“You studied English with her,” Nick said.
She smiled at the memory. “Yes. Somebody gave us a book on English. We thought perhaps if we knew the language, somebody from America would take us home together. But nobody came for us except Maxsim.”
She put her face in her hands and began to cry, hair falling over her fingers.
Nick put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him in a brief hug. “I’ll make sure Maxsim doesn’t do it to anybody else.”
Alenka looked up at him with tear-stained eyes. “Thank you. But what will happen to us when he’s dead?”
Nick didn’t have an answer to that. He slipped out the door and was gone.
The hall was still deserted. Nick flicked open the knife and crept to the stairs. The stairs reversed direction halfway up, so he couldn’t see what was above him, just that it was darker than the ground floor. The only sounds he heard came from the lobby, and he figured he was safe. He walked up the stairs as if he knew where he was going. His air of confidence might give him a precious few seconds on the attack if he ran into somebody.
The second floor was dark. Not pitch black, as sunlight came through a curtained window at the far end of the hall, but it had the look of a storage area, perhaps purposefully separating the commoners on the ground floor from the elite at the top. Gripping the knife harder, Nick went up to the third floor.
Vladimir had never felt so powerful. And that was saying something.
True, the woman underneath his great bulk was not responding as well as she might, but this was understandable given her situation. Vlad didn’t know all of the details, nor did he want to. He just knew the woman was an American who had somehow crossed the freak Maxsim, and now she was Vlad’s for the taking.
Of course it had cost Vlad a large sum to be the first to take the American, but what was the use of money if not to provide entertainment? Whoever came after him would have to deal with damaged goods. Vlad knew his sex was far from gentle and there would likely be blood on her before they were done. But again, he had paid a handsome dowry for her. If she didn’t last long after he was done, that was of no consequence to him.
Vladimir Zhorovski was the head of a large oil and gas conglomerate near Rostov. He didn’t get to his position by backing down and not taking risks. He knew if he showed weakness, the jackals positioning for control of resources in Mother Russia would come after him like a swarm of locusts. So he was as merciless as he had to be.
Plus, he had to admit he enjoyed taking down his rivals. Such as Anatoly Makarikhina. Anatoly had envisioned himself as the next leader of the company. Vladimir had no problems with the man giving himself those delusions, but Anatoly had the bad taste to try to act on them before Vladimir was ready to leave.
Anatoly had ended up at the bottom of a gravel pit. More specifically, Anatoly’s torso had been tossed into the gravel pit. His head, hands, and feet were somewhere at the bottom of the Don, in a large metal barrel. Vlad had separated his rival personally, starting with the feet so Anatoly would spend several minutes screaming madly before Vlad took his head off.
Right now this woman was his rival. She didn’t scream, didn’t even open her eyes, but she knew who was in charge. That thought aroused Vlad even more, and he grunted loudly as he thrust.
Nick heard the grunting as soon as he hit the landing. It came from the first door on the right. The door looked identical to Alenka’s, and Nick had to assume the room behind it was the same as well. Bed just inside, with the head of the bed to the right. His first move would be straight in and to the right, where their chests and heads would be. If he was wrong, and it was Katie, he’d make the adjustment on the fly, and the man might live for another second.
Nick listened for sounds down the hall. Faint voices came from somewhere along the far end. They were behind another door, but were most likely less than twenty feet away from this first room, so he would have to be as quiet as he could be.
He checked the knife in his hand. The blade glinted dully in the low light.
He put his other hand on the doorknob.
Vlad was getting close, he could feel it. He fed off the power of it all, using it to thrust harder into the American. His face and bare chest glistened with sweat, the sweat dripping on her breasts, the ample fat around his gut rising and falling like waves. His hands were on her shoulders, pinning her down. He knew he could just move his hands closer together around her throat, and she’d be dead in seconds. But Maxsim wouldn’t be happy. Not that Vlad cared about Maxsim, but he did care about being first in line next time, so he knew he wouldn’t be able to kill the wench under him. Pity.
Her eyes were closed and she had bit her lip so hard it bled. The blood gleamed up at Vlad invitingly. He bent down to lick it up.
At that moment he felt a slight draft of colder air to his right. The door was opening quickly. Vlad felt a surge of anger. For the price he paid, he was going to finish before he was interrupted, dammit!
Before he died, it dimly registered in Vlad’s head that the new man was large, very angry, and carried a knife.
Chapter 17
Nick flew through the door, his angle sending him directly towards the heads of the couple having sex.
Nick took it all in immediately. The woman on the bed faced away from the door but he knew without a doubt it was Katie. The fat man on top of her turned his head to look at Nick, mouth open. Nick could tell the mouth was open due to exertion, and not a prelude to a warning. This huge man looked like he hadn’t exercised in the last few years, and the sex was wearing him out. Nick was glad of that. The man would be less trouble.
Nick jumped on the bed, his right hand covering the man’s mouth as his left plunged the blade into the man’s neck. His momentum carried them across the bed and off the far side. The man hit the floor between the bed and the wall with a loud thud, Nick landing on top of him, knife deep in the man’s neck. Blood poured out and covered his hand before it cascaded onto the floor, but he held the knife in silently, and kept pressing until the thrashing gradually ceased.
He straddled the fat man for several seconds after he stopped moving, then gradually pulled the knife out and wiped it on a sheet. Then he turned to Katie.
She was not the same person he had seen two days before. Even with the death struggle inches away from her, she showed no emotion. She simply turned on her side, away from the men, and curled up in a fetal position. Her eyes remained closed.
Nick crawled out of the back of the bed so as to not disturb her, then walked over to her side of the bed. She lay still, with her head on her hands. She didn’t look up.
Shock, Nick knew. The body’s defense against something terrible happening to it, and that fat Russian was all kinds of terrible. He didn’t try to rouse her from it. Perhaps shock was the best thing for Katie right now.
He wrapped the bed sheet around her body and gently lifted her in his arms. He wasn’t sure where he was going to put her while he searched for Scott, but he knew it would have to be someplace safe. As soon as Maxsim found out what had happened, he’d begin looking for Nick as well as Katie.
His first thought was Alenka’s room. He peeked out the door, saw that the hallway was still empty, and carried her down the stairs. She was a solid woman but Nick was running on adrenaline, and he carried her without a problem. When he got to Alenka’s door he stopped. There was really no need to get Alenka involved, since there was an empty room right next door. He pulled open the door to Galina’s room with one hand and gently placed Katie on the bed.
He bent low over the still body. “I’ll be right back, Katie. I’m going to get Scott. You stay here and rest.”
He hated like hell to leave her, but he had one more person to find. Anyway, he was pretty sure she wasn’t going anywhere on her own.
Katie’s blank eyes stared nowhere as Nick softly closed the door behind him.
The hallway was clear, but the roaring in his ears had returned. Nick stopped for a moment a
nd shook his head slightly to clear it. Now was not the time to throw open doors, guns blazing, although at that moment he wanted nothing more than to shoot every one of Maxsim’s people in the head.
Gradually the noise subsided, and Nick stepped forward.
The third floor was still quiet, which was surprising since he had just killed a man there. Apparently others were in another area or preoccupied with various activities.
Nick crept past the door to the room containing the fat dead Russian. He cracked the door and looked in to make sure nobody was nosing around the body. The room was silent, the body out of sight on the floor on the other side of the bed. Nick could smell the metallic odor of blood, lots of it, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He closed the door and moved on.
Maxsim and Scott were most likely on the top floor, Nick figured. Maxsim wouldn’t want the American too close to the innocent, or at least relatively innocent, bystanders on the ground floor, and he would want to keep himself close to Katie, if for no other reason than to show everybody he was still in charge. So he was close.
In fact, he could possibly come checking on his charge any moment now, Nick realized. The thought made him stop in the middle of the hallway. The Russian would likely pass right by where Nick was standing, on his way to Katie’s room. He could send an aide to check on her but odds were strong he would do it himself, to remind the fat dead Russian who was in charge.
There were two doors on the other side of the hall. Nick pressed his ear to the first one and thought he heard breathing. It was deep and rhythmic. Somebody sleeping, probably one of the girls. It was late in the morning but they obviously didn’t keep regular hours. He moved on to the next door.
The second room sounded much quieter. If somebody slept, they slept very softly. He turned the knob silently and poked his head inside. The room was similar to the one he just left, except no dead body. He glanced around, head just inside the door, until he was satisfied it was empty.
Nick slipped through the doorway, then turned and closed the door until it was cracked. The door faced away from where the man or men would come from, so they wouldn’t see him unless they happened to glance behind them after they passed. He pulled out one of the Glocks and made sure a round was chambered.
It took longer for them to check on Katie than he had hoped. They probably didn’t want to disturb the fat Russian in the middle of his activities. He couldn’t lean against the door without closing it, so he stood behind the door quietly, waiting, becoming increasingly nervous that someone would come in before his target passed.
Several minutes into his vigil he heard footsteps in the hallway. A shadow passed the room and Nick peered out from behind the door.
He was wrong. It wasn’t Maxsim.
Nick cursed silently, but it wasn’t the end of the world. He could corner the man in the room and get him to tell where Scott and Maxsim were. After all, he had a gun and the Russian probably didn’t. No need to remain armed in your own headquarters.
He watched the man knock on the door, ten feet away. The Russian waited a few seconds, then knocked again. After a few more seconds he put his ear to the door. Finally, he opened it slowly, stuck his head in the door, and disappeared into the room.
Nick crossed over to the other room quickly and silently. He checked his gun to make sure it was armed and the safety was off. Taking a silent breath, he moved into the doorway, gun first.
At that moment his plan began to unravel. He had been correct about the gun, but something else never occurred to him.
The man had a walkie talkie.
Chapter 18
Nick stepped into view in the doorway. The Russian was bent over the body, checking for a pulse and murmuring into the walkie talkie in his hand.
The man looked up and saw Nick. To his credit, he didn’t panic. He simply continued to speak into the walkie talking, not moving. Nick caught the word “Americanskaya,” which Nick took to mean himself, before he put a bullet in the man’s left leg.
The man grunted in pain and sat down hard next to Vladimir’s blood-soaked body as Nick stepped into the room. Nick kicked the walkie talkie across the room and rapidly frisked the man, who was too busy holding his leg to put up any resistance.
No guns. Nick checked the wound quickly. He had put the shot away from the femoral artery, as much as he could, so the guy wouldn’t bleed out before help arrived.
Nick didn’t bother to ask where Maxsim was. The man was obviously a professional and wouldn’t give in quickly enough to Nick’s pressure tactics. Nick briefly considered putting the gun against the man’s head before asking any questions, but he didn’t think it would do any good and besides, it would take too much time. Plus, he’d done that enough in his life and didn’t want to go there again if he didn’t have to,
Instead, he tore the top sheet off the bed, balled it up, and tossed it to the man. If he was as good as Nick suspected he was, he would turn it into a tourniquet for his leg. Without a gun and no mobility, the man was no longer of any consequence.
Without looking back, Nick ran out of the room. He took a right out the door and walked carefully down the hallway, gun in front of him. With any luck, Maxsim was on the other end of the walkie talkie and was now leaving his room to seek out Nick, making plenty of noise so Nick could find him.
But the hallway was silent. Nick slowed as he neared the end of it. He held his gun out, ready to shoot where he saw or heard movement.
It was quiet.
Damn, what to do? He had no idea where Maxsim was. He didn’t even know if the guy was in the building, although he was pretty sure Maxsim wouldn’t stray too far from Katie. The worst thing he could do now was bang around, looking for the bastard. That would be the quickest way to get Scott killed.
So he stopped. Dead in his tracks. Nick flattened himself against the wall, gun up in a neutral position, and again waited. The seconds seemed like hours.
Soon he heard a clattering at the other end of the hallway, behind him. Somebody was coming up the stairs in a rush.
Nick dropped to the floor and rested his pistol on his other arm to steady it. If the person coming up the stairs was not a friendly, any shots from the hostile would likely go high. Not only was he running up the stairs so his bullets would have a high trajectory anyway, but typically people on the move tended to place their first bullet high.
Plus, he blended in with the floor, especially if he didn’t move.
Maxsim appeared on the stairs. He slowed down and bent over at the waist to make a smaller target. He was sneering and it looked like he had blood on his arm. Nick sincerely hoped it was Maxsim’s own blood.
Maxsim paused at the top of the stairs, looked around, and headed for the door to the room containing the two Russians. Nick aimed at the man’s head, then lowered his sights a bit. He still needed to know where Scott was and he was running out of people to ask.
He fired from his prone position and Maxsim screamed as the bullet went through his side. He fell back against the wall and slide down, leaving a thin trail of blood on the wall.
Nick jumped up and ran to Maxsim, who had dropped his gun and was weakly fluttering his hand towards it, trying to will it to him.
Ignoring the gun, Nick grabbed Maxsim by the collar of his expensive-looking, but now severely bloodstained, shirt and pulled him into the room. Maxsim grunted in pain as he as was manhandled through the doorway.
Nick looked around quickly and spotted the enforcer he had shot in the leg. The man was sitting against the far wall, a bloody rag around his leg. He looked at Nick dimly. He face was ashen and his mouth hung open. He would need medical attention soon. Apparently Nick hadn’t missed the artery as much as he had hoped.
Nick let go of Maxsim’s collar and Maxsim slumped to the floor, moaning loudly and clutching his side. Blood poured between his fingers and puddled on the wood floor.
Nick didn’t care. His only goal was to get Scott and Katie out of there, the faster the b
etter. He jammed his gun against Maxsim’s forehead.
“Where’s Scott?” he asked
Maxsim glared at him. “Fuck you,” he said. It took him two breaths to get the words out.
“Why do you people always say that to me?” Nick said as he pulled the gun away from the man’s forehead and jammed it into the bullet hole in his side. Maxsim screamed again, a sound cut short when Nick’s hand clamped roughly over his mouth.
Nick waited a moment, then removed the hand. Maxsim’s eyes rolled up in his head and Nick knew he was losing the man. “Where is he?” he yelled.
“He’ll never tell you,” said a voice behind him. Nick whirled around and stared at the large man standing behind him, gun in his hand. Oh, shit, was all Nick could think. In his single-mindedness he didn’t think to keep an eye out for more bodyguards. He was in big trouble.
He recognized the man. It was the second bodyguard from the club. The man with the scar.
“Move,” the man said, and motioned Nick to the side with his gun. He had the drop on Nick, who had no choice but to comply. Nick pulled his gun out of Maxsim’s bloody shirt and reluctantly moved away from the man, expecting a bullet any second.
Despite his agony, Maxsim looked at Nick with triumph. “You die now, American,” he said, and even managed a pained laugh. He glanced at the bodyguard. “Shoot him,” he ordered.
The bodyguard looked at Maxsim, at his comrade sitting against the wall with the tourniquet on his leg, and finally at Nick. “Your friend is in the basement,” he told Nick.
Nick just looked confused as Maxsim choked. A thin line of blood rolled down from the corner of Maxsim’s mouth. He said something in Russian to the bodyguard, something accusatory, and the bodyguard smiled. This increased Maxsim’s anger, and he began to cough violently.
“You don’t have much time,” he told Nick in English. “Your shot alerted people downstairs and the police will be here soon.”
“Kill him!” Maxsim screamed with the rest of his breath, which wasn’t much. The bodyguard looked at the man with a mixture of disgust and pity, and took a step forward. He bent down and placed his hand on Maxsim’s chest, restraining him. He gently placed his gun against the struggling man’s forehead, then bent over and whispered in his ear. Whispered for several seconds. As he talked, Maxsim’s eyes widened and he began to thrash more, but he was too weak to make any headway against the bodyguard’s hand.
Worth The Risk Page 11