“Boris.” Alexei stepped in front of the man, breaking his contact with Britt. “I want to continue our discussion about that proposition.”
“Ah, for a young man, you’re too interested in business. You let go a little.”
Alexei clapped Boris on the shoulder. “There’s plenty of time for pleasure.”
Britt took the opportunity to slip away from the group. She brushed past another waitress and snatched a shot glass of vodka from her tray. Without looking one way or the other, Britt downed the vodka in one gulp.
She coughed and dropped the glass onto her own tray, but at least the booze steadied her jangling nerves and shaky hands. She had to get a grip. She couldn’t fall apart every time one of these guys made a pass at her. She could always complain to Sergei. From what she understood from the other women, Sergei didn’t want any of the waitresses getting any side action. Theanessa was taking her chances.
The night went on in much the same way—fending off a few advances and delivering food and drink, and then mostly drink, to the partygoers. She’d wanted to snatch a few minutes with Alexei but didn’t want to raise suspicions.
Apparently Alexei didn’t either as Britt hadn’t seen him with Olav once. It must be killing him to be so close to the man who’d murdered his father.
As the action picked up on the dance floor and the waitressing consisted more of collecting empty glasses and plates than delivering anything to the guests, Britt began scoping out the different areas of the banquet hall. While the women were attentive to the male guests, she hadn’t witnessed any groping or manhandling. Did they all just go quietly away to hotel rooms?
The hallway at the back of the room where Irina had shooed her away commanded Britt’s attention more than once throughout the evening. The movement in that spot was discreet but noticeable.
Her gaze swept the room of preoccupied people, and she meandered toward the hallway, keeping a tray in her hand for appearances’ sake. She turned the corner into the hallway quickly and flattened her body against the wall. A door opened, and she placed her tray on the floor and crouched forward as if fixing her shoe.
Through the veil of her hair, she watched as a man exited the room and strolled back to the banquet hall, adjusting his shirt collar.
She wanted to be ready the next time a door opened, so she continued down the hallway and positioned herself between two of the doors, facing two other doors. Again, she pretended to be fussing with her shoe and left the tray on the floor—just a waitress collecting herself.
Five minutes later, her patience was rewarded as the door across the hall opened, the glow from the room creating a rectangle of light on the carpet. She shifted away from the light.
The man at the door spit out something in Russian, clearly angry. A woman responded, and Britt recognized Irina’s voice. She jerked her head up to peer into the room and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Irina sat on the edge of a bed where Jessie, wearing lacy lingerie, was sprawled out. She looked dead—no, drugged—her head rolling to one side and her arm sweeping the floor where it hung off the bed.
Britt braced her hand against the wall to push to her feet. She began to careen toward the open door. She had to save Jessie. She had to protect Leanna.
Before she could take one more step, a rough hand clamped over her mouth from behind, jerking her back, lifting her off her feet and dragging her toward the exit.
She clawed at the fingers restricting her air and arched her body, but her actions were futile.
Maybe she’d find Leanna after all.
Chapter Eleven
The man’s words came at him in a fog, and Alexei dragged his gaze away from the hallway where Britt had disappeared several minutes ago with an empty tray.
He had an idea what went on back there, and she had no business in that vicinity.
Holding up a hand to his companion, he said, “Excuse me, David. A girl I’ve had my eye on all night is finally alone. I’m going to try my luck.”
“Go, go, man. Enjoy yourself.”
Alexei cut through the crowd, making a beeline for the dark hallway. As he took the corner, a door slammed, but another opened in the back. From studying the layout beforehand, Alexei knew that door led to the parking lot behind the banquet.
The darkness obscured his vision, but he could make out two figures going through that door—and one was struggling.
Alexei jogged down the hallway, his adrenaline spiking when he saw the empty tray on the floor.
He burst through the exit door, and the weak light affixed to the back of the building shed a yellow glow over a man choking Britt.
Ice-cold rage ran through his body, and he launched forward, grabbing the man by the back of the neck. Alexei yanked him off Britt and shook him like a rag doll, the toes of the man’s shoes scuffing the asphalt.
Alexei squeezed the man’s carotid artery, and he went limp in his grasp.
Britt had scrambled to her feet and grabbed Alexei’s arm. “He’s out. Let him go.”
He dropped the man and he fell in a heap. Then he stepped over the man’s prone form and pulled Britt into his arms. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
“He choked me.” She stroked her throat. “If you hadn’t come out here, I don’t know what he would’ve done. How did you know? What were you doing in that hallway?”
“I’ve had my eye on you all night, moya solnishka.” He smoothed her hair from her flushed face. “When you didn’t emerge from that hallway, I knew something had gone wrong.”
“I’m glad you did. I guess that secret sign we discussed doesn’t work if you’re out of sight.” She drove her forehead against his chest. “I—I saw Jessie in one of those rooms. You know, the waitress who auditioned for Sergei. Alexei, she looked drugged. Completely out of it.”
He wrapped his arms around her tighter, wanting to protect her from all the ugliness in that place. “You know what those rooms are used for?”
“I didn’t think the couples would be hooking up right here. I figured they’d leave for a hotel room or something.”
“If the men want a taste before they buy, that’s where they do it.”
She pushed away from him and staggered backward. “I think I’m going to be sick. Why Jessie?”
“Maybe Sergei thought she understood what it meant to be a dancer, and when she balked, he took other measures.” He crouched next to the fallen man and shoved up one of his eyelids. “We need to get out of here before this guy comes to.”
“What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?”
“Who else was in the room with Jessie?”
“Some Russian man and Irina.”
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. The door was swinging closed again right when I saw Jessie on the bed and that—” she aimed a toe at the unconscious man “—goon came up behind me.”
“So, right now only the three of us know you were in that hallway and saw Jessie. This guy—” he went further than Britt and kicked the man in the side “—doesn’t even know what you saw.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’re going back inside and pretending nothing happened.” He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face the building. “You go first. Grab your tray, and get back to work. If you see Irina, act normal.”
“That’s going to be hard to do.” Turning to face him, she circled her throat with her fingers.
“You can do it, Britt. Put that poker face you use with your clients into action.”
“What are you going to do? We have to save Jessie. I think the man in the room was angry because she was nonresponsive. We have to get her out of there.”
“Right now, I’m going around the front, and I’m going to bum a cigarette from someone, as if I went out there for a smoke
.” He pinched her chin. “I’ll think of some way to get Jessie out.”
“And Mila. The dancer who had the tattoo artist’s card. She’s here tonight—with the Belkin family tattoo on her arm.”
“We can’t save them all, Britt, at least not until the entire operation is brought down.”
“Tatyana’s baby. The woman who called me said finding that baby would bring them all down.”
“So will linking the Belkins to Vlad’s terrorist network.”
She gathered the front of his shirt in her hands. “Are you any closer? Did you find something?”
“I might have.”
“You saw Olav Belkin tonight, didn’t you?”
“I did. How did you know him?”
“He was easy to spot.”
Alexei clenched his teeth. It had taken all his self-control not to haul off and punch the old man in the face. And if he’d had a gun with him...? But he’d never planned to take Belkin out in public like this. Just a well-placed bullet from a great, great distance.
He shook his head. Britt had been right. What would that achieve except for slaking his thirst for revenge?
Taking her hand, he said, “Let’s see the rest of this night out. The man who attacked you might not be so willing to tell anyone what happened. The Belkins are unforgiving bosses. The fact that this SOB landed out in the parking lot facedown would not bode well for him with the Belkins.”
“Okay.” Britt pulled in a deep breath and straightened her frilly apron.
He squeezed her hand before letting her go. “Do not stop by that room or any of those rooms. Get your tray and go.”
She turned at the door and mouthed the words thank you.
Brushing off his jacket, Alexei took off for the front of the restaurant. He stepped over a row of bushes to change his direction and make it look like he was coming from the restaurant’s front door.
He joined a group of men smoking and chatting. “Does someone have a cigarette? I’m trying to quit, but you know how that goes.”
“I’m gonna quit at the end of the summer. I promised my wife.” The man shoved a half-empty pack of smokes and a matchbook into Alexei’s hand. “Keep ’em.”
“Thanks.” Alexei put a cigarette between his lips and struck a match from the Eastern Nights matchbook and lit it. He tucked the matches into the front pocket of his jacket, an idea forming in his head.
The group broke apart, and some of the men left and others wandered back into the party. Alexei followed them, tossing his unsmoked cigarette to the ground and crushing it beneath the toe of his shoe.
Once inside, he scanned the room and let out a breath when he spotted Britt carrying a tray of empty glasses to the kitchen. His contact had already left for the evening, more interested in business than pleasure, so Alexei didn’t know many of the people left—except the Belkins, including Sergei. He’d been able to get the measure of the man...and the man had been lacking.
Olav still held court in a corner of the room, relaxing on a deep sofa, two young, gorgeous women on either side of him. If Alexei had his rifle with him, it would be so easy to take Belkin out right now. Then it would be lifted—this burden he carried. Of course, he’d probably be dead before his bullet hit Belkin. And Britt would be on her own.
There was another way, but Alexei didn’t want Belkin to get off again by agreeing to work with the FBI to nail Vlad. Alexei wouldn’t allow that to happen—not this time.
He moved into the anteroom between the restaurant and the banquet hall and nodded at a couple of women walking arm in arm to the restrooms.
He stood in front of a painting of the Black Sea and then reached into his pocket for the book of matches. He struck one, and pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, he held it up to the sprinkler head.
A small curl of smoke kissed the edge of the sprinkler, and it sputtered to life. Water splattered against the painting and, in a chain reaction, set off the other sprinkler heads in the foyer.
Then Alexei poked his head into the kitchen, where several busboys were washing and stacking dishes. He yelled, “Fire! Get out!”
The busboys looked at each other, and Alexei shouted, “Fuego!”
They dropped the dishes and crowded out of the kitchen.
When they’d all left, Alexei held a match to another sprinkler head and pulled the fire alarm by the stoves. As the alarm wailed, he smiled to himself. “That should do it.”
By the time he returned to the banquet hall, chaos reigned. The sprinklers had gone off in the hall, also. Women screamed and held their hands over their heads to protect their hair and makeup from the relentless streams of water.
Sergei charged through the room, waving his hands and yelling, “No fire department. No police.”
Sergei’s words just caused more panic as the men with hookers on their arms either disengaged themselves or ran for the doors, dragging their newfound companions along with them.
Alexei’s gaze darted among the pandemonium until it rested on Britt at the entrance to the hallway. Their eyes met, and he shook his head.
He threaded his way through the agitated guests to reach Britt. “Leave now. Check in with Irina, if you want. I’ll knock on those doors and sound the alarm.”
Just then, the bartender who wasn’t Stepan rushed past them and saved Alexei the trouble. He banged on each door and shouted in Russian, “Get out. Get the girls out now. Police coming.”
Alexei nudged Britt. “There you go. It’s over.”
“I’d kiss you right now, but I don’t want to raise any eyebrows.” She kissed her fingers instead and pressed them to his throat. Then she joined the herd of people making their way to the exits.
Alexei edged along the walls of the room until he came up behind the sitting area where Olav had stationed himself throughout the party with his inner circle.
Someone had left a jacket draped across one of the chairs. Alexei grabbed it and felt the pockets. Bingo. He slipped the cell phone from the jacket’s pocket and dropped it into his own. He was starting his own collection.
He tented the abandoned jacket over his head and made for the nearest exit just as the first set of fire trucks rolled onto the scene. The firefighters wouldn’t find a fire or even a faulty sprinkler system, and they sure as hell wouldn’t find any evidence of a party for rich men and a bevy of beautiful escorts.
Alexei had made out a lot better. He’d found a couple of cell phones, had made contact with a weapons dealer and had gained Sergei Belkin’s trust.
But more important than any of that? He’d saved Britt from a thug’s attack.
An hour later, Alexei joined Britt in the hotel room, stretched out on the sofa, watching TV with her laptop beside her.
He shrugged out of his jacket and sat in the chair across from her, hunching forward on his knees. “Nobody approached you tonight about the attack in the hallway?”
“No. Sergei’s minion must’ve been too embarrassed to tell his boss someone had gotten the better of him.”
“But he’s going to tell him you saw Jessie in that room. Somehow, he’ll get word to Sergei that he saw you in the hallway and you ran away—something to protect himself but implicate you. He’s most likely a loyal drone.”
Britt drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I can talk my way out of it, just like I did with the towing receipt.”
He launched out of the chair and knelt beside the sofa. “No, you can’t. You saw Jessie in a room, drugged, noncompliant. Are you going to convince Sergei you don’t care about that?”
“I can pretend I didn’t see anything. How best to prove that by coming into work like nothing happened? If I bail now, Sergei’s going to know for sure I saw something.” She rested a hand on the back of his neck. “It would be my word against the man’s who attacked me.”
“Exac
tly. Why would Sergei believe some waitress he just hired over a loyal foot soldier? And about that foot soldier, he’s going to find it strange that you didn’t report the assault. Why wouldn’t you, unless you knew you’d seen something you shouldn’t have seen.”
“What’s the guy going to do? Approach me and ask why I didn’t tell on him?” Her fingers wiggled into his hair. “I’ve never seen him before anyway. There were lots of waitresses there that night, many of them in black dresses. It was dark in the hallway, and he came at me from behind. He probably never even saw my face.”
He closed his eyes, trying not to be swayed by the gentle fingers massaging his scalp. “You have a hundred and one reasons not to go back to the Tattle-Tale.”
“I’m not going back tomorrow, anyway. I finally have a day off.”
“Good.”
“And you? Do you think you have enough information for the Vlad task force to get put on this assignment officially?”
“I think I do. I met a man at the party who’s an arms dealer. If Belkin is partnering with terrorists, it will involve weapons, most likely in exchange for drugs—pure opium from Afghanistan. It’s another inroad, and I’m going to contact Ariel about it.”
“I’m glad.” She dragged her fingers through his hair and brushed his cheek with her knuckles. “That was a crazy idea you had.”
Grabbing her wrist, he snorted. “My idea was crazy? And your idea about infiltrating the Russian mob to find your sister was perfectly sane.”
“I didn’t know Leanna was involved with the Russian mob until you told me. I just thought it was something straightforward, like an affair with her boss.” Britt let loose with a long sigh. “I wish it had been so simple. Ever since I saw Jessie in that room, I’ve had a cold fear in my belly about Leanna.”
He pressed his lips against the inside of her wrist. “You’re afraid she might’ve wound up like Jessie.”
“Do you think it’s possible?” She slid her legs off the sofa and dug her elbows into her thighs. “I thought the Belkins only wanted young women from Russia, women cut off from their families, alone, desperate. That’s not Jessie. She must’ve done something, said something during that audition that set Sergei off.”
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