Killing for Her
Alexis Abbott
© 2018 Pathforgers Publishing.
All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imaginations. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
This book is intended for sale to Adult Audiences only. All sexually active characters in this work are over 18. All sexual activity is between non-blood related, consenting adults. This is a work of fiction, and as such, does not encourage illegal or immoral activities that happen within.
Cover Design by Wicked Good Covers. All cover art makes use of stock photography and all persons depicted are models.
More information is available at Pathforgers Publishing.
Content warnings: mafia violence, discussion of dark topics including human trafficking, murder
Wordcount: 59,000 Words
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Contents
Nikolai
1. Anastasia
2. Anastasia
3. Nikolai
4. Anastasia
5. Nikolai
6. Anastasia
7. Nikolai
8. Anastasia
9. Nikolai
10. Anastasia
11. Nikolai
12. Anastasia
13. Nikolai
14. Anastasia
15. Nikolai
16. Anastasia
17. Nikolai
18. Anastasia
19. Nikolai
20. Anastasia
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Nikolai
Rain starts to fall, and I hear the soft pattering of small, icy drops against my leather jacket. I kneel in the shadows, watching the scene in front of me like a wolf waiting for the sheep to come out to pasture. It’s past midnight, and there are no honest workers left at this wharf. Even if they had a reason to be here, the workers know better than to come around here at this hour.
This is where the Bratva takes care of business.
I’ve been here plenty of times for my share of business. The Koroleva family has no end of dirty work that needs executing. When they know they cannot rely on anyone else, they turn to me. They bring me in when failure is not an option.
And every time, I carry out their contracts to perfection.
But tonight is no contract.
It’s a long wait, but I am a patient man. You don’t get far as an assassin without patience.
My eyes pan across the concrete of the industrial docks, from the debris left behind by the workers to the large, metal shipping containers that I am hidden among. Nobody will come looking for me here. Nobody will even suspect that this is the kind of business someone would watch.
The most mundane jobs make the finest covers.
An hour passes, but I have barely moved a muscle. It gives me time to get a sense of the natural rhythm of the night. I can filter out the traffic in the distance, the sounds of the inky-black water lapping up against the concrete, and the occasional seagull crying overhead.
The dead of night in the city is sometimes more familiar to me than the day.
Finally, I hear something that makes my ears prick. The sound of rubber tires on concrete getting closer, the soft rumble of the engine, the precise, cautiously slow speed of a sedan making its way closer.
They’re right on schedule.
I settle in and watch the black sedan roll into view by the water. Two men step out of the doors. The driver is dressed in a black tracksuit, while the passenger is dressed much like me—jeans, a sweater, and a black leather jacket. I can’t help but smile at the glint of the gold chain around the tracksuit wearer’s neck.
I know both of them, of course.
The driver is Aley, a born-and-bred Russian with a drinking problem and terrible luck at poker. The man in the jacket is Dmitry, a second-generation immigrant who’s too smart to be in his line of work, but he’s too lazy to bother climbing the ladder higher than I have. I’ve had dinner with both of them, and I happen to know that Aley would murder Dmitry if he knew Dmitry was fucking Aley’s sister on the weekends.
They are my coworkers, my fellow comrades working for the Koroleva family.
We are bratva, enforcers for the Russian mafia here in New York City.
I can hear their conversation as they step out of the car and meander around to the trunk. They speak in Russian, both because Aley’s English isn’t so good and Dmitry likes to practice his Russian.
“Who do we even have on the take down here? That fuckhead with the goatee?”
“Michael? Yeah, he makes sure the place is clear by eleven.”
“Eleven? Who the fuck takes care of bratva business at eleven? Got to get home before dinner gets cold?”
The men laugh as Aley puts a key in the trunk and pops it open, and the men smile down at the contents.
“Have a good ride, Oskar? Ran over a few bumps, but you don’t mind that, right?”
I hear muffled protests for just a moment before both the men reach in and haul out a large man. The poor bastard is bound and gagged, dressed in nothing more than a stained tank top, boxers, and socks. The boys probably grabbed him halfway through dinner and his evening shows.
Or more likely halfway through choking his shaft, knowing Oskar’s habits.
They drag Oskar to the side of the car and force him to his knees. Aley leans back against the car while Dmitry paces in front of Oskar. I see him slip a pair of brass knuckles out of his jacket pocket.
“You squeal, and this becomes a lot easier for us,” Aley warns, pulling out a gun and letting Oskar get a good look at it before Dmitry removes the gag, and Oskar nods feverishly.
“What the hell is this about?” he breathes desperately, looking wildly between the two men. “I haven’t done anything, I swear! I don’t know what you’ve been told, but-”
“Calm down, Oskar, calm down,” Dmitry says in a soothing tone, squatting to get on Oskar’s level. “We know that. You wouldn’t hurt a fly, right? Nestor knows you haven’t done a thing.”
“We’re just here to make sure it stays that way,” Aley says.
“What?” Oskar stammers, looking at Aley, but Dmitry pats Oskar’s face to get his attention again.
“Eyes on me, big guy,” he says. “You’ve never had trouble paying attention, let’s not start now.”
“Please-” Oskar whimpers, clearly not interested in indulging their little game.
“I told you, Oskar, you haven’t done anything,” Dmitry repeats. “Just think of this as insurance. I’m not here to play detective with you, good cop bad cop. No bullshit.” Dmitry stands up, letting Oskar see the brass knuckles on his hand before giving him a grim smile. “You know damn well why we’re here, and you should know that what I’m about to do is just... planning ahead. Think of it as insurance.”
His fist flashes forward, and I hear the ugly crack of metal breaking bone as Dmitry shatters Oskar’s jaw.
The most unfortunate part of all this is that I know Oskar truly doesn’t have any idea why he was abducted and carried off to the docks to get this beating.
But it’s not surprising, either.
Dmitry grabs Oskar by the collar and hauls him up again. “Come on, spit that blood out,” he snarls. “We don’t want you choking on it.” The next second, he brings his fist down on Oskar’s face again and again and again, until he fa
lls backward, coughing and spluttering. Aley holds up a hand, and Dmitry nods. He isn’t stopping the beating. It’s just a sign that they’ve done enough damage to his face. There’s much more yet to come. Dmitry opens the backseat and pulls out a crowbar, twirling it around in his hands with a cruel smile as he circles Oskar like a vulture before picking a limb to bring it down on.
Aley and Dmitry only know what their boss told them when he doled out his orders. They believe that Oskar was present when the leader of our bratva family, Nestor Koroleva, oversaw the selling of several million dollars’ worth of narcotics that were headed to the west coast a few weeks ago. The DEA intercepted that shipment, and now, Nestor’s lawyers are scrambling to cover his tracks and purge any ties that might lead back to him and our bratva.
That much is all true.
Another thing that Aley and Dmitry believe is that Oskar is planning to testify as a witness against Nestor.
That part is false.
I know, because I’m the one who planted the rumor against him.
Oskar is no innocent man, but this is one thing he’s not guilty of.
By the time the boys finish thrashing Oskar, I can already see his face swelling up and huge welts forming on his bleeding, beaten form. Aley has to call Dmitry’s name a few times to get him to stop. It’s all a show, of course. This is standard fare for scaring an underling into not testifying, because they all know we have men behind bars who can take care of them if they get put away. And Oskar is too much of a small fry to be a candidate for witness protection.
They have to remind him that he’s worthless.
If they knew how valuable Oskar really was, they’d realize they’re letting him off easy.
“I’m sure you can find your way home, right Oskar?” Aley says cheerfully while Oskar groans on the ground. Dmitry casually cuts his bindings free, and Oskar is too weak to fight. He just squirms on the ground pathetically as Dmitry circles the car, patting Aley on the shoulder as the two men head back to the vehicle.
“Glad we could have this chat,” Dmitry says to the bloody pulp that is Oskar. “I trust we understand each other perfectly.”
With that, the two pull away in their sedan, leaving Oskar alone in the cold of the rain that’s starting to get heavier.
I wait a few minutes for them to be long gone before I slowly stand up. Oskar isn’t going anywhere. I hear him groan and grunt as he tries to move every now and then, but he’s too weak to crawl, let alone stand. I step out of the shadows and approach him, not making a sound. I prod him in the side with my shoe, and his eyes spring open to look up at me.
He lets out a cry of surprise, and his eyes go wide.
“N-Nikolai?” he manages through a bloody mouth. “How…? Why? Please, help me, I-”
Without a word, I scoop Oskar up under his arms and drag him into the hiding spot I was crouching in a moment ago. It’s just a nook between a few of the shipping containers, nice and out of sight. I prop him up against one of the metal walls and squat down to peer at him as he tries to get his bearings.
“Thank you,” he gasps, “God, thank you, Nikolai. D-did you hear what they did? What they think I said? You know I’m innocent, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I say simply.
“Those bastards,” he groans, “They’ll pay for this. God as my witness, I’ll make those rat bastard idiots squeal before I’m done with them.”
“I’m sure,” I say, not a hint of interest in my voice. I reach into my jacket’s inner pocket and pull out a flask, which I unscrew and hand to Oskar. He takes it and gives it a whiff, getting a nose full of the aroma of fine vodka I put in it.
“You’re a saint,” he chuckles before he greedily drinks from the flask, draining an impressive amount of it before taking it from his lips and shaking his head. “God, I think I have a few broken bones from this.”
“He wasn’t holding back,” I agree, taking the vodka back. He doesn’t notice as I use a cloth to clean the blood off the opening before closing it up again.
“Do you know what the fuck that was about?” he asks.
“They think you’re a rat,” I say.
“The drugs?” he splutters. “That’s what they were talking about? Fuck me,” he groans. “At least you know the truth, right?”
“I do know the truth,” I say calmly, and it isn’t a lie. “That’s what I wanted to talk with you about.”
He watches me for a moment in silence, and I can almost see the gears in his mind turning. “What do you mean, comrade?”
“I know that you wouldn’t snitch to the police, Oskar,” I say pleasantly. “You don’t have time for that. Besides,” I add as I take out the pistol from my jacket and start screwing on the noise suppressor as Oskar’s eyes go wide, “I don’t think the police would be willing to pay you what Liev Ovechkin is paying you.”
Oskar’s mouth falls open as he desperately tries to think of something to say, anything.
“Save it,” I say as he starts to hold his hands up. “I’ve been watching you too long for half-assed pleas to spare your life.”
I’m not about to explain my homework to this slug. That isn’t worth my time, and I don’t hate him enough to draw out his execution.
“No, you don’t understand, Nikolai,” he gasps, his eyes going wide as I stand up slowly. “Liev’s pockets are deeper than you could possibly imagine, much deeper than Nestor’s. You’re working for the wrong man, we could work together, we could-”
Pop.
That same terrified expression is frozen on Oskar’s face as blood trickles down from the hole in his forehead, and I lower my gun. It’s a clean, silent kill. He probably didn’t even feel a thing. His body twitches involuntarily as I put my gun away.
The world won’t be missing Oskar.
From the moment he started working for the Korolevas, Oskar has been a plant from the Ovechkins, a rival bratva that has been a thorn in Nestor’s side for years. Liev Ovechkin is a smart man, I’ll give him that. Oskar evaded my notice for a very long time. He started as small potatoes, and he kept it that way. For years, he fed his true boss bits of information about Nestor’s operations. Never enough to expose himself, but always enough to give the Ovechkins an edge over the Korolevas, just enough to keep the two bratva families in a tense balance of power in Brighton Beach. I have to admit, he served his purpose well.
If Oskar knew the truth, he would feel cheated, and rightfully so. He played his cards right, always covering his tracks and making sure nothing could be traced back to him wherever possible. His methods could have been more subtle, but considering what he was given to work with, he did well.
In fact, the only reason I was able to pick up on his activities was that Oskar isn’t the only person playing both sides of the rivalry.
I’ve been pulling Liev Ovechkin’s strings as long as I’ve been working for Nestor Koroleva.
Being a contract killer has its perks. I work from the shadows, and I only have to get as close to each family as I want to. That lets me pick and choose who sees my activities and who stays in the dark. Nestor and Liev both believe that I am their ace in the hole, a secret weapon they can rely on above all else. I never break the act, no matter who I kill. None of my victims know the truth.
And I plan to keep it that way.
My black-gloved hand slips into my pocket, and I pull out a burner phone. I took it from Oskar’s house just after Aley and Dmitry picked him up. It gave me just enough time to plant the evidence on it that I need.
I made sure that the burner phone had records on it to make it look like Oskar got into a fight with an Ovechkin enforcer the night before—a perfect reason for the Ovechkins to murder Oskar. The Korolevas will want to retaliate when they think their rivals killed one of their men. Potential snitch or no, Oskar was a Koroleva soldier, meaning that taking his life is a transgression against the Korolevas.
Maybe even an act of war.
Fortunately for me, war is profitable.
I
plant the phone on Oskar’s body and slip away, winding through the maze of metal crates for the better part of an hour to make sure that my form isn’t caught on any security cameras. I am a shadow of a ghost.
I have to be. I walk a razor’s edge so sharp that it could carve up Brighton Beach in a day.
And from here on out, that razor is only going to get sharper.
My revenge is at hand.
Brighton Beach will fall for what they’ve done to me.
Anastasia
I smile as the light breeze ruffles through the sheer white curtains at the great bay window. Glancing at the elegantly-carved mahogany clock in the corner of the room, I can squint my eyes and tell that it’s just past eleven in the morning.
I sit up in bed, the silken sheets rustling around me, and lift my arms up over my head to stretch. A perfect little rebellion after a year away at boarding school where my dormitory mistress woke us before dawn every morning.
My smile grows as I remember that this finishing school crap is firmly in my past, and I have my whole future ahead of me. Under my control. I love my father, and I’m grateful that his business has afforded me certain... luxuries. But for the past few years, it’s felt like my wings have been clipped and my gilded cage kept getting smaller and smaller, more rules and structure always trying to keep me in place.
I want to fly.
I want to make something of myself.
My quick mind is wasted on finding the perfect curtsey for any occasion, and while I’m sure that knowing precisely how to meet each dignitary will be perfect for my future as a diplomat, there’s no need for me to get up in the dark each morning to do it.
Killing for Her: A Mafia Hitman Romance Page 1