“No, Valerie. This is your life now. This is the real world. You did it! You survived! The worst is over,” I say vehemently. I want so badly to convince her everything is going to be better. I pull the car into the parking lot behind the diner and unbuckle my seatbelt. Valerie stares down into her lap, clearly trying to fight back tears.
“It’s just… I feel like I’m not getting better fast enough,” she admits, finally looking over at me, tears shining in her eyes. “I look around at everyone in our group, all those girls who are tough and confident and improving — and I feel so out of place. I don’t fit in with them because I’m still broken. And I don’t know if I will ever be whole again.”
“You’re still new to all this. It totally makes sense for you to be a little behind — it’s nothing to worry about, I swear. Everyone feels like that at first, like they’re never going to feel normal again. We’re all good at hiding it, but I can promise you we all felt just the same way when we first got started. I still look at what happened to me and feel angry, hurt. It all depends on the day, too. You’re going to have good days and bad days, but you can’t let those negative thoughts and feelings define you, Valerie. Sometimes I still think about how much it hurts to know that my own father sold me away like I was nothing,” I confess. “But you know what? I am better than that. I’m stronger now. I have a life of my own, and I’m making it work.”
“I wish I had been sold to someone like Konstantin,” she says quietly. “I can’t imagine falling in love with my master. He was a horrible man.”
“Konstantin didn’t buy my love, Valerie. He saved me in the only way he knew how, and the rest… well, it just happened,” I explain to her, shrugging. And it’s true. There were times when I was suspicious of the Bull, thinking paranoid thoughts about how he probably just bought me like any other awful trafficker and then made up some story about saving me, to win my affection. But as I have come to know and understand him, I’ve realized how big a risk he’s taking by doing everything he’s done for me. After all, that first fateful night on the yacht, the guns were pointed at him and me. He had to do what he did. And I’m glad. Even if it means not getting to see my sisters… but we’re concocting a plan for that, too.
“I just wish I had someone to love me and make me feel like a real person again,” Valerie sighs, swiping at the tears in her eyes. “I want to be normal so bad, Rosie.”
“I know. I understand. But changes come slowly, and you have to be prepared for the long haul. But whenever it feels like it’s all too much, like recovery is too daunting, too impossible, just remember this: you survived the trauma. If you can do that, I know for a fact you can get through the recovery,” I tell her firmly. She nods.
“Thank you so much for listening to me,” she says, sniffling. “Thanks for everything.”
“Don’t mention it,” I reply, smiling. “Now, let’s go get some lunch. I’m eating for two and I’m starving!”
We spend the next hour or so chatting and sharing a pile of French fries and mini club sandwiches, talking about music and fashion. As it turns out, before she was kidnapped, Valerie was interested in pursuing a degree in clothing design. I encourage her to hold onto that dream, explaining that getting back into something she loved would probably help ground her and feel normal again. When we’re finished eating, I pay the bill and drive her home, then I head off to the grocery store close to home for a few things.
As I’m walking back out to the car with two paper bags of groceries, I suddenly get the spine-tingling sense that someone is watching me, darting between the vehicles. I try to ignore it and carry on, chalking it up to some leftover paranoia from my years of living with Frank Barnes. I often have the feeling that something bad is about to happen, because for a large chunk of my life, bad things happened a lot.
But then as I approach my Fiat, someone jumps out behind me and tries to wrap an arm around my neck, holding a rag in their hand. I drop my bags and immediately jab my elbow back into my assailant’s ribs, then swivel around and kick him in the groin. It’s a lanky, dark-haired man with a thick mustache, and he’s doubling over in pain. I spin on the ground and quickly dart for the car, my hands shaking as I start the engine. I back out of the parking spot and rush back home, dialing Konstantin’s number on the way.
“Ptichka,” his warm baritone voice says upon answering my call.
“Someone t-tried to k-kidnap me in the parking lot,” I tell him urgently, tears burning in my eyes. “A man with a mustache. Tall and thin.”
There’s a long pause.
His voice instantly turns dark and somber when he replies, “Come straight home, moya lyubova. I will take care of this.”
19
Konstantin
Going after me is a respectable thing to attempt. I have become a political figure, an issue of principle for the crime lords of New York City in my short time on American shores. To go after the love of my life is both cowardly and foolish. And I will make my enemies pay dearly for their mistake.
“The mudak is fleeing the city,” I say as I storm down the hallway of the house as Rosie follows at my heels, and even the loyal guards who I’ve recruited to patrol the place look concerned by the stormclouds over me.
“Are you sure?” Rosie says, sounding more concerned that my information is accurate than anything else. She’s taken her attempted abduction far better than I have. I’m ready to start ripping heads off up and down Brighton until I find the bastard Anton. “Have you heard back from the spies you sent to flush out the old safehouses?”
“Da,” I say as I reach the room I’ve had converted into an armory, flicking the lights on to reveal the weaponry inside. My men have arranged my armaments ahead of time, at my demand. “And several small-time cravens have been dragged out of hiding, but I’ve got a tip from a reliable source. Remember Dmitri? I kept him on the inside; nobody near Anton knows we’ve been in communication. He says the rat is trying to slip out of town on that damned yacht.”
Rosie’s eyes darken. “The Tsar’s Palace?” I nod, grimacing, then direct my attention to my weapons. I start strapping on guns and knives, even a grenade.
Glancing out the window at the night’s darkness, Rosie chews her lip. “Won’t he be gone already, then? He must have left before sunset.”
“Very likely so,” I say. “It’s hard to sneak up on a boat in broad daylight, my love.”
Her eyes widen. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’ve arranged a small rescue vessel I’ve had equipped for nighttime operations. I’ll slip on to the ship and handle this personally. I don’t know where Anton plans to flee to once he steps off that boat, but they’ll be shipping his corpse instead.” I consider strapping a bulletproof vest to myself, but it will only slow me down and be a risk around the black waters.
“You don’t know how many people they have on that ship,” Rosie says anxiously, glancing at all the death devices I’m equipping myself with.
“I know.”
“This could be a trap.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt, Konstantin,” she breathes, stepping in front of me and looking me in the eyes, and I look back at her long and hard before I nod.
“I know. But if that swine slips out of my grasp now, there will be many more women’s lives to pay. A monster like that does not stop. He cannot stop. He watched as he made me take you, Rosie,” I say, my voice a low growl as I put a gentle hand on the side of her face, brushing some of that gorgeous black hair aside. “A sadist like that must be put down. I should have killed him the moment he approached me.”
Rosie takes a deep breath. She’s grown so much in these past few months, and I couldn’t be more proud. And truth be told, her precautions are more than just a lover’s worry — this is the least preparation I’ve ever had for a job. But I’m still going to do it. It’s a blind shot, but it’s the only shot I’ve got. “I love you, Konstantin,” she whispers, and I lean in, pressing my lips
to hers, feeling the warm, soft moan she gives me in response as our bodies press together, my cock hardening at the very thought of coming back to her triumphant.
“Shining star of my life,” I say into her ear, a thick husk, “I love you.” We look into each other’s eyes for a long, long time before I step away, striding out the door, and I can feel Rosie’s eyes following me every step of the way.
The little rescue boat has as quiet an engine as I can hope for as it blazes across the inky-black waters of the Coney Island Channel. I’m wearing all black. I should be outfitted in a wet suit and emergency diving gear, but I don’t have time for proper professionalism.
Besides, this isn’t just a professional matter. This is personal.
Up ahead of me, I can see the yacht leaving a broad wake, but its lights are off. The rat knows I’ve been keeping an eye out for him. Several eyes, in fact. I’ve had a network of spies reporting in hourly with the names of any Russians leaving or entering Brighton Beach, and the public transportation systems have been under constant surveillance. Anton knows I’m after him, and he knows he can’t make it out by conventional means. If he cared about his lower-ranking soldiers, this ploy with the yacht might have succeeded.
I come within range of the ship, having been watching it with binoculars. I identify a good spot to board, and I ready the grappling hook gun I’ve brought with me. Once I’m on board, I have to move exceptionally quick. Anton probably didn’t bring many guards on this job — too much movement would have alerted my spies. But those he must have brought will be an elite cadre of his most trusted men, and they will defend him to the death. Back in Russia, Anton was an affluent man. Here, he’s proven just as dangerous and twice as illusive.
I aim the grappling hook at a corner of the boat and fire, and the hook sails through the salty air and finds purchase on the vessel. Testing the grip, I guide my boat closer to the side of the boat and secure the gun to my boat before shimmying up the unsteady rope, my gloved hands and thick boots giving me just enough traction.
The next moment, my feet hit the deck, and I look around me. Dead silence. Something feels wrong.
I draw a pistol and hold it at the ready, crouching and stalking forward. As I near the front of the deck, I squat by one of the columns supporting the upper deck and listen. There’s nothing but the breeze and the sounds of waves lapping up against the ship. Strange that there are no guards outside, not even one.
Carefully, I make my way to the entrance to the ship’s interior I was led through the night I was forced to claim Rosie. Gun at the ready, I push the door open, and it swings aside silently, the same old foyer sitting there, empty. And the door to the lounge where I fucked a woman — my woman — at gunpoint hangs open.
I can see nobody through it, so I put an ear to it, waiting. When silence greets me, I kick the door down and hold my gun out, tense and ready to strike.
Nothing.
I step inside, and the familiar sights fill me with such revulsion. Strange, considering how much joy the woman I met here has brought me, but I know not to give the feeling much credit. What Rosie and I cultivated together is something golden, eternal. What happened here was vile. We both know that, and tonight, I’m going to atone for it.
I was starting to suspect that this yacht was a dummy, an empty ploy to distract me while Anton made off by some other means, but this room feels...lived-in. I can’t place why, but it seems like someone has used it recently. I step into the room, my eyes scanning around, but it’s just the same old decadent, gaudy furnishing I remember.
Then my eyes fall to the table in the center of the room. My eyes linger on the ashtray in the middle of the room. A half-burned cigar sits in it. I step forward cautiously, moving around the side of the thing, and the smell of burnt tobacco hits me.
The sight of the faintest bit of smoke rising from the still-glowing hot cigar greets me, and as I throw myself to the ground, I feel the bullet whiz past my left ear, missing me by fractions of a second before it hits the floor and ricochets out the window.
I turn and fire at the source, but I only see a blur of Diego Milani diving behind a couch as my bullets hit the wall behind him, and I push the heavy table over to give myself cover as well.
“You’re a slippery man, Konstantin Alkaev,” says Diego, calm and cocky even in the middle of the firefight. “When your friend Anton proposed this little date of ours, I’ll be honest, I didn’t think you’d show.”
“What are you doing here, Diego?” I growl, my eyes scanning the room behind me for somewhere to move for advantage. To stay still is death. “This isn’t your fight.”
I hear him tutting, and it isn’t muffled by cover. I stick my gun out and fire blindly, but I hear only his footsteps as he moves around the room. I stand up and aim, but I’m greeted by a bullet grazing my arm, and I curse as he gains cover under the bar at the far end of the room.
“You made it my fight, Toro.” I fire at the liquor bottles above him, but the raining glass doesn’t flush him out, so I retreat to the couch where he’d been a moment ago. “I don’t like being toyed with, and that stunt you pulled with la tua ragazza in the hotel? That was a damn dirty move.”
“So you help out a slaver for revenge?” I growl back.
“Vendetta is a complicated matter, my friend,” he laughs, “It makes for strange bedmates. I was on the fence, but you mistreated Don Emilio so cruelly, I couldn’t resist.” He nearly purrs the last few words, and I know I’m dealing with the heart of a killer just as hardened as mine. “Don’t worry, though,” he adds candidly, “your bitch will be alright — I’ll pay her a visit once your body is at the bottom of the sea.”
Nearly seeing red, I pull out the grenade from my side and rip out the pin, tossing it through the air, and it clangs to the ground on the other side of the bar.
There’s a pause before I hear “Che cazzo?!” as I’m sprinting out the door, and I round the corner to the stairs as I hear Diego scrambling after me. The grenade goes off before he can reach the door, and I waste no time in seeing if he made it out as I dash down the stairs to the lower decks.
I make my way down the long hallways until I reach a broad opening — the loading deck. It would have been here that Rosie was brought on board, I realize, but I don’t have time to reflect on this, as I hear a voice down the hall.
“You’re ballsy, I’ll give you that,” Diego snarls, and I hear his gunshots ring out as he fires experimentally down the hallway. “Fitting that you brought some explosives to play with. This ship is rigged with bombs, you could’ve blown us both up with that thing. But when I put a bullet in your fucking head, I’ll set this whole ship ablaze, and the police will smear you as just some other fucking terrorist put to rest.”
That’s when an idea comes to me, and I pause, thinking a moment. Diego doesn’t give me time, though, as I see him appear at the end of the hall, and we instantly raise our guns and fire at each other.
I see him nearly get knocked over as my shot hits his shoulder, but I feel a sting in my leg that tells me he landed one as well. Fuck. That’s the last place I need an injury right now, but I’ll suffer it. I turn and head through an opening to the engine room — the most effective place to situate a bomb in this situation, my old Spetsnaz training reminds me.
I can hear Diego’s footsteps behind me as I hobble down the stairs, and inside, my eyes flit around the mess of exposed metalwork that chugs along, propelling us through the filthy waters. Diego wasn’t lying. I can see explosives rigged up to a device at the far end of the room, and I race towards it.
As I suspected, it isn’t active. Diego meant to set a timer after killing me and make his escape. Setting my hands on the console, I take a deep breath before I begin to tamper with a device, praying to the powers that be that time will be on my side.
Moments later, though, I hear Diego leap down the stairs, and I hardly have time to move aside before his weapon fires, and I feel a bullet deep in my chest before I raise my gun
to a standoff with him.
Both of us have blood streaming from our chests, and I wonder if my eyes are as bloodshot with fury as his. “Disarming the bomb ain’t gonna help you, you fucking russky,” he snarls, his breathing heavy. “You’ve thrown your life away trying to save some pricy cunts.”
I smile. “Did Anton ever tell you why I was kicked out of the Spetsnaz, Diego?” He glares at me in response, so I continue. “I noticed some strange activity in my squad. Money changing hands. Men disappearing for the night in patterns. I did some digging. Turned out that our commanding officer was complicit in a sex ring. Can you imagine being one of those women — not only to have the law fail them, but to be held captive by the military’s finest? It repulsed me. The weakness of my own comrades.” I grip my chest as I feel a pang of pain shoot through it. “I killed them, Diego. I killed every one of the bastards. Military officials. So if you don’t expect me to throw my life away for those women I didn’t know…”
I step aside, revealing the ticking timer of the bomb behind me that I’d just rigged to go off in a few minutes. “...then I don’t expect you to have figured out the lengths I’ll go to protect the love of my life.”
“Figlio di puttana!” he swears, firing his weapon at me as I dash towards him before he starts sprinting up the deck.
I’ve dropped my gun and drawn a knife from my side. I know I felt more beestings in my chest as his shots landed true, but I don’t care anymore. Adrenaline is coursing through my body. Not even the pain in my leg can stop me. I’m going to end this. At any cost, including my life.
I chase the Italian through the corridors and towards the stairs with a limping gait. As he starts to mount them though, he turns around and tries to bring the butt of his pistol to my face. I catch him by the wrist and pull him down, slicing him across the chest as he falls.
Hitman - the Series: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Collection (Alexis Abbott's Hitmen #0) Page 107