Demetrius
“I think we should pack up,” I told her. It amazed me that she could somehow go into that bathroom and come out looking as fresh as if she’d had access to a shower or something. I still smelled like sex. I still smelled like her. I wanted to scrub the scent of it off of me before I went absolutely mad. “I said that if we hadn’t heard anything from Nikolai by today that we should try something else.”
She stood in the doorway. “Oh,” she said. “Okay. Well, I’ll need help to get this stuff out. Blaze helped me bring it in before.”
I groaned. “Great. I’ll call him, and he won’t show up until tomorrow.”
“Ambrose and Cass will help,” she said.
“Right,” I said. “That’s obviously the best solution.”
“You don’t have to call them right away,” she said. “I can do the teardown by myself. But are you sure you want to start that right away? I mean, Nikolai’s not even awake. And I’m a little hungry.”
“I don’t think it’s safe here anymore,” I said.
“Did something happen last night that I’m not aware of?” she said, eyeing me. “Or are you on meds or something, and you just ran out? Why isn’t it safe?”
I sighed. I wasn’t about to tell her that my psycho cousin had threatened to torture and rape her while I watched. I didn’t need that playing through her head. I’d protect her from that. But—as far as it went—it was probably okay. I didn’t think Giovanni would come back. Still, I was disturbed at how easily he’d found me. Stupid fucking phone. “I just got to thinking that people could track our phones if they wanted.”
“Not mine,” she said. “Give me yours, and I’ll fix it so it’s untraceable, ‘kay?”
I dug it out of my pocket. “You can do that?”
“Yup.” She nodded. “Only take me a few minutes. Of course, I was going to make an egg sandwich with those groceries that Blaze brought.”
“You can make egg sandwiches?” I raised my eyebrows.”
“Well, I never have, but how hard can it be? I mean, I figured I’d put the egg in the microwave, and the bread in the toaster, and—”
“I’ll make egg sandwiches,” I said. “You fix my phone.” I handed it to her.
She smiled. “Cool.”
I went into the kitchenette and got busy. It was better not to be near her, anyway. Ah, hell, this was going to be torture. I had to work with her for the rest of this stupid job, and every time I looked at her, I was going to remember those sexy little noises she made when I touched her, and—
Eggs.
I was going to concentrate on eggs.
I heated up a skillet and cracked them onto the sizzling surface. I sprinkled salt and pepper over them. I wondered if Kiera wanted her yolk runny or cooked through.
“Danger, get in here,” she called.
“I can’t leave the eggs. They’ll burn.”
“Fuck the eggs,” she said. “Popov’s in the office.”
I turned off the burner and ran back to the room.
I went to the window and looked down into Nikolai’s office. Sure enough, there was Popov, sitting down opposite Nikolai’s desk.
“Sorry to come so early,” Popov was saying.
“Not problem. I am always here this early. You know that.” Nikolai was sipping his coffee. “What can I do for you?”
“I just have problem with one of the girls. She is the sick one, the one we kept out of big room with the others?”
I turned to look at Kiera. “Big room?” I mouthed.
She was scrolling furiously through a list of files on her computer.
“Yes,” Nikolai said. “What about her?”
“Well, she try to hurt herself. Bang her head against wall over and over. She say she want to die.”
Nikolai drank some coffee. “She is sick, she is crazy, is there reason we keep her alive?”
Kiera motioned me over.
I came over to look at the computer screen. She had a scanned-in copy of the building schematics. “Here,” she said. “In the basement. There’s a big room with a big door on it.”
“You can only get there from the elevator?” I pointed.
Kiera nodded.
Popov was still talking. “I thought you would say this.” He switched to Russian.
“Can you turn that down?” I said to Kiera.
She fiddled with the volume. The Russian voices faded.
Kiera made a face. “They’re going to kill that girl?”
“Sounds like she’s trying to kill herself,” I said. “If I were a woman, and that happened to me, I’d want to die. I can’t imagine anything worse than being forced—”
“Stop,” she said, looking ashen.
“Sorry,” I said. “So, you think that’s where the girls are, then?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s a level down from here.” She pointed. “Which was our best guess before.”
“Those looked like cells to me,” I said. “But the girls aren’t there.”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
I sat back in my chair. “Well, all right, then. We got our confirmation. This worked out. He told us where the girls were after all.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Your planned worked.”
It had. But it hadn’t worked as well as I might have hoped it would. And when she’d criticized it before, she had been right. It really wasn’t the best plan. I needed to do better.
I was sure I could do better.
When I put together the plan to get in and get Natasha, the plan to kill Nikolai—that plan was going to be airtight. No room for mistakes.
She was grinning at me. “I’m so glad that we can get moving on this.”
“Me too,” I said. “It’ll be good to get this job over with.”
“Absolutely.”
“Then I won’t bother you anymore.”
Her face froze for a second. Then she laughed. “Yeah. I’m sick of seeing you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kiera
It was good to be back in the hotel again. Having a shower was bliss. I had taken at least three hot showers the first day back, just to celebrate. I hadn’t seen Demetrius at all, though, nor had anyone else.
I ran into Blaze at the hotel bar, and he said that Danger was locked up in his room working on the plan to get in to the building and get Natasha. Blaze said Danger didn’t want to be interrupted.
Blaze and I chatted about how long it might take him to work on the plan. Blaze said he was hoping for a few more days in the hotel. He was enjoying all the free drinks and room service.
But it turned out that the next morning, Demetrius called everyone into his hotel room to tell us what we’d all be doing.
A lot of it was what I had expected.
I’d be offsite for most of it, controlling things in the building’s security system. None of the stuff he needed me to do would be difficult for me, though. It was the standard kind of hacking job that I did every day for the guys in the organization. I wasn’t particularly worried about it.
“And we’ll send Cass down the elevator shaft,” said Demetrius. “Along with Blaze.”
“Man, why am I always with the acrobat chick?” said Blaze, looking annoyed.
“I need your skills to get the girls out,” said Demetrius. “Meanwhile, Ambrose and I will be overriding the locks and getting the doors open, so that you can get the girls out.”
“What about Nikolai?” said Blaze. “That’s the reason we’re getting paid on this job, right? Whacking him? How’s that go down?”
“Well, we’re going to get that in place first,” said Demetrius. “And I’ll talk about that in a minute. But we’ll need your skills for that too, Blaze.”
“Tell me now,” said Blaze.
“I’m getting to it,” said Demetrius. “So, you and Cass go down the elevator shaft, and then you use explosives to blow a tunnel out down here.” He gestured on the schematics. “Then you get the girls out, and then Nikol
ai’s office building blows, and that causes pandemonium—”
“Wait a second,” said Blaze. “What’s this about a building blowing? You’ve got me blowing the building and blowing a tunnel?”
“Yeah, I’ll get to that,” said Demetrius.
“How the hell can I do them both at the same time?”
“Well,” said Demetrius, “we’re going to sneak into Nikolai’s office building and set the charges.”
“Great,” said Blaze. “Am I going in through the window again, because there’s no way I can carry all those explosives that way.”
“No,” said Demetrius. “When Kiera and I were there watching, we noticed that the place gets pretty empty around nine o’clock at night. Everyone’s gone. My brother Matteo said that Nikolai usually goes to Alexei’s Tavern and has a few drinks each night.”
“How does Matteo know that?” said Blaze. “Can he be sure Nikolai will stay there?”
“Matteo knows because he followed him around for weeks,” said Demetrius. “Idiot even approached Nikolai about Natasha, introduced himself and everything. Nikolai heard the last name Gallo and had Matteo banned from the bar.”
“Okay,” said Blaze. “He goes every night? How long is he there for?”
“There’s no guarantee that he’ll stay out, though, is there?” said Ambrose. “Seems risky, if you ask me.”
“Well, that’s why we’re going to distract him,” said Demetrius. “That’ll keep him out.”
“How are we going to do that?” said Ambrose. “I can’t be there. He thinks I’m a crooked cop.”
“I know that,” said Demetrius. “That’s why Cass will do it. She can flirt with him a little bit, make him think she’s into him, keep him buying drinks.”
“That’s not going to work,” said Ambrose.
“What do you mean?” said Demetrius. “Cass distracts Nikolai. You, me, and Blaze set the charges.”
“What am I doing?” I said.
“We don’t need you for this one, Kiera,” said Demetrius.
I folded my arms over my chest. Didn’t need me? Well, that kind of sucked.
“I don’t know if I’m very good at flirting,” spoke up Cass. “I’ll do my best, of course.”
“No, you won’t,” said Ambrose. “Because you’re not doing it.”
“She’s doing it,” said Danger. He turned to Cass. “Look, you’ll be great. You used to be a performer, right? That involves a certain amount of acting.”
“I was an acrobat,” she said. “I was really far up. No one could even see my facial expressions.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Ambrose. “Because you’re not doing it. You’re my wife, and I’m not having you flirt with another man. Furthermore, it’s too dangerous.”
“It’s not as if she’s really flirting with him,” said Demetrius.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Ambrose. “That’s not cool. I would never pretend flirt with another woman, not even for a job. It’s out of bounds. No way am I cool with Cass doing it.”
Danger sighed. “Oh, come on, Ambrose.”
Ambrose pointed at me. “What about her? Kiera can do it.”
Demetrius shook his head. “That doesn’t even make any sense. Kiera is a hacker. She doesn’t do anything hands-on. She just sits behind computers.”
“She’d do great,” said Blaze. “You can flirt with Nikolai, right?”
The thought of flirting with Nikolai turned my stomach, actually, but I liked this idea way better than being benched. “I can totally do it,” I said.
“No,” said Demetrius.
I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t think I’m sexy enough?”
He swallowed hard. He wouldn’t look at me. “You’re… fine in that department. But it’s a bad idea. You’re too young for him.”
“Oh, I don’t think he’ll see it that way,” said Blaze. “I think the younger the better, right? He’ll love that. It’ll flatter him.”
Demetrius turned to Blaze. “Just stop. Okay? You’re not helping.”
Blaze grinned. “You don’t want her to do it? Why not?”
“It’s just… not her skill set,” said Danger. “Besides, it’s dangerous.”
“But not too dangerous for Cass?” said Ambrose.
Danger rubbed his forehead.
“You don’t want to watch her flirt with Nikolai, do you?” said Blaze. “You’re just as possessive as Ambrose here. But newsflash, Danger, she’s not even yours. That’s why I am so not down with this whole monogamy thing. You people are all insanely jealous, and I’m free—”
I cleared my throat. “Don’t be stupid, Blaze. There’s nothing going on between Danger and me.” I smiled at him. “Right?”
“Not a thing,” he said.
“So, there’s no reason for me not to do this job,” I said.
Demetrius sighed. “Fine. But if you’re going toe-to-toe with Nikolai, I’ve got to be there.”
“Worried she’ll show him too much skin?” said Blaze.
“No,” said Danger. “I just think she’ll need coaching. You’ll wear an earpiece, and I’ll coach you through it, Kiera. You have no experience with this kind of thing.”
“Neither did Cass, and you weren’t going to do that with her,” said Ambrose.
“Cass was a performer,” said Demetrius, and then shook his head, shoulders sagging. “You know what, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Cass is out. Kiera’s in.”
“Actually,” said Blaze, “if you’re going to be with Kiera, then I could use Miss Acrobat with me, setting charges. I think she’d be good at getting into some tight spots.”
“I can do that,” said Cass, smiling.
Blaze raised his eyebrows at Danger. “Looks like it’s all settled, then.”
* * *
Kiera
The bar was darkly lit and smoky, even though it wasn’t legal to smoke in bars anymore. This place didn’t seem to care, because half of the people had lit cigarettes. Ashtrays littered the scattered round tables.
I was wearing a very tight red skirt and a low cut black blouse. I had it from a Halloween costume in which I’d been a she-devil. The costume had included a red wig with devil horns, but I wasn’t wearing that.
Danger didn’t like the outfit. He said it was pushing it.
Blaze approved, however, saying that I needed to keep Nikolai distracted for at least two hours. He said that I couldn’t take any chances. He said that I shouldn’t wear a bra.
That made me blush.
I had to draw the line somewhere, though. I wasn’t going to see this guy braless. That felt like going to a battle without armor. The bra made me feel a little bit protected.
I was nervous.
Theoretically, having Danger talking to me over the earpiece should have made things easier, but he was being his typical paranoid self. He was worried about what Nikolai could do to me, and I could hear it in his voice every time he spoke to me.
What was worse, I was worried too.
I had listened to Nikolai talk about how he liked to break girls. I had listened to him cavalierly order the death of a girl because she was ill and mentally unstable. He was a very bad man, the worst kind of man.
And he was old and fat and ugly too.
How was I supposed to flirt with him?
I stood in the doorway of the bar, watching him.
Nikolai was seated in the corner. He was talking with another member of the Mikailhov family, who was sitting next to him.
“I’m in place,” I said to Demetrius. He was in the bar too, all the way on the other side, sitting at the bar opposite the bartender. He had a good view of Nikolai, but his back was to me now.
“You can hang tight for a bit,” he said in a low voice. “He’s still got company.”
“Okay.” I chewed on my lip. I didn’t even know how to flirt. I had never flirted with anyone. “Demetrius?”
“Yeah?”
“At what point did you first find me attractive?”
“I’m assuming you did at one point find me attractive?”
“Kiera.” He was growling.
“Well? You did, right?”
“Yes, fine, yes. What does this have to do with anything?”
“I’m just trying to figure out what it is that I did that started it, so that I can do the same thing to Nikolai.”
He didn’t respond.
I tugged at the end of my skirt. It really barely covered my butt. I remembered that when I wore it at Halloween, every time I sat down, I could feel the chair on the backs of my butt cheeks, because the skirt rode up.
“Just…” There was a hitch in Danger’s voice. “Play innocent. That should work on him.”
“Innocent? But I’m not innocent.”
He chuckled softly.
“I’m not.” I wanted to go and strangle him.
Suddenly, I realized that the guy who was talking to Nikolai was getting up to leave.
I burst through the door, practically tripping over my heels in my hurry to get to Nikolai. He was going to be alone, and I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to keep him here. My job was to distract him and keep him here. I needed to do that.
“Slow down,” said Danger’s voice in my ear. “Don’t walk like that. Be sexy.”
“I’m trying,” I hissed.
“And don’t talk to me,” he said. “He’ll think you’re crazy.”
I wanted to say something back to Danger, but he was right. I squared my shoulders, and swung my hips, taking slower, more deliberate steps toward Nikolai.
The bartender looked up from drying some glasses. I felt his gaze slide over my body. I gave him a look. His lips were parted.
“Why don’t you get back to work, buddy?” said Demetrius. “Stop drooling.”
It took me a second to realize he was talking to the bartender.
“Sorry,” he muttered to me after the bartender went back to his task. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud. Would you just hurry up and get to Nikolai already?”
First he wanted me to slow down, then to speed up. I didn’t know what he wanted. I tried to strike a middling pace. Faster than I was going now, but not so fast I was tripping over my feet.
Eventually, I reached Nikolai’s table.
Rough: A Hitman Romance Page 13