Gangsters with Guns Episode #3 (2 page)

“Open it,” she invited, almost breathless with anticipation. “There’s more than cash inside.”
 

She clasped her gloved hands together. She could see in her mind how the whole scene would play out. In but a moment, he would tear open the backpack and start counting the money, holding the wads of cash in his greedy hands, touching each individual bill.

“Yeah?” He tugged at the zipper with one hand.
 

When the bag didn’t open immediately, Stan laid his pistol on the table. Maya felt the slow, satisfying burn of contempt as he surrendered his weapon to his own greed and impatience.
 

Men were so predictable.

Using both hands now, Stan ripped the zipper open. Maya held her breath as he pulled the first stack of neatly bundled bills from the backpack.
 

He held the money in his hand for the briefest moment, not nearly long enough. Then he tossed the stack aside. He grabbed another and then another.
 

Stan pawed through the bag, piling the money on the table. Soon he grew impatient and dumped the entire contents out.
 

He was too quick to discard and dismiss her offering. He didn’t hold the money for any significant length of time or rifle through it the way she had imagined.
 

The velvet jeweler’s cases she’d packed at the bottom of the sack tumbled out. He snatched one of the boxes, opened it, and scowled at the necklace inside. “Did you think you could trick me? Where’s the rest?”
 

“That’s a valuable piece,” she said. “Four carats.”

“Was this Aleksei’s idea or yours? You think you don’t need to take me seriously? I’m serious as a heart attack. I’ll tell the cops everything.”

“Most of the value’s in the diamonds,” she said quickly and held her hands up, not wanting his anger to escalate and provoke him to something stupid like calling the cops.
 

She needed a little more time for her plan to come to fruition. He hadn’t succumbed to her enticement yet, but she had faith he would.
 

“Between the bills and the value of the diamonds, there’s more than a million dollars there,” she said. She could tell he wanted to believe her. “Count it.”

Touch the money. Just touch the damn money.

“If you’re lying to me, I’ll make sure the cops learn your part in all of this.” He picked up one of the wads of cash, and Maya almost sighed with relief as he began counting bills.
 

In mere moments, Stan would be dead before he could tell anyone anything.

“It’s all there. Just like you asked.” She soothed him with the words she thought he wanted to hear. “I just want you to leave us alone. I want this whole thing to be over.”

Suddenly, two men burst into the kitchen from the back door. Before Stan could react, one of the intruders threw a knife. The long blade arced through the air. It sliced through the back of Stan’s fleshy hand, wedged into the wooden tabletop, and pinned his hand to the table next to his handgun.
 

Stan howled wildly with pain. Maya sprinted for the hallway and escape.
 

She flew to the front door and threw the deadbolt. Before she could work the chain, one of the men grabbed her by the arm. He twisted it behind her back. He jabbed her in the back with a blunt, heavy object. A gun, no doubt.

She glanced back at him. He had an eyepatch and a long nasty scar on his cheek. He didn’t speak or threaten. The gun at her back did that well enough. He hustled her back into the kitchen.

“Got her,” he told his associate, and she had her first good look at the man with the knives.
 

Dressed in a leather overcoat and tall boots, he looked rough and wild. His curly hair hung to his shoulders. He sneered at her, revealing a mouth full of even, gold teeth. He pointed his second long blade at her. “What have we got here?”

She knew who he was by reputation. Dato Dzugashvili, the head of the Georgian mafia in Brighton Beach, a boogeyman whose name her son would only whisper, a man famous for carving his victims to pieces.

His knife glinted in the kitchen’s yellow light as he limped toward her. She could scarcely breathe. He was so much more terrifying than she had credited.

The gunman’s grip on her arm tightened as if he imagined she might bolt, but she couldn’t run, couldn’t move. His hold on her arm was the only thing keeping her upright.

Dato grabbed her chin in his hand. He pressed the cold metal of the knife against her skin and caressed her neck with the flat side. She whimpered—or maybe that was Stan.

She shut her eyes and braced herself for a slash of pain. There was a pause, but the cut didn’t come.

She opened her eyes again to find Dato appraising her. He flicked the knife and cut the strap of her helmet. He pulled it roughly from her head and dropped it to the floor.
 

“Ah,” he said as her hair tumbled out and fell around her shoulders. “Mrs. Koslovsky. I did not expect to make your acquaintance…here.”
 

He smiled with malice, and a cold, slithering fear coiled around her. “It’s going to be a good night for vengeance.”

He turned toward Stan and slashed the air with his knife. Stan moaned. A dark, wet splotch spread out across the front of his slacks. The sickly scent of urine wafted from him.
 

“A very good night,” Dato laughed.

DEPRESSION SETTLED OVER Inna as she said good-bye to Nick. He pressed his lips together, saying nothing but speaking plenty with his large, soulful eyes.
Don’t do this. Give me a chance.
He had the restraint, or perhaps the self-respect, not to ask her again. With deliberate care, he negotiated a path past the ornate displays of antique tables with delicate tea sets and figurines. He kept glancing at her over his shoulder, as if he couldn’t get enough of seeing her, as if he were truly interested despite the events of the past few days, as if she might call him back and change her mind.

She was sorely tempted. He seemed genuinely kind and caring, with his gentle manner and his low voice, a “good one”, like Katya had promised. She liked the look of him too, the dark wavy hair and boldly ethnic features, the rangy athlete’s body.

She dared wonder how things might be different if he had been on time for their date, if they had managed to meet and talk, if Vlad weren’t now standing in the front of the store with his hand on his gun.
 

Vlad locked the door as soon as Nick was through—locking Nick out or locking her in?

Through the shop’s glass door, her gaze lingered on him, on the possibilities she had rejected. Nick’s cashmere coat flapped in the growing wind as he crossed the street, putting distance between himself and her.
Run!
She wanted to warn him to get as far away from her as fast as possible, to go and not look back.

She wanted to get away herself.

Her father just happened to have an employee—two, if she counted Mikhail—who could be called upon to play bodyguard for her at a moment’s notice. Vlad just happened to be armed and ready with a gun and willing to use it on anyone without hesitation. What kind of business was her father involved in? Was that the reason someone was out to get her?

No. Don’t go there. Don’t even think it.

Paranoid thoughts buzzed through her brain, and she tried to swat them away. She’d listened to those thoughts and been stung on more than one occasion.
 

The anxiety would subside. She wouldn’t slide into that awful, dark place. She could let the frightened feelings pass, observe the nervous thoughts, and let them go. She shouldn’t credit them, shouldn’t give them any power. Not like she had before.
 

She leaned heavily on the wooden counter behind the cash register. She pressed herself against the solid surface and hoped it would absorb the nervous tremors that hadn’t stopped surging through her body since she’d awakened this morning.
 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

She’d been through an ordeal the last few days. This shaking was perfectly normal for someone in her situation. Right?

Vlad spun around. His face was impassive, but she imagined she could feel the heat in his gaze.
 

Her heart beat even faster as she observed him. Big and imposing, he bore hardly any resemblance to the sensitive and scrawny man-boy she’d worshipped as a child. He was all man now.

She had definitely noticed. She couldn’t help but notice, much as she tried not to. She’d had such a crush on him when she was a little girl. When he’d suddenly reappeared in Brighton Beach, the small tug on her heart was still there. The feeling had surprised her. She never thought about romance. She had no desire to date or have a boyfriend—not after what had happened to her in college.

But Vlad’s return had awakened a spark she hadn’t known was there. Sometimes she thought she saw the same spark—maybe even more than a spark—of interest in his eyes. But that wasn’t possible.

He had rejected her soundly. He had greeted her invitation to dinner with three little words enunciated in a way that still cut to the core. “Sorry. Not interested.”

Still, the magic had happened. She had feelings she hadn’t expected. Maybe, just maybe, after a long dormancy, she was finally ready to move forward with the next phase of her life. Finding a man. Starting a family.

Nick was supposed to be the answer to that prayer.
 

“Are you going to see him again?” Vlad asked.

To her ears, he sounded jealous. She doubted her senses. She imagined she felt the flame of his attraction for her. Even now, when she knew it was impossible. Even now, when the tightness of her nerves should have shut off any fantasies of them together.

“Who knows?” Her voice didn’t crack. It sounded strong, not reedy. Emboldened by her acting achievement, she added, “Kind of hard to date when a girl has a bodyguard.”
 

“I’m not trying to make your life difficult.”

“Didn’t say you were,” she said with pitch-perfect nonchalance.
 

A tap on the glass startled her. A sense of impending disaster grabbed her by the throat. Something terrible was about to happen. They were about to be attacked.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The worries weren’t real. None of it was real.

It was a normal, blustery evening in Brighton Beach, nearly dark now. The streetlights fought the glowing gloom. The deliveryman stood under the awning to the shop with a large cardboard box in his hand.
 

She shouldn’t be so fearful, but her heart pounded now as if she were being pursued.

“You recognize him?” Vlad asked.

For a moment, she considered voicing her fear. But it made no sense. She couldn’t see Igor’s face under his baseball cap, but she recognized his solid build, his uniform with the black collared shirt, the white truck parked out front behind him. It was the right time. The right day.

She had to let go of her fear. She couldn’t let Vlad see what a wreck she was. Not when Dr. Shiffman was dead and her parents were colluding to send her back to Dr. Kasparov, whose answer to everything was pills that dulled her senses and stole her sense of self.

“You can let him in. That’s Igor. He usually makes deliveries on Sundays.”
 

Vlad hesitated. Igor shifted from foot to foot as if the box he held were heavy in his arms, but she imagined something was off. Where was the puff of his breath in the cold air? The stooped strain in his shoulders? Why was he standing in the middle of the doorway and not balancing the box against the wall while he waited? Her instinct, which she’d learned not to trust at all, told her the box couldn’t possibly be that heavy.
 

She’d been so wrong about so many things before.
Papa wasn’t a spy.

“Not everyone’s a threat,” she said, scolding herself, even as her anxiety ratcheted up another notch.

Vlad moved with deliberate caution, one hand hovering over his gun, as he opened the door. She waited for Igor’s hearty salute, but it didn’t come.

Why didn’t Igor say anything? Was the package really so heavy this time? He was usually chatty, greeting her warmly and sharing a joke or silly story about one of his kids. She had put aside a bottle of Georgian wine, after learning last time that it was his favorite. She should go and get it for him now.

She clutched the counter, immobilized by her irrational fear. She pressed her eyes closed against the icy wave of doom crashing over her.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

There was an unexpected buzzing sound. Her eyes flew open in time to see Igor drop the box and prod Vlad with a small black device.
 

Vlad’s body jolted.
 

“Vlad!” she shouted. His body jerked and spasmed. He fell face down on the box, which collapsed beneath his weight.
 

Empty. The box was empty!
 

The deliveryman’s hat had been pulled low over his face, but when he looked in her direction, she could see he wasn’t Igor.

She wasn’t paranoid or hallucinating. Not now anyway.
 

The deliveryman stepped over Vlad’s twitching body and advanced toward her. The tables and displays in the small shop blocked his path and created an obstacle course that bought her a few extra seconds at most.

He held what looked like a cell phone, but Inna had just witnessed the way the small device had dropped a big man like Vlad to the floor.
 

Trembling, she kicked the panic button under the counter with her foot. How long would it take the police to arrive? Five minutes? Ten?
 

They’d never had a problem in the store before, but Olga, who worked the floor during the week, believed in caution. She claimed she kept a gun hidden underneath the register. Inna blindly felt her hand along the shelf.
 

Sweat beaded on her forehead. No amount of anti-anxiety medication would make this latest problem disappear.