Bone Deep

by Lea Griffith

  “Surely it is. I can only wonder if she suspects the truth of it all…if Grant told her what was done in the darkness of her pain,” Arrow mused. “You have the phone we left for you?”

  She nodded. She’d attached it to her side under her clothing.

  “Call us when it is done, sister, or we will worry,” Bullet demanded.

  Adam Collins stepped from the shadows, his midnight eyes narrowed on her. “He will follow you, Bone.”

  “I understand. It is who he is,” she admitted, meeting his gaze unflinchingly, hearing his warning and shrugging it off. “But he will not catch me.”

  Bullet sighed. “We will delay him as long as possible, but if he goes after the other head of the Bratva, he will learn what you have hidden from him and just how deep his family’s betrayal has gone, Bone. Can you do this?”

  “Sister, our plans come before everything else. That our paths have diverged to include others is irrelevant. Joseph is ours. I can do all things that lead us to his demise.”

  She stepped to the door and channeled her pain and rage. She was death. It was all she knew.

  As she left the house, she did not look back. She welcomed the shadows, let them hold her close and she became what she’d always been meant to be.

  Bone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Red Square was lit by a million lights it seemed, people milling to and fro and a million more snowflakes falling from the gray sky above. She did not like Russia simply because she hated the cold. Bone much preferred the plains of Jericho with its heated sands and endless sunshine.

  The man she’d come to watch hadn’t shown yet so she hunkered into her heavy, down-filled coat, keeping her hat low and her eyes trained on the ice rink in the middle of the square.

  He would be bringing his daughter to the rink. He would most definitely not be expecting Bone.

  Her reconnaissance had given her all the information she needed within hours of landing in Moscow. The female head of the Bratva was here, meeting with the Russian President in the hopes of securing land on the outskirts of the city. President Putin kept his enemies very close indeed, because The Collective’s aims did not line up with Mother Russia’s. In fact, were he to look too deeply into the eyes of that monster he would see The Collective’s intent was to own Russia, not just some property on the edge of its capital.

  Putin’s arrogance would get him ousted were it not for First Team. And while Bone hated dealing with any devil, The Collective was a much worse entity than an arrogant president trying to hold onto his power.

  She’d been here for two days, settling in to a small apartment she’d purchased three years ago under an assumed identity. No one suspected that the tiny old woman living in apartment 2D was actually a killer. Bone moved in this city as if it were her home.

  She glanced to her right as a man sat down and began looking through a paper. He rifled through it without even trying to appear as if he was reading.

  Guard, she thought, elation curving her lips as she realized her objective was close.

  Bone stood casually and walked away from the rink, keeping her gaze trained on nothing in particular as she sought Dostoyev in her periphery. There, to her left, a short, round man with a small girl at his side, holding his hand and smiling.

  He’d brought his child into harm’s way thinking no one would dare attack him in public. That he relied on a child for safety disgusted her. He thought her tiny form would save him.

  It would not.

  Bone didn’t kill children but she had no compunction about killing their parents. Especially if their parents were as evil as Vladimir Dostoyev. She crossed the street and wandered aimlessly for almost an hour, giving the man plenty of time to play for the last time with his child. He would be busy over the next couple of days and then his eternity would start. It was the least she could do.

  She walked into a store, took off the coat she wore and the heavy, baggy clothing under it to reveal more clothing, this tighter, more conducive to her motive. She left the coat and clothing in the bathroom of the store and called out a cheery goodnight to the women at the checkout desk. They did not call back, not that any of it mattered anyway.

  She walked back to the Square and straight to the rink. He remained there on the edge of the ice, watching his child go round and round and round. Her face glowed with joy and Bone rubbed her chest. Had she ever know that kind of joy?

  Yes, her heart whispered. With Dmitry she had.

  She pushed thoughts of him away, glancing around the rink and finding each of Dostoyev’s guards. It was humorous to Bone that the head of the Bratva’s guard needed guards himself. If he couldn’t keep himself, or his family, safe, how was he going to protect his leader?

  Each of his guards, including the one who’d sat beside her earlier, were now stationed around the rink, watching, waiting. Occasionally they would talk into their wrist communicators, trying to act covert though anyone with any training would know who and what they were.

  The little girl skated to the edge of the ice, ready to come off, and Bone moved toward them. She lowered her hand and shook it slightly, feeling the weight of a blade fall into her palm. It was cool, though it had been against her body.

  She smiled again, this time at one of Dostoyev’s guards as she stepped up to her prey and pulled him close. She shoved the knife into his side deep enough that he would feel it—deep enough for him to realize she wasn’t playing.

  He glanced at her, eyes wide, jaw going slack. He started to turn back to his child.

  “Tell her to keep skating, comrade,” Blade demanded harshly in English.

  “Derzhite kataniye, dorogaya,” he called out, voice wavering, fear rising in a stench off his skin.

  “She is a pretty child. She reminds me of others you’ve sold into the hands of the devil—you remember them, yes?” Bone pushed a little deeper and he grunted.

  He didn’t answer but she knew he spoke perfect English and understood her question. So she shoved the entire tip of the knife into his pudgy side. She wasn’t close to anything vital…not yet.

  “You remember them?” she asked again, keeping her voice low.

  His guards had noticed how close she was standing to him, noticed his face, and the mask of fear upon it.

  “I don’t remember them,” he admitted and she smelled the pungent aroma of urine.

  “You disgust me, Dostoyev. Perhaps we should send little Layla to The Collective. I wonder how long your child would last in the hands of pedophiles and murderers. She is especially sweet and her laughter—ahhh, she would be a delight for them to break,” Bone mused aloud.

  “You will not take my child. I will give you anything, but not my child,” he stammered.

  “I want nothing you have to give me. Your presence here was enough,” she muttered as the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed into her neck. She leaned toward Dostoyev’s ear and whispered, “Thank you. Make sure you take her home before you come visit me, yes? I would hate for her to be harmed. I would hate for her to watch you die.”

  Then she dropped her knife and stepped away from him raising her arms. His guards took her down immediately and she allowed it. She had not come so far to waste Dostoyev’s death. Oh, he would die, but after she made it into Bratva headquarters under St. Basil’s Cathedral.

  Always they used religious sites for their business. It was abhorrent to her.

  His guards didn’t say a word, simply trussed her arms behind her back and lifted her up roughly, pushing her toward a waiting vehicle. Bone glanced back once, seeing the little girl’s face, confusion and fear lining the chubby planes.

  Bone smiled and one of the guards slapped her. The inside of her cheek split and she spit out blood and saliva, continuing to smile.

  “Ona skhodit s uma,” one of them said. She is crazy.

  “Da,” she responded with a laugh.

  “I vskore ona budet mertva,” another chimed in. And soon she will be dead.

  Not
until she was finished, she thought.

  They shoved her into the blacked-out SUV, pushing her head down between her legs and taking off. There was no conversation between them after that and the trip was short. They were taking her to the cathedral.

  Bone had planned this for years and it was going as she’d envisioned. She’d be a fool to think it had nothing to do with luck. They could have taken her somewhere else. But she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  The SUV skidded to a stop and the men got out, pulling her to the ground and dragging her down a set of stairs. Bone glanced up to the sky, saw the onion-shaped domes of St. Basil’s glowing eerily and she smiled again.

  It seemed she was doing a lot of that lately.

  She forced her mind away from Dmitry. He had no place here. She’d come to Moscow for one reason—to eliminate the other head of the Bratva. And she was close now.

  She remained still as they dragged her through a series of tunnels, the moldy, wet smell telling her they were getting close to their destination. The Moscow River bordered the Kremlin and the Red Square. It was the origin of the water she was being hauled through.

  They pulled her into a large room and threw her on the ground. She glanced up and around, taking their number and waiting.

  “Who are you?” the first question came from the man she’d stuck in the side with her knife.

  “No one,” she whispered, the smile never leaving her face.

  Another shot to the side. “What are you?”

  “Nothing,” she responded automatically.

  She was so close. Her body was ready for what they would dish out here tonight. They thought to break her. It was nothing but pain. She was going to show them strength.

  He stepped to her and slapped her full on the face.

  “If that is the best you have, Dostoyev, I wonder how you climbed the ladder to Pervichnaya Okhrannik,” she said, spitting out more blood.

  He kicked her then, in the head and she fell to her side, absorbing the blow and loosening her muscles. She had a hard head. It was yet another part of her training with Master that she’d become accustomed to blows to the head.

  “How do you know me?” he asked in a hard voice.

  “I know you all. I know your mothers, fathers, children, and I know your leader,” she whispered.

  They were on her then, at some unseen signal from Dostoyev. At least three of his men began a systematic round of kicks and punches. She took them all and when her eyes were swollen and her ribs screamed, she glanced up at Dostoyev and she smiled once more.

  “You are crazy,” he murmured as he crossed himself.

  She laughed then. It was funny though it probably lent credibility to his assertion she was a sandwich shy of a picnic. “Your religion will not save you from me,” she told him.

  She could not see the punches coming. They weren’t as effective as they were hoping. She couldn’t control how her skin bruised or swelled but she could control her pain and what they were doing was creating a monster inside of her.

  Then they stopped and she breathed as deeply as her cracked ribs would allow.

  “Take her to a Cathedral cell,” Dostoyev bit out. “String her up.”

  Those were probably the only words they could have said that would have given Bone pause. The only other thing would have been that they had Dmitry. As it was, the threat of ropes slithered under her skin, sinking its poisonous promise into her soul.

  But this too she would overcome.

  They dragged her back through the tunnels and when they came to her cell, one man lifted her bound hands and wrapped a thinly-braided rope around her wrists. He left the flex cuffs on her, simply winding the rough rope over them.

  You will know what it is to go against me. Do not breathe too heavily, child, the rope is frayed.

  Once the men finished twining the rope on her wrists, they strung her from a bolt hole in the ceiling. They gave her a small table to stand on but it was rickety.

  “Kinky,” she whispered. “Who’d have thought you capable of it?”

  One of the men spit on her. Another punched her in the gut. She breathed out as the punch landed and it didn’t hurt quite so bad. Then each man turned, walked out of the cell, and locked it behind them.

  And so it began. Every few hours one of the men entered the cell, kicking the small table out from under her to leave her hanging so they could tear into her with punches and kicks, and taunt her with death. She drew in a breath with each new man, memorizing their smell. When they left she withdrew into her mind, stroking her hate and lust and letting it soothe her.

  The beatings went on for over a day. She’d had no food, nothing but their fists to eat and it was enough. She licked the ropes which had droplets of water clinging to them. She slept when she could. She had been here before, absorbing blow after blow, taking the punishment so the lust could be fully realized.

  They did not know the beast they’d tethered. She wouldn’t be in these ropes much longer. And when she wasn’t, she would kill them all.

  The ropes stirred the hate inside her. Minton had been a cruel taskmaster. He had lingered over tying her up, the look on his face as he’d touched the fraying strands, seen her naked and quivering in their grasp, had been grotesque.

  Do not move, Bone Breaker, they will break and you will fall…all…the way…down…

  Always he’d taunted her.

  The cell door clanged open and a brand new scent, clean and lovely, littered with gardenias and a spice of some sort infiltrated the damp, musky confines.

  The table was kicked from under her. She swung and swung until she did not swing any more.

  “You will give me what I want, or I will kill you,” a woman’s soft voice said.

  Give me what I want or watch them, child. Watch me take their lives.

  She had not given in to Minton, she would not tell him what had happened on that black night so long ago and so he punished her. Five little girls, not much younger than Ninka when she’d died…bait…each a penalty for the crime of withholding information. He’d killed them all in front of Bone, throwing them over the cliff and forcing her to watch until her voice was gone from screaming.

  She could not have given him the secret but she had begged him to throw her instead of the girls.

  She had vowed that day she would be the one to take him. He was hers from that moment on. When he had released her from his ropes two days later, she walked to the river, gathered their broken and bent bodies with her sisters and buried them in the bone yard with Ninka. So many were there now…too many. The weight of their lives remained a noose around her soul.

  No, she thought. I did not give in to Minton and this bitch will not break me either.

  “She has not told you who she is?” a woman asked, her voice still soft though now being ridden with a hard edge.

  “She remains silent. We have beaten her black and blue,” Dostoyev said.

  The woman walked around and around and around Bone and she thought perhaps the woman knew Joseph too well. The woman’s fingers traced Bone’s spine, slid down her hip and Bone’s stomach rebelled.

  “She was once lovely,” the woman said wonderingly. She release Bone’s braid and her hair fell. “Look at this hair.” The woman ran her hands through Bone’s long, curly hair and it made the rage grow and ripple under her skin. “She’s said nothing about her reason for attacking you? She hasn’t said why she’s here?”

  “Nyet,” Dostoyev hissed.

  Bone raised her head. She could no longer feel her arms. “I am here for you,” she whispered.

  “What did she say?” the woman asked.

  But Bone would not repeat herself. It was enough her vow was given voice, no matter if her target heard it or not.

  The woman tsked. “Where is Sacha’s son?”

  “Already in the tower,” Dostoyev assured her.

  Bone’s heart stopped. Everything in her mind crashed around her. Surely not…


  “You have made him comfortable?” the woman asked and in her tone was a slyness that coated Bone’s skin with acid.

  “We have,” Dostoyev responded on a laugh.

  “Take her there. It is as Joseph said it would be. This is one of his prized assassins,” the woman sneered. “She came for me and the prodigal son followed.” She stepped up to Bone, stroking a fingernail down over her collarbone. “They call you Bone Breaker but I think it is I who will break you. Thank you for bringing Dmitry to me, Bone Breaker. I wish I could say it will be a joyous reunion.”

  Then the woman stepped back, chuckled and was gone.

  “Take her down and drag her to the tower,” Dostoyev ordered.

  His men stepped in and did just that. Bone was in a bra and her underwear. They had discarded her clothes after they searched her yesterday. When they took the ropes out of the bolt hole she slid to a heap on the floor.

  She coughed loudly and then gagged, throwing up stomach acid. The men backed away, not wanting to be in the middle of all that. The swelling in her eyes had gone down enough for her to see through slits. She allowed them to pick her up by her armpits and begin half-carrying, half-dragging her to one of the towers that surrounded the Kremlin.

  She contained her excitement that everything was going as it should because it wasn’t. Somehow, someway, Dmitry was here. It was Bone’s worst nightmare. It could only be worse if it were one of her sisters.

  It seemed to take forever to get where they were going. Behind her eyelids she saw low light and heard the lapping of the Moscow River at its banks. The smell of stagnant water was strong here. It reminded her of the water pits in Arequipa.

  Soon now, she thought. Please let him be okay.

  A door opened and then she was thrust into a room that held low shadows. She hit the ground and rolled, again absorbing the impact.

  “And now we are all here,” the woman said with a clap.

  Bone looked through the long skeins of her hair and found Dmitry being held up by an enormous mountain of a guard. The guard looked familiar, something about how he held himself niggling a memory. She pushed it aside. It mattered not who he was. He would die for harming Dmitry.