by Jaycee Clark
A savior of the weak, a champion of the downtrodden.
The Reaper? More like the Saint.
Oh, he killed all right. And Elianya Hellinski had no doubt that when her brother ordered her hit, Dimitri Petrolov—or so he was called—would not hesitate in carrying out his order. And probably enjoy doing it.
Things had not ended well with them. Damn the man, they could have ruled and created their own dynasty if he’d only listened to her.
But no. Elianya was a good fuck, but nothing more. Fine. She’d had others turn her down. Of course they were all dead. He would be as well. Pity though, the man was the best lover she’d ever had. But a woman had to do what a woman had to do. If the bastard didn’t want her, that would be his loss. No man, no matter how much he amused her, would reject her. Period. She simply didn’t allow that.
Besides, if he lived, he might be a problem. Might? She sighed. If Dimitri Petrolov was anything—it was a threat. She knew without a doubt Mr. Petrolov would kill her in a split second if he found out what she was really doing. For all his darkness and fear, the man was one of the most honorable she’d ever met. It was very sad. Honor was well and good in certain aspects—business, business where millions could be made, no. She had no use for such as the likes of him. Besides, she’d given the man his chance and he’d turned her down.
Ball-less wonders. Women were, without a doubt, the stronger, more driven sex. Men waited on orders, let too many things tie their damn hands.
No one tied her hands. No one. Not Dimitri, not Viktor, not any man.
Her heels clicked as she paced her office, the hardwood floors gleaming.
Stopping, she looked out the window, over the inky black waters of the Vltava River. She loved the nights. The night was the only time the truth shone in this world.
People hid behind daylight.
She grinned. And in daylight she would make certain it happened.
Walking back to her mahogany desk, she sat down and clicked on the address she’d paid dearly for. If this failed, there was always a backup. One should always be prepared.
Time to hire her own enforcer and make certain at the end of the night she was the one left standing.
• • •
New York, New York
The Raven clicked her way through wasting time as she waited on her plane, reading headlines via the Internet.
Her heart still slammed against her chest, but she knew enough to go slowly, to stay calm.
The last job went smooth as butter, and all the better for it.
Her eyes skimmed down the page, reading the weather reports. Good thing she was leaving New York and flying back home to Dublin. A storm was blowing in and she had no wish to stay here longer than necessary; already her flight was delayed. It would be early tomorrow morning when she arrived. She sighed.
An icon popped on-screen for Raven. Three messages.
She wanted to open it, but it was hardly safe. Not here. There were high-powered cameras all over airports these days. Though perhaps many would call her paranoid, she preferred the term cautious. Caution had saved her life more times than she cared to count and she wouldn’t toss it aside now.
Once on the plane, however, she pulled the computer back out and clicked on her mailbox. The return address was probably as bogus as the one she herself created, but it served its purpose.
B-Widow only had one thing to say.
I’ve a job for you.
Raven closed her eyes and leaned back against the soft, plush, first-class seats. The black Atlantic thousands of feet below did not soothe her.
Nothing soothed her these days.
Nothing.
She took a drink of her ginger ale.
Perhaps it was time to call it quits.
God knew she had enough bloody money that she never had to do another thing in her life again.
And yet . . .
She was good at what she did. Never one to mince words, she knew she was damn good.
But she rarely took jobs back-to-back. Not wise.
And yet . . .
Something called to her.
Since the fiasco two years ago, she demanded names and information, gathering her own before she ever agreed to take on a mark.
A little unorthodox to some, especially to her trainer, Nikko.
But it was what she did and the way she preferred doing things.
After all, she didn’t want some innocent man to die just because an ex-wife was pissed at him. She might kill for a living, but she had her own code of ethics, though most would never see them.
What the hell.
She set the glass aside and typed a reply back to B-Widow, wondering who, wondering what, how much, and wondering what excitement this next job would bring her.
Chapter 2
Prague
October 30, 5:00 p.m.
Elianya paced the confines of her office. She could hear the girls chattering out in the studio. With a glance she doubled back. Knocking, she motioned to the photographer to get on with it. She wasn’t paying him to stand still. He had a job to do.
One girl, her bright red hair pulled in tight braids, stood sucking a lollipop. The new fluffer. Elianya sighed. She paced, waiting for the call to come through, and it damn well better. She had yet to hear anything.
A tingle of apprehension made her pause and look out the window. Warehouses surrounded her, some old and dilapidated; several had newer façades and housed who knew what. She’d been told to leave Dimitri Petrolov alone.
“He’s to be left as is. You take him out and all hell will break loose.”
“You’re to make certain that doesn’t happen.”
Silence answered her. “It might be possible.” Another pause. “Do not act until I give you the go-ahead. Understand?”
“Of course,” she lied.
She would do what she had to, regardless of what her contact thought or wanted. Elianya wasn’t stupid, the contact was merely covering their own ass. She checked her email once more to see if Raven had answered her, but as yet, her box sat empty. Damn. Elianya tapped her nails against her teeth. No matter. If Raven didn’t get back to her, she’d just get Ivan to carry out her order.
Sighing and wishing she could find someone who actually did what they were hired to do, she walked out of her office and into the studio.
Girls of various ages and looks stood dressed in their costumes. Perfectly legal to photograph a layout for a new costume pattern company.
And even if it wasn’t, this was Prague. Anything could be bought.
The music, normally a white noise, screeched against her nerves. She walked over to the large boom box and shut it off. Looking at the clock, she saw the time.
“Let me see what you have so far, Leos,” she told the photographer.
He motioned her over to the computer set in the corner and said to the girls, “Do not go anywhere. We’re not finished. I want more of the schoolgirl shots, and Rada, stay in the nurse costume. Someone is coming by later.”
Elianya looked at Leos and wondered again if the man were gay or if he just wasn’t interested in her. She’d never pushed it. It was so hard to find a great photographer who didn’t go off into artistic flights.
He sat behind the desk, popped his camera in a base and tapped his long white fingers over keys. His hair was trimmed short, his triangular face devoid of mustache or beard. A diamond winked from his right earlobe and gold linked across his almost fragile wrists.
Unlike her last photographer, Leos was so clean he could have been religious. Hell, maybe he was. She’d never seen him drink, he allowed no drugs on set, and if a girl was too high to perform, he sent her home.
Leos was not only her photographer for their little side venture, he was also the studio’s legitimate photographer for both the ad layouts and other modeling agencies. He was talented and driven—a damn genius. Two reasons Elianya saw to keep him on.
She watched the photos pop up on-screen. Leaning down,
her arm against the back of his chair, her hand splayed on the desktop, she caught his stolen glance down her cleavage.
Elianya turned to him and grinned. Let him look, she’d paid enough for these babies. Well, technically, Viktor had paid for them.
She focused on the photos, nixed the ones she didn’t care for, told him some changes to make in positions. While his fingers tapped the keys and he moved the mouse, she leaned down and whispered in his ear.
“I have another job for you. Are you interested?”
His fingers paused over the keys. “Perhaps. What job?”
She thought about what to tell him. He probably wouldn’t do it. For a man who thought of photography as an art, Leos was undeniably stiff. Even if he did film porns on the side.
“I’ve some new clients and girls I’d like to shoot.”
He looked at her and asked, “How old?”
She let her gaze roam over the gaggle of women and young ladies here. She knew most of them were college age; some didn’t care and only wanted the money. A few worked in the public clubs that were aboveground for the most part. But two, two were in the corner and very quiet. Those two were hers. They spoke to no one and merely sat staring at the wall.
“Younger than anything here,” she whispered.
“No.”
Elianya laughed and ruffled his short graying hair. “You are almost boring.”
He tapped again on the keys and picked up his camera.
Damn it, she wanted him to shoot the scenes. “I’ll pay you double what you normally make here in three hours.”
Knowing his fees, she assumed he’d jump on that offer.
“No.”
“Over a grand an hour, Leos?” She raked her nails over his shoulder, but he shook her off and stood. “You need to let loose some of those morals, my friend.”
His eyes didn’t stray from hers. “No, Elianya. Find another. I do this”—he motioned to the girls sitting around props, two on the bed, another on the silk draped floor—“but I draw the line at younger. Period.”
She huffed out a sigh. “Please, Leos?” She ran a finger up the front of his white pullover.
“No.”
Damn. Elianya tapped her spiked heel against the floor. “It’s merely photos, Leos. A click of the camera.”
He huffed out a breath, but he didn’t say no.
“I’ll add another five hundred an hour. That’s two g’s. Where the hell else can you make that kind of money an hour, Leos?”
His shoulders dropped. “When?”
She smiled. “I’ll let you know tomorrow night. Probably, we shoot early on the thirty-first, no? No, that’s tomorrow, isn’t it? Then on the first.” Elianya whispered, her lips brushing Leos’s ear, “It’s merely a few photos, Leos. Don’t put me in a bind. I might have to find another photographer. Then what would you do?”
He huffed a sigh out, glared at her and finally said, “What am I to do?”
“Take pictures and keep your mouth shut.”
Leos watched her; she saw the indecisiveness in his eyes, the shame. Poor ball-less wonder.
“Leave me, I have work to finish here,” he said, shoving back from the computer.
• • •
She went by Raven, though her passport said something different. Her hotel room was one of the nicer ones in Prague. She’d arrived yesterday and had been reacquainting herself with the old European cultural city. She only went for the best when she was on vacation. Work, unless her cover demanded it, didn’t need to be top-of-the-line. Then again, she wasn’t staying in a backpacker’s hovel either. Her digital camera sat beside her laptop, the memory card having already downloaded the photo of the possible target.
He was in three-quarter profile, looking out over the busy street as he climbed into a sleek black BMW sedan with dark windows.
Dimitri Petrolov. Right-hand man of one Viktor Hellinski, brothel owner, minor crime boss, and God only knew what else. She pulled up a photo of Hellinski in another window. Wanting to know everything about these two. Some marks were easy. People rarely went for revenge anymore. She frowned and rubbed the back of her neck. These days few knew how to successfully operate under true vengeance. People not of Hellinski’s ilk. Hellinski was the type who had contacts, and he was, she realized as she read further, rather high up in the whole criminal ring. Which meant his best mate was right beside him. If she took out Mr. Petrolov, she’d have to make bloody certain no one could connect her. The backlash itself would more than likely be her head on a platter handed to Hellinski himself.
She studied Dimitri’s picture again, wondered if that were his real name. He didn’t look like a Dimitri. He was too . . . something. His dark hair was a little too long, as if he didn’t have time to cut it, his hairline receding to an M across his forehead. Dark eyes—blue? Black? Brown? They didn’t appear green. Man probably hit six feet, not too muscular, but not lanky. Lithe, like the snap of a whip—lethal. And since the streets had dubbed him the Reaper, she supposed lethal fit.
Fine, he was a murderer, but then, technically so was she.
Cheekbones and jawline were harsh and unrelieved, his lips neither too full nor thin. His could have been the face of a fallen angel. A dark shadow, well past five o’clock, but not quite a beard and mustache, lined his jaw and upper lip. Something was arresting about his face, yet if she saw him in a crowd, she wondered if she would have looked at him again.
Her? Probably, but then she wasn’t exactly normal, now was she?
She picked up her pen and jotted notes down on a legal pad. One she would destroy as she always did. There was no way anything would be traced back to her. Though in this day and age, that was iffy, and depended on luck—whether hers or the ones investigating was a matter of perception.
Petrolov worked for Hellinski, but she was finding out that Hellinski wasn’t easily reached or found and owned several pieces of legitimate real estate. Must keep an excuse as to the money income, yes? Then there was the restaurant and several nightclubs here in Prague. Brothels in the hell-town of Cheb. And there was a woman.
Raven cropped and enlarged the photo of the blonde woman standing between Hellinski and Dimitri. She was without question beautiful and had the same shape of eyes as Hellinski . . . Ah. Sister. Miss Elianya Hellinski.
Did she know what her brother did?
Raven studied those eyes staring out from the photo—bloody right the woman knew. Something in those cold eyes calculated.
Digging deeper in her search, she was surprised to find Dimitri Petrolov had only worked with Hellinski for a few years. About five. Moved up those ranks quickly, did he?
So where had the man been before then? Men who went by the name Reaper did not just drop onto the organized crime circuit. Where did he come from?
She looked for another hour. Frowning, she read the flat report of one Dimitri Petrolov, who hailed from Russia. But where? Russia was a big bloody country. Family? None. Age? N/A. Raven scratched her cheek.
No one just jumped onto the scene. Was he educated? Or just a lackey?
Raven discarded that idea. A lackey didn’t join Hellinski and within two years become his hit man, only to gain more power and the boss’s confidence in the next three years.
She narrowed her eyes on Dimitri’s photo.
And why would someone want to get rid of him?
Hellinski would have his own men to take him out. Keep it in the family. That man, with his pale hair and amber, tilted eyes, did not look like one to hire a female assassin and certainly not by the contact of B-Widow.
Definitely a woman.
So who? A jilted lover?
Digging lower she read the material on what was known of the Reaper, who enforced Hellinski’s hold and power. Maybe an escaped prostitute who fled out of the stranglehold of those in charge of her?
The Reaper.
No one went against him. He took care of, cleanly and efficiently, any problems that arose.
In the photo he was
dressed in a gray pullover, black jacket, trench coat, and pants. Man apparently liked dark colors. But then they blended well with the shadows.
Unease crawled under her skin.
Why?
He was just a mark. But reading the reports, she wondered. Something didn’t add up. He should have worked for the boss longer to be this high up in power.
She wanted to know more about Hellinski. Her gut tugged as it did when she knew things were off.
What?
No real information on Petrolov—though that wasn’t too surprising—quick move up, no friends, no associates, no family.
An idea zapped in her brain.
No, surely not.
But she’d worked both MI5 and MI6 long enough to spot the signs . . .
Was Dimitri Petrolov working both sides? Who the hell was he working for?
MI6? Interpol? The Americans? But if a Yank, then who the hell did he work for? They had more agencies than Britain had historical sights. FBI? CIA? NSA? INS? DOD?
No, the thought was ludicrous.
Raven stood and paced. Pacing cleared her head and focused things for her, it always had. Nothing in this whole bloody picture was clear. She’d learned the hard way to garner as much information as possible before the job so no complications arose.
And Dimitri Petrolov could be one hell of a complication. She wasn’t stupid or psychic, but something told her to watch her step with the man.
To hell with it. Stalking back to her laptop, she hacked into her old system and saw a file on Hellinski. Skin trafficking, drug trafficking, arms dealer. Well, he was just a dream-filled bloke, wasn’t he?
She read more until her eyes started to hurt. Looking out the window at the night, she decided to go out.
After a quick shower, she rubbed some lotion on and tried to decide on the short black dress . . . but then she’d have to wear the heels, which made her legs look great, but she could hardly run in the bloody things. Boots. And if she went with the boots, then she’d wear the black pants. Slinky lavender sweater, or as Nikko told her, slag sweater. So it drooped low enough anyone could see she had no real cleavage, but it bagged enough in the back and at the waist she could easily carry a weapon—and that was all that mattered.