Bone Deep (3 page)

Her only other adornment was the glitter covering her from head to toe. The frail material parted as she walked offering glimpses of the firm, round globes of her ass. The light danced off her body and returned before shying away once again as though fearful of what it would reveal.

Dmitry knew that fear. He’d been luckier than most, he surmised. After their few meetings he’d been left alive, though she never failed to leave a wide aching chasm inside him.

Her steps were swift but unhurried, her face blank but her eyes always moving. Bone was definitely hunting.

Nothing good would come of this. He tracked her movements, unable to tear his gaze away. He wanted to head her off, find out what the hell she was doing there. Instead he watched, transfixed by an assassin.

She was a highlighted shadow, holding your eye even as she hid from you. She was a velvet promise that you reached for with eager hands, the stroke of her presence in your life soft but brutal. And tonight she was so much more—a sultan’s wet dream; a genie’s creation—and everyone, man and woman, stopped what they were doing to watch her glide across the floor.

She wasn’t there to dance or fuck. The woman with hammered gold eyes splintered by jade had come to kill.

Her target was anyone’s guess, hell it could be Dmitry though he speculated it was Anatoly Yesipov. He was the youngest son of Boris Yesipov, who was the underboss and favored brother to the leader of the Russian Mafia. Boris was known as the killer of innocents and twister of souls. Anatoly hadn’t fallen far from the tree, though was an easy mark. The son was one Dmitry thought beneath her. Apparently her lust for killing knew no bounds.

She’d been taking the Yesipov criminal organization down one man at a time for nearly a year, picking them apart like the layers of an onion. Dmitry had not attributed the increasing death toll to her at first. The Russian Mafia was self-limiting. Hell, they killed their own so often it was hard to keep track of the hierarchy. But his reticence to lay the deaths at her door had been his mistake. He’d have been able to catch up to her earlier had the killings been more her style. Yet wasn’t her style a mixture of everything?

Kostolomochka.
Little Bone Breaker.
Out of all of the killers of First Team, Bone was the one who utilized almost everything at her disposal to send people to the afterlife. Body, gun, knife, her opponent—hell, nothing was off limits, though she killed the very best with her hands.

A psychiatrist would have a field day with her because that need to eliminate with her hands indicated a much darker, deep-seated desire to kill intimately. The woman was…
off
.

It was abhorrent to him that brittle edge she walked between life and death. Using her body to kill, coming into such close contact with her prey, left her vulnerable. Why it should bother him eluded Dmitry. Everything jumbled inside him when he
thought
of her.
Seeing
her now when he was unprepared had lightning tracking down his spine and tentacles of flame scorching his gut.

He both hated and burned for her, the truest of all dichotomies. Yet she had information he needed and had pursued for years now. She was the reason he’d signed on with Trident Corporation five years ago. When Dmitry discovered Rand Beckett and Ken Nodachi were seeking information on The Collective, he’d left behind his assignments with the Russian Secret Service and signed on with them. Anything to get closer to the one called Bone. One of four broken women who could lead him to the truth of what happened to his sisters.

He would not ask the others. Gretchen and Saya were too fragile right now and to ask them to revisit their past was abhorrent to him. There was also the fact that Bone was his. He owed her and their reckoning was coming.

He inhaled deeply and the phantom taste of apricots slid down his throat. That’s what her
flavor reminded him of…sugared apricots.
Sweet
.
Addictive
. They had been a treat in his youth. Dmitry cursed and slammed his snifter down.

Dmitry did his damndest to push aside his recollections of how her skin smelled and how her breath tasted. He also fought the pull of his past, pushing it as far down in his soul as he could. He concentrated instead on the women dancing around him, bodies synced to some Russian techno-pop blasphemy. They were shells, their emaciated bodies starved for more than food, and nothing like the killer who moved him in ways he didn’t want to acknowledge. The scent of unwashed flesh replaced the sweetness of his memories and he was brought back to his present situation.

Ah, yes. His main reason for being here—Boris Yesipov. The Russian hooked the women on drugs, fed them to his men, and then laughed as they were chewed up and spit out. Bright blue, red, and yellow lights washed them in a garish glow, ripping away their humanity, and leaving skin-clothed skeletons.

One of Yesipov’s women ran her hand down Dmitry’s arm, attempting seduction, her gaze hard with the knowledge that if she failed, she’d be giving up her life. Dmitry was here on Trident business and Boris Yesipov didn’t tolerate failure. It was her job tonight, her one and only job, to seduce Dmitry. If she didn’t see that through, tire him out for the visit Anatoly would pay him later, she would be executed.

Perhaps it would be merciful given her present circumstance. It mattered not. If Yesipov thought Dmitry an easy mark, he had no idea who he was dealing with and it was a mistake that would cost him dearly.

Dmitry tossed back a shot of vodka, relishing the burn and tapping the table for another. His homeland had the very best vodka. It was the only thing he missed about the country he’d been raised in.

He allowed the smile that slashed his face just as he allowed her touch. There was a game to be played here, but all the while his eyes followed the woman striding confidently to the stage. Her hair was hidden tonight by a pitch-black cap of hair. The ends swung around her golden skin, skimming those fragile, rounded shoulders. The choppy black strands were a sacrilege. He much preferred the long, curling sunlit brown tresses natural to her.

Her gaze landed on him, skirted sideways as her lips curved sensually. The lights dimmed and for a second he wondered if he was hallucinating. Maybe it wasn’t her—but, yes, it was. He should never have doubted. No one else affected Dmitry quite so. The eyes that haunted his dreams were simply veiled in electric blue contacts.

Her smile seemed designed to let him know their game was on. Regardless, the shock of her presence danced over his skin, raising the hair at his nape. He downed another shot and shrugged to himself. He was done playing with her.

He’d been so close two weeks ago—so close to tranquilizing her and getting her back to Virginia. She’d eluded him once again there along the edge of the ocean in San Sebastian, Spain. The women of First Team were crafty. Bone the most elusive of them all.

Maybe tonight was his chance. Perhaps he could kill Boris and capture her. Maybe fortune would shine on him. There were many possibilities to the outcome he was so invested in.

The woman beside him lowered her touch to his crotch. His distaste was immediate, her fingers like grasping bones but still he allowed it. Boris watched closely, smiling.

Eat, drink, and be merry, he’d told Dmitry earlier. And in Dmitry’s heart the need for retribution burned. It had taken everything in him to not slice the man’s carotid, leaving the bastard to bleed out.

The only thing reining him in? Caution. He wouldn’t give his hand up so easily. He might be here on Trident business but always there was the prospect he’d catch up to Bone. Gretchen and Saya were concerned for their sister. She’d killed Minton but her rage, the horribly deep well of it, hadn’t been appeased. They were worried she was spinning out of control and being unable to reach Blade, the only one who’d ever been able to truly get through to Bone, they’d requested Dmitry track her.

He’d learned little about her from her sisters, but what he managed to glean from their stingy information was that they considered Bone the strongest of them all. Not simply in form, but in how completely she’d succumbed to what Joseph had trained her to be.

Ubiytsa. Killer
.

Her sisters’ fear had held a scent, and it was the stale aroma of self-limiting awareness. Dmitry had read more in what they hadn’t said than what they had. If Bone shattered, the others would follow suit and Joseph would win.

What he didn’t know was why. What made her the glue that held their sisterhood together? Why her? Would he ever find out?

The woman stepping onto the stage, her lithe body rippling like golden fire under the lights was his enemy yet in the recesses of his heart he recognized she was much, much more.

Boris had noticed her too, his attention caught immediately, jaw going slack as he rubbed his dick through his pants. Rage choked Dmitry.

She was his, goddamn it. Only his. Only he was allowed to feel lust for her. Only he was allowed to hunt her. Only he would be allowed to break her.

The music changed. A heavy electric bass and startlingly strident piano rift moved through the club altering the atmosphere instantly. Death sang in the notes—the pledge riding the beat sorrowful yet eerily filled with hope.

That’s what Bone brought. Death, or at the very least hope for it.

Ubiytsa
. The word whispered through his mind once more as the woman beside him leaned closer and whispered in his ear. She wanted him, in the bathroom, at the table, wherever she could have him. But all Dmitry knew was Bone.

Her body swayed to the rhythm, hips twisting and curling with the beat. She raised her hands raised in the air as she grasped the pole behind her and lifted to hang upside down, legs wrapping sinuously around the pole and holding her aloft.

Anatoly Yesipov stepped closer to the stage. Bone’s gaze settled on him and the smile she bestowed on the man had Dmitry’s blood heating in fury. The curve of her lips was validation that Anatoly was indeed her prey.

Dmitry blinked, once, twice and leaned back against the leather of the booth. He forced his anger to dissipate, swallowing it. It burned a vile path down his throat. There was no place for it here, now. He needed to prepare and the jealousy raging through his veins wasn’t appropriate. It was irrational.

She lowered to the floor before unlatching her legs from around the pole, shifting and then standing in a fluid motion. She turned quickly and cast Anatoly a coy look over her shoulder. Bone was not like the other women in the club and it showed in her healthy, lithe musculature.

As she turned, Dmitry bit off his groan at the sight of her ass. His hands clenched on his thighs and the woman at his side pressed closer, rubbing her hands over his now very hard cock.

Bone sauntered around the pole and Dmitry saw her take in everything—who stood in the corner, how many there were, and how close Anatoly was. He witnessed her calculating the time it would take Boris to react and how many obstacles stood between her and the door.

Then her eyes met his again and as always when their gazes touched, he was lost. Her gaze dropped to the woman’s hand working Dmitry feverishly and for a moment, a tell-tale moment for Dmitry, her eyes flinched.

Dmitry smiled, raised his chin in the air and cocked an eyebrow at Bone. His taunt was clear. She responded by lifting back up on the pole and sliding down slowly, legs wrapped around the metal once again as if she would wrap them around her lover’s hips.

Then she looked at him again and winked. Her cheeks were rouged and she bit her full lower lip, the white of her teeth bisecting the ruby red of her lips. A hardness rode the delicate lines of her face now, speaking more than words about her anger. He thought out of all the killers of First Team, this one had the least control. She always vibrated with untapped emotion that caused her to ride a knife’s blade of life and death.

In Dmitry’s book that lack of control also made her the most dangerous. When everything you were brought death and you could not manage your reactions, those around you suffered. Good or bad, deserving or not.

Anatoly stepped closer, the music reaching a peak as everyone leaned forward in their seats. Even the women on the other stages were enthralled.

Dmitry’s heart pounded in time with her movements and he fell under the spell she wove, the same as every other man in the club, but he was helpless to stop the slide. It was the renewed rise of his anger that prompted him to shut down his emotions.

If she had no control, he had more than his fair share. His dick went limp and the woman at his side sighed. She risked a glance at Boris but her owner paid her no attention so she carefully got up and walked to the bar. She may have cursed at Dmitry but he ignored it.

Anatoly moved even closer to the stage, his gaze rapt on the woman commanding his attention, hands held out in a plea. Bone reached for him, her eyes bright with the light of lust. Anatoly, the poor bastard, misinterpreted that glow. It wasn’t for him per se, it was for his life.

His
death
.

Dmitry was incapable of stopping what was sure to set the entire Russian Mafia into a spiral. This then was First Team’s next move. Her other kills had simply been foreplay. He stood but no one noticed.

She was too fast for him to catch. Why the fuck he hadn’t intercepted her before she even made it to the stage?

Maybe because he wanted Anatoly dead as much as she did. Maybe because her need to deal that death was an open wound in his own soul. Eliminating Anatoly would hurt Boris and wasn’t that on Dmitry’s bucket list? Of course the true boss of the Russian mafia, Vadim Yepisov, was the ultimate target, but why not have some fun along the way? Hell, Dmitry didn’t even have to get his hands dirty.

Anatoly took another step and Bone welcomed him. She slid up and down his body, writhing in and out of the bastard’s embrace. Dmitry’s emotions darkened to black, tinged with red. He would never admit to those feelings but they were so filled with rage that had she not made her move, Dmitry would have made it for her.