In For the Kill

by Shannon McKenna

  It was dark inside, the air stale and close. Light from the door poured in, revealing a table with a glowing laptop and a tangle of wires and cables. There was a cheap metal bed frame, covered by a bare mattress. Upon this cot a figure lay, flattened and insubstantial, more like a shadow than a person. The figure shifted, moving slowly.

  “Sveti?” His voice was gravelly. He sat up.

  “Sasha? Oh, Sasha!” She ran at the guy.

  Sam was intensely uncomfortable to see Sveti kneeling on a filthy floor in her crisp white dress, her arms around another guy. The situation did not improve when his eyes adjusted and he saw more details of the nasty little room. Unsavory stains on the mattress, plates of spoiling food with flies crawling on them. On a chair next to the bed was a plastic bag of white powder, a spoon, a syringe, a lighter.

  He’d seen way too much of that poisonous shit, after years spent in police work. He hated the soul-killing addictive drugs. What they did to people, kids, families. What people were disposed to do to obtain them.

  Sam stared at the guy, whose chin rested on Sveti’s shoulder. He’d seen people in very bad shape, but not since his mother’s death had he seen anyone on this side of the dividing line between life and death look as bad as Sasha did. His dark hair was lank and unwashed, his eyes so lost in shadows, they stared out of gray pits. His lips looked blue, his cheeks caved in. His skin was yellowish gray.

  His arms, wrapped around Sveti, were thin, but his hands seemed unnaturally large, hinting at the size he should have been if his weight had been normal. Sasha’s eyes opened and saw Sam observing the slovenly scene, the baggie. His gaze slid away, ashamed.

  Sveti asked a question. Sasha replied in the same language.

  Enough bullshit. He hadn’t come this far to be linguistically cut out of the conversation. “Does he speak English?” Sam asked.

  Sasha’s lips moved. He coughed, closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said, his voice halting and scratchy. “It is n-n-not perfect, but I—”

  “Use it, imperfect or not, and keep me in the loop. Tell us what’s going on. Why the scavenger hunt mindfuck to get us here?”

  Sasha stared at him, blinking, and turned to Sveti. “Who . . . ?”

  Sveti shot him an entreating look. “He’s, ah . . . he’s my—”

  “Her boyfriend,” Sam supplied. “And bodyguard. We need to get the hell away from this place. We’re too isolated. Too exposed.”

  “He’s a friend who’s helping me,” Sveti corrected quietly. “His name is Sam Petrie. He’s a police officer. You can trust him.”

  “But can we trust you, Sasha? What are you doing, other than getting high and moping in the dark? Practicing for the tomb?”

  “Sam?” Sveti sounded shocked. “What the hell?”

  “I’m doing him a favor,” he replied, unrelenting. “He doesn’t need sympathy. He needs his ass kicked.”

  Sasha turned to Sveti. “Why are you here?” he coughed out. “I begged you not to come. Told you they were h-h-hunting you. The m-m-message. Did you not see it? Why didn’t you . . . l-l-listen?”

  “That’s not what you said in the message!” Sveti protested. “You told me to hurry, that you needed me! You asked for my flight info!”

  Sasha shook his head. “Josef d-d-discovered our e-mail account.”

  “Before you go on, clarify something,” Sam said. “Are you high? Because I don’t have any thought cycles to waste on a drug dream.”

  “Sam!” Sveti gasped, horrified. “Don’t talk to him that way!”

  Sam gestured at the powder. “I’m justified. It’s in my face.”

  Sasha met his eyes. “No.” His voice was stronger than it had been so far. “I am clean. I’ve been waiting, ever since I saw you on my monitor at the gelateria. I had Saleh bring you the note.” He choked on the long speech, coughing, and then went on, looking at Sveti. “I thought you were safe, in America. With your friends protecting you.”

  It pissed Sam off. This guy had the privilege of Sveti’s love, and yet he had allowed her to see him in such squalor. He should be strong for her, after what they’d shared. How dare he fuck up this badly.

  Sasha murmured something halting in Ukrainian. He flicked a guilty look at Sam, and repeated in English. “Sorry, to let you see this.”

  “We’ll get you out of here somehow,” Sveti said.

  “No.” Sasha seized her hands. “It is too late for me.”

  “That’s defeatist thinking! Don’t talk that way!”

  “Shhh. I am a dead man, after what I did.”

  Sam crossed his arms. “What did you do, Sasha?”

  Sasha’s gaze darted to him. “I . . . I be-be-betrayed my father. I t-tried to ex-ex-expose him. I have tried before . . . but he did not . . . know it was me. This time, I was caught in the act. They will kill me.”

  Sam groaned. So they were right in the middle of a mafiya family betrayal. Sweet. That was just fucking priceless. “What do you mean, you tried before? You make a habit of it?”

  “I . . . I t-t-tried, once,” Sasha said. “I d-d-did not want Sveti in danger. I b-b-b-begged her not to come.”

  “You didn’t beg loud enough or long enough,” Sam said harshly. “What about the guy selling roses? The kid on the bike? What happens to them if your mafiya buddies come down on you?”

  Sasha’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I had . . . no choice.”

  “No? You’re not locked up. I see choices all over the place.” Sam looked around. “You chose to stay here. To have people bring you food, which you then chose not to eat, or dispose of. That baggie is a choice. You’re making lots of choices. You’re just making the wrong ones.”

  “Stop scolding him!” Sveti said hotly. “Don’t you see it’s hard for him to talk?” She turned to Sasha. “Ignore him. He’s being an asshole. How did you betray your father?”

  “I tried to expose . . . a deal. Years ago.” It took forever for Sasha to cough the words out. “He bought . . . thermal generators from an arms dealer. In A-A-Abkhazia. Stuff the S-S-Soviets left in Georgia, after the Cold War. I intercepted the messages. The cores were strontium-90. Already p-p-pulverized. They . . . they spent almost thirty million euro.”

  “Who is Josef?” Sveti asked.

  “One of my father’s men. The worst one. He went to find you. To question you.”

  “Oh, him. So that’s his name.” Sveti shuddered. “Yes, we’ve met. Sam saved me from him. What are thermal generators?”

  “Radioactive materials. For powering nuclear plants,” Sam said. “Dirty bomb?”

  Sasha nodded. “Or more than one.”

  “And we should believe this why?” Sam demanded.

  Sveti looked astonished. “Why would he lie?”

  Sam looked at the baggie. “He abuses mind-altering drugs. If he told me where to find the nearest toilet, I would question his credibility.”

  “He has no reason to make this up!” she said angrily.

  “I don’t know. I might go to some crazy lengths to justify lying around in a rathole with only a bag of smack for company,” Sam said.

  Sasha’s eyes flashed. “I can prove. I tried to tell a journalist. I tried to show him proof. I thought, when it is on Internet, the press, there is no going back. But they killed this man, in front of me.”

  Sveti winced. “Oh, no. Oh, God, Sasha.”

  “Mauro Mongelli is the name,” Sasha said, still staring at Sam. “He was murdered. Look, on your phone. You will see. Look. Go on.”

  Sam pulled out his phone and tapped the name into the search engine. Interesting, that Sasha spoke more clearly when he was pissed.

  Mauro Mongelli, columnist. Killed in a hit-and-run in Rome, stolen car, driver still at large. Foul play suspected. He looked at Sveti. “It happened right about when they came after you,” he said.

  “I didn’t know who to tell,” Sasha said. “I had to tell someone, before I . . . before they kill me.”

  “They won’t kill you!” Sveti’s eyes glo
wed with fervor. “I won’t let them! We’ll get you back to America. My friends will help protect you!”

  Sam suppressed a snort. Sveti had a rosier idea of the extent of her adoptive family’s generosity than Sam did. He could imagine how Tam, Val, Nick, and the others would feel about nurturing the drug-addled offspring of a mafiya vor, with bloodthirsty goons out to whack him. With their children toddling around them? Nah. No matter how much Sveti loved the guy, that was going to be a very tough sell.

  Sasha read his mind. His shadowy eyes darted to Sam and away again. “I do not think they will be so happy to see me, Sveti,” he said.

  “They’ll help you, for my sake! You’re like my brother! Mama would have wanted to help you, too. She wrote to me about how she saw you when she came to Italy. She loved you.”

  “She told me once that if... if you save others, you save yourself, too,” Sasha said. “But I n-n-never save anyone, Sveti. I . . . t-try, but I only put people in danger. You, Misha, Mongelli. And your mother.”

  “My mother?” Sveti’s voice was fearful. “What about her? Why did Josef come hunting me? Why did he ask about Mama’s photos?”

  Sasha struggled to speak for over a minute. His painful throat clearing and false starts were the only sound in the room. “Your mother . . . your mother . . .” He kept trying, but the sound strangled itself.

  “What? What about her?” Sveti’s voice was getting high and thin.

  Sasha forced out a sharp breath. “She was killed because of me.”

  Sveti knelt on the filthy floor, paper white and immobile. Sam’s skin prickled. He felt as if the building were a tomb, sealing itself around them.

  “How?” Sveti asked.

  “My fault.” Sasha lifted his face. His eyes were wet. “She was here investigating the lab. That was why she came to Italy.”

  “What lab?” Sam prompted. “Spit it out, for Christ’s sake!”

  “The lab that my father . . .” Sasha coughed again. He looked at Sveti. “Does he know? About your father?”

  “Only that he ran afoul of a guy who gutted him,” Sam said.

  Sasha coughed, struggled. He looked at Sveti, gesturing at Sam. “You tell him,” he said. “The lab, in Nadvirna. Tell him.”

  “My father was undercover,” Sveti said, her voice without inflection. “Investigating Zhoglo. They were doing illegal medical experiments with radiation. Killing people. My father blew up the lab, the scientists. He destroyed the research.”

  “They killed him,” Sasha added. “And kidnapped you.”

  “Mama tried to investigate,” Sveti went on. “She said she found a mass grave, but they never found any bodies. Paranoid delusions, they said. They locked her up. What does it have to do with Mama’s death?”

  “They opened a new lab,” Sasha said. “Here, in Italy.”

  Sveti’s hand drifted up to cover her mouth. “Oh, God.”

  “Yes, they d-d-did it all again. The research, the testing. It was my fa-fa-father’s idea. He had ties with the local mafiyas, the Camorra, Cosa Nostra, the ’Ndrangheta, to provide test subjects. But these were not mental patients and orphans, like Zhoglo used. They used refugees from Africa, coming ashore in Italy. He bought boatloads directly from the traffickers. They put ashore, were met with food, blankets, and herded into trucks to be taken to a refugee camp. Or so they thought.”

  “And you were involved?” Sam asked.

  Sasha’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “He tried to involve me. That was why he called me back, when I was . . . v-v-visiting Sveti. He brought us down to Rome, he bought that house. He thought it would do me g-g-good, to be involved. That it would make a . . . a m-m-man of me. But I . . . I refused, to p-p-participate. He was . . . so angry at me.”

  “Oh, Sasha,” she whispered.

  Sam suppressed the urge to say something sarcastic. Sarcasm was all that could distance him from this tale of utter wretchedness.

  “I still don’t get it,” Sveti said. “Where did Mama fit into this?”

  “She contacted me while she was looking for the lab,” Sasha said. “She wanted my help, to take them down. But they were watching me, after I came back from America. She found it on her own. I met with her only once, while Josef was gone on some other job. She gave me copies of the pictures. And I . . . I told her about the thermal generators.”

  “Why?” Sam asked. “Why did you involve her at all?”

  Sasha’s smile was bitter. “I did not have many . . . p-p-people to . . . confide in. I had to do something, but I . . . could not do it alone. Sonia came up with a plan. To steal the thermal generators right out from under them. She was amazing.” His eyes had a wistful glow of hero worship.

  “You couldn’t have just called the cops?” Sam asked.

  “Sonia tried that once before and ended up sedated in a mental institution for three years,” Sasha said. “She insisted. First, the press. Then the police. So there could be no cover-up.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “So you came up with a plan. And?”

  “She came up with a plan,” Sasha specified. “I just did what she told me. I monitored, as they were moving the generators. We saw an opening. Ambushed the truck. We stole The Sword of Cain. Just the two of us.” There was pride in his voice. The words slid out, unimpeded.

  “Our mistake was not killing Josef and the driver,” Sasha went on. “We used drug darts, and when they woke, they remembered a masked woman with a sexy body who spoke Ukrainian. My father knew Sonia was in Italy, that she had tried to find the mass grave in Nadvirna. He did not suspect me, but he took her. And killed her.”

  Sveti hugged herself, rocking. Her face hidden against her knees.

  “She never told them about me.” Sasha’s voice broke. “She didn’t tell them where we hid the g-g-generators. They did not break her.”

  Sam cut him off before he could start to cry. “Where did you hide the generators, Sasha?”

  Sasha wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Here.”

  Sam’s body went rigid. “What the fuck? You mean . . .” He looked around the tiny room, nerves jangling.

  “Not in this building,” Sasha clarified. “Behind the old foundry. A Camorra boss owns it, but it has been abandoned for years. It was just a temporary hiding place. I never meant for it to stay there for six . . . six years. But they were watching, always, and I was paralyzed. No one else knew, after Sonia died.” He paused. “Until now.”

  Sam wanted to clutch his brow. “Oh, lucky us.”

  “I am glad I had a chance to tell you,” Sasha said to Sveti. “She was so brave. She saved me. I wanted you to know that, before . . .”

  “Before what?” The insight was like ice water in Sam’s face. “That baggie. It’s your ticket out, right? You’re going to load that needle with a lethal dose and drift off with the unicorns and rainbows. And leave your friend to clean up your mess? Is that your plan?”

  Sasha’s eyes fell.

  “Sasha?” Sveti’s eyes darted between them. “That’s not true, is it?”

  Sasha would not meet her eyes. “It’s a better death than the one they would give me.”

  “That’s how you repay her?” Sam demanded. “By offing yourself? She’s been let down by a lot of people. You’re not joining the club.”

  “I couldn’t think of what else to do!” Sasha’s voice got stronger.

  “Then think harder!” Sam yelled. “That night, ambushing the truck, that was it for you? Your finest moment? Life is asking more of you. Pull another shining moment out of your ass, Sasha. Now.”

  Sasha flinched. “No,” he said. “You d-d-don’t understand—I—”

  “You are using her, and I will not allow it. Get up off that bed. Get outside. Both of you, out of this place. I need some air.”

  “But I . . . but I can’t stand the light—”

  “Too fucking bad. You want a mausoleum, die first. We’ll talk about the details while we go to the police. I’ll call around, make sure that whoever we talk to isn�
�t dirty. I’ll call people at home, too. We’ll spread the word. Everyone will know about it.”

  He was going to pay for his tough-love attitude, but the guy needed a boot sunk in his ass, and they had to blow this mess open and turn it into someone else’s problem before the hammer came down.

  Sveti helped Sasha to his feet. He tottered out the door like an old man, wincing away from the half-light of dusk. “I c-c-can’t be out here.”

  “Let’s go,” Sveti said gently. “Come to the car. We’ll fix this. We’ll find a way to protect you. I’ll stick with you, Sasha. It’ll be okay.”

  Great. Sam wanted to bash his head against the concrete wall.

  “I can’t come,” Sasha said. “Being with me is dangerous for you.”

  “I don’t care about the danger!” Sveti said. “I want you anyway!”

  “Go, tell the c-c-cops,” Sasha said, stroking her hair. “I’ll stay here. When they come, I’ll show them. And I’ll tell them about the lab, too. I do not know where it is, but at least they will know that it exists.”

  “I will not let you stay here to kill yourself! We’ll find you a place to hide! Someplace beautiful where no one can find you. Please, Sasha!”

  Sasha looked tempted. Then his gaze darted toward the building.

  Sam read that look and the impulse behind it. “No,” he rapped out. “Come if you want, but you can’t bring your stash. If you’re coming, then keep walking. Right foot, left foot.”

  Sasha turned to Sveti. His eyes were sad. “I can’t,” he whispered. He turned to Sam and opened his mouth. “I—”

  Whannnggg, a bullet ricocheted off the concrete by his head. A shower of grit stung them. “Get down!” Sam bawled.

  A huge, dark shape cannonballed down from the roof and took Sveti down. Sam leaped up with a shout, the Glock drawn.

  Bam, bam, bam. Bullets thudded the ground at his feet, driving him back. Three more men stepped out of the trees, guns drawn.

  They were pinned.

  CHAPTER 22

  It was the one who’d tortured her in Portland. Josef. His breath stank like rotting meat. An odd thing to fixate on, with a gun barrel shoved under her chin. Josef’s grip was grinding agony. He didn’t care if he broke bones, ripped cartilage, snapped tendons. He specialized in damage. Her wrists were crushed in his enormous paw. No way to grab the gun strapped to her thigh. She wiggled her fingers, to try for Liv’s ring. His hand tightened until she gasped, her vision going black.