Body Checked (Center Ice Book 1) (22 page)

“Jael,” Monique says, warning in her tone. 

I toss her my cell phone. “Keep Frederica posted.” I tighten my scarf and tuck the ends of it down my dress so they can’t snag on anything. “And watch my back.” 

I just
had
to wear heeled boots today, didn’t I? Even though they’re low heels, I have to walk extra-cautiously across the gravel and shattered asphalt to approach the nearest warehouse. Its orange-brown brick façade is smeared with rust stains and grime. I reach out for the first window unit and come away with a glob of oil on my hands. 

Here goes nothing— 

Miraculously, as I swing myself onto the top of the unit, it supports my weight. I stretch for the next one above me, and while it creaks ominously, I’m able to swing my weight enough to scramble up to the second level. The third isn’t directly above me—it’s a little to my right. I’ll have to jump.  

I crouch and prepare to fling myself toward the next window unit. The one I’m currently standing on groans beneath me. Shit. Three, two, one— 

I go flying through the air and snag hold of the third unit, and a split second later, the one I’d been standing on moments before crashes to the ground. 

“
Chto sluchilos’?
”
What happened?
someone asks in Russian. One of Vladimir’s guards—of freaking course.  

I scamper to the top of the final unit and grasp hold of the edge of the roof. For the first time in possibly ever, I’m grateful my kickboxing instructor forced me to master the art of the unassisted pull-up. I yank myself up and over the lip of the roof and roll onto the sticky tar surface, cluttered with shards of glass and cigarette butts. 

Below, I hear footsteps approaching the side of the warehouse I just scrambled up. I stretch out on my stomach and peer over the edge of the roof. Two men, wearing the usual black uniform of Vladimir’s goons, converge on the fallen window unit. As they glance back up, I jerk back from view. 

“The unit fell,” one of them says, with that distinctive Russian edge to his voice—that shoulder-shrugging tone of
What can you do?
 

“It fell, or someone knocked it down?” the second asks. 

“I don’t see anyone.” 

The second man snorts. “Of course you don’t. Come on, let’s check the perimeter.” 

I back away from the edge and stand up. I’m far enough toward the center of the roof that they can’t see me, and I can’t see them, but I can see our abandoned white van. Monique and the security guard, however, are nowhere in sight. Oh, god, please don’t let these goons find them. This is my fight, not theirs. 

“Was that car there earlier?” the second man asks, his voice much deeper. He carries the twinge of Russian paranoia I know too well. Exactly the sort of tenacious personality I don’t want hunting for me. 

“I don’t know. Probably not.” 

“Engine’s still hot.” They approach the van, coming back into view, and the second man puts his hand on the hood of the van. “We should tell the boss.” 

The first man shifts his weight. “I, uh . . . think we better find the van’s driver first.” 

An uneasy silence works between them. “Good point.” 

I let out my breath carefully. Poor guys are just as afraid of Vladimir as I am. I can’t blame them. Who knows what bits of blackmail or other forms of coercion Vladimir holds on these poor saps? 

Not that it’ll matter if they find Monique and the security guard. I cross my fingers as I move along the rooftop. Please, please let them be safe. 

I reach the far end of the taller warehouse, and look down on the one where the phony paramedics took Sergei. It’s a curved hangar made of corrugated metal; the roof has rusted through in patches, offering me a glimpse inside. But if I can see inside, whoever’s in there can see out. I slide over the edge of the roof and lower myself onto one of the reinforced patches of the curved hangar roof, working as slowly as I can, and grab hold of the edge of a tear in the metal to support myself. 

“. . . Come on, wake up, little brother. I want you to understand why you are suffering so.” 

I suppress a cry. I’d know that awful, serpentine voice anywhere. Vladimir Drakonov. My biceps cry out for mercy, but I pull myself up again, slowly, agonizingly, until I can peer through the tear in the roof to see the scene below me. 

There’s a metal catwalk blocking part of my view, but there’s no mistaking what’s transpiring below. They’ve pulled Sergei from the stretcher and bound him to an old mattress springboard that’s precariously positioned upright. Vladimir sits, backward, in a chair before him, sipping a glass of bourbon as he looks over his brother. I don’t need to see his face to know the smug grin I’d love to burn off of it once and for all. 

Sergei’s eyelids flutter. He’s been stripped of his uniform, down to the longjohns he wears beneath his leg pads and shorts. For all the carefully sculpted muscle on display, he looks so small, bound up as he is. Vulnerable. It twists right into my gut. A knot swells on one side of his forehead, cracked and bleeding, from where he slammed into the boards without his helmet on. 

I have to get him out of here. Stop Vladimir—somehow. But I count no fewer than four of Vladimir’s goons, including Borya, that fucking bastard, wielding his trusty wrench. I wouldn’t stand a chance. 

Borya props the wrench under Sergei’s chin and lifts his face up. “Wake up, little boy,” Borya coos. “Time to answer to the boss.” 

Sergei jerks his head away from Borya, upper lip curling back. “Don’t touch me.” 

“Oh, my dear brother, it’s much too late for you be setting any terms.” Vladimir gestures to the man beside Borya, who sits next to a box. With creeping dread, I realize it’s a car battery, and a nest of wires coil out of the battery and connect to the mattress frame where Sergei is tethered. “Give him one.” 

Sergei howls, body going rigid, head tossing back as a jolt of electricity rips through him. I twist my head away, but I can’t escape the smell of singed hair as it wafts my way. The crackle of electricity stops, but Sergei’s agonized cries remain a few seconds longer. 

“Did you alert the FBI to my plans?” Vladimir asks. “Or was it your little whore?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” Sergei sets his jaw and glowers back at Vladimir defiantly. “It makes no difference anymore. You’ll kill me anyway.” 

“But how much it pains you . . . that is up to you.” 

I finish dragging my body up to the hole in the roof. I can drop down to the catwalk, but it’s going to hurt—I’ll have to move slowly, so slowly, shifting my weight from my hands to the metal gradually enough that it doesn’t make a sound. I don’t know if my arms can hold long enough. Already they’re burning from the climbing I’ve done thus far today. 

But I have to try. I have to help Sergei. 

I roll my legs toward the opening and ease them through. Let their weight carry my body down. Grip tight to the edge of the hole. My biceps are on fire, but slowly, slowly I shift my weight to the catwalk beneath me, and let go. No noise yet, but I can feel the catwalk starting to sway. I lower myself toward the ground, in a crouch, then belly-crawl toward the catwalk’s edge. 

I brush up against something cold and damp perched on the edge of the catwalk—a rusted metal bucket, positioned to catch the rainwater from the tear in the roof. Shit. I have to curve my body around it to get into position. But I’m set. I’m only about fifteen feet above Vladimir from here. Vladimir and his four guards, all of them armed, all of them extremely dangerous . . . 

Then I hear two muffled thumps from outside. My heart leaps into my throat. Please don’t let that be the sounds of the guards outside finding Monique and the security guard. Please, please, let them be all right. 

Vladimir freezes and glances toward the exit, waiting for further sound. “Time is short, little brother. Tell me what the FBI knows. We can end this quickly, or agonizingly slow.” 

“I have nothing left to give you,” Sergei says. 

With a gesture from Vladimir, the man connects the battery to the metal frame once more. 

I cringe and look away as Sergei screams again. That horrible sound works its way into my soul and washes everything in red. I have to stop him. But how? I can drop down onto Vladimir from above, but that won’t stop his goons from filling me with bullets, or worse. Maybe if I drop behind Vladimir, and use him as a human shield . . . 

Then the helicopter roars overhead. 

“Attention!” booms the megaphoned voice of Chief Roger Ha. “This is the FBI! We have the building surrounded. Surrender your weapons and come out with your hands in the air.” 

I could cry, I’m so relieved. Frederica did it. She actually came through for me. The crackle of electricity and Sergei’s cries stop as the thug shuts off the car battery again. 

But Vladimir is unswayed. He curls his lip back and glances overhead, toward the helicopter—I have to move quick to get my face out of line of sight. “Well, this is unfortunate,” he says, his usual condescending tone unchanged. “But I’m afraid it’s too late for you, brother.” 

I look back just in time to see him raise his gun, pointing right for Sergei’s head. 

“No!” I scream.  

Without thinking, I fling myself over the edge of the catwalk, my foot catching on the edge of the bucket. For a moment that seems to last forever, It’s just me and that bucket, freefalling for eternity. Then everything happens at once. 

I crash down on top of Vladimir as his gun discharges. Pain rips through my right shoulder as the bullet tears straight into my flesh. The bucket lands on top of us, dumping filthy, grimy water all over both Vladimir and myself. 

He struggles to get to his feet, but I’m on top of him; I have the advantage. Adrenaline is overriding the blinding, sharp pain radiating on my right side. On my left, I kick at his gun hand, again and again, until he drops the gun, and I kick it away. 

Dimly, I’m aware of the sounds of a commotion around us. Of figures swarming into the room. But for now, nothing exists but me and Vladimir, this twisted monster, this man who’s reaching for my throat. 

I grab the bucket and smash it right down on his face. 

He goes limp beneath me. I scramble to my feet and whirl toward the bed frame, where someone loaded in tactical gear is ripping Sergei out of his bindings. Frederica. “Thank you,” I gush. “Thank you so much for listening to me—” 

“Jael, look out!” Sergei cries, as he stumbles out of the bindings and to his feet. 

Vladimir’s standing up again, behind us. Reaching for his gun. 

I snag hold of Sergei’s arm with my good hand and yank him out of the way. My left leg shoots out—crashes into the bottom of the mattress frame. I swirl out of the way, and the frame topples onto Vladimir, pinning him in place. 

“I’ll fucking destroy you,” Vladimir snarls, as he wrestles with the frame. “I’ll kill you and your entire family—” 

He’s almost got the frame lifted up, but I’m not taking any chances. 

I flip the switch on the car battery. 

Vladimir howls, writhing as the voltage pours through him without mercy. He’s drenched in the same filthy rainwater as me. That can’t help matters for him. Frederica and Sergei both turn toward me, jaws dangling, but I clench my teeth and wait for his twitches and screams to stop. 

Vladimir falls lifeless beneath the mattress frame as the awful stink of roasting meat fills the air. 

“That is not . . .” Sergei glances toward Frederica as he speaks in weary English. “Is self-defense? Yes?” 

Frederica’s face does something weird—it takes me a minute to recognize it as a smile. I didn’t even know she
could
smile. “Sure looked like it to me,” she says. 

We spend the next few hours huddled in the back of an ambulance—a real one—while the FBI combs over the scene, interviews the witnesses, and records our testimonies. The paramedics check out Sergei and determine he suffered a concussion from Karparov’s attack on him at the hockey game, and some electrical burns where his skin was in contact with the metal bedframe. “We’ll need to take you in for observation for both conditions,” the paramedic determines. “Watch for any lingering effects of the concussion, or any fluid collection or compartmentation syndrome following your burn injuries.” 

My wounds are a bit more severe. Vladimir’s bullet tore through the ligament that attaches my bicep to the bone, and the doctor warns me that any shoulder-upper arm injuries may take months to fully heal. Surgery to reattach, bed rest, physical therapy, the works. In short, I won’t be practicing my punches or lifting weights with my right hand anytime soon. 

As if they could stop from working out with the rest of my body. 

As soon as we’re stabilized, the ambulance pulls off for the hospital, Monique riding in the back with me. Sergei’s barely conscious on the bed beside me, and I’m doped up on painkillers, but as our arms both dangle over the edges of our respective cots, I could swear his fingers tangle in mine.