by Ryan Schow
If a man was first stabbed in the park with a pen, then later blown up with a grenade, they would begin to wonder what this man had done to earn the ire of such a lunatic, i.e., Atlas. Codrin, or someone within Leo’s organization, would likely leak out sordid tales of soliciting sex from minors, maybe even put his emails online for all to see. That would ensure the murder was tied to the procurement of underage girls. The message not to pay for sex with kids in Saint Petersburg would officially be sent.
Personally, when he’d stabbed the professor for paying for sex with Kaylee, this had all felt like a lesson learned. He’d been stabbed with the pen twice in the leg and once in the shoulder, all three assaults acting as soft, yet permanent reminders of what not to do. Clearly however, that wasn’t enough for this crowd. Jasha was no longer a pedophile. He was a loose end. A future message.
As they pulled up to a newer apartment complex than the one he and Kofi had stayed in, Cira gave him a slip of paper with an apartment number written on it.
“You’ll have to let yourself in,” she said, like it was no big deal. But then she handed him a zip tie and said, “Just in case he’s uncooperative.”
Atlas got out, then turned to the SUV and said to Kofi, “Is this thing on a timer, or do I have to throw it once I pull the pin?”
“Internal timer,” he said.
Nodding, Atlas made his way through the courtyard, wondering if this was what a professor’s salary bought in terms of upscale living quarters. Was this supposed to be nice? Everything in Saint Petersburg seemed historic, and yet it was all very clean. This played tricks on one’s mind. It left him wondering which neighborhood was desirable and which one was Saint Petersburg’s version of the slums.
He waited by the locked front door a moment, then followed an old woman inside. She smelled like sour cheese and mildew. While she headed to the second floor, he went to the third. Stepping inside the narrow, depressing third-floor hallway he walked toward the other side looking at the numbered doors. He stopped when he saw the professor’s door.
“Jasha Stasevich, you useless turd,” he mumbled.
Atlas withdrew his pistol, racked the slide, eyed the chambered round. On that front, he was good to go. With his knife sheathed at his side, he had that option, too.
But the grenade…
The stupid-ass grenade.
Sucking in air through his nose, then letting it out through his mouth, he tried to calm his nerves on the exhale. It worked, same as always. When he was as relaxed as he’d get for the task at hand, he knocked lightly at the door. Listening close, he heard a grunt from inside. The man was home. When he didn’t hear the footfalls of a person answering the door, he knocked again. This time the grunt was louder, along with what he thought was some variation of cursing. He put his ear to the door, listened. Still no footfalls. The third time he knocked harder and louder still. When he heard the low flurry of cursing, along with the thump-drag movements of an incensed cripple hobbling his way, Atlas stole one last breath. It was go-time.
The second Jasha opened the door, his eyes flew open and Atlas punched him in the mouth. He staggered backwards, fell down in a loud clatter, then touched his bleeding lip and started to cry. Atlas stepped inside, shut the door then stepped over him looking for a balled-up sock or a washcloth, something that would double as a gag. He found an old pair of Jasha’s underwear on the bathroom floor. The light brown poo-stripe had him shaking his head in disgust, but he had to use the tools available to him, so he reached down and grabbed the undies.
By that time, Jasha was sobbing and crawling on his hands and knees toward the door. He moved like a snail. Atlas was surprised he hadn’t left a slimy trail behind him. He kicked Jasha in the balls from behind, heard that sharp sucking sound of him drawing a breath, then yanked on his good leg and flipped him over on his back.
“No, no, no please,” he was saying in Russian.
Atlas wasn’t listening.
Instead, he balled up the filthy undies—racing stripe out—then stuffed them into Jasha’s mouth, packing the material as far as he could down Jasha’s throat while still allowing him to breathe through his nose. Atlas withdrew the zip tie from his coat, circled it around the man’s head and tightened it to the point of gagging.
“Breathe through your nose,” he told the professor.
When he saw Jasha’s nostrils flaring, Atlas knew the pervert could breathe. In Russian, he said, “This will only be uncomfortable for a moment.”
With wet, bulging eyes, skin flushed pink, and a body that started to flail, Jasha tried to say something. The underwear muffled every last word.
“If I cared about what you had to say,” Atlas said as he stood calmly over the top of him, “I wouldn’t have crammed your underwear in your mouth. But I don’t care what you have to say. I know what you said. To the cops, and your subordinates. It was enough. Too much. And yet you didn’t tell them why you were stabbed, did you, Professor Stasevich?”
The squirming stopped, as did the noise. Jasha was beginning to see his fate. Looking up, fresh tears glistening in his eyes, he said something that sounded like, “Are you going to kill me?”
“I want you to stand up first,” he said, giving Jasha room to move.
The living quarters were tight, but Jasha managed to get up rather quickly. Too quickly. He put out a hand, planted it on the wall, wobbled a bit until his balance returned. When he looked for direction, Atlas nodded toward the bed. Jasha nodded, walked past him, then sat down on the old mattress.
“Roll over and lie face-down, hands behind your back.”
He didn’t have any more zip ties, but he did have the grenade. Shaking his head, Atlas hated every single minute of this. He’d have to do his job if he hoped to find Kaylee, and eventually Alabama. And right now, this was his job.
When the professor did as instructed, Atlas said, “Spread your legs, put your hands on your lower back.”
The man reluctantly obeyed. Right then, he pulled out the grenade and set it up against the professor’s balls. Jasha jumped, letting out an involuntary squeak.
“That hard, cold steel is not what you think it is,” Atlas said, reassuring him that he would not be raped. In Atlas’s mind, the professor deserved more than a series of crude violations for what he had done to Kaylee, and girls like Kaylee, but he would get no such justice.
Instead of merely activating the grenade and hoping Jasha didn’t see it and toss it out the window, Atlas whipped out his blade and quickly slashed the insides of Jasha’s biceps. He started screaming into his dirty underwear. The screaming turned to wailing, and that was when Atlas pulled the pin on the grenade and quietly walked out of the apartment.
When he saw the hallway was empty, he broke into a sprint, making it a few dozen yards when the explosive detonated.
The door blew out and all sorts of chaos rained down from there. Wasting no time, he took the stairs three at a time, eased out into the first-floor hallway, looked around. Half a dozen people were poking their heads out of their doors, asking each other if they knew what was going on.
“Grenade!” he cried out in Russian, like he was scared.
Many of the heads drew back into their apartments, and those same doors were slammed shut and locked tight.
He patiently made his way out the main door and into the courtyard. To his right, fifty feet away, Atlas saw a smoking leg. It was blown-off at the hip. He bit back his revulsion, then calmly walked to the SUV while the others watched. Someone opened the door for him. He climbed inside and plopped down next to Kiera. To Kofi, he said, “Your paperweight worked great.”
“I saw something come out of the window,” he said, delighted. “Not just fire, but…”
“That was his leg, from his tippy-toes to half his asshole,” Atlas said.
The driver put the van in gear and took off at a leisurely pace, blending into Saint Petersburg’s traffic nicely. Cira seemed quietly pleased, while beside him, Kiera remained perfectly inexpressiv
e, her eyes zeroed in on the road ahead.
“Fucking mute,” he said, the adrenaline surge running through him like a fresh candy high. Kiera turned her head slowly, her eyes trailing slightly behind. When that same soulless glare held him, he felt the impossible weight of this girl’s spirit.
My God, those eyes!
Those ice-cold orbs were drilling down through the layers of him, searching for something, seeing everything, reading him like a book. Kiera’s cheek twitched involuntarily against whatever expression she was concealing. Was that rage, hatred, pain? It was something! Glancing down, Atlas saw her little fist clenched in her lap and knew he was about to eat the Russian version of a knuckle sandwich.
“I told you to leave her alone,” Cira said.
“That was yesterday.”
“I would have thought you’d learned your lesson,” Cira retorted.
“Or she hers,” he countered back.
“What lesson would you have her learn now?” Cira asked, unclasping her seat belt so she could turn all the way around to face him.
“That she is not the muscle.”
“Neither are you,” Cira barked. She pointed to the two meatheads. “That’s why I have these two.”
“Are we in Odessa yet?” he muttered.
Cira turned back around and fastened her belt. “Not even close.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
BOOK 3: ODESSA
ATLAS HARGROVE
Atlas, Cira, and the crew boarded the private jet in Saint Petersburg, settled into their seats, then prepared to fly the thirty-two hundred miles to Odessa International Airport. Unlike before, Atlas did not flip off his shoes and stretch out on the couch like he owned the place. And he didn’t make any jokes about the plane. Instead, he plopped his tush down in an ultra-cozy chair by himself. Kiera decided she wanted to sit directly across the small table from him. He raised an eyebrow; she stared directly at him. What the hell?
“So, you’re kind of freaking me out,” he said to her. Her eyes narrowed, and the barest hint of a grin touched her lips. He looked her over, came back to her eyes. “I appreciate what you did back at the house, even if you went completely Jason Voorhees on the guy. I mean, the way you butchered him, you did everything but turn him into cold cuts you could store in a freezer.”
She didn’t even blink. The nod to the serial killer from the Friday the 13th movies, the witty reference about storing body parts in the freezer, he was hoping to break the ice. This girl could fight better than anyone he’d ever seen, and he knew she understood things. Slowly, he shook his head. Either she didn’t have a sense of humor or she didn’t watch old slasher flicks.
Eventually, he fell asleep, and he did so with Kiera still looking at him. He woke up some four hours later; she hadn’t changed position. She was looking right at him as if she hadn’t moved or blinked the entire time.
“It’s official,” he said, yawning, “you’re the weirdest person I know, and I’ve known some real fruit loops in my time.”
“She’s probably thinking the same thing about you,” Boris said.
“Yeah?” he asked the big guy. “Well, you’re the second-weirdest girl I know.”
Boris let out a low laugh, then went back to the book he was reading. A Harry Potter book. Okay…
After six hours, when they officially landed, the group got off the private jet and headed straight for the two cars awaiting them: a limo and a taxicab.
“The cab is for you and Kofi,” Cira said.
“For real?”
“You’ll be staying with Kofi.”
“Again?”
“Yes, again.”
“What about you?”
“I’m headed somewhere nice, hopefully with a hot shower and room service. Chances are pretty good I’ll be staying at the Continental. I’ll text you when I arrive.”
Kofi said good-bye to no one. Instead, he went straight to the cab. When both Kiera and the meatheads got into the limo, Atlas said, “So is Kofi’s house as nice as Oleg’s house?”
He made no attempt to hide his sarcasm.
“Yes,” she said, taunting him with her own sarcastic brand of humor. On her, it looked like a sexy, shitty grin.
“What about the Continental?” he pressed. “Is Kofi’s place as nice as that?”
“I hear it is, but the Continental isn’t the Hotel Bristol or the Palace Del Mar. And it certainly isn’t as decadent as Boutique Hotel California.”
Atlas knew Kofi was not a wealthy man, but he didn’t know what the Hotel Bristol or the Palace Del Mar was like, let alone the Continental. What he did know, however, was that Kofi had all but said that he was dead-ass broke.
“So will we be sharing a bed again?” Atlas asked with a groan.
“He’s got a free bed,” Cira said, sly-eyed and looking like she had gotten one on him yet again.
The bed in Kofi’s house was only free because his son was gone, beaten to death by cops or thugs. He wondered if she knew this.
“You know about his son, right?” Cira’s humor vanished in a second. Apparently, she knew. “Yeah, keep making your jokes, then.”
“Screw you, Atlas,” she said as she got in the limo.
“That’s what you get for pulling your hair so freaking tight, you cut off the circulation to your brain.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Well, you can think about it while you spend another lonely night in another overpriced bed.”
“Who says I’ll be alone?” she said, nodding to the chauffeur.
“I can see it in your eyes. Cop’s instincts,” he said, tapping his skull with his index finger.
“Are those the same instincts that got you life in prison?” she jabbed again. “See you when I see you, convict.”
“I might need you again,” he said, heading for the cab.
“It feels good to be needed,” she called out before telling the chauffeur she was ready to go.
“Just so you know,” he said before the man could close the door, “I got my rest on the plane, so I’m going to work.”
She stopped the chauffeur from closing the door, got out, and stalked over to him, where she quietly yet forcefully said, “Must you rush everything?”
“The most critical time in a kidnapping is the first forty-eight hours. It’s been a month. This girl has been taken, run through by dozens of men, sold, and shipped all over the world, so forgive me if you want to extend your little vacation. You should have relaxed on the plane.”
“You’re free for now, Atlas. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
He took Kaylee’s picture from his pocket, thrust it at her and said, “Do you see this face?”
“I know what she looks like.”
“LOOK AT HER!”
She growled, “Don’t you raise your voice at me!”
“Go get your room service. Take a shower and shave your legs. Sit around by the pool. I’ll be running down leads with or without you.”
“Well, I hope you get killed in the process,” she snapped, still mad.
“Tell that to Kaylee’s father, you freaking psycho.”
He got in the taxi, shut the door, then said to Kofi, “Can we make a stop before we head to your house?”
Kofi nodded, then said, “What was that about?”
“She doesn’t feel the same sense of urgency we do.”
“I tend to agree with her.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I need a hot shower, and I want to see my family. Besides, you’re too high-strung, and you’ve had your ass kicked quite a bit lately. You need a good meal, a solid night’s rest, and some family time.”
“Whose family are you referring to?”
“Mine.”
Atlas finally nodded, capitulating.
They drove through the city, which was not pretty at all, and then the cabbie, as instructed, pulled into the front entrance of another hideous Soviet-style apartment building.
“This lo
oks like the projects,” Atlas said. “That’s what they’d call it in America.”
“I don’t know what this ‘projects’ is.”
“I hope it’s nicer inside.”
“It isn’t,” he said, getting out. The minute Kofi stepped out into the warm, humid air, the cab of the taxi filled with that same ghastly air.
Atlas didn’t bother getting out. “I’m going to find a market or a grocery store. Someplace where I can buy toothpaste, a toothbrush, maybe even sneak a bite to eat before dinner.”
“With what money?” Kofi asked. Atlas just looked at him. Kofi shook his head, then pulled out a small fold of money and peeled off a few bills. “It’s not much, but you should be able to get what you need.”
“I was thinking of going to the city center. It’s supposed to be nice.”
“Then go to Tavria V for groceries. If you find yourself wanting more of an open-air market, have the driver take you to the Privos Market by the zoo. Wait, don’t you have a credit card?”
He remembered Cira giving him one with his ID package when they landed in Saint Petersburg. He hadn’t opened the packet since he’d arrived.
“Maybe,” Atlas said. “I think so?”
“Pay with that where you can and bring me what money you don’t use.”
“Thank you.”
“I will be honest with you,” Kofi said, “until I get paid by Leopold, I will not be able to afford my rent.”
Atlas nodded, thanked him again, then closed the door and gave the cabbie the address that he’d beaten out of Oleg. If no one wanted to help him find Kaylee, he’d find her on his own.
“I just came from Saint Petersburg,” he told the driver.
“Yeah?” he asked, almost like he didn’t care, but like he’d do the best he could to pretend he cared.