No Law (Law #3)

by Camille Taylor

  Mikhail’s eyes narrowed as they entered. He glared before speaking. “I must say you threw me with your name, Mrs. Thomas. I knew you looked familiar and it ate away at me, driving me to locate the missing piece of the puzzle that was you.” He shifted in his seat and adjusted his tie, pulling it tighter. He regarded her with cold eyes. “I was one of Iosif’s men in Moscow. He was extremely annoyed that my brothers had missed you in that room.” He smiled cruelly when he saw her flinch at the casual way he spoke of her near death experience, knowing full well the kind of images he was conjuring inside her head. “And now I find you here. Such coincidence.”

  She shrugged, fighting to remain calm and in control. The odds weren’t so astronomical. “Not really. Russian antiquities is such a small world when you think about it. Especially with the major players. Shall we get on with it?” she asked, sounding braver than she felt. “Where are the hostages? I want to see that they’re all right, since we complied with your wishes.”

  Mikhail’s attention shifted briefly to Vasily and Thug Number Two. Both were staring out the door as if waiting for someone.

  Probably Milo, she guessed. Well, good luck with that.

  She moved closer to her office, waiting. She would have felt better with a weapon but she had left both the duct tape and pepper spray in the security office since she had no place to conceal them and was now regretting the decision.

  Mikhail nodded curtly, his greedy gaze on the box she held in her hands as he opened the connecting door. She peered into her new office, seeing the hostages. As Mikhail had said, several members of the staff were there, the museum guards who’d been on duty, and the rest were unknown faces she assumed to be tourists in the wrong place at the wrong time. None seemed injured. A few torn items of clothing, but that was the extent of the damage. This would not end well for the museum. Word of mouth was a killer to a museum’s reputation, and Carey was sure the visitors would not go home with praise on their lips. She noticed that Mr. Helpful with the roaming hands was not among the captured. Dismissing the notion that he was somehow involved, she knew he was going to be disappointed that he’d had the day off.

  Closing the door again, Mikhail waved her towards the desk. “Now, if you please. The treasure.”

  She stepped up to the desk and placed the box down, then re-joined Dmitry. Vasily and Thug Number Two both hovered in the doorway behind them. She could feel the excitement and anticipation in the room, and she recognized it to be somewhat similar to what she had experienced, only she had seen it as the find of a century instead of with obvious greed.

  She swallowed hard, unsure what to do. She had given them what they wanted, now all she had to go on was Mikhail’s word. She had trouble trusting anybody at the best of times, let alone in her current situation. She was scared and not just because she was standing unarmed in a room filled with the Russian Mafiya, but should she survive this meeting, she still had the police to deal with. There was no doubt they still believed she was Brian’s murderer, and at the moment, she wasn’t sure what kind of evidence she could give them to disprove that theory.

  The only thing in her favor was the egg which she assumed would be long gone by the time police arrived. Maybe her car could be evidence, but there was no way to prove who’d riddled it with bullet holes. Carey hooked her thumbs into her jeans pockets. She was nervous enough, her voice less than steady, and she didn’t want shaking hands as well.

  “Just out of curiosity, how did you obtain it?” she asked, interrupting Mikhail, who was gently removing the egg from the box.

  She had to bite her lip to stop from saying anything about how he handled it. He was not at all qualified, of course, and she fought the urge to snatch it away from him. His gaze moved reluctantly from the treasure to her stare. He raised a polite eyebrow, telling her silently he hadn’t been listening to her.

  “That’s the Empire Nephrite Egg, isn’t it?” she asked. “How did you acquire it? It’s been unaccounted for since the Bolsheviks moved the Imperial Treasures to Sovnarkom in 1922.”

  Mikhail smiled, seeming happy to tell the tale of how he’d obtained one of the most important historically significant finds since the Titanic. “It was found amongst the estate of one Boris Milyukov, once a member of the Bolsheviks. I have recently discovered he was one of the members who had the order to transport the Imperial Treasure and who apparently kept some things for himself. His grandson was more than reluctant to part with it.”

  The name Milyukov was familiar. She frowned, the significance of the name eluding her for a moment before she recalled the Georgian newspaper article Google Alerts had sent her, of the man murdered in his home found with an Imperial antiquity. Mikhail must’ve killed the man for the egg. It was a sad fact that so many people had died over the centuries for other people’s greed. She considered the grandson’s motives. An honest man would’ve turned the egg over to the Ministry, but then Russia didn’t have the greatest relationship with Georgia.

  “Even after all these years, when the egg was worth so much?” she asked.

  “Apparently, there are some things money can’t buy.” Mikhail shrugged, as if not understanding the reasoning. “The egg had sentimental value.”

  She nodded, knowing it was part of history, a reminder of one of the worst times in Russia in the last century when food had been scarce or cost more than they could afford. At the time of the Revolution, the country was in a worse state then the U.S. had been during the Depression in the 1930s. She could understand why the people chose to turn their backs on the royal family.

  “Yes, I can imagine,” she said sarcastically. “A souvenir to remember the slaughtering of the Imperial family.”

  Nicholas the Second, along with his wife, Alexandra, and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei together with a few servants were taken to the basement of Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on the promise of having their photo taken. Once inside the basement, the entire Romanov family had been killed.

  Unfortunately for Nicholas’s daughters, the Grand Duchesses, the bullets had bounced off their bodies due to the jewels hidden in their corsets for protection, for if they escaped their captors they would need money for safe passage. The guards who were supposed to protect them proceeded to clobber them with the butts of their guns before shooting them in the head. It was a tragedy, one she couldn’t understand. She knew full well there were certain rules for war—rules of engagement. But the murder of the Romanovs didn’t fit into the code.

  “I can’t help but notice you didn’t call the family innocent,” Mikhail said.

  “The children were innocent. There was no need for that cruelty. Alexei had only been thirteen. As for Nicholas…” She shrugged. He had been disposed of, and the monarchy had been abolished. “How many leaders have been assassinated over the years? I guess it’s the price you pay for being in charge.”

  Mikhail chuckled.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Dmitry, confused at Mikhail’s attitude. She’d spoken before she’d even let the words play through her mind. She had expected to anger him, had been fully prepared to take the brunt of his fury if it only bought time and kept his mind occupied—away from shooting hostages. Dmitry raised his shoulders. Big help he was. He nodded slightly towards Mikhail, urging her on.

  “I had no idea what I was missing out on when I brought Brian Nichols on board,” Mikhail said. “How I wish I’d approached you instead of that useless one. You’d have proven your worth, I’ve no doubt.”

  Her stomach clenched. The thought of having Mikhail approach her made her blood run cold. She had no doubt as to the method of persuasion she would’ve endured to join his band of thieves. She was glad Brian had been the more likely candidate, but that made her feel guilty too. Would she have been strong enough to fight him, or would circumstances have taken the same turn as they had in Russia?

  She shook her head, her messy ringlets falling over her shoulder. “No use wishing for something you’d never
have gotten. I would’ve turned you down and you know it.” She took a deep breath. “Then I would’ve turned you into your government.”

  Her voice was strong as she spoke the truth. Her convictions could never be swayed.

  Mikhail let out a soulful sigh. “You learned nothing from your experience in Moscow?”

  Her teeth ground together. She hated Moscow being thrown in her face. “Oh, I learned plenty, I assure you. But that still doesn’t change right and wrong and whether you threaten me or not I will always do the honorable thing. Unlike Brian,” she continued, “I have loyalties and integrity. I also believe those acquisitions belong to the world, not in some rich man’s private collection. A piece of history is priceless. No one should be able to put a price tag on the significance of the piece. As for Imperial Treasures such as that egg, the find would mean so much more than money to a lot of people.”

  “A naïve view if I’ve ever heard one.” Mikhail scoffed.

  “No, not naïve, just a believer in what I do. I’m someone who preserves artifacts. Money and greed don’t enter into the equation. It’s just pure love for the task.”

  Mikhail grunted, obviously finding her lacking in intelligence.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what other treasures you’ve absconded with?” she asked, intrigued. She didn’t have to pretend either. She would probably fall just short of killing someone to find out what had inadvertently slipped past her fingers. If only she’d caught on to his scam before all this mess happened.

  “Not really,” he said. “My buyers would rather their purchases not have the FBI attached to their invoices.”

  She understood. He was a business man, after all. “I assume you won’t be considering selling it to the Russian government or even the museum?” she asked, somewhat hopefully.

  If he sold it to the Russian government, the find would be on display around the world for all to appreciate. If he sold it to the museum, she could be the first to catalogue and review the piece. So it was a win-win for her. Still, she knew as well as he did that selling legitimately wasn’t an option, not without proof of providence or inheritance which he clearly didn’t have. But she could dream.

  “The country doesn’t have deep enough pockets,” Mikhail stated.

  Her brow furrowed. “That’s your country too.”

  While she wasn’t all that enthusiastic for all things Russia, the Moscow experience having soured her general overlook, she still thought of the cold country as her second home. She had, in a way, Russian blood pumping through her veins, having integrated into the society completely, living and breathing like one of their own. If Alan had his way she seriously doubted they’d ever returned to the U.S. The history and culture of the people being so rich, he could have studied them forever, documenting their lives and reviewing their Imperial pieces. She too had been mesmerized. But she hadn’t once regretted the decision to return home, away from bad memories and freezing cold temperatures.

  Mikhail shrugged, his feelings and allegiance towards his country of birth somewhat of a question. He was the type of man who saw first to his own comfort before anything or anyone else. Russia had been unkind to some of its citizens in the past, which was why so many had fled to greener pastures.

  Through the closed window, she caught a flash of light in the distance. She assumed it was from the sun reflecting off the windscreen of the vehicles coming closer. Relief filled her when she heard no sirens, the men slowly approaching them, having experienced this type of hostage situation many times before. It took all her self-control to keep from looking toward the window, not wanting to alert Mikhail to their presence. If he was aware of what was happening, he might be tempted to kill them all just to leave no witnesses and she hadn’t come this far and this close to an Imperial Egg just to die now.

  Elena had been right when she’d told Lucas she had a one track mind, and if you were less than a century old, you didn’t exist to her. Well, she was half right. Dmitry was nowhere that old but he appeared on her radar. Even with the threat of death hanging over her, she was acutely aware of his presence. Not quite close enough for her to touch but close enough that she felt secure in her position.

  She had felt his gaze on her for the past half hour, almost as if he was afraid she would disappear. She doubted if Dmitry knew, but she was drawing courage from him. He was like a marble statue, standing there unfazed by events, his face only showing mild interest. She wished he’d show just a little concern for their current predicament although apparently this type of thing wasn’t at all unfamiliar to him. He had a scar to prove it.

  “Again, Ms. Madigan, that’s a rather naïve way of looking at things,” Mikhail said. “I am a man without loyalties, not to country or to man. A man who is completely in it for himself, at making himself richer at the expense of others.”

  “And you’re okay with that? What kind of person are you?”

  “Carey,” Dmitry warned.

  She ignored him. Years of dealing with the fallout of Alan’s death came crushing down on her, threatening to cut off her oxygen. Her vision turned red as anger took over. Because of greedy men like Mikhail, her husband was dead. Because some worthless lazy son-of-a-bitch was interested in lining their already full pockets, her husband along with countless other people had been tortured and threatened. That was something she couldn’t abide.

  “Do you have a family? Sons, daughters, a wife? How can you stand profiting on someone else’s loss?”

  Mikhail remained unfazed at her allegations, probably only because they were true. He leaned back in his chair and said simply, “Happens all the time, from people just like you, Ms. Madigan. There is no such thing as a saint.”

  She knew he was right. The human race was a cruel lot, and she had only wanted to understand why Alan, a good, kind man who had done nothing to deserve his fate had been hurt so much. She already knew the answer. Mikhail had even told her. For some to succeed others must fail.

  Tears welled up in her eyes and she tried desperately to blink them away. She had no idea what to do next, had argued with Mikhail to the last point. The cars outside were still probably a good five minutes away. Unfortunately, Mikhail gave her no time to think.

  “Time is getting away from us. I must admit, Ms. Madigan, it has been an absolute delight dealing with you. But now I’m afraid I must take my leave.”

  As if controlled by an unseen hand, Vasily and Thug Number Two instantly became alert. Their previously relaxed bodies stiffened and straightened away from the wall where they’d been slumped, having obviously found the visitors defenseless and non-threatening. Their attention shifted to the door housing the staff and visitors of the museum, radiating a sickening eagerness.

  Carey balked. “No, you can’t. They’re innocent people.”

  Mikhail glared at her as if she couldn’t understand the concept. “They’re witnesses, Ms. Madigan, and I can’t afford for news of the egg to leak. You understand, of course. There will be no rest for anyone if the Russian government knew of its existence.”

  “You’re a bastard, Mikhail,” she spat. She felt forever the victim, and even now, when she needed to be a hero, she was nothing but a weakling.

  “It is such a shame you are so strong-willed, allowing your emotions to get the better of you. Had I thought you’d react differently, I would’ve offered you a spot in my bed. You look like a spit-fire. Tell me, Dmitry, is she a tiger in bed? Did she send you to sweet oblivion? Or did she scratch you until you bled, all claws and teeth?” He smiled at Dmitry’s dark expression. Mikhail let out a chuckle, not allowing either of them to answer. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t live through the night,” he added.

  “You got that right,” she snarled, glaring at the man she equated with garbage that nobody wanted.

  Mikhail stood and took a step toward her. It was a non-threatening gesture but she stepped back nonetheless before he turned his attention to the internal access door.

  “No,” she said, re
gaining the step she had just taken back. “How dare you treat life as if it’s nothing unless you can profit from it.”

  Stall, Carey, stall. For God’s sake, bargain with him. You got Hamilton’s the most sought after treasures. You stood up to the boards museums across the globe and came out the victor. You are not a weakling. You’re just scared.

  She steeled her spine, her eyes narrowing. Whether or not Lucas was out there or at least close enough at hand no longer mattered. She and Dmitry were going to have to diffuse the situation, or else they’d have a room full of dead people—including themselves.

  She’d come too far to let herself be killed by some cretin.

  Knowing she wasn’t alone, that Dmitry was with her, held back some of the fear.

  “You don’t get what you want this time,” she told Mikhail. “You and your kind can go to hell.”

  The sound of rubber against the gravel outside thundered in her ears and she nearly stopped breathing. Her body froze while she prayed Mikhail’s hearing wasn’t as good as hers.

  Damn, she’d forgotten all about the white pebbles crunching beneath the tires.

  She stepped to the side, hoping to deflect his attention, but it was too late. His face distorted with anger.

  “Suka,” he spat at her before raising his arm, the metal of his gun temporarily blinding her as it connected with sunlight, casting a glare.

  Dmitry leapt into action. There was so much rage in Mikhail’s eyes that she knew the man’s intention. Dmitry grabbed her shoulder, applying pressure, pushing her down as he brought out the Glock from the waist band of his jeans. He aimed and fired towards their attacker as he tackled her to the floor while at the same time Mikhail discharged his own gun.

  Chapter 29

  A bullet whizzed past her head before she collided with the hard wood floor of her office. She let out an oomph as Dmitry’s heavy frame landed on her, shielding her from danger. Her heart raced, adrenaline zinging through her bloodstream. Everything seemed to happen at once. In the distance she heard guns firing and assumed it was Vasily and Thug Number Two trying to get away. Their gunfire was met by louder gunfire and soon the mansion was quiet again. The only sound were men’s footsteps as they trampled through the mansion, clearing each room.