Domino (The Domino Trilogy) (46 page)

“Recaptured? But---“

He pressed a finger to my lips. “Hush. If Bluschencko catches us, he’ll kill me, but he’ll keep you alive no matter what.”

“Why?” I’d spent days fearing for my life; had that all been pointless?

“First for information. If I tell you anything now, then Bluschencko would use that knowledge against you. If you know nothing, he can’t torture it out of you. And believe me, he’d try.”

“You seem to know him
very well.”

“I’ve had plenty of opportunities to get acquainted with him, trust me.”

“But how? And why? You’ve never said.” I was sick and tired of him throwing up roadblocks any time I tried to ask even the most basic of questions. It was maddening, not to mention dangerous.

“When we get away from here, I promise I’ll tell you everything,” he said. “Right now we need to focus on getting back to the safe house.” He turned and barked something in Ukrainian at the driver, who stepped on the gas, then swerved off the gravel road we’d been following into the
thick woods. The vehicle swerved wildly left and right as it dodged trees, brush, and boulders. The force threw my body hard against the side of the Jeep; I cried out in pain from the impact. Rostovich grabbed me and pulled me tightly against his body. A wave of pleasure replaced the pain, blending with it in a sinister tango as a rush of memories from our lovemaking flooded my body. “Steady on,” he said. “Just a few more miles, and we’ll be safe.”

But it was not to be. Before I could enjoy feeling
Rostovich’s touch again---before I could even catch my breath---there was a metallic
ping
against the side of the jeep. Then another, and another. Then one of the Jeep’s few remaining windows shattered, the glass flying in shards out onto the ground below. A shell whizzed by, narrowly missing Rostovich’s thigh and landing in the seat upholstery beside us.

“Get down!”
he shouted, pressing me onto the floorboards and covering my body with his own. My blood turned to ice in terror, even as I felt warmth spread in my groin at his touch. More metallic
pings
rang out, and then there was a small explosion as a bullet hit one of the Jeep’s tires. The vehicle leaned hard to one side, there was a deafening screech as the wheel rim and parts of the undercarriage scraped along the rocky terrain. Sparks flew as engine parts ground against each other, and then the driver lost control, sending the Jeep into a tree. The driver went through the windshield and impaled on a tree branch, dying instantly. The vehicle flipped over on impact.

As the dust settled,
Rostovich and I were alive, but trapped.

END OF BOOK ONE
Read on for Chapter One of
  BUTTERFLY EFFECT, Book Two of the DOMINO trilogy

Chapter One of BUTTERFLY EFFECT: Book Two of the DOMINO trilogy

Rostovich and I always managed to get tangled up together, it seemed.

Our escape plan from the House of Pleasure
had failed. Our driver was dead, and the getaway Jeep had crashed into a tree and flipped upside down. We were trapped inside, our bodies intertwined like a pair of snakes around a pole, awaiting our fate.

“They’ve found us,”
Rostovich whispered. A stray piece of shrapnel had sliced open his temple, and a thin rivulet of blood ran down his cheek. “It’s only going to get worse from here. Prepare yourself.”

Prepare yourself.
For what? I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to disappear. I closed my eyes and tried to think of something pleasant---warm blankets, hot chocolate, the tabby kitten I’d raised as a child, sex. But all I could think of was gunshots and screeching tires.

In the dark forest silence I heard the sound of approaching footsteps. The frozen grass and dead leaves crunched underneath the upside-down set of leather boots I saw outside the shattered window. A set of boots I recognized.
Polished black patent leather, with high heels and thick platform soles.

Elzbeta
. 

I gasped and then tried to speak, but
Rostovich clapped a hand over my mouth. “Don’t say anything until I figure out what’s happening here,” he whispered. Then he said something in Ukrainian that I didn’t understand. Elzbeta replied back in the same language. Her tone wasn’t at all angry or threatening either----quite the opposite.

Rostovich
released my mouth. “It’s all right,” he said. “Elzbeta is on our side.”

I stiffened. “On
our
side? Is that why she shot at us?”

By way of responding,
Elzbeta pried open one of the Jeep’s buckled doors. “
I
didn’t shoot at you,” she said in flat, almost American-sounding English. I knew now that her British accent was fake, a show she put on for the House of Pleasure’s staff and clients. “The guard did. But I managed to kill him before he killed you. He had an extra gun tucked in his belt, I grabbed it and used it against him before he could stop me. I’m sorry if you were frightened, but I had to play both sides in order for any of us to have a chance.”

Elzbeta
extended a hand and helped me out of the Jeep first, then Rostovich. “Us?” I asked her, incredulous. “I thought you
liked
staying at the House of Pleasure.”

“I wouldn’t say I liked it, but it was better than the alternative.”
Rostovich nodded in agreement, as if he knew what that meant. “Peter, I’m very sorry about Boris,” Elzbeta went on. “I know he was a good friend of yours from the old days.” I guessed she was referring to our dead driver.

Rostovich
sighed and shook his head. “He knew the risks.  I’ll take care of his widow and children.”

I put myself between them. It was high time I got some answers. “I take it you two know each other?”

Rostovich nodded again. “Elzbeta is my cousin.” He went to embrace her. He muttered something softly in Ukrainian in her ear, then switched to English. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Nancy and I both owe you our lives.”

Elzbeta
waved her hand in dismissal. “Let’s get back to the safe house before we talk about anyone owing anybody anything,” she said. “It’s another four kilometers to the main road. We can take the House of Pleasure’s Range Rover, but we’ll risk getting caught that way. All of Bluschencko’s cars are marked and will be recognized by the authorities if we’re seen. We’ll need to dispose of the vehicle as soon as we get to the safe house.” She paused. “There’s room for Boris’s body in the trunk, but we’ll have to dump the guard.”

Peter winced. “I’ll take care of it. You look after Nancy. She’s cold and badly bruised. And see if you can get her something else to wear.”

Elzbeta offered me her overcoat and produced a pair of wool socks, but had no extra shoes. Peter dumped the dead body of the guard in a ravine; given this was Bluschencko’s private compound, it likely wouldn’t be found for days. He then bundled the driver’s broken corpse in a tarp he pulled from the back of the ruined Jeep and tucked the bloody baggage into the back of the House of Pleasure’s black Range Rover. I didn’t see any of the betraying marks on the vehicle that Elzbeta had referred to, and figured she must be talking about something else. But what? The license plate? A tracking device?

The slam of the Ranger Rover’s trunk jerked me out of my reverie. “Get in,”
Rostovich ordered, wiping blood off his hands with a handkerchief. His entire shirtfront was splattered with gore and the coppery scent flooded my nostrils, threatening to make me faint. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

I obeyed, and so did
Elzbeta; I took the rear seat and she rode shotgun. Rostovich took the wheel and drove us off into the night.

Exhaustion set in; my body had endured more of its share of stress over the past several days, and as the Range Rover bumped along, I found myself unable to stave off sleep. The last thing I remembered hearing before nodding off was
Elzbeta and Rostovich chatting back and forth in Ukrainian. I recognized only one phrase.

Richard Darling.

****

I came to in a small, dark room. I lay on a makeshift pallet made of old quilts. The place smelled of dust, ammonia, and simmering beef stew. The spot beside me had been slept in recently but was empty. I leaned over, breathed in deep of the bedclothes, and smelled Rostovich---musk, expensive cologne, a hint of rum, a trace of the coppery scent of blood. He’d slept close beside me. Not only that, he’d come halfway across the world just to rescue me. My body warmed all over at the very thought of everything he’d done for my sake. But I still didn’t know what his true intentions towards me were. Was I his lover, or a mere plaything, a tool he used for other, more sinister purposes? Plus there was so much I still wanted and needed from him----would he be up to the task? Or would he just keep throwing up those impenetrable walls of his, keeping his true self hidden yet again?

I was still clad in my Domino gear and
Elzbeta’s overcoat. I no longer felt like myself; I desperately needed a shower and a change of clothes. More than that, I needed to leave Domino herself behind. She had served me well for a time, but now I needed to return to the person I’d been before. If that was even possible.

The small room where I’d slept wasn’t big enough for a bed; it was more of an alcove, without even so much as a door.
The walls were concrete block and the floor faded linoleum that was peeling up in places. There was a small window high up on one wall; I looked outside and saw only razor wire and an alley several stories below. What little of the building’s exterior looked to be an old-style Soviet-era housing block, but in such a state of disrepair I guessed it was mostly abandoned.

Hmph
, I thought.
Some safe house.

The sleeping alcove didn’t have a door.
Instead a beaded curtain hung over the entrance separating it from what I presumed was a small apartment. I could hear people speaking in low voices on the other side, all in Ukrainian.

I parted the beaded curtain and padded on stocking feet into the main room
, where Elzbeta, Rostovich, and two other men I didn’t recognize sat around an old chrome-and-Formica dining table, looking through a stack of photographs. I recognized some of them as from the same set Rostovich had shown me back at the Ritz.

He rose to greet me. “Good, you’re up. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Tired. Weird.”

“That’s quite a combination.
Can’t you just pick one?”

I ignored this and sat down in an empty chair. “Is there anything to eat?” I said, more to the air than anyone in particular.
Rostovich muttered something to one of the unnamed men in Ukranian, who disappeared into another small alcove for a moment, then returned bearing a plate of bread and cheese. I gobbled up both greedily while I tried to decipher what Rostovich and Elzbeta had been discussing.

As if reading my thoughts,
Elzbeta spoke up. “Once we know we’re safe, we’ll need your help, Domino.”

Domino.
I didn’t want to go back there---not now. I’d just escaped that world and nearly died in the process. “Please don’t call me that. My name is Nancy.”

Elzbeta
looked irritated and made a move to reply, but Rostovich waved her off. “Nancy, you remember our little discussion back in the States about my former client, and the photos I took of Chersonesus and the old Soviet buildings around here? Well, my original quest to solve the mystery of the dead shadow in those photos still stands. But now there’s a bit of a wrinkle.”

I raised my eyebrows in an unspoken question.
Rostovich went on. “We’ve discussed that Julian received your fax, but we haven’t yet discussed what he did with your newspaper and magazine copy.”

My articles
. In all the excitement I’d completely forgotten about them.  True, I’d made getting my copy out part of my overall escape plan, but I’d never expected it to actually work. I’d scribbled off enough information for two abbreviated pieces that were more of a diary of my current predicament than art reviews, though I’d been careful to include as many references to Rostovich as possible---along with a request that any editor who received my pieces make an attempt to get the relevant photos from my apartment. I’d written both articles along with the plea for rescue without any expectation that they would be found, let alone used. But now it seemed my plan had worked perfectly. Perhaps even a little too well.

The expression on
Rostovich’s face said as much. “I’ve often heard that foreign correspondents serving in war zones will go to great lengths to get their copy out, but this is the first I’ve heard of a reporter doing it via the shorthand hotel concierge method,” Rostovich said with a wink. “You did well, by the way.
Art News Now
is putting out a special edition showcasing your piece and the exclusive photographs, while the
Plain Dealer
ran your kidnapping narrative unedited in Section One of the Sunday edition. The AP wires picked it up the next day, and it’s gone viral. The papers want more. The whole world is following the story of Domino, the young-college-girl-turned-Mata Hari.”