Sons of Anarchy: Bratva (17 page)

In the small hours of the morning—she guessed it must be 2 a.m. or so—her eyes opened and she was suddenly, irritatingly awake. Some nights she woke with a jarring disorientation, a terrible sense of dislocation, but tonight she knew precisely where she was and why.

Really, the why was the only thing that mattered, and the answer was:
Oleg
.

The hotel room’s window stood halfway open, letting in the cool night air. During the day the room baked, and even after dark it could remain muggy and stifling. Now, though, it was pleasant—almost chilly. If she let herself drift, just studied the stubble on Oleg’s jaw or the taut skin of his abdomen, she could almost forget the murder of Oscar Temple and the imminence of more bloodshed.

She caressed his chest, ran her fingers along the prominent lines of his rib cage. He shuddered in his sleep, edged slightly closer to her, and a small grunt came from deep inside him. Whatever Oleg had done, in slumber he looked innocent, his brow free from the troubled lines carved by life. It hurt her heart to think how much she loved him.

Why had she fallen for him, and so quickly?

She knew the answer, or at least part of it. She’d grown up thinking her father was a soldier named Duffy, who’d died in the service. Her real father was a man named John Teller, who’d died on the side of a California roadway. Trinity was still angry with her mother for keeping that secret. No matter what sort of man John Teller had been, she wished she had known him.

Men were a puzzle she’d spent her whole life trying to solve. Most of the men she’d admired as a girl had disappointed her in one way or another. Some had been RIRA, which had seemed noble to her when she was too young to know any better, and others had been unreliable. Drunks or gamblers. Men who liked to keep their thoughts primitive and their emotions buried.

The boys she’d grown up with spent their time in pubs, making a joke of everything. If they treated a girl sweetly, it was only to rope her in. Once they had her pregnant and dependent, it was back to the pub with the same jokes and the same lads, a game of darts and a few pints of ale. Trinity had seen it happen far too many times.

In Oleg, she had found a man with a sense of adventure and a listless dissatisfaction with daily life that reflected her own. He wanted to
go,
and
do,
and
act,
and he wanted her at his side as a companion, not a conquest. Oleg had a brutal honesty that struck at the core of her. His life could be violent and bloody, and certainly dangerous, but he had never tried to hide that from her. From what Trinity could see, it had never even occurred to him that he should. This was a man she could respect … a man she could love.

Love had complicated the hell out of her life.

She slid her hand beneath the sheet, began to stroke the inside of his thigh. Using her fingernails, she scratched him gently, her pulse quickening.

“Mmm,” Oleg said, and he took a deep breath as he opened his eyes. “What are you doing,
kotyonok
?”

“I can’t sleep,” she whispered, heart full of him. Hand full of him.

“So because you cannot sleep, I cannot sleep either?”

Trinity grinned. “Are you complainin’?”

Oleg drew her toward him … drew her on top of him.

“Does this seem like complaint to you?”

*   *   *

Louis Drinkwater woke with a gun to his head. Jax stood beside his bed, mostly in shadows, and pressed the cool metal of the gun barrel to the man’s temple. He gave a nudge, then another, speaking in a low, clear voice.

“Wake up, asshole.”

Drinkwater blinked awake, scowling and wiping at the spittle on the corner of his mouth, like his maid or somebody had disturbed his sleep. It wasn’t until Jax repeated the words that the guy seemed to get it. The real estate agent froze, eyes wide and staring. His breath quickened into short, choppy gasps, almost as if he might break down sobbing. He glanced at Opie, who’d been wearing a pained grimace all through the evening’s ride, thanks to the stitches in his side. Opie bared his teeth like he might rip out the real estate agent’s throat.

“Oh, God, what do you want?” the man whined. “Take … take anything. Just … just…”

Jax took a step back, gun still aimed at Drinkwater’s skull. The sheets were soft—high thread count—and whoever had decorated the place had expensive tastes and a sterile soul. The house was a stucco minicastle complete with turret room, the home of a moderately wealthy man in a neighborhood of moderately wealthy people, not rich enough to have high fences or any significant security. Drinkwater had an alarm company sign in the front yard, but they’d been able to see the keypad through the back door; he was one of the fools who paid for the alarm system but only used it when he was away from the home, confident no one would dare enter while he was in residence.

Opie poked around the room, opening closet doors and drawers. The third drawer he opened, he chuckled softly to himself and reached inside to pull out a large purple vibrator. With a look of disgust, he dropped it on the floor.

“Who the fuck are you people?” Drinkwater moaned, either unnerved by Jax’s silence or gaining new confidence now that he was more awake.

“Quiet,” Jax said. He stepped forward and bumped the gun barrel against Drinkwater’s forehead, just to remind him of its weight. “One question.”

The man blinked. He was thin and olive-skinned with an accent Jax couldn’t identify and a thin little mustache that made him look like he’d just stepped off the set of a 1970s porn flick. In his mind, Jax found himself comparing Drinkwater to John Carney. He’d had a good feeling about Carney.

Not so, Louis Drinkwater. The decor alone told Jax what kind of prick he was dealing with. He had no good feelings for this guy.

Opie laughed softly, and Jax glanced over to see that he’d produced a massive black latex dildo from the drawer.

“What?” Drinkwater asked. “What do you want to know?”

“You’re helping some Russians stay out of sight,” Jax said. “Tell me where.”

Drinkwater flinched, wet his lips with his tongue, and gave a nervous laugh. “Russian? You think you’re living in some spy movie?”

Opie stepped forward, swung hard, and cracked the skinny guy across the face with the dildo, hard enough to split his lip and make blood spurt from his nose. The thing was huge and heavy and Opie was strong. Drinkwater groaned and reached for his nightstand, missed a handhold and slipped out of bed, falling to the gleaming hardwood in a tangle of sheets. Opie hit him again and the dildo came back streaked with blood. When Drinkwater spit a gob of scarlet onto the floor, a broken bit of tooth came with it.

Jax crouched beside him. “I’m not a patient man. You tell me where you’ve got the Russians stashed, and we’ll make it look like your place was broken into. My friend here is gonna duct-tape you to a chair. If the Bratva—or anyone else—figures out you told us where they are, you’ll be able to say you were beaten and your life was threatened. I’d say your chances of them not killing you are fifty-fifty. But if you don’t tell me right now, you got zero chance of surviving the night.”

Drinkwater tried to rise, put his hand on the bed to lever himself up. Opie brought the massive dildo down on his forearm nearly hard enough to break bone. The guy crumpled to the ground again, tears springing to his eyes.

“You’re a businessman, Louis,” Jax said. “You can do the math here even better than we can.” He shook the gun in his hand to draw the Realtor’s attention to it. “I could count to ten if you need some drama or whatever.”

Clutching his bruised forearm, blood trickling from his nose, the man stared at Jax and Opie with an expression of such horror that it stripped all the pretense away from him. Even the world’s biggest asshole had been a kid once, and Jax figured he was seeing the stripped-down face of young Louis.

Opie let the heavy latex cock dangle in his hand. “Ugly way to die, Louis,” Opie said. “Skull caved in with your own damn dildo.”

Drinkwater looked at Opie. “When you duct-tape me … I have a deviated septum. If you cover my mouth completely, I won’t be able to get enough air. You’ll suffocate me.”

Opie shrugged. “I’ll use an old-school gag. A rag or something. You can breathe around it, but it should keep you quiet for a while.”

The little man nodded enthusiastically. “Okay, okay.” He rose slowly and sat on the edge of the bed. “They’re at the Wonderland Hotel. Place is abandoned, up for sale. I’ll give you the address, but you’ve gotta promise to let me use the toilet before you duct-tape me. Could be my daughter who finds me—she comes by for lunch sometimes. I don’t want to piss my pants.”

Jax hesitated, thinking the guy might make a break for it or try to get to his phone. But Opie would be keeping an eye on him.

“Address,” he said.

Drinkwater gave it up. Opie dropped the dildo, wiping his right hand on his jeans, then gestured for the Realtor to walk ahead of him to the bathroom.

Jax went into the kitchen, pulled out a chair, then waited until Drinkwater emerged and told him where to find the duct tape. Every house had a roll, even moderately wealthy shitheads. Opie taped the guy to the chair, wrists and ankles bound tightly enough that he could not possibly escape, and then went back into the bedroom for a minute.

“What was that about?” Jax asked when he came out.

Opie shrugged. “Guy’s daughter might come by. I put his dick collection back in the drawer.”

Jax shook his head, stifling a laugh. Opie gagged Drinkwater, and they left, the Realtor sighing sadly before slumping in the chair as much as the duct tape would allow.

They left the stucco castle by the back door. Joyce and Chibs waited there with their two Russian babysitters. The two Bratva pricks had wanted to come inside, but Jax had refused to allow it. Drinkwater would be more reluctant to give up the location if he knew for sure that he was sentencing his Russian buddies to death. At least that was what Jax had told them, and with the tension between the Kawasaki Russians and Jax’s guys, they wisely declined to argue.

“Well?” blue-eyed Ustin demanded when Jax and Opie came out the back door.

Jax bumped shoulders with the Russian as he walked by, heading for the bikes. Chibs and Joyce were already there, waiting with Lagoshin’s other thug, Luka. Ustin caught up to Jax and Opie as they were climbing onto their bikes.

“Where are they?” Ustin demanded, lowering his voice an octave and attempting to intimidate them.

Jax strapped on his helmet. “I told Lagoshin the plan. I’m going in after my sister. When we get there, you won’t need to ask the address. He promised me an hour, and that hour starts ticking the second you call him. Just follow me. You can call him when you see the place.”

Luka sniffed imperiously, as if he’d smelled something revolting. “You don’t trust Lagoshin?”

Jax winced at the bruises on his face and the way every breath hurt, thanks to the kicks he’d taken to the chest.

“You’re joking, right?”

He kick-started his Harley and twisted the throttle, tearing out of the parking lot. Chibs, Opie, and Joyce had been ready and followed him out. It took the Kawasaki Russians a few seconds to get themselves together, but they caught up fast enough. Jax had no intention of trying to lose them—not when they could prove valuable to him.

Dawn was still many hours away, but Jax could practically feel it creeping up. Too many pieces were in motion, not just Lagoshin’s and Sokolov’s crews, but SAMNOV and the cop, Izzo, not to mention Carney and Drinkwater, whose daughter would find him in the next ten to twelve hours, if not sooner. The night air grew heavy around him. Normally, riding was freedom, but in the small hours of that night it felt claustrophobic to him. Caution could only take him so far.

Two miles from Drinkwater’s house, on an access road that led along the property line of a dried-up ranch and back toward the beltway, Jax pulled off onto the shoulder. Dust swirled up around his Harley. He pulled off his helmet and dismounted. One by one, the others followed suit, ending with Ustin and Luka. The Kawasaki Russians looked pissed when they ripped off their helmets, although the difference between joy and fury would be hard to discern on those unforgiving faces.

“What you doing, man?” Ustin demanded, marching up to Jax, hand drifting behind his back, trying to decide if he should pull his gun. “You try an’ cut Lagoshin out, you know what’s gonna happen.”

His accent was Russia by way of LA gang-speak, like he’d learned English from watching bad cop shows.

Jax held his hands out at his sides. “Don’t be stupid. My sister’s in the middle of all this. You really think I’m gonna risk her life if I can help it?”

Opie and Chibs stood in the road, watching for approaching cars, but this time of night, nobody would be out driving this dusty ranch road unless they were up to no good. Joyce had stayed next to his motorcycle, an anxious look on his face. Jax was being unpredictable, and it was very clear that unpredictable scared the shit out of Joyce tonight.

Ustin pointed at Jax. “Why we stopping, then?”

“I changed my mind. Lagoshin sending his men in after these other Russian pricks might work in my favor. Provide a distraction. Go ahead and call him.”

A thin smile touched Ustin’s lips, snide enough to be sinister. He nodded.

“Smart man,” the Russian said, and he dug out his cell phone.

Jax drew and shot him twice in the chest. The gunshots boomed across the dried-up ranch, so loud it almost seemed to be the noise that blew Ustin backward in a fanning spray of his own blood. His cell phone spun in the air and hit the ground almost at the same instant he did. The smell of blood and gunpowder swirled around them.

“Son of a bitch!” Joyce cried. “What are you—”

Luka roared and lunged toward Jax. Opie and Chibs reached for him, knocked his gun away before the barrel could clear his waistband, and drove the gray-eyed Russian to the dirt shoulder. Opie slammed him twice against the ground and then stood back, picked up Luka’s gun and pointed it at him.

Opie glanced over at the guy Jax had killed. “Ustin…”