She blinked and suddenly looked into paralyzing, green eyes. A woman with raven hair was humbled before her.
Tatiana Pražakova.
How could she forget the face in the crime scene photo that Nikolai brandished? Supposedly, she had pumped a bullet into her lungs, yet the vision before her looked composed of flesh and blood. Vivian tried to reach out for the woman to confirm her suspicions, but her fingers refused to obey. Tears trickled down Tatiana’s eyes as her lips twitched in a silent plea for mercy. Vivian looked down to see the gun clutched in her hand. Blood dripped from her fingertips, pecking away at the forest floor.
“Oh God,” she whispered. When she looked up, the illusion had vanished. She couldn’t deny it any longer. Her brain was unraveling under Syllax.
She began running through the windswept forest. Gradually, the trees were replaced by towering buildings, and the distant rumblings of the city swelled around her. Traffic blurred by her side in a monstrous roar.
There was only one place she could run to now. Her legs seemed to move with an accord of their own, taking her deeper into the suburbs.
She finally stopped.
Her house was just as she remembered. She tiptoed past the garden sculptures of angels and swans, a playground for midnight shadows. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so much dread and excitement as she approached the front porch. How would her parents react to their estranged daughter showing up on their doorstep?
That hesitation hardened in her breast, driving a wedge between her and the house. She wanted so badly to be accepted again.
But what if they refused her?
As that thought preyed on her mind, she looked under the garden statues. She was greeted by a familiar sight. The house key.
It felt so familiar in her hands, a piece of her life locked away beneath fond memories.
She took a deep breath and thrust it in the keyhole. Before she pushed open the door, she stuffed the key under a pot of peonies.
“Mom…?” The house was dimly lit with glass lamps. Everything remained the same since the night she fled; an eclectic mix of feng shui, incense bowls, crystals and small fountains.
She remembered her mother telling her about the importance of feng shui when she was just a little girl. “Feng” represented wind and “shui” represented water. Wind and water were associated with good health in Chinese culture, thus good feng shui would bring good fortune and harmony to the household.
Little good that did us.
She imagined her mother constantly tending to the feng shui in hopes of mending the harmonies of their broken family.
Vivian hoped her fortune would change for the better tonight. She tiptoed past the stairs.
“Mom?” she called. The sound of breaking china ignited the silence.
Vivian immediately bound into the kitchen. Her mother stood with her back to the door. Vivian’s eyes fell to the gleaming shards of dishes strewn across the floor.
“What happened?! Meilin?” a male voice called from upstairs. Footsteps pounded down the stairs before they dwindled to a whisper. Vivian turned around to find her father gawking at her.
“Please take me back,” she gasped. Suddenly, her tears were drying against his chest as he pulled her into an embrace. She felt her mother hug her from behind, her body quivering with sobs.
They silently shepherded Vivian into the living room, a mesh of limbs that could not be pulled apart. All the familiar sights that met Vivian’s eyes tugged at her heart. The radio hummed with the sound of the local news and jarring political climate. A forlorn piano waited in the corner, begging for someone to massage a song out of its ivory keys. Meilin would so often weave tranquil notes from the family heirloom while Vivian studied her anatomy textbooks on the couch.
Meilin likely didn’t have the heart to play while her only daughter was wandering the streets alone.
A new addition adorned the mantle above the television: a photo of Vivian as a little girl. She almost reached out to touch it when her father’s voice grated through the silence.
“How could you do this to us?” Vivian jumped and retreated from his face hardened with anger. “Don’t you realize what you’ve put us through? Can you imagine the pain we endured as parents talking to the police—as suspects in our own daughter’s disappearance?”
“I’m sorry.”
“They thought I … that I … hurt you … bringing dishonor to our family…”
Tears began to eat away at the anger clogging his throat until the words fell apart. He buried his face in his hands. For the longest time, only Keung’s weeping dominated the silence.
“I’m sorry,” Vivian said. She looked to her mother, who was also fighting back tears.
“No,” her father choked. “I am. I’m a goddamned fool for driving away my only daughter. If I could take it all back, I would. We were afraid you were lost to us forever.” His admission nearly stole the words from Vivian.
“I’m back now and I won’t run away anymore. I want to be a family again.”
“I never meant to drive you out of our lives, Vivian. But the thought of my daughter being objectified on stage…and men touching you… I just snapped. I wanted to scream. I thought the only way to get through to you was rehabilitation.”
“Where did you go?” her mother asked. Meilin Xu was a radiant image of her daughter, only without the red contacts and marble complexion.
“I went back to the club and lodged there.”
“Your father tried looking for you there.”
“I eventually left and… I started wandering the streets. Men started paying me to do things.” It was so much easier to hide behind vague descriptions than to force out the humiliating truth. Her mother lingered at the threshold of tears.
“A homicide detective arrested me, and he said I could either go to prison or assist him with an investigation. He wanted me to track down a serial killer. I had no choice but to do whatever he said.”
“Why were you arrested?” her mother wailed.
“It’s a long story. I don’t remember how everything got started.” She winced even as the lie slid between her teeth. “I just wanted to come home and see you. I can’t get through this by myself.”
“Get through what?”
“I think I killed someone,” she said, the first of many tears blurring her vision. “I was under the influence of a drug and I shot her—except I didn’t see a woman when I pulled the trigger. I saw a man trying to hurt me.”
Her father finally reached out, his movements almost crippled by hesitation. He swept up his daughter’s hand and squeezed it.
“We’ll get through this together, Vivian. Whatever it takes.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she sniffled. “Thank you.” She sank into the floral cushions on the couch with her father’s arms around her. No sanctuary could prove warmer than this.
“You’ll stay with us this time, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes as exhaustion poured through her limbs. She felt her father rise from the couch, cradling her against his chest. She allowed the slightest smiled to crease her lips. For the first time in ages, she felt safe.
“I love you… Dad.”
“I love you, too, Vivian. Everything is going to be okay. I promise you.”
Suddenly, Vivian’s father swerved to the kitchen.
“Who are y—?” Steel impacted with his head, blurring his vision with blood.
“Dad!” Vivian tumbled to the floor. The sight of the gun paralyzed her. Her father’s blood dripped down the barrel, salivating over the carpet. Finally, she tore her eyes away from the weapon to see the man clutching it. Her heart dropped into her stomach.
“Welcome home, Vivian.”
NINETEEN
The key to Vivian’s house gleamed in Nikolai’s hand. He looked at her with unblinking hatred.
“I truly wish you could have reunited with your parents under more pleasant circumstances. This is hard
ly how I envisioned meeting your family, Vivian.” Nikolai scanned the living room, his eyes dancing across portraits above the shimmering fireplace. “The human mind is a funny thing, Vivian. We often don’t appreciate what we’ve been given until it’s wrenched viciously away from us. Both of us should be able to sympathize with that notion.”
He gingerly picked up a portrait of her family.
“You had a nice home and parents who obviously loved you. You had a blossoming future awaiting you. Yet, you threw it all away. And for what? Sex? Money? Murder?”
He callously dropped the portrait to the floor.
“I suspected you might run to your parents. Fortunately, I dispatched an officer to monitor your residence.”
In that moment, Vivian was starkly reminded of the police breaking into her childhood home, tearing their family apart. Her mother ran toward Keung when Nikolai swung the gun in her direction.
“Sit down,” he barked, venom flooding his voice. She hesitated, torn between his threats and the sight of her husband’s blood. “Sit down or I’ll leave you widowed.” Meilin retreated to her chair with tears sparkling in her eyes. “Speaking of which, how is my Red Widow doing? Did you honestly think you could shrug me off like that?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Vivian shrieked. “What are you so afraid of?!” The gash on her father’s head glared angrily at her. This was her fault, she knew. She never should have returned and brought violence to their doorstep.
“I’ve already explained the charges against you—and we can add on eluding a police officer. You’re wanted for the murder of BIS agent Tatiana Pražakova.”
“I didn’t kill her!”
“Don’t make this ordeal harder on your family, Vivian. Surrender yourself peacefully to the authorities. You’ve already demonstrated your willingness to kill and the threat you pose to society. Should you choose to fight, you’ll leave me with no choice.” He hefted the gun and put her in his sights. “I won’t hesitate to put you down.”
Vivian stared in disbelief.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Keung screamed. Nikolai fished a pair of handcuffs out of his jacket.
“It ends tonight, Vivian. I did my best to guide you, but it obviously wasn’t enough. And for that, I am truly sorry.”
Vivian felt devastated by the future that awaited her. No matter how she tried to outrun the consequences of her actions, reality always handed down a guilty verdict. She was guilty of running away from home, abusing drugs, selling herself in the streets, and murdering an innocent woman. No amount of penance or rehabilitation would allow her back into society.
There was nothing she could do to save herself now, but perhaps she could spare her parents. She submissively held out her hands.
“No!” Keung threw his body in front of Vivian and pushed her toward the kitchen. Gunfire ignited and a bullet ripped through her father’s chest.
“Dad!” she screamed. She rushed toward her father, but someone seized her. Her heels slid on the kitchen floor as her mother thrust her out the back door.
“Run!” Meilin screamed. Before she knew it, the door slammed shut. The lock twisted with finality and once more she was banished from home.
Red and blue lights flickered beyond Vivian’s house as more squad cars invaded her neighborhood. She charged toward the door to break it down before Nikolai killed her parents. She may as well open the iron bars to her prison cell if she entered.
A second gunshot pierced her ears, sending her tumbling on her buttocks.
“Mom!” she screamed.
Adrenaline burning in her veins, she scrambled away from the door. She wouldn’t let her parents’ sacrifice be in vain. With a final look at her house, she ran.
Vivian raced through the streets as sirens filled the night. She tried to think of anything other than her parents trapped in the same room as Nikolai. He was a mindless animal backed into a corner, proving he would gladly cross any line to protect himself.
Just then, Vivian noticed a warm glow hovering above the horizon. She slowed to a stop as the source became clear.
“No…”
Vesely Manor peeled away in the embrace of inferno. Gnarled flames devoured the gardens once tended by the manor’s heiress. The smoke proved the worst of all, sending her into a dizzying high. She clutched the gates as the inferno drew ever closer.
Tonight, the Sea of Fire was truly aflame.
* * *
The night passed without any sign of Vivian. Nikolai roamed the alleys up and down before coming to a stop in the ashes of Vesely Manor.
He didn’t return home that night or surrender to the cooing spell of sleep. He spent every second staring into the night, wrapped in fear and loathing. He finally left the unhallowed ground when he was summoned to the morgue in the early hours of morning.
Another day, another autopsy, thought Nikolai dryly. Except this time the woman lying on the necropsy table was someone he intimately knew. Tatiana’s naked body patiently awaited dissection.
“Tatiana Pražakova. Five foot eleven, black hair, green eyes, a hundred and thirty pounds. Her residence was listed in Prague.”
Nikolai didn’t even blink as Jezebel rattled off the basics. How strange that a person’s existence could be summed up in a smattering of superficial characteristics. That morbid ritual reduced every man, woman, and child to a pile of flesh to be measured and weighed.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as the filters hissed above his head. He could feel the atmosphere growing thicker and danker with every breath he tasted. And all the while, the hole in Tatiana’s chest seemed to squirm and grow bigger, an infinite pit that would swallow him whole.
“Nikolai!”
Her voice jolted him back to reality. He almost tripped over the hose extending from the autopsy table.
“What?” he snapped.
“You really should put on a face mask.”
Jezebel dangled the flimsy surgical mask in front of him.
“You turned white as a sheet when we dissected Natalie. Tatiana won’t smell nearly as awful since she didn’t die in the sewers, but this will still be unpleasant. Trust me.” One glance at the tools arrayed by the corpse was all the incentive he needed. He swiped up the mask and strapped it on.
“A single bullet was fired into her left lung at close range. As you can see, the bullet entered medial to the left nipple and exited just below the left scapula. Based on the size of the exit wound, the bullet was fired from a nine millimeter pistol. Unfortunately, the bullet was never recovered from the crime scene. What intrigues me the most is the sheer measure of damage the bullet inflicted. I’ve never seen a nine millimeter do anything like this.”
“Tatiana.”
“What?”
“She has a name.”
“You didn’t grow attached to her, did you?” Jezebel smiled. “I thought you disliked babysitting agents from rival agencies.”
“I just don’t like how detached ‘victim’ sounds when we’re dealing with someone we both know. She worked on the LaCroix investigation, for God’s sake.”
Spying movement out of the corner of his eye, Nikolai looked upon the medical examiner’s assistant. He was a gangly fellow with platinum blonde hair slicked over his dome-shaped head. He had a camera clutched in his hands to photograph the body, eager to engage in the most perverse kind of voyeurism. Nikolai withdrew as the assistant’s finger furiously pumped the camera, rendering the last portrait of Tatiana that the world would ever see. It certainly wasn’t her finest moment with the makeup washed away, eyeliner bleeding down her cheeks, powdered with the cruel pallor of death. Even her lips gleamed with a waxy, blue color from the absence of nutrient-rich blood.
“Do you expect to find any bullet shrapnel in the tissue?”
“Let’s find out,” Jezebel said, brandishing a scalpel. She carved a Y incision below Tatiana’s breasts, forever scarring a body that aspiring models would surely die for.
The rush of air
from the corpse’s chest startled Jezebel.
“Pneumothorax,” she whispered.
“What?”
“After the bullet ruptured the left lung, air began to accumulate into the pleural cavity. The pressure could have potentially shifted the heart and blood vessels.” With a steady grip, she continued to carve down Tatiana’s belly, taking her precious time like a sculptor.
She spread the butterflied chest flaps to reveal a mass of coagulated blood. It clotted into a berry-colored gel that obscured much of the internal organs. She worked furiously among the sea of red, shearing through the ribs with pruning shears she once used in her garden. Now instead of pruning roses, they sawed through the armor over men and women’s hearts. Once the ribs were removed, she thrust her hand into the warm, slippery bundles of muscle, working efficiently with the scalpel in search of her prize.
“To be more precise, CT scans revealed a hemopneumothorax in the left lung. Blood spilled into the pleural space after the bullet ruptured her left lung.”
While much of the blood pooled in the lower body, evidence of the hemothorax lingered vividly. The blood thickened around the lungs like a disease feasting on its membranous walls.
Nikolai coldly observed as Jezebel severed the esophagus and trachea. The sternum clattered onto a metal basin as she hollowed out Tatiana like a human bowl.
“It’s a cruel irony, isn’t it? To succumb to the very substance that accomplishes so much to keep us alive?” The scissors bit into Tatiana’s lungs, teething for any remnants of bullet shrapnel. Nikolai silently agreed. To drown in one’s own blood defied the mind’s concept of horror. There would be no escape from such a claustrophobic fate. In fact, the very notion made him want to escape his own skin and float freely without restraint.
With scissors in one hand and forceps in the other, Jezebel probed the lungs for foreign objects.
“Aha,” she said, retrieving her bloodstained hand from the thoracic cavity. A twisted piece of metal gleamed between the notched forceps.
Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) Page 25