Wicked Mafia Prince: A dark mafia romance (Dangerous Royals Book 2) (16 page)

“The fuck out of here.”

“No. Our orders now. We think how to get out of here, then figure where to put you.”

“Because you can’t go back to your place,” Aleksio says.

“What? I have a dog,” Sykes says.

“Gimme your address, we’ll get him out of there. Hurry,” Aleksio says.

“I can’t
not
go home.”

“We got places,” Aleksio says.

“It’s not
cool
,” Sykes says.

“You prefer interrogation? At the hands of Bloody Lazarus, maybe? It’s just until we find Kiro. You’ll keep investigating from a safe place we put you in. We’ll send a tail to keep you clear. You won’t be useful to them once we find Kiro,” Aleksio says.

Sykes is scared and pissed. He gives his address voice shaking. Aleksio pulls out his phone, texts Tito to grab the dog and the things he wants.

“Are you guys not worried your enemies are out there to gun us down?”

“We don’t know that’s why they’re there.” Aleksio’s phone vibrates. He checks the screen. “Tito and Nikki’ll get the dog.” He looks up at me. “
Together
. That’s interesting.”

“My dog’s gonna freak out if strangers come and take him.”

“Tito knows how to handle dogs. He’ll bring meat.” He looks up at me. “We have to split up. I’ll get Sykes out. You come around back and cover us if need be. We pretend not to notice them unless they make a move.”

“Running from a fight like
kozel
,” I say. “Like goats. I don’t like it. I could come up behind.
Pop
.”

“Viktor, no. We don’t even see them, got it?” Aleksio says. “We have to hurry before they get backup.”

“They’re in our face. They followed one of us, they drive our streets. We need to hit back.”

“Not the time,” he says. “Maybe we’ll find something to do after this.” He gives me a significant look that I understand immediately. He means we’ll do something on their money-laundering business. That works. I feel like getting bloody.

“You’re going with me in my car,” Aleksio tells Sykes. “Viktor’ll ride your motorcycle. Give him your keys.”

“And I do what you say or else?” Sykes complains. “Is that the situation here?”

Aleksio gives him a hard look that says
yes, that’s the situation here.
The man hands over his keys.

It’ll feel good to ride on a motorcycle. I’ll ride fast, and maybe the wind will blow some of Tanechka from my mind.

I fix Sykes with my own hard look. “Move with calm confidence out to the car. That’s the feeling that you want to show.”

Aleksio smiles at me. He loves when I talk like that. So much of
blatnoy
warfare is image.

“I’ll see you at that McDonald’s,” Aleksio says.

I nod. There’s a McDonald’s near the money-laundering warehouse.

I head to the bathroom and slip out the window, piece drawn.

Nobody’s in back. Maybe it really is just two guys. Spotted one of us.

I ride Sykes’s bike to a snaggle-toothed industrial zone southwest of downtown and pull into the McDonald’s. Aleksio shows up with Yuri after a while. We ditch the car and bike in the shadows and go on foot to the textile warehouse with the broken lookout chimney.

This textile warehouse is next to Lazarus’s main money-laundering node—where cash is collected to be used in the import scheme that makes the money legit. An old technique. This chimney gives us a perfect view of everything that goes on there. If we hit his operation when coffers are full, he’ll be reeling for weeks.

The textile warehouse security guard we threatened is there and not happy to see us. We proceed on in to the back room and call up to Santino, the man Aleksio posted. Italian. New muscle from Milwaukee.

Santino’s happy to see us. He opens his laptop and shows us the footage he’s taken from his perch, many photos in different light. He created a PowerPoint program that shows the guard roster and details. Aleksio and his
patsanis
, they love their charts and bullet points.

•    Guards switch shifts at ten

•    #2 smokes five times per shift

•    Five men in all.

“We should make our move soon,” Aleksio says. “Before they change locations.”

I direct Santino to the backup to the photos. Once they’re up on the screen, I point to a sliver of light on the roof. “Is this an opening?”

“I thought it was a reflection,” Santino says. “But wait…”

We compare it to other shots and arrange the night shots in a row on the screen. “Fuck me,” he says. “It’s an opening on the roof.”

It’ll be dark soon. I suggest we grab a cable camera and try to get it down in there.

Aleksio swallows. “Climb right up on their roof? Motherfuck.” He likes it.

I’m liking it, too. “But your ankle…”

Aleksio waves it off.

“I don’t see you getting up there undetected,” Santino says.

“We will, and you’re going to cover us,” Aleksio says. “If we can get a visual inside there it would be a cakewalk to hit…”

I nod. We could go in soon. Rob the shit out of Lazarus.

Aleksio smiles at me.

Two hours later we’re stealing through the dark with cameras and rock-climbing gear. He’s still limping, but that’s Aleksio. Always ready. “Konstantin would not like this,” he says.

“I know,” I say. But Konstantin isn’t in charge.

We cut a rusted fence. It’s a fuck of a dangerous thing, going in this way. But both of our imaginations were seized by that sliver of light and the promise of getting eyes in there. It could take a week or even a month to cripple Valhalla, but hitting this place will take Lazarus’s attention away from Kiro. It may even make him lose his cool. If he loses his cool, he loses his people.

We crouch in the dark. “We really need to get out more often.”

I smirk.

When Santino gives the flash signal, we rush up and begin to scale the side of the building. Tilt-concrete construction. The surface is rough with few handholds. This part is dangerous; not so much for falling, but if caught, we are so easy to shoot. Santino is in the chimney next door, covering us with a long-range rifle. It’ll help. A little.

We get up the side and scramble over the top, out of breath. Quietly we pull up the gear. If we make noise, we’ll have to rappel down. Again, easy to shoot.

We lie side by side on the soft, still-warm rubberized surface of the roof. The stars are bright, the air thin.

“When we hit this place, we should bring some of the American Russians,” Aleksio says. “We let them keep all the money.”

“It can’t look like charity,” I say.

“But if we worked it right?”

“Then yes,” I say. “It would make our friendship more solid.”

We crawl on our bellies toward the mechanical plant. The sliver hole will be in the seal around the HVAC equipment.

Creeeeeeak.

I freeze and shut my eyes. It was loud—much too loud. It’s not just about the dangerous people inside; the roof may be unstable.

I catch Aleksio’s eye. He shakes his head grimly and pulls out his phone to call Santino, who sees nobody coming out of the doors. We’re okay. For now.

Santino thinks we should come back. The roof sags ahead; it’ll mean more creaking.

“Fuck that,” Aleksio whispers. He points out a slight ridge. That would be the support. “We’ll be safe if we stay right on that.”

A lot of tundra to cross. Fifty feet, perhaps.

We crawl slowly, head to toe now, Aleksio in front. The massive mechanicals that supply heat to the space below are housed up ahead in silver casing. He reaches the plant first, sits up, and opens his pack. The camera is on the end of a small cable. He unspools it, fits it into the hold, and lowers it.

I come up next to him and watch the view on my phone. It’s a long process. Slow.

“Still, there’s one thing I’ve been wondering,” he says, unspooling it one centimeter at a time, lowering it down into the space. He twists to change the view.

I peer through the lens via my iPhone. “Keep going.”

He unspools it more. “Your endgame.” He continues to work calmly. “What’s your endgame with Tanechka?”

“It’s under control.”

“Is it?” He whispers. “Because I was sitting there thinking, what the fuck is Viktor’s plan? What the fuck happens when Tanechka remembers everything? When she realizes she’s a stone-cold killer instead of a nun. And oh, look, Viktor isn’t my heartbroken boyfriend after all, but rather the man who
fucking tried to kill me!”

I focus on my phone, speak under my breath. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Really? Because when she remembers, won’t she be pretty mad? A killer, mad at you? But then I realized, oh, that’s your plan.”

I turn to him. “That’s not my plan.”

“Maybe not your plan,” he clarifies. “More like your unconscious agenda. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, do you? Fucking unconscious agenda.”

“You Americans,” I spit. “You American and your psychological…cotton candy,” I say, unable to find a better word. “Just cotton candy.”

“No, I think I’m onto something. You told the nun she’s a killer. What the fuck is that?”

“I didn’t tell her.”

“Fine, she
put it together
.” He uses air quotes. “From something you said. Hmmmm.”

“It wasn’t intentional.”

“No? ’Cause here’s my question: What’s the one thing you aren’t telling her?”

I give him a look, there in the dark.

“The one thing you’re not telling her is that you fucking
threw her over that cliff.
” He whisper-shouts that last phrase. “Why not tell her that part?” He tucks a curl into his dark cap and continues to unspool the cable, expertly, quietly. “Tanechka the nun would forgive you for throwing her over the cliff, wouldn’t she?”

My head feels strange from his words.

“But you don’t want forgiveness. It’s the last thing you want. You need Tanechka to remember she is an assassin
before
she finds out you threw her off that cliff.” He turns to me. “That’s your fucking plan, isn’t it? You don’t want the nun to find out you killed her. You want the assassin to find out.”

“No.”

He unspools the line. “This is a fucking death wish is what this is.”

“If I wanted to die I’d be dead already,” I growl, pulling up the images on the app. All dark.

“Right. This suits you more. Way more twisted.”

I snort, concentrating on the feed from the camera now inside the warehouse. Nothing.

“Let me ask you a question—how would it feel if she plunged a blade into your gut?”

I still, stunned by the question.

“Come on, be honest.”

I imagine her coming after me with a blade. I imagine her sinking it under my ribs and…it feels right. Good.
Warm
, somehow. As though the world became cold when I killed her, and her blade in my belly would make it warm again. Right again.

I don’t know what to think—not about anything. So I focus on the picture. Shapes. The full room comes into view. “I’m seeing something.”

He doesn’t reply.

I look up to find him glaring.

“It’s bullshit,” he says. “Maybe I’ll fucking tell her.”

“Leave her alone.” I make an adjustment in the cable.

He clamps a hand over my arm. “You want Tanechka to be herself when she remembers what you did so she can hurt you. You want Tanechka to punish you.”

“Stop it,” I say.

“You want to be the one falling into that gorge. Or at the business end of her blade. You’ll provoke her until she’s back to Tanechka. Let me ask you, how is it she was wearing Tanechka’s clothes anyway? Seems odd she’d change, considering she insists she’s a nun. A bit odd, right?”

“I burned her nun outfit,” I say calmly. “I stripped her and burned her outfit.”

“That’ll get a nun out of a forgiving mood,” he says.

“She’s a
nun
with Jesus as her imaginary friend.” I shove the tools back in the pack. “A
nun
.”

“You deserve forgiveness.”

I sniff.

The silence between us stretches long and wide. I think again about her blade, sliding between my ribs, piercing my heart.

I think what it would feel like.

I think it would feel like freedom.

Tanechka

T
he strangest sense
of familiarity passes over me as I sneak along the rooftop, night wind in my hair. The men below are good; they know to look up. They had one man stationed on the roof, but he went down for a piss break. He should’ve pissed on the roof.

I race along and jump the short gap to the next roof, a deeply familiar move. I know not to look down. I know how to land, setting my weight forward. My plan is to run to the Orthodox church I found in the phone book in the kitchen. These guys are so careful about keeping me away from phones and the internet, they forgot about paper. A Russian Orthodox church not twenty blocks away, judging from the map at the back. Very large. The name is Sacred River—very similar to our Svyataya Reka, Holy River. There are nuns there. These are my people. I’ll tell them of the virgin brothel, and we’ll identify police with ties to the church, the community, those we could trust. We’ll get them involved in rescuing the girls. And I’ll contact the sisters.

And get away from Viktor.

He’s too much, too compelling to me, infusing the air with desire whenever he’s near. I need to get back to Ukraine, to put a world between us.

Most of all, though, I need to fall to my knees and throw myself on the mercy of God. I’ll beg to be shown the way back. I have so much to atone for. I took a life. I don’t know how to be in my skin.

I race across, leaping again, landing lightly, feeling strong and small. I pause and take in a breath, then I slip down the side of a peaked roof and grab onto a tree, clinging to the branch. I fumble for a foothold and quickly descend. I rustle the branches, but never mind; I’ll vanish before anybody can get to the window.

I hit the ground and take off, racing through the night streets toward the church.

I feel eyes all around. A person watching you is a feeling, always a feeling.

I turn a corner and walk; it’s time to blend. I hate that I know this. A nun wouldn’t know this. I tell myself things will be all right. When I used to worry about my violent past, Mother Olga would say that God loves all his children, especially the difficult cases, the lost causes.