Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4) (42 page)

“Where have they taken, him?” he demanded, deliberately ignoring that gesture. “Which hospital?”

“It was too late for a hospital.”

He sucked a breath in through his teeth and everything stilled for a suspended moment.

“No,” he murmured. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt a slice of happiness leave his world. “Aw, Jesus Christ, no. Don’t fucking tell me that.” He felt flames come to life beneath his lids. “Don’t tell me that. Not about him. Not that fucking kid.” He threw his head back and walked away. “Where? What happened?” he choked out.

Vasily exchanged a furtive look with Dmitri and Anton before scrubbing a hand roughly over his jaw.

“What.”

“It was a couple of hours ago. In the parking garage across from your office.”

He tried to keep up. Markus didn’t keep normal hours, so him going to work in the middle of the night wasn’t the problem with that statement. “Why was he in the garage? He gave up his car last year.” Relief began to seep in. This must be a mistake.

“He was found next to the Range Rover.”

The air squeezed from his lungs as one of the ten conversations he’d had with Markus that day came to him.
Your secretary got another call about your truck taking up space at the convention center. If you don’t have time to get it, I’d be happy to swing by and pick it up for you. I still have the fob you gave me last month when I took it to Connecticut.

“Oh, fuck, Markus, what did you do?” he whispered. “Tell me.” He rounded on his uncle. “Tell me what you know.”

Dmitri was the one to speak. “He was hit in the back of the neck when he stepped out of the SUV. No evidence of a scuffle, nothing stolen. The police think the shooter was waiting for him.” He shoved a hand through his hair and looked as if he’d just swallowed a mouthful of glass. “We think the shooter was waiting for you.”

A quiet gasp on the stairs had them looking over. They watched Sacha slowly lower herself so that she was sitting on the third step. She pressed her fisted hands to her lips. The monitor hung from her pinkie, as always. She was staring right at him, Alek noted in a distant part of his mind. He held that gaze, finding strength in it.

“We should get to the morgue.”

He coughed through the jarring pain that statement brought with it, and he wanted to punch Dmitri in the face for delivering it. “Go upstairs,” he said to Sacha instead. “Grigori will be here with you and Lekzi. Lucas is patrolling the grounds.”

She nodded and stood. But instead of going up, she came down the remaining steps and came to him. Her hug was brief but heartfelt. “I am so, so sorry,” she whispered with a lingering kiss to his jaw.

He pressed his lips to her hair and had a hard time letting her go.

“Yuri and Aron will also be here,” Vasily said, and as though they’d been waiting to hear the Pakhan say their names, both clearly heavily armed men appeared; one in the doorway of the living room, the other in the hallway coming from the kitchen. Both were already in the zone, their expressions blank, eyes intent yet emotionless. “There’s a heavy presence around the house,” his uncle added, still speaking to Sacha. “So don’t be alarmed if you hear groups of voices. If you go anywhere downstairs, Grigori is with you, no exceptions.” He went to the door but turned to look at Yuri, Aron, and Grigori, who was now on the stairs with Sacha. Vasily held each of their eyes long enough to communicate the gravity of what he was about to say. “If Sergei Pivchenko shows up; shoot him dead on sight.”

Shockwaves swept through the foyer, because the order meant the casualties had just become more important than any personal satisfaction Vasily might have gained from ending this by his own hand.

♦ ♦ ♦

Lucian Fane put his empty glass down and looked closer at the set of plans for a textile factory one of his companies was building. His advisors were right. This could work, he thought as he compared this design to one for a factory the same company had built only five years ago. Could be they’d make a dent in the U. S.’s efforts to supply manufacturers with an option that didn’t include out of country purchasing.

“You were looking at this when I came in,” he said to Sorin.

“It is an interesting concept.” His bodyguard leaned over and was just pointing out one of the things that would cut costs by a healthy percentage when Lucian’s private cell rang.

He reached over and swiped at the screen then tapped the speaker button. It had to be Markus. His brother was like him where he enjoyed working into the night. Some of their most enjoyable conversations were had between the hours of three and five a.m.

“Yes?”

“Lucian Fane?”

Both his and Sorin’s heads came up at the unfamiliar, accented voice.

“Yes?”

“This is Dr. Jayesh Singh.”

As the polite Indian man offered his address and credentials, Sorin jotted the information down, as was his way. All Lucian took in was the man’s title; Chief Medical Examiner.

“What can I do for you, Dr. Singh? And might I ask how you came into possession of this number?” He pointed to a file folder that had come with the factory plans. Cost breakdowns and such. The meat of the project. Sorin handed it over just as the doctor blew an irreparable hole in Lucian’s life.

“Your phone number was the first listed under emergency in Markus Fane’s contact list.”

Lucian was staring into Sorin’s dark eyes, but he wasn’t seeing his friend of more than twenty years. He noted his heart rate was increasing until the organ was beating harder and faster than he thought it was capable of doing without failing.

“Put my brother on the line, please.” He was well aware his words weren’t so much a request as a demand, and he allowed his eyes to slide closed while he waited to see if his world was about to go black.

“I’m afraid that isn’t possible, Mr. Fane.”

Ice flashed over his skin. In his mind, he watched a crimson pool form and spread around him as he slowly began to bleed to death. “Explain yourself, Dr. Singh.”

The man cleared his throat. “I’m afraid there was a shooting in a parking garage uptown—”

Lucian’s eyes flashed open as his fist slammed down on the phone so hard it shattered and went silent.

“Get the chopper,” he ordered as he tried to keep his legs from failing him.

Sorin was already halfway to the door.

It took Lucian a moment to gather himself enough so that he could move. All he could see in his head was his little brother. His innocent, fully legit little brother who for the last ten years had made Lucian beyond proud by taking the business world by storm. Always smiling. Always with a thoughtful, usually humorous word for anyone he sensed needed it. Markus was an intuitive, kind-hearted,
innocent
man the world should bow down and revere. And they would.

As he left his Southampton home and traveled into the city, the chopper eventually flying over the East River with the radio chirping what was essentially nonsense in his ear, his lips twitched. He was going to embarrass Markus with the affection he would bestow on him after dealing with this inconvenience. But not before he gave the careless little bastard some serious hell for allowing some amateur criminal close enough to steal his wallet and cell phone. Never again would his little brother be able to accuse Lucian of being emotionally cut off in that I’m-kidding-but-really-I’m-worried-about-you way he had.

Never again.

From this moment on, if an opportunity presented itself where he could let Markus know he was the most important person in Lucian’s life, he was going to take it.

As Lucian walked down the long corridor, a tremor of pain began resonating from deep within. It grew in strength around his continuous silent reassurances that this was a mistake. An infuriating mistake no one would dare make again after he was through with them.

The sickening sense of terror worming its way in behind the pain was a reminder of why he didn’t love. He didn’t have what it took to handle the things that came with it. Usually loss or rejection. Sometimes both. He wasn’t in the least bit ashamed to admit he didn’t know how to deal with either. Both were infuriating and unacceptable, and his psyche usually found a way to deny them. If it couldn’t, it blocked them completely and forced Lucian’s focus onto something he was better equipped to control completely. Or usually some
one
.

This will turn out okay
, the voice in his head soothed. That optimistic voice he’d always thought had been meant for Markus but had accidentally been given to Lucian’s instead. It was even and measured, and was usually quite calming.

It wasn’t tonight.

The obscure presence that also resided within him, the one he kept on a tight leash for his brother’s sake, was writhing worse than ever to break free. If it did, this situation was going to go from bad to run-for-your-lives worse.

He should probably warn Sorin, who was a solid, silent presence at his side. He didn’t. Because a part of Lucian
wanted
that obscurity to come out. It was his shelter of sorts, and he usually felt blissfully detached when it took over.

The moment they rounded the final corner and saw a group of familiar faces, Lucian wanted to detonate.

They received the same mistaken message you did
, the voice soothed.
That’s all. Get the facts, and then react.

His clipped nod encompassed Gabriel Moretti, Vincente Romani, Maksim Kirov, Micha Zaretsky, and Alek Tarasov. He didn’t take in their demeanor or expressions, but rather pointlessly wondered where Vasily was.

Then he didn’t care because he was in front of a tall counter and being offered the hand of the small Indian man who’d just scrambled to his feet.

“Dr. Singh?”

“Yes. You must be Markus’s brother.”

He nodded, feeling so proud of that fact. “Yes, I am. Show me.”

He watched as if through high definition, the man swallow hard, his throat working convulsively as his eyes shifted with discomfort and unease.

Dr. Singh motioned to the desk behind him. “I have his belongings—”

“Show me. The body,” Lucian whispered, denying the rational part of his mind that was trying to make him accept that this was happening.

The doctor hurried to lead the way into a room fifteen feet away.

There were two metal tables. One was empty. One was not. The occupied one had a bright light above it. The length and size of the body under the white sheet had a cold sweat gathering on Lucian’s forehead. Something small and scared inside him started to wail.

Dr. Singh went around and paused with his hands gripping the edge of the sheet as Lucian and Sorin took up their position.

Dark hair, a too-handsome face, and straight shoulders were revealed.

Lucian couldn’t have described what punched through his consciousness right then had someone given him a million years. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t even agony. It was worse. Times a million. It saturated every area of his mind and every cell in his body. It stole the beauty from both his memories of the past and his hope for the future.

In seconds, his being rejected it because he just couldn’t sustain it and Lucian’s body slammed into a permanent state of present time. That present time became his safe zone. Nothing existed before it. Nothing existed after. And the present time was a dangerous place because it held no regrets. No repercussions. Just the now.

He forced himself to reach out and brush his fingers down the side of his baby brother’s cold cheek, stopping only when he reached Markus’s strong neck. He felt for a pulse.

“Call Valarius,” he murmured.

Sorin’s phone appeared in his hand within seconds.

“I want him here as soon as possible. How did this happen?” he asked the doctor while keeping his fingers pressed to that inanimate area that should have been pulsing with life.

Before Dr. Singh could answer, the door swung open, and Maksim walked in. “If you can take it, I will show you.”

He’d always respected the Russian for his fierce loyalty and brilliant mind, and normally got something of a kick out of his arrogance.

“How?”

Maksim raised a cell phone. “Surveillance video.”

“That you got where?”

“From the car park across from TarMor’s head office.”

Lucian bent and placed a kiss on his brother’s temple. “Be right back,” he whispered.

When he and Sorin reached Maksim’s side, the Russian already had the video ready to go. “Are you sure?” he questioned quietly enough that the doctor wouldn’t hear. “It shows him going down.”

“Then I need to see it.”

“I do not think now—”

He reached out and touched Sorin’s arm, shaking his head once. He nodded for Maksim to continue. After the first run-through, which was less than thirty seconds of footage, he took the phone and watched it a dozen more times. By the time he handed it back, what was left of his humanity had leeched away.

“Make sure I get a copy of that.” He motioned for the door. “Bring your boys in here.”

Maksim held his huge body stiffly. “This was supposed to be Alek.”