Chapter 6

Viktor

“Please tell me you won’t hurt that woman or her kid,” Alexei begged as he sat down at my booth. A live quartet filled the background with music, but his words drew me away from trying to enjoy it. So did the look on his face.

I sat back, sighing through my nose as I looked at him. It had been a very long thirty-six hours of surveilling Dr. Martinez, and Alexei had participated. He had done adequately, but had been acting oddly ever since. I remembered his protests from when we’d first committed to this plan, and I asked drily, “What happened?”

“I got the puppy from a guy I knew, and took her to that dog park the doctor goes to with the boy, like you suggested—”

“That would be the fluffy, yellow puppy you’ve ended up keeping, yes?” I was a little annoyed and a little amused all at once. It showed in my tone.

“I told him to take the damn dog to the pound, but he wouldn’t,” Tolya cut in quickly, shifting uncomfortably on my other side. His small, dark eyes mixed annoyance with amusement. “He’s already buying dog toys for the little beast.”

“Her name is Mila,” Alexei grumbled, and Tolya stifled a laugh.

“Let’s get back to the subject,” I said in the slow, careful voice I used when they were testing my patience. We could tease Alexei about going mushy over a damn dog when we weren’t in the middle of an important job.

“I talked to her,” Alexei said, refocusing quickly. “The woman’s nice, Viktor. She’s kind. The kid’s great. I get you said we have to take them, but—”

I shook my head. “I have no intention of harming either of them. But they must be taken. It is regrettably necessary. Graves will not emerge from his secure tower for anything less, and I’m not wasting your lives storming that fucking place.”

Alexei nodded, lips pressed together, his eyes troubled. “She can’t know the kind of shit her uncle is into. There’s no way.”

I looked over at him pensively, Tolya shifted again. Then he spoke up. “Boss, when is this going down, and how should we handle it?”

“That is the question. Surveillance is pretty much complete at this point. We have access to her both physically and via her computer. We have her schedule, we have the boy’s schedule, her security habits, and the layout of her home. We have her security system’s codes. When Vanya comes back from his shop, we’ll have the keys as well. I even have their medical records.”

Through the surveillance and our meeting, I had learned many things about the young therapist and the boy she treated as her own son. He was actually her nephew by her deceased sister, the father was unknown. Apparently, she had taken him in as soon as she’d learned about the death and gotten her uncle’s help fast-tracking a legal adoption.

Her life had been steeped in tragedy—first the loss of her parents, then the loss of her sister. Yet Alexei was right, the woman I had met, though hiding nervously behind a professional mask, had a kindness to her. Courage. And certainly, brains and good instincts—she had almost caught me or one of my men surveilling her on multiple occasions.

Not just a pretty face, that one.

I had been attracted to her immediately, on a primal, sexual level that had only intensified when I had looked into her eyes and seen wariness fighting with desire. I could tell when a woman wanted me, even when she was trying like hell not to.

In a better world, I would have scrapped the whole plan, charmed her into a long vacation with me, and then lied to her asshole uncle about a kidnapping that hadn’t even happened. I didn’t want to use her as leverage against anyone. I wanted her in my bed.

But my brother deserved his revenge.

Tolya was saying something. I looked up at him. “Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

“I asked why you got their medical records.”

I smiled faintly. “The least violent way to kidnap them involves drugging them. Making certain we don’t accidentally kill them with a drug interaction or allergy is trickier than you might think. It isn’t like darting an animal for examination.”

Alexei looked relieved. I was a little insulted, he should have trusted me more. But perhaps my behavior had shifted more than I realized, since learning who was responsible for Leon’s death.

I shook off the moment of self-doubt and said sternly, “We will collect them before dawn. Is the room ready?”

Tolya nodded, going serious again. “Yes. It should accommodate them and keep them out of sight while making sure they can’t leave until we let them go.”

“Fine. Call up one of our chemical guys and have them replicate this formula exactly.” I wrote it down on a slip of paper and handed it over. “I want it introduced in a propylene glycol fog. We’ll pipe it into the bedrooms, knock them out, and then collect them.”

“And then you make the call to Graves?”

I nodded. “I’ll use a voice disguiser. But it should definitely be me.” Anatoly towered over almost everyone and was even taller than me, but he was nowhere near as good at intimidation. My guess was, that looking like a brick wall with eyes, really did much of the intimidating for him.

Alexei hesitated. “What happens if Graves won’t cooperate?”

I frowned. “He’ll cooperate. We’ll have the last of his family, and we’ll make it look like he can buy his way out of the situation easily if he just shows up. Rich men always try to solve their problems with money.”

“And you’re sure he cares enough about his niece and great-nephew to follow through?”

I was getting a little tired of Alexei. “This is a man who swept in and took care of her and her sister after they were orphaned, and who would still be doing it if they hadn’t left on their own.

“Even now he has her watched even more closely than we have. When we used our stingray to inject spyware into her phone, I started keeping track of the results on mine. Fifteen minutes after my meeting with her, he was calling her to ask about it.”

Alexei huffed. “You couldn’t find the surveillance team?” He sounded surprised. Usually I was sharper. No one could get the drop on me.

“He can afford to hire the best. I suspect his team uses a mix of electronic and physical surveillance, same as us. Just tapping into her office security cameras would have been enough.” I didn’t care if Graves found out who I was, in the end. The law couldn’t touch me now—and anyway, by the time that Graves figured out his family was in danger, they would already be in my hands.

“We should be prepared to deal with them anyway,” I conceded, and both my lieutenants relaxed a little. “They will definitely be present at the meet. I don’t want us contending with snipers or a tail when we grab him.”

Tolya sniffed. “Then we should get some guys on finding this team and stopping them.”

I turned to Alexei. “I want you on that, you have most of our tech guys. We need that team neutralized before Graves shows up with his bag of money.”

But what if he doesn’t?The question that Alexei had posed echoed in my head suddenly. I pushed the thought away. Graves had to take the bait. His family was going to be on the line—at least as far as he knew. He might be a complete prick, but he’s done too much for his niece for him to not care about her. This will work.

It has to work.

***

Two hours before dawn, Tolya, four of his men and I, pulled up in Dr. Martinez’s neighborhood in a transport van with two stretchers in the back. Two large canvas sacks lay empty on them, ready for their slumbering cargo. With luck, neither of our targets would even wake up until we had them relocated.

I stared over the back fence at her small, cozy house, with a single bathroom light burning and everything else dark and quiet inside. Graves’s team would be watching her too. I quickly texted Alexei.

Is there any remote monitoring of her security cameras?

He responded after a moment.

Yes. We’re running a trace. Once that’s done, we’ll start the local blackout.

Good. Let me know when it’s done.

Once it was, it would stir up Graves’s men, and anyone physically present would come out of hiding to check the house directly. Once they emerged, we could take them down.

Minutes ticked past while we watched and waited. Finally, Alexei got back to me.

We have their location. I’ll send you the address and all the details we can dig up.

Good, we were ready to go. I texted back.

Fine. Go forward with jamming the signals. We’ll deal with whoever pops up.

“Blackout is happening now,” I told the others, pulling my balaclava on in the depths of the van and checking my guns. The others started doing the same. I went back to watching the house through the van window.

About a minute later, I saw movement in the side yard. A tall, lean figure in dark clothes and hoodie slipped out of the shadows and moved toward the house. He took up a position there, watching and waiting for any trouble. “There’s one,” I muttered.

I counted three more moving in, one to each side of the property. I suspected another was still in the trees on the south end of the house, but I couldn’t be sure. If he had watched her this closely for years, no wonder she’s gotten paranoid.

Why so many? Why monitor her so closely as an adult, instead of leaving her to deal with her own life and safety? Was it all about protecting her, or was there something else going on? Was this normal, or had my visit to her practice earlier rattled the old man? Even if he hadn’t taken my brother from me, I’d hate this guy just for pulling this shit. I wondered if he tried to have her chipped like a goddamn dog too.

Emma Martinez and her boy were easy to sympathize with. Their uncle was easy to hate. I wondered what it was like for a sweet kid like her to grow up around someone like her uncle. This surveillance… is it protection or control?

I shook off the idle thought. There was time to speculate later. Right now, I needed to get us inside without alerting Graves’s team.

“I’ll go ahead and carve us a way in,” I told the others. “Bring the stretchers and the fog machine.” I looked around at them. “Do you have your gas masks?” Nods all around. “Throat mics working?” I heard the clicks and little static bursts of them testing—then more nodding.

I would definitely have to kill two of the men and get us in and out before lack of check-ins alerted the other guards. Regrettable, but they had sealed their fates by working for my enemy.

“Let’s get started. I’ll let you know when I’m in position.” I jumped out and the van door slid closed behind me. Seconds later, I had melted into the shadows beneath the trees.

The dash across the street was my one bit of exposure, I had trained long and hard to stalk the shadows, well before I’d become Pakhan. Back then, I had been an enforcer, later, a lieutenant, and then my uncle’s strong right hand. Finally, his replacement. Now, though, it was time to go back to basics.

The pistols under my open leather jacket were matte black-finished nine-millimeter Berettas custom-throated for the small, chunky silencers screwed onto them. As soon as I reached the shadows at the far side of the road, I slid the left one out of its holster and thumbed the safety off.

I slipped into the side yard, where I could see one of the unwitting doctor’s babysitters standing in the shadows. With less experience I might not have seen him, but whoever had ordered them to encircle the house had done so in a hurry. No time to carefully select a hiding spot—and I was better at seeking, than this guy was at hiding.

I heard him muttering into his radio as I drew closer. I let him finish, knowing that cutting him off during a check-in would bring the whole team running this way at once. I had to keep gunfire to a minimum. It was too easy for stray bullets to go through one of these windows and endanger the doctor or her boy.

Patient and still, I waited. Finally, he clicked off and started turning back to his patrol.

I shot him in the back of his head, rolled the body under some bushes, and moved on toward the front of the house.

This guard had a perch on the front porch, smoking a cigarette and looking around warily. He had unscrewed the porch light bulb, but I could see the flash of his pale, uncovered cheekbone and the glimmer of blond hair. He had a rifle across his thighs. All right.

I slipped as close as I dared around the big planter in front of the living-room window, mostly using the house’s own shadow now. Thank God the moon wasn’t higher.

I almost put my foot on a small inflatable ball that was lost in the front lawn. Probably one of those squeaky ones, with my luck—but I caught myself before I put real weight on it. Sloppy of me to forget that a lawn where a five-year-old lived, would have stray toys scattered across it.

The cherry on the guard’s smoke glowed as he took another long draw. I shot him while he was wrapped up in it. The cigarette fell from his lips, and then he followed it over the railing. I hid the body near the other and then spoke into my mic. “It’s time. Get the hoses in and the machine working and watch out for the backyard guy. I’ll take the other two out and go looking for their boss.”

I thought of Emma—Dr. Martinez—waking up in the middle of this and hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She was supposed to sleep through it all. But her uncle’s security men were complicating everything.

I went to the far side of the house, glancing back to see Tolya and his team hurrying across the street with the machine in hand. We had shut it inside an insulated box to kill the sound of the motor. It would flood each of their rooms with the sleeping fog I’d come up with. Five minutes of exposure and we would be able to come in wearing our masks and collect them both.

The third man went down just as quickly and quietly as the first two, but when I reached the back yard, I knew I had a problem. Unlike the others, guard number four had found a hiding place I couldn’t immediately pick out—and I was almost sure that he wasn’t alone. I could picture their boss, the voice in their ear mics, hanging back, probably covering them with a night-scoped rifle if he knew his stuff this well.

I couldn’t afford to get in a sniper’s sights. I moved cautiously, watching the tree line for the glimmer of a scope.

I didn’t see their boss, but I finally located the third guard, down the short, railed stairwell that led to the basement. He popped his head up and started looking around just as I was getting close. I managed to shoot him before he saw me—but then had to duck and roll as a pair of rifle bullets bit into the brick wall behind me.

No, stop shooting at the house, you moron! I rolled over and emptied my pistol into the patch of trees the bullets had come from, then moved again. Another bullet dug into the dirt where I’d been. Hopefully, the silencers and background noise of the city would keep any nosy neighbors from catching wind of our mission.

I holstered my emptied pistol and pulled out my backup, emptying it as well. I was almost dry when I heard the crashing of a body falling through the branches. About fucking time! I activated my mic. “Are we set up?”

Tolya’s voice was a low mutter. “We’re pumping the gas into the bedrooms now. What about the guards?”

“I cleared four. Their boss I’m going to check on now. I know I hit him, though. Keep it going, and remember, five minutes. No more, no less.”

I hurried back to the small copse at the rear of the property, gun still drawn, ready to either confront a wounded man or finish an unconscious one off. Instead, I found broken branches, stripped bark where boots had dug in, a few spots of blood—and a ruined .308 rifle, its stock splintered from a direct hit. Its owner was nowhere to be found.

Damn it. He ran for it!I had no idea if he was fleeing for his own safety or circling back to grab another weapon and come after us. I went over the bullet-riddled fence into the adjoining yard and saw the side gate still swinging clothes. I sped up, racing through it and through the side yard.

No sign of anyone. I kept running—only to hear an engine roar to life. Before I reached the street, I saw a Humvee with smoked windows drive past, weaving a little, as if the driver was drunk or wounded. I quickly got a photo of the license plate as it drove away.

“Damn it,” I growled, walking back toward the doctor’s house. The last thing I needed was a surviving witness to the kidnapping. Especially one who was a good shot and would definitely be around for the exchange.

But there was nothing to be done about it now. I’ll just have to finish up here and get out as quickly as possible.

When I got back, the men were just finishing up, shutting off the machines and donning their gas masks. I pulled my own on and checked that it was working before heading for the front door.

“We need to get out of here quickly. The team sniper escaped with wounds.” I saw Tolya’s eyes widen slightly and gave him a grim nod. Going out alone to pick off the team had been my call, his escape was on my conscience. Hopefully I’d hurt him badly enough that he couldn’t risk circling back. But even that didn’t stop him from calling for backup.

The house was filled with the mist, which was slowly settling to ankle level now that the pumps were off. The first thing I did once I got inside was to shut off the security system. The second thing was to find the doctor’s phone on its charger in the kitchen. I managed to turn it off just as the screen glowed to life to announce a call. We’d only jammed communications for long enough to get the guards’ attention. Any longer and it would have gotten us the wrong sort of attention.

That was probably a warning call from Graves. Now, he’ll either send in a second team or call the police. Either way, we have under five minutes to extract both of them.

I checked on Nick first, he was sleeping peacefully, his breathing slow but strong and even. A tension I hadn’t realized was there eased off inside my chest, and I went to check the doctor, signaling to Tolya to carry the boy out. I hated the idea of harming a child. Bad enough that we had to disrupt his life.

Emma was fine as well. She lay in a pool of filtered moonlight, half-curled on her side, her face relaxed. She was even more beautiful than I remembered—--and for a split second, her helplessness made me hesitate. This was wrong, but it was also necessary. Her uncle had made certain of that.

She made a soft sound as I lifted her and turned a little in my arms to nestle into my chest. I stopped dead for a moment, mouth working as guilt and desire stabbed at me. Then I set my jaw and walked out with her to the waiting stretcher.

Two minutes later, the sleeping pair were in the van, the gear was in the van and so were we. I took the ruined rifle with me, laying it across my lap as Tolya drove us back toward Hollywood. We were just blocks from the house when we heard the wail of sirens drawing closer in the distance.

I lifted an eyebrow slightly, but stayed relaxed. By the time they arrived on scene and started throwing up their cordon, we would be long gone.

“Someone called the cops,” Tolya grumbled. “That’s going to make things messy.”

“For Graves, maybe.” I kept my voice confident, despite my anger at how sloppy our operation had been—anger directed at myself, for allowing that guard to let off a round of gunfire. “I’m certain he’ll have wanted to handle this privately. If he called them, it’s because he panicked—and soon he’ll be having to explain what and how he knew about it all.”

“But he’ll have you to point the finger at.” Tolya surprised me, he sounded genuinely concerned.

“True enough. I suppose we’ll have to hand out more than the usual number of bribes to quiet their questions.” I still kept my voice even.

“What about the guy who got away?”

“I’m giving his license plate number to Alexei for research as soon as we get back. Though I suspect it will trace directly to Graves’s motor pool, I still want to see what we can turn up on the guy.”

So much to do,I thought as I looked over at the kidnapped woman and child. And so little time to do it in before our new guests wake up.