Gangsters with Guns Episode #3 (7 page)

“I trust you’ve gotten him in line.”

“
Konechno
,” Victor said with borrowed confidence. Soon he would get the notification that the men he’d hired had Inna under lock and key. Then he would have Artur firmly under his thumb, despite all of Artur’s posturing and threats.
 

After all, Victor had broken Artur before—with Sofia.

Victor didn’t want to hurt Inna, but he
would
do whatever was necessary to keep Artur under control and prove his worth to the Directorate. This deal with the Georgians would move forward, no matter what twinges of conscience Artur might feel or how badly he opposed working with the Georgians themselves.

“The Georgians are meeting us here tonight. For a private showing. Artur will arrive later to close the deal,” Victor said.

“Ah,” Gennady said. The one syllable contained a world of inscrutable meaning. Gennady fixed his cold gaze on Victor.

Victor found himself struggling not to squirm under the younger man’s icy scrutiny. He was losing his touch. He used to be the one to lift an eyebrow and set others on edge. Indignation with his own lack of self-control made him straighten and return a stare just as hard and cold as the one Gennady leveled at him.
 

“The showing is for your benefit, too,” Victor said. “So you can run back and make your little report.”

Gennady blinked. For a moment Victor thought his aim had struck true, and he had finally bested this upstart who acted as though he had the mantel of power when in truth he was a mere underling. But no.

“My little report,” Gennady echoed. His lips tipped up at the corners with the hint of a calculated smile. “Is that what they told you? That I’m a messenger? An observer?”

Wasn’t he? What else could Gennady be doing here? Victor schooled his outward expression, mimicking the condescension in Gennady’s eyes. The man was trying to play him, but it wouldn’t work.

Victor outranked him. His connection with Moscow wasn’t what it once was, but Gennady didn’t need to know that. Two could play the intimidation game, and Victor had had far more years of practice.

Gennady was only a lowly, junior member of the Directorate, an errand boy, a messenger, no matter how impressive a picture he might try to paint with his posturing and innuendo. Wasn’t he?

There was nothing else the man could be. Surely, a meteoric rise would have come to his attention, even with the trickle of information he now got from the few informants he had left. Power shifts and threats never went unremarked. Gennady hadn’t been mentioned in connection with any of the big names—the old-timers or the newcomers in power. He was no one’s protégé so far as Victor knew.

“I’m sure they told you otherwise,” Victor said in his most patronizing tone.

“What they told me is irrelevant,” Gennady said, leaving Victor to wonder whether the man across the table from him was secretly empowered or whether he had ambitions to grab for more than what he currently had. “We both have our assignments. The only question tonight is how well you’re doing yours. Frankly, I have my doubts.”

“What doubts?”

“You can’t guess?” Gennady said with something that sounded like pity. “You really are losing your edge.”

Who thought he was losing his edge? Was that the word on him in Moscow? Once, no one would have dared say such a thing.

Maybe no one was saying it now either. He had to credit Gennady. The man excelled at mind games, but Victor had dealt with far more formidable rivals and emerged victorious.
 

Victor checked his watch again, impatient for the news that would bring Artur to heel.

Every man had his weakness. He already knew Artur’s. Now he only needed to learn Gennady’s.

Anya, Victor’s favorite new waitress, approached their table to take their order. Victor had already imagined every way she might express gratitude when he helped her secure a green card. His body tightened as his favorite fantasy replayed in his mind—the lovely Anya on her knees, her hair in a luscious cascade down her bare back, her breasts pressed against his leg as she coaxed him to ecstasy with her soft lips and pink tongue.

That pink tongue darted out across those pillowy lips now. “Mr. Victor,” she said, “I was hoping you’d be here tonight. Have you found a husband for me?”

She cast a sidelong look at Gennady, as if she hoped he were her candidate. Gennady watched them both with a shuttered look.

“Soon. We’ll talk in a little while. I’m meeting some candidates tonight,” Victor assured her. “In the meantime, I’ll have a vodka straight up.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, an intoxicating combination of demureness and excitement all at once.
 

“Anything for you?” She glanced sidelong at Gennady. The bright flirtation in her voice rankled. Victor had promised her a future. All Gennady had done was sit in his chair and scowl.

“No.” Gennady’s firmness seemed a rejection of anything Anya might offer him.

She turned back to the bar. Her bootie shorts hugged her pert little bottom. Victor would have given her a slap if Gennady hadn’t been there, sitting in disapproving judgment.
 

Despite his supposed lack of interest, Gennady followed Anya with his ice-blue eyes and watched her give the order to the bartender. A brief, tense moment between the two women ensued, although Victor could not hear the argument between them.

“Tell me about the bartender,” Gennady said. “She’s been watching us.”

“Svetlana?” Victor harrumphed. “She probably has the hots for you. That’s all.”

“Yes, that’s probably it,” Gennady agreed. He brushed his fingers through his thick blond hair. “She was overly attentive toward me at the bar.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully and watched Svetlana for another few moments as if contemplating his own level of interest.

“You’re doing the showing here?” Gennady asked, finally returning his gaze to Victor. “I’m surprised the Georgians agreed to this venue, given the murder of their man upstairs.”

“Actually, they requested it.” Dato himself had taken Victor’s call and suggested they meet here.
 

“Curious. Don’t you think?” Gennady said.

Victor almost laughed at this ineffectual attempt to unsettle him. Gennady wasn’t nearly as good as he supposed. “The Georgians know what’s in their best interest. They’re showing that they’re willing to put the feud aside. Business, after all, is business.”

“And Artur?”

Victor checked his watch again. Too much time had passed. The men he’d hired hadn’t checked in. Had they failed?

He didn’t dare consider failure. No, he decided, they had merely forgotten to adhere to the strict schedule Victor had given them. What else could he expect from hiring locals? These weren’t the professionals he would have commanded in Moscow.
 

Even so, they couldn’t possibly have failed. Inna was such an easy target, anxious and easily cowed.

“Artur understands what needs to be done,” Victor improvised. He would continue on as if he had already attained the winning hand.

He noticed a swarthy man enter the club. The man hadn’t checked his trench coat at the door. He stood at the entrance and surveyed the crowd, and Victor recognized him as one of Dato’s men.
 

“Ah, there.” Victor waved to him to join them. Here, at last, was some confirmation that his schemes were working. The Georgians had shown tonight, as promised.

Soon, he’d have Inna in his custody, and the deal would move forward as planned, no matter what Artur thought or wanted.

“NICK!” INNA SCREAMED as he fell to the ground. An angry red splotch started to spread out on his shoulder. He wasn’t moving. Was he dead? Without thinking, she rushed toward him.
 

The man Inna had shot earlier, Fake Igor, grabbed her arm and stopped her short. He wagged Olga’s gun at her. “Get in truck. Now.”

He gave her a shove toward the back of Igor’s delivery truck. The other man, the one Nick had been wrestling, grabbed her gruffly by the arm and dragged her toward the back of their waiting vehicle. Fake Igor rolled up the back door, and his comrade hoisted her by the waist and shoved her inside.

She landed on her hands and knees. Briefly, she saw neat stacks of cardboard boxes and what looked like a man slumped in the corner. Then her captors pulled down the door, shutting out all of the light. She couldn’t see a thing.

“Igor?” she whispered and crawled in what she thought was the man’s direction. “Igor, is that you?”

He didn’t answer.

Her hand brushed something rubbery—the sole of his steel-toed work boot. “Igor, it’s me, Inna,” she said.

He didn’t respond.

Maybe he’d been zapped the way Vlad had. Maybe he couldn’t respond for now. She traced her hand up his leg until she found his hand. His skin was cool to the touch. She clasped his fingers and gave them a squeeze, thinking to reassure him. She was going to get them both out of here, although she hadn’t the faintest idea how.

Igor didn’t make any sound that she could hear over her freight train heartbeat. She pressed her fingers to his wrist.
 

No pulse.

No, no, no!
He couldn’t be dead. She’d find his pulse at his neck. She moved her hand up his arm to his shoulder. He was shirtless. Her hand skimmed over a tuft of soft hair on his shoulder. She pressed her fingers firmly against his neck.

Still, no pulse.

She searched frantically for signs of life—anything. She pressed her ear to his chest. No heartbeat. She put her hand over his mouth. No faint warm breath.

Oh, God
. Those men had killed Igor. They’d stripped his shirt and stolen the van. To get to her. They’d planned everything. To get to her. Why?

Please let me be paranoid. Let this all be a horrible hallucination.

It felt too real. All of it felt too real. She squeezed Igor’s lifeless hand. Her own breath came in quick little gasps. Not enough air. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to suffocate. She was going to die in here from lack of oxygen. Maybe that’s what had happened to Igor.

Or maybe those men had murdered him.

She closed her eyes and focused, as Dr. Shiffman had taught her, on her breathing.
In, out. In, out.
 

Outside, she heard gunfire. She couldn’t ward off the certain knowledge that someone else was going to die tonight.
 

Dr. Shiffman had told her that at some point soon, she wouldn’t need her medication anymore. She wished that moment were now. She craved the amber bottle in her medicine cabinet at home, the magic pill that would calm her shattered nerves and put the world back to rights. But last night she had taken the last one. She would get no relief from the pressure squeezing her lungs, even if she could magically get home and open her medicine chest.

What pill could help her now anyway?

Someone was out to get her, would kill people to get to her. Why? She’d never harmed anyone.
Let it all be in my mind. Another paranoid delusion. Like the time I thought Papa was a spy for the Russian government.
 

She had to be crazy. Or maybe the truth was staring her in the face.

Igor was dead. Nick might be, too. And then there was the man at the club. The body count was getting too high to ignore. Who else was going to die? And for what?

She clutched Igor’s hand.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

In the darkness, she made a silent vow. She wouldn’t look away. Wouldn’t doubt her senses. She would look frankly at the world around her and confront it. Even if it meant another prolonged stay at the hospital or worse, a strait jacket.

It was time to face her worst fears.

No more medication. No more numbness. No matter what her parents said. No matter what Dr. Kasparov prescribed or how hard he threatened to send her to an institution.

She refused to be passive in her own life.
 

She’d been suppressing her own senses, ignoring the signs all around her for far too long, and people, good people, were dying. No more. This time, she’d be brave. This time, she wouldn’t back down. She wouldn’t look to medical experts to explain the mysteries unraveling right in front of her.
 

If she survived the night.

She felt her way along the boxes and scrambled back to the door. She clawed at the opening. She dug her slender fingers under the edge of the door, expecting it to open only enough to let in a sliver of light and the promise of more air to breathe.

The door opened easily. They hadn’t locked her in. Surprised, she poked her head out in time to see Vlad take a bullet to the chest.

“No!” she screamed.

Heedless of the danger, she scrambled out of the back of the truck and rushed to his aid.

ON A PRAYER, Vlad pulled the trigger, forcing Inna’s kidnappers to duck for cover. His reflexes were slower than usual thanks to the zap he’d received from the stun gun, but his shots robbed the men of their opportunity to secure the door of the truck and take off.
 

Both men were armed with guns. The prudent action, the strategic action, the action the FBI had trained him to take, would be to stop but not to kill her kidnappers. Disable them. Keep them for questioning. Who were they? What did they want with Inna?
 

On a normal day, Vlad would have disabled both targets easily.

Today wasn’t a normal day. They’d caught him off guard and taken Inna. This was personal.
 

Vlad wasn’t in strategy mode. He was mad as hell, and these fuckers were going to pay for what they’d done.
 

Shooting to kill, he easily picked off the first man, the one with the limp. The second kidnapper dove behind the truck to the driver’s side. No way was he letting the bastard get in and drive away with Inna.

I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me.
He recognized the echo of his old man as he pulled the trigger and missed.

Movement at the back of the truck caught his eye. Inna stood, holding the rolled up door over her head.