by Sara Schoen
Left for Dead
Guarded Secrets, Book Three
Sara Schoen
Left for Dead
Copyright © 2015 by Sara Schoen
All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: January 2016
Limitless Publishing, LLC
Kailua, HI 96734
www.limitlesspublishing.com
Formatting: Limitless Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-466-0
ISBN-10: 1-68058-466-9
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”
~Paulo Coelho
Life can throw everything at you all at once. It starts to feel overwhelming after a while, as if the world is against you, but if nothing happened you would be bored and begging for something interesting, good or bad. Just remember when life seems to slam doors in your face, you have other doors open for you that could be better.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Prologue
Katya
Gorod, Russia—my home, our heritage, and its people, was all under my father’s rule. We lived in a small town in the proud country of Mother Russia, but my father’s reach went far and wide. He had been given the land by his father, which had been passed down for generations. To outsiders, we would seem like a last holdout of the former Soviet Russia. We kept with tradition, but we didn’t make the same mistakes we did in the past. We chose our sides carefully, and my father made sure we would end up on the winning side so we wouldn’t take a hit in our economy or lose soldiers. To do that, he ruled with an iron fist. Any treachery to our people was dealt with swiftly, and anyone who attempted to take away my father’s power never lived long enough to do anything else. The land my father controlled was covered by the stench of many deaths—from starvation, the cold, and of course, the blood of those he murdered. In short, it meant those who opposed him were dealt with and those who appeased him lived. No one was immune to that, not even my mother and I. We were nuisances to my father as he rose to power, but he kept up a front for his followers. They wanted a family leading them, someone to look to for guidance and be a prime example. They looked past the killings and deals to think we had some semblance of control. We didn’t—everyone did exactly as my father told them without question. I rarely left our home, and when I did my father’s bodyguards Nikolai and Alexander took me where I needed to be, as they did today.
My father had requested to see me at his warehouse near the Lena River. My great grandfather had settled our mafia here years ago because of the isolated location—it was difficult to sneak up on—and for the scenery of the mountains and river in the distance. If he had put the building closer to the river, about four miles from its current location, it would run red year round. I preferred to avoid this place if I could, but it wasn’t unusual that I was called to my father’s office. Though I knew today was different; a heaviness hung in the air. It weighed down on my shoulders and forced me deeper into the backseat of the car. I couldn’t move under its weight, which brought forth a feeling of dread as I was eventually escorted to the car by Nikolai. I couldn’t place where these feelings were coming from. Nikolai didn’t seem out of the ordinary, but Alexander was tense, his shoulders tight and his ever-ready hand close to his gun in case he needed it. Something has happened, I thought as I glanced away to avoid Alexander’s gaze but turned to meet Nikolai’s cold dark eyes. I paused momentarily, attempting to look unaffected, but as I stared into the dark abyss of his eyes I realized why my father had requested to see me today. I wanted to banish the thought from my mind, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he had somehow found out. I looked away from Nikolai and mentally shook myself to regain my composure. My father couldn’t know my mother had escaped. It wasn’t possible, we had been too careful. She had only been gone a few hours; there was no way he could already know she was gone. She’d escape, and she’d come back for me.
I had grown up with my father at my side, I should have known better than to underestimate him. He always had a way of knowing who betrayed him.
Nikolai led me to the back door of the car shortly after exiting our home. He opened the door for me and gestured for me to get in as usual. He shut the door, but then Alexander opened the door and shoved my mother into the seat next to me. I froze as she fell into the seat. Her head hung down in shame, but I could see the bruise on her face. I didn’t know if it was from whoever found her and dragged her back here or if she struggled against Alexander. I reached out and grabbed her hand as Alexander slammed the car door shut and the locks clicked into place. I wished I could offer her comfort in some other way, but it was clear what was going to happen to her—to us. Attempting to escape my father’s rule was seen as treason, and treason only had one punishment—death. I should have known from the guards he sent—his personal guards. They rarely left his side unless they were ordered to do something more important, which involved retrieving me only a handful of times in twenty years, and capturing traitors.
“Mama,” I said, regaining her attention. She cast me a sorrowful glance, silently begging me to forgive her. She knew I would; she was the one who raised and cared for me.
“Katya, we don’t have much time. There’s a lot I have to tell you, but first you must know that I love you and I greatly apologize for getting you into this. It’s my fault.” She quickly explained how my father’s men had found her about an hour from town. They didn’t believe her lie about how she was visiting her sister, even though she had one who lived near Moscow, but they knew my father would never approve the visit, so here she was. “I’m sorry, Katya,” she muttered in broken English in hopes that the men in the front of the car wouldn’t understand the new language. It didn’t matter; Father had started working closely with American cartels for more trade options. They would know what we said no matter the language. She explained, turning back to our native tongue, that I was now being charged with treason for helping her. We would both suffer the consequences of her actions, no matter what we had to say on our behalf, because I assisted her with treason. There wasn’t a way out for either of us.
Tears began to slip through my eyelashes as I took in the severity of our situation.
My mother squeezed my hand as we drove through the freshly fallen snow with ease. Even the deep snow wouldn’t prolong the inevitable. It would be the last snowfall I’d see, the last shred of daylight I’d be graced with, and the last moments with my mother. The car came to a stop and we were quickly ordered out of the vehicle.
I tried to remain calm as I was forcibly removed from the car, ripped away from my mother, and presented to my father. I watched a brief exchange between the guards and my father. From what I could hear they were explaining that I hadn’t known what was going on, but my mother had filled me in on the way over.
“What should their punishment be?” Nikolai asked, turning to give my mother a knowing look. She let out a sigh, knowing that they had understood everything she said. I wasn’t surprised, I continued to watch as my father looked us over, and I prayed for whatever amount of humanity that remained in him to take pity on us and let us live. That hope was dashed as he uttered our sentence—drowning.
I knew the process would be long and painful, if not excruciating, until I was finally put out of my misery. I had seen his victims struggle in a futile attempt to get free, fighting against the man who held their head under the water, but in the end they would all fail as the air slowly left their lungs. They were at his mercy; just how he liked it, but none of them would experience compassion. They knew only death as my father drowned them, then left them to freeze in the frigid Russian air. I almost laughed at the irony of it all; growing up I had seen him murder countless others the same way and now I’d be able to experience the same slow death I had watched innumerable times.
Now my father had the perfect excuse to finally get rid of us. We were traitors, no one would think anything of it, and he got us both out of the way permanently.
I let out a scream as Nikolai roughly picked me up and forced me toward the river. “Mama!” I cried, even though I knew she was in the same predicament and wouldn’t be able to help.
“Katya!” my mother responded as she was plucked from the ground and brought toward the river.
We continued to scream for each other as the men tore us further apart. I knew they wouldn’t keep us close together for fear of us lashing out and cooperating, but I wanted her by my side in our final moments. When I didn’t stop calling for her, Nikolai beat me. He punched my stomach, causing me to double over in pain as the breath left my lungs. While I was down he hit the butt of his gun to my face. I crashed into the snow as he landed a few more hits anywhere he could reach until I gave up fighting. I knew it would be useless, I had seen it so many times, but what I hadn’t understood then was the sheer desperation to survive. I knew it was futile, that I wouldn’t escape, but I had to try.
Once he stopped beating me, he lifted me off the ground easily and without a fight. I cried out in pain, and dark blood spilled from my mouth onto the ground beneath me. It spoiled the purity of the fresh snow with the blood that ran deep in the veins of our homeland—my family’s blood.
“Oh, you’re bleeding. Let’s clean that off for you,” Nikolai said with a smirk as he dumped me to the ground in a heap and proceeded to dunk my head into the ice cold river. I panicked. The cold water caused me to tense and fight against his hold as he held me below the water’s surface. I was losing air quickly as I tried to fight him. The water rushed past me, the cold water racing over my head before he pulled me up momentarily. I had enough time to get one breath in, but Nikolai shoved my head back into the river and slammed my head against a rock just below the surface.
My vision blurred from the blow, I could see the blood rushing through the water, and soon I lost control of my breath. The last bit of air left my lungs as they ached for oxygen. A pain threatened to cave my chest in as my lungs filled with water. My vision turned black, and suddenly I felt nothing as Nikolai gave one last push to shove me under the water for good measure. Silently I prayed that there was a better life after this one before I gave up completely.
Chapter 1
Night Stripe
I sat in the back of some Russian nightclub I couldn’t pronounce the name of, looking for my target. Luckily for me, Rum had taught me enough Russian to get by and they seemed to understand enough English. I guess it paid to have them working with Americans in this case, otherwise I’d still be in lockdown at the CIRA building. A year under their idea of house arrest and Sharp Shooter still thought I hadn’t been punished enough. It’d been a year since I had been recruited, since I’d gone rogue, and killed Ash Crest. It was time he got over it, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
Before every mission he’d look at me and say, “Night Stripe, you mess around again and you’ll never leave this building.”
If he hadn’t forgiven me by now, I wasn’t sure what I would have to do to gain his forgiveness. Probably die in a mission and earn it postmortem.
I glanced around, noticing the differences between this club and what I knew of nightclubs in the States. I pictured all of them with a mosh pit, similar to raves back home. While the music still flowed through me, and the minimal liquor I drank loosened me up a little to the task at hand, I couldn’t help but compare. This one, while it had some dancing, mostly for the men at the bar, seemed less crowded and involved more heavy drinking by all ages. It shouldn’t have shocked me that Russia had little to no drinking age. Although no one could purchase alcohol under the age of eighteen, that didn’t keep young teens from the club.
There were a few men who had already bought me drinks which I graciously accepted. It would have been rude to turn them down. I was even asked for dances and more personal alone time. I did my best not to cringe and break their hands while they touched me and asked for my company. One man actually had the audacity to attempt to lift my skirt and I almost stabbed him when he thought slapping his hand away from me was encouragement for more. Being drunk didn’t account for their actions no matter how inebriated they were. If they couldn’t handle drinking, then they shouldn’t do it at all—though I’d never say that to a Russian. It would be worse than insulting their mother. Instead I pulled a knife and plunged it into the bar as a warning. That was a language he understood. He raised his hands and backed away before I removed the knife and offered a short apology to the bartender, who seemed to appreciate my spunk.
“Maybe it’s the outfit,” Demon offered as a suggestion from the bar stool beside me.
I let out a breath of a laugh, but didn’t respond. We weren’t supposed to communicate, but he was right. It had to be the outfit.
I wore a tight black skirt that hugged my legs, which had become shapely and toned from the training I completed over the past year. Demon even complimented them when I stepped out in my heels. He said I’d gather all the attention in the room, especially when the fur coat covered everything except my legs. I shivered in the cold on our way over here. While there was no snow on the ground, which wasn’t how I pictured Russia, the temperatures dropped drastically throughout the day. I don’t think it hit above thirty-four degrees, which sounded even worse at about one degree Celsius, and it decreased as the night went on. No wonder people in Russia drank all the time. It had to be the only way to keep warm.
I pushed aside the thought as I noticed my mark step up to the bar. I sidled up next to him, just as planned. The fur coat I had worn into the club brushed against my hand and I gestured to my things. “Would you like me to move them?” I asked, flashing a soft smile. I repeated the question in broken Russian when he didn’t seem to understand. I’m sure I caused a few to cringe at how badly I ruined their mother tongue.
He offered a smile and thanked me for the gesture as I moved my things and made sure to show my scandalous outfit. It was time to see if it would work on the man I had targeted.
I leaned forward, letting the low cut top show off more skin than usual. Normally, I would pull away, unwilling to show off this much skin, but for some reason once the mission aspect came into play I became more confident than normal. I tried to ignore his intense
stare, and instead followed Demon and Renegade’s advice on getting a man’s attention. Growing up, I needed the help. Boys never looked twice at me when I was younger, but now, I had to say I looked deceptively innocent and gorgeous to the men I targeted. Now I needed this guy to play along. I hated when men played hard to get, in a mission and in life.
“Would Renegade be proud of what you’re doing?” Demon whispered as the mark turned to converse with another bodyguard.
I smiled at the mark before glancing down at my drink so I could answer Demon. “He’s the one who picked the outfit,” I reminded him. I turned slightly to see Demon’s smirk and slightly lifted eyebrows as he found a new amusement in my words. “And don’t say he suggested this so I go back to the agency like this.”
“You said it. I didn’t,” Demon muttered, glancing at a blonde in the corner of the club who stood with a friend.
I scoffed. Typical Demon, I thought before I turned my attention to the mark. He had finally noticed me once his friend left with a beautiful woman on his arm. Nikolai Pyotr worked as the bodyguard of the dictator of Gorod, Russia. We needed information on what the mafia planned, and hopefully we’d take down the dictator with that intel. Then maybe we could finally be done with this. I was sick of working cartel and mafia cases. I wanted to expand and experience other types of missions. Though I did enjoy the danger and risks of working against cartels and mafias, and it allowed me to travel to almost anywhere in the world, I grew tired of it. I had seen mafias in Italy, organized crime in Spain, and now the Russian mafia. Let me go back to Spain. At least then I wouldn’t turn into a popsicle when I walked outside.
I’d worry about getting a new line of jobs once this run with the Russian mafia ended, and the Cardoza Cartel was eliminated for sure. Sources said the Russians were pushing their boundaries, starting to leak into other countries. We came to put an end to it, and we wouldn’t stop until they were all taken out. Until then, I had been given the job of flirting with the burly man beside me to discreetly gather information.