty iron slide-door at the front. Sized for trucks. Next to it is a human-sized entrance. I glance around me. Further off there are people loading up ships with containers. There’s only one way in and out. That’s both good and bad. No windows, and I see no surveillance. I gotta do something about the latter. I take a lap around the place. It’s surrounded with barbed wire on the other three sides. No vehicles. The fence is undamaged. Good enough.

  Five heads look up as I step inside.

  I step up to Eric, grabbing his hand in a firm shake.

  “Good to see you.” He grabs my shoulder and then gives it a pat. “Life treating you well?”

  I shrug. “Talk to Salvatore lately?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “I’m off to see him after this. Some shit was brewing. You should go see him yourself.”

  Eric Reed, one of uncle Salvatore’s closest men. He’s still indebted, we all are one way or the other, but he has relatively free rein to come and go. He’s cruel, cunning, and can be charming as Hell, and I’m always conflicted about being on a job with him. He has no conscience that I’ve ever discovered. He killed his own dad when he was fifteen. I’m not sure what to think about that.

  “I’m good. If he calls, he calls.” I drop my bag on a chair and look around me.

  In the back there’s a large table with piles of equipment. An assortment of weapons, knives, protective gear, goggles, grenades, communication devices.

  I take in our crew. Philipe, borrowed from our Colombian friends, short curly hair, a scarred face, black eyes. He looks up and cocks his head, acknowledging my presence. Dean and Alexei stand bent over some documents, each other’s opposite, tall blond Dean with his big beard, and short broad Alexei, our Russian contact. They seem oblivious to anything or anyone around them.

  Shakes comes up beside me, dressed in his usual attire: black jeans, boots, leather duster, black T-shirt and a paisley patterned bandana wrapped around his neck. He looks like he’s melting. Vanity has its price.

  “Russo, my man.”

  I slap my hand in his. “How’s life treating you, Shakes?”

  “Oh, you know. I just roll with it. Just came back from a major fuck-up in Rio. Barely got out.” His black eyes glitter as he holds up his hands, showing just how major.

  I laugh, turn back to the piles and begin sorting out gear. Shakes peeks over my shoulder and point out the pros and cons with this and that. I know what I’m doing, but I let him think he’s useful. He’s done his part and will soon be leaving for God knows where. A thought strikes me, and I drop what I’m doing. It’s not clever, in fact it’s dangerous and absolutely fucking braindead, but I have an itch I need to scratch. I need it so bad I can barely focus, and I suddenly realize that to be actually able to get my mind straight I have to sort this out.

  “Shakes.”

  “Mmyeah?” He’s half-sitting on the table, lighting a cigarette with a match before he kills the flame with a flick of his wrist and tosses the match on the floor. Inhaling deeply, he then blows out a thick cloud of sweetly scented smoke.

  I throw an arm around his shoulders and lead him out of hearing distance from the others. “I’ve got a job for you. For me. It’s… personal.”

  He perks up. “I’m all ears, mate.”

  “I need you to find someone for me. Sydney Lewis. Tourist. Some resort in La Romana.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Absolutely none of your fucking business.”

  “Right,” he says. “Gimme half an hour.” He winks, moves the cig to the other corner of his mouth, pulls out his phone and walks toward the exit. “I’ll give you a call,” he shouts at me, and then he disappears.

  We clear the table and fill it with papers and laptops, walking through tonight’s activities. In the middle of it all my phone buzzes. I look at the screen. “Sorry, gotta take this.” Then I pick up. “What’ve you got for me?”

  “Got the name of the resort, room number, her favorite shoe brand and how her shampoo smells.”

  “What the fuck? You creep.”

  He laughs. “Dreams Dominicus. La Romana. She checked in yesterday and has paid for four nights. Got her phone number too if you want it.”

  “Send the info over in a text, all of it. Good job. Have a nice flight out. See you around.”

  “Yep. Break a leg.”

  “Prefer not to.”

  He laughs and ends the call. I turn back to the others and get a couple of irritated glances. Eric narrows his eyes and regards me a little longer. Sometimes I just can’t shake the feeling he sees right through people. Well, I can’t blame them. I’m distracted, and it’s showing.

  Sydney

  I wake early and feel invigorated. I’ve had a good night’s sleep. Sitting up, a slight shudder rips through me as I stare at the spot where I sat when he, James, put his hands on me. I wonder for a second if changing rooms will help, but then I get angry instead. He’s not gonna dictate what I do. Fuck him! I brush off the fine-grain sand I’ve managed to fill my sheet with and head for a shower.

  At reception, a tired but friendly night porter tells me that the day staff will be here in half an hour. It sounds reasonable. I ask if there’s breakfast, but that’s also in half an hour. There’s coffee, though.

  With a mug in my hand filled to the brim with steaming black content I go and sit on the large patio outside the restaurant. There’s a light breeze and the sun hasn’t heated the air yet. I can smell the sea. Almost taste it. Salty, a little hint of rotten seaweed.

  Ten past seven I head back to reception and ask for Maria.

  “That’s me,” says the young woman in front of me. She’s a petite, dark haired beauty, young and demure. Her long hair is tied into a neat ponytail that falls on her back and she wears no makeup. She’s astonishing.

  “Can we sit for a minute?” I nod at the white leather couches at the other end of the foyer.

  She glances around us. “I’m not really allowed—” Wiping her palms on the dress, she comes to a decision. “—but yes, of course.”

  “I want to thank you, Maria, for being so quick and reacting to my situation. You saved me and I can never show you enough how much that means to me.”

  “I was only doing my job, ma’am.”

  “No. Oh, no. Your quick thinking was way beyond that. I want you to have this. And I won’t take no for an
answer.” I hand her an envelope that contains one hundred dollars. “Open it at home. Keep it.”

  She looks aghast. “Ma’am—I’m not allowed to.”

  I don’t want her to get in trouble and risk her employment, so I try another angle. “Then I’ll check out, so that I’m not a guest anymore, and give it to you after you’ve finished your shift.”

  “Don’t do that! I can’t let you—”

  “Then pocket it. No one will know. And again, thank you.” I stand, and she immediately follows. Glancing at the still empty lobby she sneaks the envelope into a pocket. We shake hands, I put my other hand over hers and hold her a few moments extra, then I let go, and that’s that.

  After breakfast, I flip through brochures about the caves and a village to visit afterwards, including dinner. A package deal. There will be a bus leaving at two p.m. and the cost is reasonable. That’s going to be my adventure today. No more, no less.

  I avoid the worst of the splatter by the pool and find a seat at a safe distance from the mayhem. Putting buds in my ears, I drown out the cacophony and fill my head with music. With the sun, my third cup of coffee for the day, and the glittering ocean, I find life rather agreeable after all. I was off to a tumultuous start, but it’s finally shaping up nicely.

  The sun is suddenly shaded, and I look up at the silhouette of a man. My heart leaps to my throat in an instant. I do not like people sneaking up on me. If everyone could just stop doing that!

  “Miss Lewis?” he asks.

  “Yes?” I squint against the bright sky. He’s local by the looks of it, short, in his fifties or early sixties, dressed in a black suit, complete with a tie and shiny shoes. He must be burning up in the relentless sun, but he doesn’t look it. I narrow my eyes. Who’s this? How does he know my name?

  “I have been instructed to ask you to come with me.” He stands like he’s on guard duty, his hands behind his back.

  Oh, hell no. “To where? Who told you that?”