Hour of Darkness

by Lara Adrian

  The weapon trained on him lowered immediately and the third man moved to her side, adding his bulk to the human shield surrounding her. Without another word, she and her guards were moving hastily away from the pool. Cain watched her go, standing in the waist-high water along with the corpse that might have been her if he’d allowed fate to have its way.

  And the question that had intrigued him from high atop his penthouse terrace only deepened now.

  Who the hell was she?

  The woman glanced back at him only for a moment, a silent connection of their gazes that shot through Cain like a physical caress. He saw the curiosity in her eyes too. And the flicker of awareness that made the memory of her bare, wet skin against his burn even more intensely.

  She blinked once, then turned around and hurried into the shelter of the hotel surrounded by her bodyguards.

  CHAPTER 2

  Marina Moretskova accepted the glass of cold water from the captain of her security detail with a faint nod and only a slight tremble in her fingers. “Thank you, Yury.”

  It had been more than an hour since the attempt on her life in the pool, but the grim soldier’s face was still drawn with concern. Deep lines bracketed his mouth and creased his brow, a look mirrored by the other bodyguards her uncle in Russia had sent to accompany her on her trip to the States.

  It seemed strange that Kirill wasn’t standing there with the other three. Just a few hours ago he had been cracking jokes with Ivan and Viktor, and now his lifeless body was on its way to the local morgue. Tonight they had lost one of their own, but the remaining men charged with keeping Marina safe had taken their comrade’s death in stride, her life being their sole priority.

  Uncle Anatoly would have it no other way.

  Especially on this trip.

  Yury stepped away from Marina’s seat on the delicate chair in the presidential suite’s living room, but he didn’t go far. With his large hands clasped in front of him, the big man took a protective position at her right while Marina continued her conversation with the pair of law enforcement officers who’d been dispatched to the hotel to interview her shortly after the attack.

  “Forgive us for taking up so much of your time tonight, Ms. Moretskova. After what you’ve been through, answering all of these questions can’t be easy. But before we wrap up here, can you think of anything else that might assist with our investigation?”

  Marina took a sip of her water and slowly shook her head. “What more can I tell you? I was simply enjoying a relaxing swim in the pool when suddenly everything turned to chaos.”

  The two uniformed officers from the Joint Urban Security Taskforce Initiative Squad—one human, one Breed—exchanged a look from where they sat across from her on the silk-covered sofa. The older of the two, the human, scratched his whisker-shadowed jaw. He had been asking the most questions since they arrived, but now it was the ginger-haired Breed officer who leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees as he addressed her.

  “I think what my partner, Officer Powell, is trying to say is, do you have any reason to believe this wasn’t a random shooting?”

  Although he posed the inquiry in a casual tone, only a fool would mistake it as such. And Marina Moretskova was no fool. Nor were her uncle’s men. She felt Yury’s tension ratchet beside her. He and his two comrades stood still as statues in their positions around the room. Marina kept her expression mild as she held the Breed JUSTIS agent’s probing stare.

  “I have no reason to believe anything of the kind.” She tilted her head. “Do you, Officer Jonas?”

  “We’ll know more as we investigate further,” he said, neither confirming nor denying.

  The officers had informed her that no evidence of the sniper had been found from their search of the hotel rooftop, but that hardly gave Marina reassurance. Someone wanted her dead. Failure and escape tonight only left the shooter free to try again.

  And while Marina mourned the loss of a man who had served her family faithfully for years, she owed her life not to her uncle’s hand-picked team of bodyguards, but to a stranger who had appeared out of thin air to pull her to safety.

  The whole incident was a confusing blur, but she would swear her unlikely savior had her in his arms even before the sniper had fired his weapon.

  “You have our word JUSTIS will do everything in our power to get to the bottom of this,” the officer continued. “We’ve got a decent start between our interview with you and the other witness to the shooting, your neighbor in the penthouse down the hall.”

  “He’s staying in the penthouse?”

  The question blurted out of her before she could hold it back. She didn’t intend to sound so curious about the man who had leapt into the pool and saved her life, but he hadn’t been far from her thoughts for a moment since the attack. Those piercing, laser-intense silver eyes beneath inky brows and close-shorn ebony hair were branded into her memory.

  And it hadn’t escaped her notice that her rescuer was more than simply a man. A Breed male. Sharp fangs had gleamed diamond-bright behind a sculpted, generous mouth. She’d never been so close to one of his kind, let alone held in powerful, inhuman arms.

  She could still hear the stranger’s deep growl of a voice echoing in her veins.

  Are you okay?

  She was, but only thanks to him.

  Like a dark angel, he’d swooped down out of the night sky in silence. She had been terrified at first when those dermaglyph-covered arms had wrapped around her like warm bands of iron, caging her against an immense body carved of solid muscle. Then she heard the shot.

  Unmistakable, sharp.

  Lethal.

  And despite what she told JUSTIS, Marina knew to her marrow that the bullet clearly had been meant for her. Instead, it was Kirill’s corpse that had been removed from the water, dead from a single gunshot wound to the head.

  The older JUSTIS officer studied her, his eyes glancing off the tangle of tattoos that wrapped around her biceps and down onto her forearms. The vines and roses continued around to her back and twisted along the length of her legs. She knew he wanted to ask about the delicate body art, just as he’d not-so-subtly eyed the black Vory stars on the backs of Yury’s and her other bodyguards’ hands when the officers had first arrived.

  Marina waited out the silence, until finally the man cleared his throat.

  “This Breed male who pulled you to safety,” Powell prompted. “You say you never met him before tonight?”

  “That’s right. I’d never seen him before. I don’t even know his name.”

  “It’s Cain,” said the Breed officer. “Cain Hunter, according to the Nevada ID he’s got on file with the hotel. We ran a quick background on him, just a routine thing. He’s been here in Miami for about a week, but until a couple of months ago, he was working security for one of the big casinos in Las Vegas.”

  “Speaking of IDs,” said the other man. “Ms. Moretskova, we couldn’t help but notice you hold dual citizenship. Russia and the United States.”

  “That’s right.” She blinked mildly and took another sip of her water. “I was born in New York. My mother was Russian. She studied in the States and played the cello with the city symphony before she became pregnant with me. We returned home to her family soon after I was born.”

  “You and your mom still spend a lot of time in this country?”

  Marina held the expectant stare. “This is my first time here. My mother never returned, as far as I know. She died when I was three years old.”

  “Ah, I’m sorry.” The officer’s brow furrowed in sympathetic regard. “That must’ve been rough on you . . . and your father?”

  He phrased it like the probing question it was, though whether he was seeking confirmation of something he already knew or probing for further detail, she wasn’t sure. “I never met my father. From what I understand, my mother never told him about her pregnancy and she never spoke of him to anyone.”

  “Not even to your uncle?” asked Officer
Jonas, his Breed gaze pinning her like lasers.

  Marina stiffened. At her side, Yury practically vibrated with violence, as did the rest of his comrades. “Excuse me?”

  “Are you any relation to Anatoly Moretskov?”

  Her heartbeat sped, even as she rationalized that it should hardly come as a shock that her uncle would be on international law enforcement’s radar. The fact that he was only made her business in the States all the more urgent.

  She schooled her expression into one of bland indifference. “It seems to me that you already know the answer to that question, Officer Jonas. Are you here to ask about the shooting or my personal life?”

  The older JUSTIS man cleared his throat. “To be perfectly frank, Miss Moretskova, we’re trying to assess if the two might be connected.”

  “I’m not sure I follow your meaning.”

  “You strike us as an intelligent young lady, so I’m sure we don’t need to dissect your uncle’s reputation. Anatoly Moretskov has ties to organized crime going back decades. He’s got some very dangerous friends. Probably more than a fair number of enemies too.”

  No, Marina didn’t need any reminders. She was well aware that her uncle made his living managing the financial interests of criminal oligarchs and corrupt politicians. Her uncle had laundered countless billions of dollars over the years, including a sizable fortune for Boris Karamenko, one of the most ruthless mafia bosses in Russia. Uncle Anatoly was no saint, but he had been the closest thing to a father Marina had ever known from the time she was an orphaned toddler. Good or bad, he was all the family she had and she loved him with all her heart.

  If these JUSTIS men thought she would betray any of her uncle’s secrets to them, or confirm anything they purported to know about him or his business dealings, they were deeply mistaken.

  “Personally, I find that reputations are often grossly exaggerated, if not outright lies,” she said, keeping her expression schooled, her voice level. “My uncle Anatoly has managed a small bank in Saint Petersburg for thirty years. Perhaps if you have specific questions about his work you should ask him yourselves.”

  The Breed officer leaned back. “Maybe we will.”

  As he spoke, his phone buzzed and he immediately brought it to his ear. While he listened to the information being relayed to him, Marina caught Yury’s sidelong glance. The guard was tense for a fight, a low snarl building in his barrel chest.

  She gave him the faintest quelling look, a silent command he knew better than to defy. All of these questions from law enforcement were troublesome enough. It would serve no purpose, least of all her uncle’s, to allow the interview with the JUSTIS investigators to escalate toward a confrontation.

  She needed time to think, to regroup and decide how best to proceed now that it seemed obvious that someone was aware that she was in the States. Someone who very likely still had her in the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle.

  But who?

  Her uncle had many enemies; that much was true. The list was long, but there were few who would dare invite his wrath by harming her. And that list shrank even more when it came to the number of people who were aware she had left Russia two days ago.

  And absolutely no one, not even her bodyguards, knew the true purpose for her trip.

  No one but Uncle Anatoly and her.

  Lifting her glass of water to her lips, Marina took a drink and held the JUSTIS officer’s studying gaze as he grunted an affirmative to the person on the other end of the line. He slipped the device back into his pocket.

  “We’re needed on another investigation downtown, so that will be all for now, Ms. Moretskova.” The two officers stood. “If you’d be more comfortable, I’m sure we could arrange for a unit to keep an eye on you for the duration of your . . . vacation, is it?”

  She smiled. “Yes. I’m here on a brief holiday, as I mentioned.” More than once, in fact, and she was certain neither of the officers had been so careless with their documenting of her statement that they needed clarification. “As for your kind offer of added security, thank you, but I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

  Measuring glances slid from Yury to the other guards. “Yes. Well, if you think of anything you’d like to add to your statement, or if there’s anything you think we should know—anything at all—don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

  “Of course,” she replied, having no intention of doing either.

  She walked them to the door. Her breath didn’t leave her lungs until the panel was shut and locked at their backs.

  “I thought they would never leave,” Ivan muttered, crossing tattooed arms over his broad chest.

  Viktor nodded in agreement. So did Yury, but he sent a reassuring glance at Marina. “You handled them well. Your uncle would be proud. Perhaps one day he’ll crown you boss of the Moretskov banking empire, eh?”

  “Perhaps.” Her smile felt anxious, although not for the reason the men might think.

  She had no designs on her uncle’s dangerous business. Although he strove to keep her insulated from the ugly realities of his work, Marina knew enough. And every day she worried for him more and more.

  For years, she had urged him to leave his dangerous life. She could hardly believe it when he came to her two months ago and told her that he had finally decided to get out, to seek an escape from all of his risky entanglements and retire in exile. Marina had been overjoyed—and determined to do whatever she could to help make it happen. Although her uncle had been reluctant to involve her, in the end he had relented. That alone told her just how desperate he truly was to leave his old life behind.

  No one but Marina knew her uncle’s intentions, not even the team of loyal soldiers pledged to protect her on what they understood to be a private banking matter in the States.

  No one could know her actual purpose, or the truth of all that she carried with her. Uncle Anatoly’s life depended on it.

  Not to mention her own.

  “Trust no one, my darling girl,” he had cautioned her before she left.

  It was a lesson he had drilled into her for as long as she could remember. And so she had arrived yesterday in Miami with his secret held close, waiting to be instructed about a meeting with a powerful contact of Anatoly Moretskov’s from Cuba who, for a price, had agreed to provide safe exile for them.

  “Take this,” Yury said, breaking into her thoughts as he pivoted away from the fully stocked bar. He had poured some chilled vodka into a cut-crystal glass and now held it out to her. “You look like you need something stronger than water.”

  “Thank you.” She accepted with a nod, hoping it would take some of the edge off her jangled nerves. With the drink in hand, she headed for her private bedroom suite, pausing at the door to glance back at her men. “Have the vehicle ready to leave in ten minutes. I’m not going to wait around and give someone the chance to take another shot at me. We’re changing locations.”

  Yury held her in a grave stare, then nodded. “I’ll make the necessary hotel arrangements.”

  “No,” Marina said. “I will make them myself.”

  Entering her quarters, she closed the door behind her then padded into the dressing room to begin collecting her things. Inside the large wardrobe was a personal safe provided by the hotel. It contained a locked aluminum briefcase and a burner satellite phone, both brought with Marina from Russia.

  She picked up the phone and held it for a moment, wishing she could call home to Uncle Anatoly for comfort or advice after the incident tonight. But he had forbidden contact for any reason so long as she was away, not only for her own safety but for that of her mission. The satellite phone was to be reserved incoming calls. More specifically, it was intended for a single use—the call that was to come from Ernesto Fuentes once the meeting time and place with the Cuban crime boss had been secured.

  As much as Marina wanted to take comfort in hearing Uncle Anatoly’s familiar voice offering reassurances, she refused to give in to the weakness. As for the attack at the po
ol, there was nothing to be done now except regroup and move forward. Troubling her uncle with the details would serve no purpose but to make him doubt her ability to see this mission through for him. And she would not fail.

  Marina could hardly fathom the kind of courage it must require for him to decide to risk everything in exchange for his freedom. It would take more than a sniper’s errant bullet to shake her determination to help him finally taste that freedom.

  She took the phone and briefcase out of the safe and set both on the bed, then fetched the small suitcase she brought on the trip. It was packed with just enough clothing and travel supplies to make her short holiday overseas seem believable. Before the JUSTIS officers had arrived, she had changed from her black bikini into a creamy silk tank top and caramel-colored lounge pants.

  Her black bikini was still damp from the pool, but she retrieved it from where it hung in the bathroom and packed it anyway. She should probably toss it in the trash instead. As much as she enjoyed her daily exercise, after tonight she doubted Yury would ever permit another round of laps no matter how stir-crazy she got being cooped up in a hotel room. She had been shocked when the overbearing guard had agreed in the first place.

  Marina was starting to feel a bit of her claustrophobia returning. They needed to clear out as quickly as possible, but right now all she wanted to do was breathe in some fresh air and try to cool the rising heat that was beginning to bloom in her temples. Sipping a bit more of the crisp vodka, she walked across the spacious bedroom to the wall of sliding glass doors that faced the ocean.

  Cautiously, she stepped outside. All she needed was a moment or two, just long enough to clear her buzzing mind and try to purge the painful images of Kirill’s death. She gazed in silent awe at the vast blackness of the night sky and the sparkling, dark water of the Atlantic.