KILLER INSTINCT (A Mafia Bad Boy Romance Novel) (8 page)

I rented out a private session at a local firing range so I could teach Kelly in peace. It was expensive but most of the money went to silencing the owner. Not that I couldn’t afford it with my sizeable contract payments. Thankfully, she proved to be a quick study.

Then again, shooting at targets at firing range was a world of difference than shooting at people who could fire back at you.

In the safe house, I taught her some basic martial arts. Kelly was less of a natural when it came to hand to hand combat. She had taken her attackers by surprise but a skilled fighter would’ve been able to dispatch her with ease. It was unlikely that Kelly would be able to go toe-to-toe with any of the elite Russian mafia enforcers. However, it would be enough for her to disarm an opponent and escape.

The young woman was curious about my trade as a hitman. I was less keen on teaching her my craft. I didn’t want her to follow in my path. She was just too pure and innocent for me to corrupt.

Nonetheless, I told her of how I worked a contract. I would either receive a dossier on my target or purchase the information myself. Then, I would follow and stake out the target. I would track their movements and find patterns. I would pinpoint the moment when the target was most vulnerable. Sometimes it would take less than a day. Other times I would spend weeks waiting for the perfect opportunity.

Besides, the training kept her mind off her father’s death. She was adjusting to her new life under my wing as well as any college student could. Becoming a hitman helped me deal with the loss of my mother. I wasn’t sure I would’ve liked for Kelly to follow in my line of work.

The sound of gunfire broke me out of my thoughts.

Kelly gave me a sheepish grin. “How’s that for center mass?”

I looked across to see a bullet hole through a bulls-eye. I glanced back at her and saw her hold the gun with both hands. She still hadn’t taken her eye off the sights. “Your form looks good.”

She was a natural shot but I didn’t want to tell her that. It would be better if she never had to fire and kill anyone. This was only to be a last resort.

“You told me you’re looking into why the Russian mafia is after me, Jackie,” Kelly began. “Have you learned anything new?”

“Not much to add,” I admitted. “Other than that’s it’s not the entire Russian mafia. It’s just one branch that’s based in Ukraine.”

She put down the gun. “What do you mean-”

Bringing out a folder full of documents, I glared at her lack of proper gun handling. “Safety.”

She cursed under her breath and put the gun into safety. For good measure, she made sure to unload the gun and clear the chamber. “Okay, what have you learned?”

This information cost quite a bit of money and effort to acquire. Many of my usual contacts either didn’t know what I was after or were feigning ignorance. The few that had information clamped up when I approached them. It took some money to grease their palms before they opened up again. Nonetheless, it had the side benefit of aiding the personal investigation I had on my mother’s killers. Thankfully, none of the informants tried to attack me this time.

“When a lot of people hear about the Italian mafia or the Irish mob,” I began. “They think of some large amorphous blob under one guy. In reality, what we know of as the Italian mafia is a bunch of different families competing or working with each other. Hell, they might be at each other’s throats one day and working with each other the next.”

“I see…”

“The Pastore family is the biggest and most powerful Italian family but it’s one of several families,” I continued. “It’s the same with the Russians. Only one branch of the Russian mafia has a vendetta against you.”

Kelly nodded. “So who exactly is after me?”

“Some nasty group of men working under the banner of a Russian word I can’t pronounce,” I answered. “It roughly translates into the ‘Black Fang.’ It’s a fitting name for a pack of wild animals.”

The college girl gulped. “Who’s in charge of them?”

“The name ‘Mr. Gregori’ keeps coming up,” I answered, showing her a photo of a middle-aged man in a business suit. You’d never guess this man was a drug kingpin. “Not much is known about him other than he’s a Ukrainian national who overthrew the previous head of the group. Seymon Gregori had a vendetta against anyone Italian when a weapons deal with a Sicilian based criminal group when wrong. That was during his days was a small fry but the incident stuck with him. When he came into power, he cut off business ties with the Italians. He’s gotten too big for his britches that he’s getting into arguments with fellow Russian gangs. The only thing keeping him in check is the risk of the FBI or CIA breathing down his neck.”

Kelly stared at the bearded man in his fifties. “It’s blurry.”

“Gregori keeps a low profile. That’s the best photo anyone has of him since his days as a foot soldier.”

“I think I heard Howard say that name,” Kelly mused. “Why were they after me and my father?”

I shrugged. “That’s something I’m still trying to figure out. From what I can piece together, it had to with the company your father worked for.”

The college girl rubbed her forehead. “The Atlantic Corporation? They’re just this big conglomerate that sells everything from diapers to car insurance.”

“They also sell banking services,” I replied. “It’s not unusual for criminals to keep some of their wealth in a legitimate bank for legal or tax purposes. You also need a place to put your money somewhere after laundering it, especially when it reaches a large enough sum. Gregori seems to have an account there under an alias.”

“What’s so important about this bank?” she asked. “What’s so important that you’re willing to kill a man over it?”

“If I had to guess, then it would be that he needed your father’s help in moving the money,” I replied, stroking my chin. “That Harold character was likely working with the Black Fang. He may not have had the same level of access as your father. The bank would red flag the account if there was any unusual activity surrounding it. Perhaps, they had hoped to get your father to act as an inside man.”

Kelly’s eyes widened in shock. “Daddy was head of security…”

“He would be in a good position to move the funds and cover up their tracks from the inside. I suppose you were going to be collateral if your father didn’t cooperate. Needless to say, things didn’t go as planned.”

“Why go through all of this?” she asked in exasperation. “Why was the Black Fang willing to kill someone over a few million dollars?”

“A few million? Try billions,” I said to her shock. Most people don’t realize just how much crime paid. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have criminal organizations. “It looks like Mr. Gregori is getting desperate to hold onto his fortune. The authorities have already frozen his assets in other accounts. The Atlantic account is his nest egg. He even came to America to handle it personally.”

“The police are chasing after him?”

“Try the CIA,” I said. “Word on the street is that he’s made some enemies in Langley. They’re after him because some of his dirty money has been linked to terrorist cells in Russia. Likewise, the KBG back home might be moving in on him as well. He used to be able to bribe the KBG into turning a blind eye on his activities. However, he’s gotten too big for his shoes and the KBG want to cut him down to size. It’s why he’s been acting so reckless.”

Kelly eyes brightened. “Will the CIA be able to get him? Can they put him in prison and get justice for my father?”

“Better them than the KBG,” I chuckled. “They’ll torture him for a few days before dropping his body in a ditch in Siberia. At least with the CIA, he can cut a deal and maintain some level of his wealth. If he cooperates with the CIA, Gregori will probably end up serving reduced sentence in a white collar prison. He’ll be out in five years with most of his wealth intact. That’s assuming he doesn’t change his identity and vanish off the face of the earth to escape the authorities.”

A look of panic appeared on the woman’s face. “What do you mean, Jackie? There’s a chance he’ll escape justice?”

“Last I heard, the bureaucracy of both organizations is keeping them from getting the green-light to go after him. If he doesn’t get his money out of Atlantic National Bank, then he has a chance to escape to some forgotten corner of the world.”

The young woman’s eyes became dull again. There weren’t any happy endings in this line of work. “So either way, he’ll get away.”

“Almost makes you want to root for the KBG.”

Suddenly, Kelly got a look in her eye. “You said he was in America, right Jackie?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, what about it?”

“That means we have a chance to get him before anyone else,” she replied with conviction. “We can corner him before he escapes!”

I almost wanted to laugh. “You want us to go after one of the most dangerous men on the planet? Forget it, Kelly. Let’s just keep our head down and let the authorities corner him.”

She looked resolute. “You said there was a chance he would slip away.”

“Better he gets away Scot-free rather than you end up captured,” I warned. “These men are ruthless. Gregori has a small army working under him. They’ll put a slug between my eyes and they’ll do much worse to a young woman like you. What do even plan on getting from them, anyway?”

“Answers,” she said, anger burning her cheeks. “I want to look him in the eye and have him tell me why I lost my father.”

I could relate to her righteous anger. My mother’s murder had been my drive all these years. It was the first thing I thought of when I awoke and the last thing I in my mind when sleep took me.

The practical side in me saw a benefit as well. One of the Russian criminal organizations had a hand in my mother’s death. I could get answers from the Black Fang about the men who ordered my mother’s murder.

The Russian mafia was a close-knit bunch even if they didn’t get along with each other. Sergei Petrov had ties to many of them. Besides, the death of Kelly’s father was the reason the Pastore family had let me investigate the Black Fang in the first place.

“If we do this,” I began, giving her a stern look. “You have to do exactly what I tell you to do. Remember, it’s both of our lives on the line now. If the military has thought me anything is that a group is as strong as its weakest link.”

She didn’t hesitate. “Agreed.”

I liked that in a woman.

“Who knows how long Gregori is going to wait around for his money,” I continued. “So we have a small window of opportunity to find him, get some answers, and get revenge. We need to move fast if we want to track him.”

“Revenge…” Kelly murmured, almost frightened by the word. “Anything else about this Gregori guy?”

I sighed. “Not much to add. Just getting his background was like pulling teeth.”

“I hope you mean metaphorically,” she said, shooting me a disapproving look. “Do you have any leads on his whereabouts?”

“I’m glad you asked,” I replied, taking out a sheet of papers from the folder. “The man’s like a ghost. I can at least confirm that Gregori is in the country. He might even be in the city but I can’t say for sure. However, I do have something else that could help us.”

“Another lead?”

“Something like that,” I answered, showing her a decrypted contract. “An interesting contract came up. It looks like your father wasn’t the first Atlantic the Black Fang approached. They came to a man named Jacob Cobbs before him.”

“They were others?”

“This man was a pretty high ranking executive up on the Atlantic Corporation’s totem pole,” I continued as she read the contract. “The problem was that he specialized in managing the company’s supply chain. He didn’t have the clearance or know-how to move funds from a bank account and cover up the tracks from the inside. Once the Black Fang realized their blunder, they tried to threaten his family and silence him.”