Wrath

by Lana Pecherczyk

  Down the dark stairs, through the cold corridor of blinking lights, watched by strange masked men, hiding in alcoves. They got to the end and Yuri knocked at the closed door of Dimitri’s office.

  “Da,” he said from inside.

  Yuri opened the door and exchanged a few Russian words with Dimitri, then stepped aside to let her in. She took a deep breath, hardened her resolve, and walked through, barely registering Yuri closing the door behind her until the soft click of the latch sounded as loud as a hammer.

  Alek lay on his side on the floor, still strapped to a chair by the wrists. Bruising discolored his swollen lip and cheek. One black, puffy eye squinted shut, the other stared at the far wall. Can’t see me… or… He didn’t move. For a moment, her lungs burned from lack of oxygen. Then his chest lifted with breath, and she forced her lungs to work. He’s alive.

  Ignoring Dimitri at his desk, she went to her brother and placed a gentle hand on him. “Alek.”

  Immediately, an icy blue eye snapped to her with a vulnerable accusation that seemed to say, “You shouldn’t have come,” the same time as, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Before she could be stopped, Misha pulled at the rope tying Alek’s hands to the arms of the chair. When they fell free, he rubbed his wrists gingerly. Misha helped him to a sitting position on the floor and then rounded on the man watching her with morbid fascination from beyond his big wooden desk.

  “I knew you would come.” His black soulless eyes locked onto her. “It is in our blood; this need to finish the game.”

  You’re insane. And that was when she noticed his arm. The gleaming gold and metal piece of machinery was something out of a futuristic horror movie. It seemed so unreal that for a moment, she thought it was a costume, but then it moved. He could have hidden the arm, but he chose to expose it. He’d ripped the fabric from one suit arm, and the hideous monstrosity was for all to see.

  Visible power. No one would dare say no to him again. But even as part of her mind jumped to conclusions about his motives, the other part was painfully chaotic, traveling back to his greeting words. Why her? Why this relentless sick game he played? It wasn’t one she wanted to play.

  Her shoulders slumped in defeat because it was true, in a way, she had come to finish his game.

  “Yes, Dimitri. I came.”

  The snake moved behind him. It coiled around the tree branch, a slithering mass of muscle. All around the room, evidence of Dimitri’s madness glared back at her. The obsession for gold. The blood stains left on the floor. The CCTV screens invading the privacy of his customers upstairs. Her hand began its slow path to the back of her waistband.

  She’d always believed in karma, that if you lived a life full of anger, anger would come for you. With him, it had. The man had no love, no joy, no peace. That was his life by choice and, at the start, it was why she’d put up with his bullshit, because she always knew she’d already won. Toward the end, that willingness of hers to live and let live had only caused her pain and suffering. Now karma was coming for him, and it felt like the cold hard steel her fingers slowly closed around.

  “Let my brother go.” The words trembled from her lips, betraying her uncertainty. “And I’ll do whatever you want.”

  Just a little more. Get a good grip around the trigger.

  A sneer pinched his face. “Put your hand back where I can see it.”

  She paused and considered pulling the weapon to shoot him. Calculations zoomed through her mind, and it was that hesitation that cost her. Dimitri’s jaw hardened, he moved. She gripped the gun, pulled it, swung it to—it was knocked from her hand. Shock petrified her body and made her a prisoner to her galloping heart. Adrenaline pumped and prickled her skin. Get out, run, her mind screamed, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t. Alek was still behind her. She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t even try.

  He was there. In front of her. Menacing eyes and golden strength about to hurt, she flinched back, waiting for the inevitable blow, but the breath burst out of him and he took a step back. His eyes trailed to an outfit hanging from a hook on the wall. A French Maid’s outfit. It had black cuff sleeves, a revealing neckline, a short black skirt with a white frilly petticoat with a tuxedo apron down the front. Obscene. “Put it on.”

  Tears stung her eyes at his request. Humiliation sank her heart.

  Alek got to his feet behind her, and she knew the full shame of her actions would no longer be a secret from her family. But she’d done it for them and she would do it again. She had to get Alek out of there. Make him safe. Slowly, inch by inch, she stepped backward, shepherding Alek away from Dimitri and toward the door.

  Dimitri’s eyes flared with aggravation, and he stood. “You defy me still! I am the one making demands, Misha. Me. Not you.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll do anything you want. First, just let Alek go. Please. I’m begging. He’s done nothing to you.”

  For some reason, that infuriated him more. “The entire Minksi family owes me.”

  One look at his mechanical arm clenching, preparing, and Dimitri’s violent intent was clear. He wasn’t going to let them go. A step forward. Veins bulged in his little head. Clenched teeth released his words. “I said, get dressed.”

  He shoved her sideways, back the way she’d come. She knocked against the wall and slid to the floor before she understood what happened. When her vision cleared, Dimitri advanced on her. The manic light in his eyes had gone beyond comprehension, and when his foot lashed out toward her abdomen, her first panicked thought had been the very thing she’d denied all week. “I’m pregnant!” she shouted, arms out to shield her.

  The kick never came. She lowered her trembling hands. Dimitri’s head cocked to the side, stunned. But beyond him, near the exit, Alek’s eyes were the most surprised. He understood. He’d read her lips. A fierce, loyal expression crossed his face before he clamped down hard. For a moment, Misha didn’t see her younger disabled brother. She saw a man, strong and determined.

  The word run was on the tip of her tongue, but Alek wasn’t watching. His attention speared Dimitri’s way. The hatred and fury burning through his posture stole her breath away, and she knew her brother was about to do something stupid. For her.

  Dimitri snarled at Misha, bringing her focus back to him. “You think after your mother abandoned me that I give a shit about what’s inside you?”

  Huh?

  Thoughts scrambled in her mind as Misha tried to make sense of his words. The room spun around her. The floor tilted. Was he insane? Was she in some sort of movie, or a dream? How could her mother abandon him? While her eyes wildly darted about the room, they landed on hope. Her pistol was underneath the fallen chair, not even a yard away from her. Forcing herself to calm, she straightened her spine. Chin out, she caught her brother’s eye. He noticed the gun, too. A plan formulated in her head. Distract Dimitri. Get the gun. Live.

  “You’re insane, Dimitri, and you’re a liar.”

  Misha barely finished her words before Dimitri careened to the side. One second, he stood there, about to unleash fury, the next he was knocked to the side. Alek had launched himself at Dimitri’s torso, tackling him. The two of them hit the desk. CCTV monitors scattered to the ground. Dimitri’s metal fist hit Alek with a sickening sound, but Alek made no cry of pain. He couldn’t. Launching across the old carpet, she retrieved the gun from under the fallen chair, but the tangle of limbs lashing at each other was too much. She couldn’t see what happened, couldn’t pick them apart. Only when that shining mechanical thing whirred through the air and landed on her brother’s arm, did she get her chance. They both froze as Alek’s mouth opened in a soundless scream of agony, and Dimitri pressed down harder.

  She aimed. Fired.

  Glass shattered as the terrarium exploded. Missed. She’d missed Dimitri, but it shocked his grip from her brother. Without missing a beat, she tugged Alek from the desk and shoved him at the door. She tried not to think of her brother’s injured and bloody face. He would be fine.
He was a survivor. She only took her eyes from Dimitri for a second, only enough to open the door and shove her brother out, but it was plenty of time for Dimitri to take hold of the gun, wrest if from her grip and crush.

  “Go!” she shouted at Alek and pushed with all the might of the love bursting from her heart. “I’ll hold him off. Get out, get—” She slammed the door shut and locked it. Get Wyatt.

  If she escaped with her brother, Dimitri would chase them down before they got to the end of the corridor. The masked watchers would chase them down. Alek had a better chance of survival if she kept the boss busy, kept him from making that order to cut them down. Leaning against the wood, catching her breath, she turned and faced the spindly devil, panting and snorting with rage. Keep him busy. Yeah, right.

  How? The crumbled remains of her gun had scattered across the floor. That arm of his had turned the metal into shavings, and Dimitri delighted in the fact it scared the living shit out of her. Before he moved to attack her, she pushed off the door and went to the outfit. Keep him busy. Give Alek enough time to get out of there before the alarm went off.

  “Look,” she said without turning. “I’m playing your game. I’m putting it on.”

  A snort of rage behind her made her think of a bull, and she tried to remain steady, knowing that any moment he could tear her head clear from her shoulders.

  “Once I put it on, then what? What do you want from me?” She slipped the dress from the hanger. She shoved her pants down, ripped her top off, and slipped the skimpy dress over her head, all the while continuing to talk. “Why me, Dimitri? Why insist on putting me through this damn charade of yours?”

  The heavy breathing seemed to subside.

  Unable to zip herself up, the dress hung limply from her shoulders, like a rag doll. When she turned around, his eyes momentarily lost their fire, but then they hardened, once again turning to pure black hate.

  “You still have no fucking clue,” he said. “You’re as dumb as your mother.”

  She gasped. Still, he brought up her mother? Your mother abandoned me, he’d said.

  “She worked for us.” Dimitri stalked toward her, his human hand jabbing in accusation toward her. “The suka worked for my father, cleaning our fucking toilets. He paid for her to come from Poland, and what did she do? She fucked him. Got pregnant. But do you think the whore wanted me? No. She got what she wanted—a life in this country. She stayed for two years, and then left me at my father’s door, and abandoned me for her new family.” His eyes narrowed in malice. “You.”

  Nausea rolled in her stomach. The carpet rocked beneath her feet. “No. You’re making this up.”

  “Nyet, Misha,” he sneered. “I do not make it up. I lived with my asshole father for years telling me how unwanted I was. How a little cockroach like me wasn’t wanted by his cockroach mother. And when I was old enough. I killed him. Stabbed him, then filled his puny mouth with cockroaches—made him choke on them. Then I tracked down this woman. To see if this was the blyád' he led me to believe. To make her see it was an honor to consider me her son. And when I find her dead, when I go to her funeral—” his dark eyes turned vacant. “I was…” He paused, stunned, eyes glazed as he relived the memory. “She had another family. One she wanted. A family who mourned her for being a wonderful woman.” His face twisted and he spat on the floor. “I would have killed her if nature had not done it for me. Instead, I find you… a woman with the same face. Same hair. The one she had growing in her womb when she left me.”

  Denial pumped through her system, but she couldn’t discount he might be telling the truth. Her parents hadn’t met in Poland before coming to this country. They’d met here. Hannah Minksi had immigrated with another man, or there had been one waiting for her. She was a little rusty on the details, but it was entirely plausible. The instant her mind thought it, her heart threw up an argument. Her mother was too kind to be this heartless woman he accused her of being. She had always said their family was the best thing that ever happened to her, and Tata had said she was the best thing that happened to him. Family was important to her.

  “No,” she insisted again. “This is part of your sick game. We graduated school at the same time.”

  Dimitri laughed. “Look at me, siostra. I am puny. I could pass for a teenager, even now. You know it is true.”

  She shook her head. No.

  “Yes,” he said, delighting in her horror. “My father beat her as he did me, but instead of staying, instead of protecting me, she left me. And this is what you get now.” He splayed his hands wide.

  God. Misha squeezed her eyes shut, mind hurtling back to her childhood. All the times her mother admonished her for whining about her life, saying she didn’t know how good she had it. It had all sounded like gratuitous parenting, but now, it held a note of truth.

  A pounding at the door had both of them jolting to attention.

  Damn it. Alek was probably still out there. He hadn’t run. Misha’s desperate eyes clashed with Dimitri’s insane ones. There was no way he’d let her go. With a sinking feeling, her hand fluttered to cover her stomach. She should have trusted Wyatt.

  Thirty-Eight

  Sara’s laughter haunted Wyatt’s memories. You’re just a dumbass. It’s why I picked you.

  Shutting her out, he raced down to the garage and climbed aboard Betty. Sloan and Mary rushed to keep up with him. Sloan with her iPad, chasing down the steps, shouting for him to plan his entry. Never go in blind. That was a rule drilled into them during training. Get eyes on the target. Know your enemy. A small part of him was proud of Sloan for her diligence, but he was already deep in a haze of uncontrollable emotion.

  Everything Sloan said took him a step closer to the edge. There were too many voices in his head. He had to get out of there before he snapped. Wrath made his vision blur, just like it had that day he’d chased Evan and Sara down the freeway, running their car off the road and pulling Evan out to beat him.

  Stop being so stupid, Wyatt, Sara had whispered into his ear, that night on the freeway. Love can’t conquer all.

  As Wyatt drove through the streets of Cardinal City, he stewed. The further he got from HQ, the more his dark thoughts tried to convince him that Misha had lied to him the entire time.

  Never trust a woman.

  Maybe the voice was right. Whether or not Misha was Syndicate, it was clear she’d been hiding something from him, acting cagey and distant all week. He wanted to be bitter about it, but as he raced toward The Kremlin, he only felt a hollow ache inside, an emptiness she used to occupy. It didn’t sit right. It twisted his gut in a way he’d never felt before.

  Regardless of Wyatt’s feelings, Alek deserved his help. The kid didn’t deserve to die by the hand of a psycho like Dimitri.

  That’s if Alek is really there.

  Shut up! He hit his visor with a fist. Get out of my head.

  Cutting through the night traffic, Wyatt whipped in front of cars, changing lanes without warning, burning rubber. His bike almost clipped another vehicle, and he wobbled as control wrenched from his grasp. The hit vehicle beeped angrily as he wrestled control back from Betty. Back tire spun. His boot slammed the ground for balance as the bike ran in circles. When he finally halted, his muscles locked up, aching from the intense strain.

  Christ.

  He’d come close to causing an accident. He would have survived, but the other car? Major damage. Shock snapped him out of his self-indulgence and he realized he was in the same headspace as last time. When Sara had set up Evan to make it look like the two of them were eloping. That had been a terrible lie.

  Had he learned nothing? Still chasing his sin, still believing the worst.

  If there was a tiny kernel of possibility that Misha had simply left to go to The Kremlin because she believed she had a better chance of rescuing Alek on her own, or that she didn’t want to be a burden to his family, then her motivations were pure. She was just a girl looking out for her family, and in no way tied to the Syndicate.
She was not Sara.

  Sara was dead.

  If there was a chance that Misha’s life was in danger…

  I want someone who can promise me they’ll always be there. A better voice, Misha’s voice, filled his mind. She’d said that before he’d made love to her, and he promised to hold on to her with two hands. He failed at his promise the moment they’d arrived back at his family home when he let her stay on her own in the guest apartment.

  He shut his eyes and forced himself to calm, to breathe just like she’d taught him on top of that water tower. He conjured more of her words. More of her.

  No, silly. We don’t run from the rain. We make love in the rain.

  And then…

  If I let you in, koteczek, I’m not letting you go.

  With each passing second, his heart rate slowed. The memory of her lilac and incense scent filled him with a longing. He wanted to be back on her family couch, to have her feet under his thighs for warmth.

  He opened his eyes, thoughts clearing. This wasn’t history repeating.

  Two motorcycles pulled up beside him. The riders, clad in charcoal battle gear and black glossy helmets, idled next to him.

  Sloan lifted her visor. “You dumbass.”

  Mary lifted her visor and said nothing. He experienced a rush of emotion at the motherly patience staring back at him. It was the same look she’d given him when he’d made his mistakes the first time. It said, I love you.

  He sucked in a breath, lifted his visor. “You’re right, we need a plan.”

  “I agree,” Mary said. “We go in through the front and there could be innocent collateral.”

  “That’s why I looked at this earlier.” Sloan grinned and pulled a tab on her sleeve. A thin flexible screen rolled out from the hem of her inseam and she flicked it stiff. When Sloan tapped the screen, it lit up with computer data. “We tracked the cab Misha took to The Kremlin. She’s definitely there.”

  Pain in his chest made it hard to breathe. Wyatt nodded. “She’s gone to get Alek.”