Prima

by Alta Hensley

  We timed our arrivals at the hotel to be separate, the better not to draw attention to ourselves. The time had been chosen with the hopes that staff at the end of their shifts would be tired and a bit less attentive. Yuri went first, his steps sure and steady as he nodded at the doorman and entered as if he’d done so a thousand times before.

  After five minutes, I turned to Grigori. “I’ll respect your wishes, but ask that you respect mine as well. Wait for me.”

  “I will,” he said, accepting the cane I’d added as a prop. An elderly man of his size would draw attention, but being hunched over and hobbling along with the use of a cane, would cause most people to dismiss him. At least that was my hope. “Don’t be late,” he warned before turning and falling into character, his feet shuffling along the sidewalk.

  When ten minutes had dragged by as if in slow motion, I took a last look around, not taking the concealment of the darkness for granted. Evil tended to lurk in the shadows. Relieved to notice absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, I made my own approach, every sense on hyperalert.

  Once inside the hotel, I didn’t look around. We’d all studied the floorplan, even taken a virtual tour offered on the Internet. I avoided the foyer and the bank of elevators, opening a door and climbing the stairs. Reaching the landing of the fifth floor, I was surprised to discover I wasn’t alone in the stairwell.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded as quietly as I could.

  Yuri stepped aside and gestured to the glass in the door. Moving forward, I looked out to see we weren’t the only ones awake. One of Nikolai’s goons was standing in front of the doors that led to the presidential suite. If that wasn’t bad enough, Grigori was moving down the hallway toward him, drawing the attention I’d so wanted to avoid. Nikolai’s lackey stepped forward, his hand moving to slide under the lapel of his coat.

  Grigori’s advance never even faltered. Gone was the hunched posture, the deprecating attitude. The older man appeared as fit and strong as someone half his age, his back ramrod straight as he stepped to stand toe to toe with Kosloff’s goon.

  Within a matter of moments, the guard dog dropped his hand from the butt of his gun to take Grigori’s, giving it a shake even as he gave a bow of his head, accepted and then walked away without a single glance behind him. While I attempted to assimilate what I had witnessed, I saw Grigori turn toward the stairwell and watched his eyebrow arch as he used the cane to motion toward the door of the suite.

  “I believe that’s our invitation,” Yuri said, grabbing the doorknob. “Are you going to stand there and gape, or are you going to join our little party?” Yuri asked with a chuckle.

  Questions could wait though as I watched a steel determination come over Grigori’s face, I had a feeling I already knew the answer. While Nikolai might have been given the honor of representing the bratva’s interests in New York, that was all he was… a representative.

  Grigori, on the other hand, was the bratva.

  He was the one in command of the Russian mafia and all its branches. Kosloff’s minion had obviously understood that and determined it to be in his best interests to give way to Grigori… most likely earning himself a place in whatever hierarchy would replace Nikolai.

  We all drew our guns and remained silent as we entered the suite. Clara had drawn the outlay of the rooms, marking those Nikolai had taken as his own. We crossed a marble foyer with the soft lighting of concealed bulbs illuminating our way. The silence was thick until a cry sliced through it like a knife… stabbing into my soul as well.

  Only Yuri’s quick reaction and the vise-like clamp he had on my arm kept me from forgetting all about stealth and slamming into the room where Clara’s cry had come from. Grigori simply looked at me for a moment, whether to admonish me or as a gesture of understanding from one man to another, I didn’t know, but it was enough for me to nod and have Yuri release me.

  Grigori turned the knob and pushed the door open, great attention to a proper maintenance schedule assuring there was not so much as a faint squeak of a hinge or the brush of wood over the thick pile of the carpet to herald our entrance into the master suite. I would never forget the view that greeted us, but if I had any doubts about what would happen here tonight, the sight of Clara spread-eagled on the bed, her fingers clenching against the ropes, her heels pushing against the sheets, held in place by Nikolai’s restraints had each one disappearing like smoke in the wind.

  “Get the fuck off her,” I demanded, lifting my gun to aim at the back of Nikolai’s head.

  When he didn’t so much as flinch, I stepped forward, and only my oath to Grigori had me pressing the barrel into the crevice of his ass rather than against the nape of his neck. A bullet here wouldn’t instantly kill him, leaving that honor to the man who’d demanded it, but I’d get the satisfaction of Nikolai witnessing his balls explode. “I said, get the fuck up.”

  “He can’t,” Yuri said, moving to the other side of the bed. “Not without help, that is.”

  Yuri tucked his gun back into its holster and then reached out and yanked Nikolai off Clara. It still took me a second to understand that the drops Grigori had given Clara had actually worked… at least on his nephew. The bastard was out like a light, the cry having come when his dead weight pinned Clara’s delicate frame to the mattress. She was gasping, her breasts moving up and down as she tried to draw in air to breathe.

  I left the chore of getting Nikolai dressed to Yuri as I reached for the first knot that held Clara tied to the headboard.

  “Here.”

  I turned my head to see the hilt of a knife being offered to me by Grigori. I took it and severed the knot within seconds. Ugly red marks around her wrist gave evidence of how tightly the bastard had tied them, serving as proof at how Clara had struggled at finding herself at Kosloff’s mercy.

  “It… it took so… so long,” Clara stammered as she still struggled to get her breathing regulated. “He… he didn’t want champagne, he… he switched to whiskey so I had to put the drug—”

  “Shhh,” I said softly, freeing her leg before moving around the bed to cut through the remaining restraints on her left side. “It doesn’t matter. You did your job, and he’s out now.” Tossing the remnant of the last remaining rope aside, I reached down and pulled her into my arms. “Thank God you’re all right.”

  “Let’s save the thanks until we’re finished,” Yuri suggested as he knelt to put Nikolai’s shoes onto his feet.

  Clara pushed away from my hold, climbing off the bed and walking toward Yuri who was tying the last lace.

  “Are you sure he’s out?” she asked.

  “Like a light,” Yuri assured her.

  “Good,” she said and then drew her foot back and slammed it up between Nikolai’s legs.

  I was positive I was not the only man in the room to wince and fight the instinct to grab my crotch as this small slip of a woman delivered a blow to the very balls into which I’d so wished to plant a bullet.

  Yuri chuckled as Clara nodded, turned and walked away. You’d have thought she was wearing the regal gown of a queen instead of nothing but her birthday suit. Only the flush of her skin told of her acknowledgment of her complete nudity. She began to dress as Yuri bent and lifted Nikolai over his shoulder. Healthy living and years of rigorous dance gave him the ability to carry Kosloff’s dead weight.

  “Ready?” I asked as Clara returned to me, her bag in hand.

  “Yes, but I think there might be a guard—”

  “Grigori took care of him,” I informed her, giving the man who’d kept his sight… and his gun… on Nikolai the entire time Yuri had been ,dressing him. When he nodded, I took Clara’s hand in my free one, pulled my own gun again and retraced our steps.

  I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but seeing the first guard and his companion waiting outside the suite hadn’t been on my short list. And hearing Grigori instruct Yuri to pass over Nikolai’s limp body would never have made any list at all.

  “What—
”

  “Trust me,” Grigori said, and when Yuri reluctantly surrendered Kosloff and the two men walked off, he continued, “You didn’t expect to carry him through the lobby did you?”

  “Of course not. We’d go out the back—”

  “And have the cameras show that while you entered The Drake, you never exited?” Grigori asked but I knew he wasn’t expecting an answer. “No, we go out the front, the same way we came in.”

  “And Clara?”

  “I’ll meet you back at the car,” she said, appearing far calmer than I felt. Lifting herself onto her toes, she brushed my cheek with her lips and then entered the elevator Grigori had summoned.

  It wasn’t what I’d envisioned, or how I’d planned, but as Yuri had mentioned, plans changed. Still that didn’t keep my heart from pounding as I watched them disappearing one by one. With a final look back at the door of the suite, I walked back inside, snagged a linen napkin off a discarded tray, and quickly rubbed down any surfaces we’d touched, erasing our very existence in this place. When it was time, I exited the suite knowing I’d never return to this hotel. I reached the car, glad to see Clara safely inside and Yuri closing the trunk. I watched Grigori speak with the two younger men before he shook their hands. As they walked away, Grigori climbed into the car.

  “You all right?” Yuri asked.

  “I will be once this is done,” I answered honestly. “You?”

  “I’m good,” he said and opened his door and slipped inside.

  32

  Clara

  You’d think we’d drive west at least an hour away to reach the deep woods of a national preserve or perhaps head north into Wisconsin, but that was the part of Alek’s plan Grigori had rejected.

  “Buried bodies are always found either by some hiker or their dog. Tying cement blocks to a corpse’s feet before throwing him into the river is khuyevina… how do you say… bullshit.” Grigori said. “Ropes rot, chains rust. Tossing a corpse into any body of water only assures it eventually floats downstream and gets tangled up in some fisherman’s nets or in the roots of a tree,” Grigori said as if we were students in some crazy class on how to dispose of a body. I supposed we were which, I’m sure, made it easy for Alek to graciously pass this part of the plan over to the man who most likely had far more experience.

  We traveled a few minutes from The Drake before Alek turned into a driveway at the end of a street, driving around the side of a huge house when instructed.

  Climbing out of the car, he turned back to look at me. “You don’t have to come—”

  “I do,” I countered, opening my own door and sliding out as if to demonstrate I had absolutely no intention of not seeing this through to its end.

  This time Alek carried Nikolai, as I followed Grigori while Yuri moved to cover our backs. No one spoke as we walked around the back of the large, imposing manor. Grigori opened a gate and we followed. It wasn’t until the older man had opened another door that I broke the silence.

  “He’s starting to stir.” My words were validated with a groan as Nikolai began to waken.

  “Good, I don’t wish for him to miss a single second of his last moments on Earth,” Grigori said as if pleased his nephew would enjoy his uncle’s unexpected visit.

  I looked up to see Alek glancing down at me, concern on his face, and yet I shook my head, indicating I was fine.

  Evidently whoever owned this place had not only given Grigori carte blanche to enter, he’d shared the blueprints as the man never hesitated as he guided us through long corridors and down a flight of stairs at the end of one. Reaching the bottom, he waited until Yuri had closed the door at the top of the landing before he opened the door before him. I couldn’t stop the gasp from escaping as understanding flooded through me.

  The mansion above us was not just some stately home though I had no doubt the rooms were inhabited by a family who lived their lives in the light. However, down here in the depths, the story changed. The underlying aroma of chemicals, the smooth floor with a drain in the center of the room, racks of instruments lining spotless counters, and the heavy iron door against the far wall were testaments to the fact the guests who’d inhabited this room were no longer among the living. With a nod from Grigori, Alek approached the stainless steel table, smiling at the grunt of pain the action of unceremoniously dumping Nikolai onto its surface brought forth. We all stood before the table, Yuri with his back against the door, his arms casually crossed over his chest. Alek stood beside me, his hand reaching to take mine, and Grigori, his feet planted as firmly on the floor as an oak’s roots were in the ground simply waiting as the drug in Nikolai’s system began to wear off.

  “What the fuck?” was Nikolai’s greeting when his eyes opened and then slammed closed as Yuri flipped a switch and turned on the large fluorescent light hanging above the table.

  Still we remained silent, waiting patiently while he awakened further, finally rubbing a hand across his face and then slowly turning his head and lifting it, his expression of confusion only deepening as the hand he braced at his side to aid him in pushing up encountered cold, hard steel and not the plush bedding he’d last laid upon. I shuddered at the memory of a flash of clarity I’d seen appear in his eyes right before they rolled back in his head and his body went limp. I’d given a cry as he dropped on top of me, his weight crushing my chest, driving the air from my lungs. If the others had arrived much later, I wasn’t sure I’d still be alive. Another grunt snapped my attention back to the present, and I watched as Nikolai’s torso lifted and twisted, his legs swinging over the side of the table but when he began to push off, Grigori finally spoke.

  “Sit the fuck down.”

  Whether it was the novelty of hearing a command rather than barking one himself, or the last vestiges of the knock-out drug dissipating in his bloodstream, or perhaps the fact he recognized the voice, Nikolai’s head finally turned to where Grigori stood.

  “Uncle Grigori?”

  “Nikolai,” Grigori responded with a sight inclination of his head as if they were meeting again at some twisted family reunion.

  “What… what are you doing here?”

  “I’d think that was rather obvious, Nikki,” Grigori said, nodding toward where I stood beside Alek.

  Nikolai’s eyes widened at seeing me, but he quickly adjusted his expression and gave Alek a glance then turned to include Yuri before he shook his head and returned his attention back to his uncle. “What? You’re here because of her? You can’t believe a fucking word out of her mouth. She’s nothing but a lying whore. She’s not that good a lay, but please, feel free to fuck her if you—”

  He didn’t complete his offer as Alek dropped my hand, took the single step forward, and backhanded him, almost knocking the bastard off the table. Nikolai ran his hand gingerly over the cut at the corner of his mouth, staring at the red covering his fingertips. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking of red paint.

  “Welcome to your trial,” Alek said.

  “This isn’t a fucking courtroom, and you’re not a fucking—”

  Alek slapped him again. “Watch your mouth. You’re in the presence of a lady.”

  Nikolai’s mouth opened, but then he must have thought better of speaking as he closed it again.

  “You’re right in that you have been spared the humiliation of taking the walk of shame in handcuffs while paparazzi snap photo after photo of your sorry ass. You won’t have to decide which of the hundreds of lawyers you’ll use your one free phone call to drag out of their comfortable beds to come rescue you. You won’t have to worry about posting bail or whether or not to accept any plea deal.”

  Alek paused and I wondered if, like me, he was enjoying this far more than we knew we should. But even if I were the only one whose soul was already destined to spend eternity in hell for my sins, at this moment, I seriously didn’t give a damn.

  “Hell, Nikolai, as you just said, you won’t even need to make a single court appearance. You’ve been tried, a
nd a jury of your peers convicted you in absentia.” Alek paused again and turned to Grigori. “All that is left is to learn of your sentence from the judge.” With that, he stepped back, yielding the floor to the man who deserved that right.

  “I don’t understand,” Nikolai said, his attitude evidently adjusted from the slaps Alek had administered.

  “What’s not to understand? You murdered these men’s father, you attempted to murder this woman’s friend and repeatedly raped her body and terrified her by threatening the life of her babushka,” Grigori began and then added crimes I wasn’t even aware of Nikolai committing. “You have stolen millions of dollars from men who trusted you to run a branch of our business in the States. You’ve involved people in family business who you know aren’t acting in our best interests. You’re the worst of the worst, planting lies and starting rumors.” Grigori’s tone deepened and his words slowed as a chill that had nothing to do with this sterile room descended over me.

  “Let me expl—”

  “You broke the heart of the most wonderful woman I knew, the woman who gave me the son you murdered in cold blood simply because your feelings were hurt. And for that, Nikolai Kosloff, you’ve been sentenced to death.”

  The word had been spoken softly and yet hung heavy in the air. I’d known this was coming but hearing it spoken, watching its meaning sinking into the mind of the man who had been sentenced was nothing I’d prepared for.

  Grigori turned to look over at us. “Do any of you wish to change the verdict?”

  I had spent years thinking of things I wanted to tell this man if I’d had the freedom to do so without fear of his retribution… not on me, but on those I cared for. I saw my grandmother’s face in my head, and all the hatred and fear evaporated because the man beside me had kept Nikolai from harming her.

  “Power isn’t a substitute for love, Nikolai. It doesn’t comfort you or keep you warm at night. Demanding respect won’t give it to you… earning it by living your life by example does that. You’ve missed so much by wasting your life in hatred and fear of being seen as weak. For that I am truly sorry. But for your crimes, I, too, sentence you to death,” I said.