Sophie Katz 06-Vanity, Vengeance and a Weekend in Vegas

by Kyra Davis

  Natasha noted my confusion and smiled. “Innokenty was Alex’s brother.”

  I wished I had a mirror so I could check on my poker face because inside I was freaking out.

  “Of course no one called him Innokenty,” Natasha went on. “We called him by his nickname.”

  “Which was?”

  “Kenya.”

  Oh shit. “The two names don’t sound even remotely alike,” I whispered.

  “And Dick sounds like Richard?” Natasha countered.

  Marcus, still green, leaned his head against the window. “I prefer dick,” he said to no one in particular. The bodyguard giggled.

  He giggled. Bodyguards aren’t supposed to giggle. Natasha shot him a death stare and even Marcus gave him a funny look…a funny, appraising look.

  I was about to be killed by my boyfriend’s violence-loving wife and Marcus was about to out a hot hired gun. This was so fucking typical.

  Natasha inhaled deeply as she tried to take back control of the limo’s dynamics. “Let’s not pretend that I’m telling you anything new. You already know about Alex and his brother, don’t you? You’re working with Alex to get revenge. You want revenge on Anatoly because you found out about me and you knew that in the end he would come back to me. And Alex wants revenge too…but I think his target is a little bigger than my husband.”

  I had to hand it to her; Natasha had thrown out so much bait it was hard to figure out what to nibble on first. My instinct was to start by telling her that Anatoly had matured in the years since he’d left her and was no longer sexually attracted to mob affiliated psychopaths. But that probably wasn’t the best tack to take.

  “Who would Alex want revenge on?” I asked carefully. “Besides, he hasn’t done anything vengeful, has he?” You killed his brother, I thought to myself, did you really think he was going to just sit on his hands and interview a few more Food & Beverage managers?

  “Not yet. My family provides him with his livelihood so he’d be smart to keep his loyalty with them rather than with his pathetic little brother. My family thinks Alex is smart,” Natasha explained.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s intelligent, in a bookish kind of way…but I don’t think he’s very smart.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear out all the unnecessary information so I could get to the heart of what was being said. “What do you think is going on here, Natasha?”

  “The issue of the FBI agent was settled weeks ago. The only person who thought Anatoly knew something was Alex and his brother. But now Anatoly has come to Vegas. He’s killed someone who works for the family. He says it’s because he threatened his life. I can vouch for that, but even if that’s true, why was Anatoly’s life being threatened to begin with? There was no hit ordered on him. And now Anatoly is defending himself against charges that no one has made. It’s kind of like a criminal who insists that they weren’t at the scene of the crime before you tell them there was a scene to be at. It makes him look guilty. Now the family is beginning to wonder if Alex and Innokenty were telling the truth.”

  “But what good would any of this do Alex?” I asked.

  “Well, if Alex really thinks Kenya took the blame for Anatoly that would be enough to make Alex want to hurt him. But the beauty of what’s happening now is that if Anatoly thinks the mob is after him he might launch a preemptive strike. If Anatoly hurts my family, Alex gets his revenge on them. If my family kills Anatoly in retaliation, Alex gets his revenge on Anatoly. So Alex gets everything he wants while the rest of us have to deal with a war.”

  “There’s a simple answer to this,” I said.

  “Really,” Natasha said dryly.

  “Yeah, kill Alex! You said you have guns, use one of them! It’s not like you don’t know where to find him!”

  “Eventually,” Natasha said. “But the problem is that my family doesn’t like my theories right now. Until they do I can’t touch Alex. But I can touch those who he’s enlisted to work with him, like you. You have nothing to do with my family. No one will care what I do to you.”

  “You’re going to kill me?”

  “I’m going to take you to a lovely little hideaway. It’s secure and very private so there’ll be no risk of interruptions. You’re going to give me some answers, Sophie. You’re going to tell me what I need to know about Alex’s plan.”

  “I don’t know anything about Alex’s plan.”

  “That’s too bad, because if you don’t tell me what I want to know I will kill you. You and your carsick friend and trust me when I say it won’t be a painless death.”

  The thug threw Marcus a sympathetic look. So he wasn’t going to stop his employer from torturing us to death but at least he felt bad about it.

  “I really think I’m going to be sick,” Marcus said again.

  I reached for his hand but just as I did the limo was slammed from the side and we swerved off the road. Natasha and I were thrown to the floor and Marcus ended up in the thug’s lap…not that the thug seemed to mind. In fact, and I saw this, the thug grabbed Marcus’ hand while Natasha was struggling to right herself and placed it on the door handle. Marcus didn’t have to ask what to do. He jerked open the door and grabbed me. My purse had fallen right in front of me (or had Bo thrown it there?) so I grabbed it too. The limo was already starting again but had virtually no speed. Marcus and I leaped out of the vehicle before Natasha could do anything about it. The thug might have been able to do something about it, but he was moving rather slowly.

  I had been so focused on Natasha I hadn’t even noticed that we had driven out into the middle of nowhere…there was nothing to be seen but desert…and the tinted glass Hummer that had sideswiped us. We started running. The limo backed up as if it meant to run us over, but the Hummer backed up too and sideswiped the limo again.

  I could hear Natasha screaming but whether it was in anger or pain I didn’t know. I couldn’t take the time to figure things like that out. Right now Marcus and I just needed to run.

  I heard another vehicle coming for us. I risked a glance behind me and saw the Hummer again.

  “Oh God,” Marcus muttered but the Hummer passed us and then swerved and screeched to a stop directly in our path. The windows were so dark I couldn’t see who was driving. And then the driver’s side window was cracked open. “Get in,” a voice instructed.

  Anatoly’s voice.

  Without a second thought I dived into the back seat and Marcus got in right after me. From there it took some maneuvering for me to climb into the front seat next to Anatoly, particularly since he was already back on the road, going at a breakneck speed. But I needed to be next to him. Hearing his voice hadn’t been enough. Seeing the back of his head certainly wasn’t enough.

  “Get your seatbelt on,” Anatoly said in lieu of hello.

  “Oh, so now you’re worried about my safety? Were you thinking about that when you drugged me?”

  “Did you think about the danger you were putting us both in when you refused to leave Vegas?”

  I shot him a glare before glancing in the side mirror. “Why aren’t they following us?”

  “I think that last hit disabled the vehicle.”

  “You realize,” Marcus said, as he struggled to catch his breath, “that we wouldn’t have been able to get away if it wasn’t for Bo-Bo the gay mafia thug, right? You did see that?”

  “Bo-Bo? You mean Bo? He was in there?” Anatoly asked, concerned. “Did you notice if he was hurt in the crash?”

  “You know him?” I asked and then shook my head in disgust. “Of course you do. You’re all hooked up in the mafia world, aren’t you?”

  “I used to be a part of that world, Sophie. I was honest with you about that.”

  “Oh right, you were very honest after you were caught lying. Your friend Bo-Bo is fine!”

  “Yes,” Marcus muttered, “he is that.”

  I glared out the tinted window. “I wonder if Natasha has any injuries.”

  “
If we’re lucky,” Anatoly said quietly.

  I gave him a sideways glance. The corner of his mouth was twitching. I broke out into a full smile and grabbed his hand. “I love you, Anatoly.”

  “I love you too, Sophie.”

  Marcus groaned. “I swear you two make Catherine and Heathcliff look like a well adjusted couple.”

  I sighed and turned back to the window. The desert was beautiful but it frightened me. It had to be every bit as foreboding as an English moor. “I’ve memorized whole passages from Wuthering Heights,” I admitted aloud.

  “Have you?” Anatoly asked, his eyes still firmly on the road.

  In an affected voice I took on the personage of Catherine. “Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”

  My Heathcliff smiled and squeezed my hand as he drove us into the depths of the desert.

  CHAPTER 17

  “I learned how to fight but no one ever taught me how to walk away.”

  --Death Of The Party

  It took me a few minutes before I was truly thinking clearly again. My first worry was for my sister and friends but Anatoly assured me they were safe. Natasha had no interest in messing with any of them and she probably would have preferred not to bother Marcus but since he was there when she nabbed me she had to take him along. Still, Marcus called Dena and suggested that she, Leah and Mary Ann stay in public places and be on the alert. He also told Dena she might want to keep one of her whips and a pair of her fur-lined handcuffs handy just in case.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we drove further away from the Vegas I knew.

  “Somewhere we can talk.”

  I accepted that for no other reason than that I didn’t have the energy to interrogate him. Apparently Marcus was exhausted too because he remained silent in the backseat.

  “I called the Civic Center library,” Anatoly said casually.

  I laughed. “Oh yeah? What did they tell you?”

  “That I would have to wait until Tuesday to get my books. That’s when the person who deals with donations will be back at work.”

  “Well then, I guess you’ll have to get all this wrapped up by Tuesday, huh?”

  He smiled wistfully. “If only.”

  We were approaching mountains now but they weren’t the green mountains I knew from Northern California. These were bare and jagged. As we drew nearer I could see the red soil and rock that covered the peeks and ridges of the land ahead of me. It was as if the very earth was angry and wanted to broadcast its power to the entire world…or maybe just to me.

  I didn’t know how to survive out here. I didn’t know the rules. Eventually we came to a giant rock on the side of the road. On it were the words “Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Center” painted in bold, black letters and a little after that we reached a parking lot outside a closed visitor center. There were a few cars in the parking lot but no people to be seen.

  Anatoly turned back to Marcus. “I need some time to talk to Sophie alone. Do you mind if we take off for ten minutes or so?”

  “I’ll stay here,” Marcus said, with relief. “Not moving sounds very, very good.”

  Anatoly nodded and got out of the car. He was actually gentlemanly enough to come around to my side and open my door for me.

  Without protest I let him lead me toward the hiking trails.

  For a few minutes we didn’t say anything. We knew that as soon as the words came so would the accusations. So we kept our mouths shut and just walked, red dust rising up with each step and settling on our shoes. We were just…feeling each other’s presence. How many times had we walked like this and not even thought about it? Sure we argued, occasionally we even broke up but when it came time to walk down one of life’s dusty little paths we always found a way to do it together. It was just natural.

  But now for the first time I was acutely aware that my hold on Anatoly was tenuous. Not because he didn’t love me, but because the forces that were keeping us apart were just so big!

  A lizard darted out from under a rock, took one look at us and darted back under again.

  Anatoly sighed. He was going to break the silence. “So now do you see why I need you to leave Vegas?”

  “Do you see why I can’t?”

  The sun was getting a little lower in the sky, making the rusty red surroundings look almost luminous.

  Anatoly stopped and took my hands in his. God, I loved his hands and I couldn’t help softening a little as he caressed my skin with the subtle back and forth movement of his thumb. “I was married before and I lied to you about it.”

  Oddly enough, it didn’t feel wrong for him to use this moment to state the obvious. It sounded like the confession that I needed. Simple, straight forward…even the pain the words caused felt…right.

  “I was married before,” he said again. “But I’ve never been in love before. Sophie…you have to leave Vegas. For me.”

  “You are so selfish,” I whispered.

  He furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry?”

  “You act like your feelings are the only ones that matter here. You want me to leave Vegas because you don’t like thinking about me being in danger. Well have you ever considered that I don’t like the danger you’re in?”

  “Sophie-”

  “Forget it,” I said, cutting him off before he could even start his rebuttal. “I can’t leave Vegas until I know you’re safe. That stresses you out? Tough. Pop a Valium and learn to deal.”

  Anatoly’s mouth was twitching again. He was really trying to scowl at me but it just wasn’t working for him.

  “Do you think Innokenty’s brother is behind all this?” I asked.

  “You know about Innokenty.” By the tone of his voice I could tell he didn’t want me to know about hm. Clearly he didn’t want to answer the question either.

  His eyes moved to the horizon. “I’ve heard Natasha’s theory, but Alexander Kinsky’s motives seem weak to me.”

  “Weak? They killed his brother! If someone killed Leah I’d go vigilante too!”

  “So he gets revenge, but if the theory’s right then the revenge he’s after will probably end up getting him killed along with everyone else.”

  “So you don’t think he’s involved.”

  “Until I can figure out why he would be, I can’t point any fingers,” he said. His jaw tighten a bit before he added, “Natasha tells me that you and Alexander Kinsky have become close.”

  “Not that close,” I said harshly, “it’s not like he’s my husband or anything.”

  I knew that was a cruel twist of the knife but for him to listen to Natasha about what other men I was or wasn’t getting close to…it just made me want to scream.

  “I can’t accuse him of much at this point, but he’s not a good guy. Look at who his employer is.”

  “Yeah, he works for your old boss. You know, you don’t have to use his full name when you refer to him. You can just call him Kettle and I’ll call you Pot. How ‘bout that?”

  Anatoly’s jaw was so tight at this point I was a little worried that it might lock in place. But after a deep breath he managed to relax it enough to talk. “Even if this guy isn’t the cause of all this, he’s still involved and now I am too. That’s why you need to get on a plane and as far away from both of us as possible…until I say it’s safe.”

  “And that will be when? After you’ve taken down the entire Russian mafia?”

  “Natasha doesn’t think the mob set up that trap at Hotel Noir. Which means Tanya was either working on her own or she was working for someone else and that’s weird. If you work for a crime family it’s really not a good idea to freelance, and to what end? It’s got to be about more than revenge.”

  “Oh, wait! I just thought of another possibility!”

  The sun was in my eyes and I had to squint to look up into Anatoly’s face. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Maybe Natasha’s ful
l of shit!”

  Anatoly chuckled. “Let’s keep walking.”

  “I’m not kidding!” I insisted as we continued down the path. “Maybe Natasha is behind all of this! She could have lured you out here and set up a situation that made her look like your savior.”

  “She has no motive.”

  “She has a huge motive! She wants you back!”

  “You think she set up a situation in which two people would be killed just so she could play the hero?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, would that be beneath the mafia princess’ code of ethics?”

  “One of those people was her cousin!”

  “Please, did you ever watch The Sopranos? Cousins kill each other.”

  “Natasha isn’t behind this.”

  I looked around at the landscape and studied the large boulders that decorated it. Each one was way too big for me to throw at Anatoly’s head. “You’re defending her.”

  “No, I’m…” his voice trailed off as he tried to find an alternative explanation. Unfortunately there wasn’t one. “I don’t think she’s behind this, that’s all.”

  “She was going to kill me, Anatoly.”

  “It wouldn’t have gone that far.”

  “You are defending her!”

  “As moronic as this sounds, she believes you’re working with Alexander to get me killed.”

  “You still care about her!”

  “I risked her safety in order to get you away from her. If she has whiplash it’s because she deserves it. And if she had actually hurt you? I would have killed her.”

  “Oh!” Immediately I felt better about things. “That’s sweet, thank you.”

  “But she wouldn’t have.”

  And then I felt worse about things. “Oh, what-the-hell-ever. Just tell me what information you have on the mafia.”

  “Some corners were cut and if the wrong people find out it will be a big problem for the mafia.”

  Could the man be more vague? “A life or death kind of problem?”

  “No, just death,” Anatoly said, his voice becoming so quiet I had to strain to hear him. “Kidnapping, torture, decapitation…even the family members, the kids and the wives…everyone will be in danger.”