Last Hit (Hitman) (31 page)

"It's me, Daniel, but I expect you know that. Look, I'm going to drop a Glock down to you as a sign of good faith, okay? It's not your favorite handgun, but hey, no hammer right? Who doesn't like that?"

I consider this. A Glock has no external hammer like most handguns, but an elongated firing pin called a striker instead. It makes for quick and easy shooting, even when your hand is injured.

A light flashes at the top of the opening and seconds later the Glock and the magazine drop into the dirt. I draw both toward me with my leg. No shots fired. I can barely see the Glock chamber in the dim light of the tunnel, but I dry fire it twice. It sounds and feels fine.

I load the magazine and shoot up into the opening where the trap door once sat.

"Jesus fucking Christ." I hear Daniel yelp.

I've got twelve bullets left. Murmurs are exchanged. The other voice belongs to a Russian. So two people, twelve bullets. No question. I consider heading out the tunnel and then circling around and picking the two off from the exterior.

"Listen, you hot head, what will make you come up here without shooting us?"

Nothing, no Daisy. If they had Daisy, I would come up, but I say nothing.

"Okay, listen. It is Vasily and me. Just the two of us. I'd say we were unarmed, but we both know that'd be a lie. I know where Daisy is. I promise you that as of an hour ago, she was fine. Unharmed, maybe a little mentally fucked up, but otherwise doing pretty good. Her blonde roommate, not so much."

"Regan," I mutter.

"What's that?"

"The roommate you take? Her name is Regan." I say.

"Yeah, Regan. They hustled her off. I don't know where she is. I couldn't break my cover and leave Daisy. Nikolai, it was not Daisy's finger that got cut off. I promise you. It was another girl. She made a bad deal with Yury and had to pay up. Vasily was there."

"I want to hear from Vasily."

"Get over here, asshole," I hear Daniel mutter to his companion.

"What?" the voice is heavy and accented. It could be Vasily, or it could be a dozen others, but I'm going to play Daniel's game for a short while.

"Why?" I call out.

"Why am I here and not with my uncle Sergei, raping your tender girlfriend? A virgin?" He clucks his tongue. "I don't know whether to praise you for finding such a gem or laugh at your lack of manhood in failing to take such a prize."

I cannot hold back and I shoot again in the hole. Eleven bullets. Two killers. Still enough.

"
Mudak
," Vasily curses.

Fuck you too, fucker
, I think.

"Shut the fuck up, Vasily. We don't have time for this shit." Daniel growls. I hear a scuffle and then Vasily's voice returns, a bit chastised, a bit sullen. This is quite the play the two are putting on. If only my Daisy wasn't in the hands of a fucking madman, I would think this is funny, but I don't.

I am gripping the butt of the Glock so hard that the metal weave on the grip is imprinting itself on my hands. I want to unload the entire magazine until the two are bleeding on the floor.

"GET FUCKING ON WITH IT," I roar. I have lost all my patience.

"Ah, Nikolai, I thought you were unmanned down there," Vasily says, ever cool. "But nonetheless, Alexsandr was right. Sergei is the wrong leader of the
Bratva
. The selling of our women, the pervasive use of
krokodil
, all of these things are killing us. It is not making us stronger, but weakening us. But even those things, maybe we forgive. But killing Alexsandr, kidnapping your woman, and turning you against us?
Nyet.
Sergei is just not fit to lead. In a generation or less, the
Bratva
will be broken, as Alexsandr said. So, we will help you recover your Daisy. You may kill Sergei. Then you must leave. Leave the
Bratva
, retire. No more kills. No more jobs. The name of Nikolai Andrushko will be wiped out of the books, and you and your Daisy will cease to exist to us, just as we will cease to exist for you. Those are the terms."

I slide to my butt. All this because Alexsandr whispered in the ears of the
Bratva
that Sergei was unfit? My Daisy taken because Sergei feels his position at the top of the
Bratva
is imperiled? He was more stupid than I thought. But somehow I am still uncertain.

"What will make you feel safe enough to come out, Nick?" Daniel asks. "Because the more time you spend in the tunnel, the greater the risk to Daisy."

He is not wrong. Each minute that ticks by is a minute that Sergei could change his mind and decide to harm her more. But if this is a trap, then I have lost the chance to save her.

"You cannot take on the
Bratva
alone." Vasily re-enters the game. "You know this. At best, you have a suicide mission on your hands—at worst, you die at the front gates and Daisy is passed around to the guards until she wants to kill herself."

The options in front of me are bad and worse, but I take bad because I have no choice. I exit out of the back of the tunnel. There is no point in sticking my head out of the hole and waiting for it to be shot off like a melon. At least from the front door, I'll have some cover. I walk to the front of the small cabin, and the door is thrown open.

I press against the side and both Daniel and Vasily walk out. Their hands are to their sides, empty but poised for action. I lower the Glock.

Daniel is six feet, five inches. He has at least three inches on me. Vasily and I are more of the same height. Both are fit and hold themselves with a certain lightness that I associate with men who know how to use their bodies as weapons. I could take one, perhaps, but not both. Against my better judgment, I offer my left hand to Daniel in a gesture of agreement.

He takes my hand and squeezes it.

"I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart," he says. "I have my own agenda, and I'm going to need your help."

This, I understand. The transaction of favors has meaning to me. I nod and walk inside, showing my back to the two dangerous predators behind me. It is an overwhelming show of good faith.

Inside, I see a battery of weapons. Machine guns, submachine guns, knives, handguns, a stack of C-4 about two feet high. I would've never left this building alive.

Daniel sees me gaping at the C-4. "Right. I had to keep moving that crap so your shittily aimed bullets wouldn't hit it and blow us all to pieces."

I shrug, "You should have been more specific about your goals at the start. But, enough of this. What is the plan?"

DAISY

I hide in the bathroom
until I am so exhausted that I curl up and fall asleep, not caring that I'm resting on dirty, broken tile. I will take germs over Yury any day. Hours pass, maybe a day. I've lost track of time. I sleep, but my dreams are full of Nick and guns. Nick, shooting my mother. Nick, holding Galina's hand down as he saws her finger off.

They're not restful dreams. When I am awake, though, I am cold, hungry, sore, and Yury is there. So I sleep the hours away, waiting for death or for Nick.

I am not sure which one I hope for.

I wake up, shivering, when a boot nudges me. I look up, squinting, and I see the big blond giant that had been guarding the door to the warehouse. "Come."

I get up, every bone in my body aching. I'm dizzy when I stand, and I weave a little. The giant's hand grabs me by the arm to steady me, and he drags me out of the bathroom. Yury is there by the card table. There is no sign of Galina, though there is a dark, rusty splash in the center of the table that I can't stop staring at.

I wonder if they sent the finger to Nick. I wonder at his reaction. Would Nick regard it with the same cold, emotionless expression I see on the face of the man holding me upright? Or would it be the sad-eyed, lonely Nick that I fell in love with? Will he be unhappy to receive what he thinks is my finger?

Or will he even care? Do I even know the real Nick at all?

That is the thing that scares me the most, I realize. It's not that Nick is a killer and has an awful past life that has caught up with him. It's that I don't know if the man I've fallen in love with is real or not. It's that I don't know if I know the real Nick at all.

Because I still love him and I still want him, but I don't know if I know him.

"Come," Yury says, interrupting my thoughts. He holds out a zip tie, and I realize my hands are going to be bound again. His grin is vile. "I will enjoy it if you fight."

I don't fight. I cross my wrists and hold them out, waiting. My numb movements remind me of Galina, and I flinch in realization.

Yury seems disappointed that the fight has gone out of me. He ties my wrists tightly in front of me and then gives me another shove, pushing me away from him. He barks something at the blond giant, and a moment later, the hood is tossed back over my head.

"Where are we going?" My voice sounds overloud in the stifling hood.

"You are lucky," Yury says. "The sale has gone through. We will take you to airport and fly you to meet your new owner." He laughs. "Maybe after he is tired of you, he lets me have a round, eh?"

I shudder and hunch my shoulders, as if I can somehow shrink away from these awful men.

Vasily says something, and Yury replies in a nasty tone. Then, the blond nudges my arm.

And I am led out to a car once more.

Vasily's giant hands are strong, but they are kinder than Yury's. He doesn't shove me into the car as much as he prods me into the right direction. I am led to the backseat and the door is locked again. I hear the men get into the front seat, and then we drive.

And drive.

And drive.

I begin to doze off again. It's hard for me to stay awake. My breath under the hood is muffled and hot, and my head aches so badly that I wonder if something is wrong with me. All I want to do is sleep. Maybe because sleep is an escape. It's the only one I have right now.

"Stop here," a voice says, and I jerk awake.

I hear Yury say something in Russian.

Vasily responds. I catch the words "Coca-cola" mixed in with his Russian, and I feel the car pull to a halt.

Yury sighs and bites out furious words, but the car remains running. One door opens and shuts, and I hear feet crunching on gravel.

I wait in the back seat, my body tense. Are we…on a snack run? That seems insane.

"
Bozhe moi,
" Yury says, and I perk up. I have heard that before. He honks the horn and screams something in Russian. I can't tell if he's mad that the other man is taking too long, or what's going on. The hood isn't tied down over my head, and I wiggle, moving my chin, trying to slide it off without being obvious. I'm desperate to see what's going on.

A moment later, the car door opens, and then it slams shut again. I hear Yury's feet crunching on the gravel as he spits Russian out at someone. He sounds furious. Now that I'm the only one in the car, it's safe for me to reach up and snatch the hood off of my head, and I do so, blinking my eyes and looking around.

I am alone in the car. We are parked outside of a gas station in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. Immediately, I try the door handle. It doesn't respond. Damn it. Frustrated, I turn around and tear at the back seat, trying to get to the trunk. Maybe if there's a car jack, I can put it through the window.

The sound of a fight catches my ears, and I pause, pressing my face to the heavily tinted glass in the back seat.

I can just barely make out what looks like a scuffle. Someone is fighting….Yury? Who would be fighting Yury? Hope flares in my heart. Nick? But the man in the distance is dark haired and too tall to be my love. To my surprise, the other man grabs Yury in an efficient choke hold and presses something against his neck. Yury flails for a moment and then goes limp, and the man hugs his limp body. He drags him back behind the building.

I lose my breath. Oh god. Did…did someone just murder Yury?

What does that mean for me?

I drop to the back seat, hiding. My breathing becomes terrified panting. If the killer doesn't see me, maybe the car will be abandoned and I can run away. The big blond assassin is nowhere to be seen, nor does he return to the car. Both he and Yury are possibly dead.

What do I do now?

Fear crawls through me as I hear the car door open; the warning chimes ominously. Someone slides into the front seat. I remain as still as possible, hoping against hope that he is simply searching the car for money and will leave a moment later.

But the keys go into the ignition, and the car starts.

"You okay back there, Daisy?"

It's the American man's voice. The assassin from the warehouse. One of the men who brought Galina to Yury.

I sit up cautiously, sliding to the far end of the back seat despite the fact that there's a window partition separating us. I study the back of his head. "Who are you?"

He snorts. "You can call me Daniel. Nikolai sent me."

My heart slams in my throat. "Nick?" I breathe, relief rushing through me. "But…" I pinch off the words, frightened. How do I know to trust this man? He could be lying to me to try and get more information out of me. Even though it kills me, I say nothing else. I simply watch him.

"Did Yury hurt you?" Daniel asks me. "I can't do anything about it now, but just let me know so I can anticipate Nick losing his shit and stay out of the striking zone."

"Where's Regan?"

"Who's Regan?" He sounds as if he could care less. As I watch, he flips on the turn signal and begins to drive away from the gas station.

"My friend. The blonde girl that was with me when…when they took us."

He shrugs. "Right. Her. She was sold onto the black market a few days ago, if I don't miss my guess. Sorry about that, but she's a problem for later. My problem right now is Nick, and Nick wants you, so here I am." He gives me a thin, mirthless smile in the rearview mirror. "Betraying the
Bratva
and bringing down the house with a crazy sonofabitch. Ain't life fuckin' grand."

I digest this. Does he think Nick is crazy, or is he referring to someone else? Another party I'm not aware of? There are so many things going on that I don't understand. It makes my head—and my heart—ache. I press my hands to my forehead, but that causes a sharp stab of pain radiating from my nose. "Where are we going?"