Dirty Chase: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Brooklyn Brotherhood Book 2) (24 page)

I
watch
as Elle's shadowy figure moves away from the window—reluctantly. One of the hired guns drags her. I follow their movements, moving my binoculars until they disappear into the depths of the room.

If he’s left so much as one faint bruise on her, he’s a dead man.

Who am I kidding? They’re
all
dead men.

I check the guns in my holsters, the semi-automatic on my back. I’m wearing more firepower than some small-town police forces back home even own. I just hope it will be enough.

I crawl backward along the roof of the building facing the mysterious Mr. Dumont’s home, then down the ancient fire escape into an alley. There’s a crackle in my ear, and then Helene’s voice on the other end of the headset.

“Chase, you fool. I told you to wait.”

“She’s alone in there with at least ten men. The kid’s out of the building. Why wait?"

“Oh, I don’t know, because you're not
insane
?” Helene hisses. “And you've counted at least ten men? You have no idea of their firepower, if the rooms are booby-trapped—“

I sigh and close my eyes. “It doesn’t matter, Helene. If I don’t walk in there by midnight, she’s dead.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. I know what Helene is thinking:
she’s dead anyway
.

I won’t let that happen.

I check my watch. Ten minutes till midnight. “We’ve waited long enough, Helene. Where the fuck is your backup?”

“Patience,” she counsels. “There were police roadblocks because of the holiday. I can’t exactly have an armored truck full of ammo drive through them. They had to take an alternate route.”

I have a bad feeling in my gut. A bad fucking feeling. I’ve walked into plenty of traps in my day, deals gone bad, double-crossing fucks who’ll sell your life for a pack of cigarettes.

But I’ve never walked into any situation where I cared more about someone else’s life than my own.

Make that
two
other lives.

“That’s it,” I say. “I’m going in.”

“Chase, wait! They will be there in ten minutes.”

“Great, send them right the fuck in. I’ll meet them there.”

“Chase, you idiot, don’t—”

I hang up on her and consider backing around the house, scaling the roof, sneaking in a top-floor window…it would give me the element of surprise. I’d have enough time and ammo to take out five guys. Maybe more.

But in the end, I'd be outnumbered, outgunned, and running out of time.

Or, maybe that’s what he expects. And I always like to do the unexpected.

Fuck it. I’m gonna go up and knock on the goddamn front door.

* * *

I
don’t get quite
that far. As I cross the street, hands up, three men surround me, guns drawn.

As expected, they immediately disarm me. But they’re cocky. First mistake. They think once they take my guns, I'm harmless. I might be walking into my death, but I'm not completely unarmed.

I know fifteen ways to kill a man with my bare hands. I know my skill set.

And I know there’s no way whoever’s in charge went through all this trouble just to gun me down. Not before he talks to me. This is fucking personal, even if I have no clue what the hell’s going on.

So I probably have enough time to stall, to let Helene’s team arrive. To save Elle.

But if I don’t walk into that house in the next five minutes, according to the texts I’ve received, she’s dead.

And the baby
.

Fuck, I’m distracted. I need to forget about everything else
except my target
if any of us are going to survive. But as soon as the goons hustle me through the front door—big, tall ceilings, the whole place screams old money—and into a back parlor, I feel myself starting to come apart.

Because there she is, sitting in a blood-red chair. And any thoughts I’ve had—any plans, any cold analytical skills—are gone. She’s pale, wide-eyed, her long blond hair loose…except where it's bunched into a tight knot.

Held at the base of her skull by an old man I’ve never seen before in my life.

When she sees me, Elle visibly jerks. Like she can't stop her body from trying to reach me. The man who's holding her is ready though. He grips her hair, keeping her still, pulling her back until the tendons in her neck show from the strain.

There are three armed men behind me. Two to my right. And then Xavier, the big bald fucker, comes in from the left. Probably eight or eighteen more upstairs; it doesn't matter.

I've got to deal with the man in charge.

"Well, merry Christmas, y'all," I drawl. "Now, I know Elle. And I know Xavier—special forces, amirite buddy?" He looks shocked, then narrows his eyes. I smile and wink. Elle's looking at me like I'm a crazy man, which I am.

But not as crazed as the fucker holding her hostage.

"But you—you sir—I haven't had the pleasure. Were you gonna introduce yourself, or just try to kill me?"

The older man grins. He's half a foot shorter than me and a couple decades older, but fit. He's rich. You can tell not only from the hundreds of thousands he's obviously spent to hire and outfit his guards—but it's his skin. He's got that well-cared-for, spent-time-in-a-fucking-spa skin. Oiled to perfection all over his balding head.

I smile, imagining peeling it from his fucking skull.

"Please, Mr. Masters. Sit. I'd love to get acquainted, before I kill you. And your unborn child."

The smile drops from my face for one second, and he sees it fall. He sees it, and he fucking loves it.

"I'll stand," I say.

"Suit yourself," the mystery man says. He removes his fist from Elle's hair, but he keeps stroking the long, blond strands. She struggles not to jerk away from her touch. Her eyes meet mine, soften, fill with tears.

Fuck. I can't pay attention to her. Not right now. Not if we're gonna live.

I look back at the psychopath stroking her silvery hair. There's a Christmas tree in the background, candles everywhere. It's like the fucking Twilight Zone here.

"My name is Sergey Vasiliev." He pauses, like I should recognize his fucking name.

"I'd say 'nice to meet you,' except I can already tell you're a real fucking prick. So what the fuck do you want, Sergey Vasiliev?"

His brown eyes narrow, harden. And for one second, I freeze—those eyes.

That name.

I cock my head. And he smiles. Triumphant.

Because I look shocked. He wanted that reaction. And he got it.

"
Da
. Sergey Vasiliev. Do you know my last name means 'small'? It comes from
pavel
, which is small in Latin. Not the most
inspiring
of names."

"Have we met before?" I'm ready for him to cut the bullshit, though the more he talks, the more time I have for Helene's team to arrive.

I wish I could surreptitiously click my Bluetooth back on, but I'm pretty sure any movement on my end will get me shot, or the speaker taken out of my ear. And I need to be able to talk to Helene.

Come on, dammit
, I mentally urge her men.
Get the fuck over here
.

"
We
have not." Sergey twists Elle's hair back into one long, glowing rope. He twists and twists it until she winces, and he's fashioned a golden leash from her own fucking hair, the end of which he holds tight.

"But you met my son. He was named Sergey also, after me. My only son."

I freeze. I know that name. It's on the edge of my memory, like a bad dream…

"You killed him."

And it hits me. Twelve years ago. The alley. The initiation.

"He tried to kill me," I say slowly. "I do remember him. I've never forgotten him."

Sergey Senior nods, but doesn't look up. He's playing with a knife, its handle ornately carved—it hits me—like the one we retrieved from the assassin in Brooklyn.

"What's with the knife, Sergey?"

He smiles to himself, still not looking up. And then he finally meets my eyes, and begins to slowly saw straight through Elle's hair. Right near her scalp. If the knife slips, she'll bleed.

My fists clench, and I fight the urge to attack him.

Elle's eyes widen. "Chase," she whispers, but she holds fiercely still, even as Sergey's rough slices tug her head back and forth with each sawing motion.

"This knife? When I heard my son—my only son—had been murdered, I asked for details. They tell me, he was killed with his own knife." He pauses and looks me in the eyes. "This very knife I am holding. I sent it with him, to the New World. You see, where we came from, we were like our family name—
small
."

He watches me, but keeps slowly sawing through Elle's thick hair. As it cuts, short filaments float back to her pale face. He still has a firm enough hold on her, however, that her head is tilted back.

Exposing her pale neck.

So delicate. So tender.

I blink, and can imagine blood pouring from her throat, from a cut in the shape of a smile. He could do that, quickly, right now—and I couldn't stop him. I'd be shot dead before I could save her life.

Sergey watches me watching Elle, and he smiles. A madman's smile. "I used all my savings to send him to America. To New York. Where he could learn, join a syndicate, become someone. Become a man. And what happens? You murder him in an alleyway."

I hold up my hands. "I did not want to kill your son. In fact, I left him.
Alive
. He attacked me when I turned my back. He gutted me. And I only killed him out of self-defense."

With one final surge, Sergey cuts through the last of Elle's hair. Her head whips forward from the release, and her newly shorn hair floats around her, just to her chin. She raises tear-streaked cheeks to me.

Sergey lets her long, cut hair flutter to the floor. Then he turns, pointing the knife at me.

"Perhaps my son was weak. Perhaps he deserved to die." The old man spits on the floor. "Pathetic, dying in an alleyway at the hands of a fucking American. Not even a Russian! But you—you deserve nothing. You win a place in one of the most powerful Russian mafia families in the world, and you
refuse
it. You are disloyal. A coward. And even if my son were a pitiful piece of shit on my shoe, I would still kill you as retribution. Because I am loyal. And I am no coward."

He pauses, then nods to one of the men. The guard rushes forward and grabs Elle, wrapping his forearm around her throat and dragging her from the chair.

My entire body jerks forward. Five guns point at me, instantaneously.

Sergey laughs, a low, dark sound. "In some way, Chase Masters, I should thank you. If my son had not died by your hand, I might still be a
small
man in a small town in Russia. Perhaps, I would be poor but happy. Perhaps I would have many grandchildren. Instead, you killed my line, but you gave me ambition. It took many years, but I joined the
mafiya
. I rose in the ranks. I worked with governments, killers like yourself. I grew wealthy. I grew
big
. Now I have everything I could ever want in the world, except one thing: revenge. You proved remarkably difficult to kill, Chase Masters. Never staying in one place. Never stopping long enough to care for anything, or any person."

He smiles back at Elle. "Until her. And now, I will have everything I've ever wanted in the world. Because I'm going to kill you, and the one thing you love. Just like you killed the one thing I love. It's a Christmas miracle, don't you think?"

He claps his hands and two guards approach me, one on each side. They grab my arms and force me to my knees.

I struggle, but can't break free. Elle whimpers in the guard's chokehold.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, Helene where are you
?

Sergey walks forward, bends over and winks at me.

"Should my men play with her first? Does she taste as sweet as she looks?"

I growl and lunge at him, but he just laughs, walking backward until he's next to Elle.

I drop my head, on my knees, the closest I've come to praying in maybe my entire life.
Please, please, please
, is all I can think.

And then I raise my head, look him straight in his fucked-up eyes, and say, "There's one thing wrong with your plan, asshole. I barely know this woman. So go ahead and kill her. And then we'll see if you're lucky enough to kill me."

I
'm
close enough to Sergey to hear him hiss with displeasure when Chase tells him to kill me.

And I'm close enough to losing my mind that I honestly can't tell if Chase is serious or not—does he not care? But he must. He must. The way his eyes have followed me since he arrived.

The thug holding me tightens his grip and I whimper, grasping onto his massive forearm and trying to breathe. He jerks me up higher, so that only my tiptoes are touching the floor.

"Have it your way," Sergey barks. "Men, I promised you could fuck her before we killed her. Have at it. Since he doesn't care one way or another, I'm sure he won't mind watching."

I bite my lip to keep from screaming and watch Chase. Two men are holding him down, but his head is upright, his cold blue eyes narrowed as he watches Sergey, me—and the knife in Sergey's hands.

And then the man choking me drags me backward—and there's a crashing noise, like all the front windows have broken—and men begin shouting. And the entire world explodes.

Literally.

I scream. The room is full of smoke and impossibly loud noises, and now gunfire. Have we been bombed? The arm holding me suddenly drops away, following by the entire body falling onto the floor. I scream and fall to my knees, then realize I'm kneeling next to a dead man.

I scream again, before clapping my hands over my mouth.

I can't see—the entire room is a cloud of smoke and gunfire. My ears are ringing from the bombs—were they smoke bombs? Real bombs? Something's on fire, and then the lights go out. Everything is happening at once and I look for Chase but everything's lost in a gray haze. I can't breathe. And all around me, men are trying to kill one another.

"Chase!" I cry. I know I'm shouting as loud as I can, but with the ringing in my ears, I can barely hear myself. And if he answered, I have no way to hear him, either.

I put my head down. I want to cry. I want to curl up in a ball. If I move, I could be shot. But if I don't move—I could be shot.

I think of the small little spark of life inside me. I think of Chase.

Kat. All my students.

Chase, Chase, Chase.

I want to live.

I don't have a gun, I don't know how to fight, but I know this house. I can't make it to the front door. There are men streaming in now, and with the smoke and the darkness, I can't tell who's a friend and who's a foe. And behind me, the route to the garage and the back alley is full of gunfire.

But the stairs—to the roof. No one's there. These old houses are all close to one another. If I make it up to the roof, I could jump to the next house. And the next. To freedom.

"Chase," I shout one more time. But he's lost in the madness of the smoke and darkness and violence.

I can't save him. I pray he can save himself. But I can try to save his child.

I keep my head down and run toward the stairs. Breathing hard, I race up and up and up. I can't believe no one's following me. Up past my bedroom floor, up past the floor with the library and the pool table, up past the private floor Mr. Dumont—I mean psycho-killer Sergey—lived on.

I make it to the top floor and up the spiraling staircase toward the roof. I stumble on the stairs and go down, hard, biting back a curse as my shin slams into the wood. So this is why women always fall in horror movies. Pure, unadulterated fear.

I push myself up and keep running.

The stairway ends at a door, which opens out onto the beautifully decorated rooftop. There's a hot tub, a grill, a lounge area; it was designed for the wealthy owners to have a modicum of privacy while they partied and enjoyed a view of all of Paris, spread out below them. There are even old-fashioned Christmas lights—the kind with thick wire and bulbs as big as eggs—twined up and around the planters, making the whole roof glow peacefully. All around the perimeter, a four-foot wall prevents any rooftop revelers from falling to their deaths.

It's decorated with Christmas lights, too.

For a moment, I just waver here, up on top of the world. My legs and my brain suddenly aren't working. I reach up, because there's something strange brushing against my face, and then I realize: It's my short, shorn hair.

Oh, Jesus.

I need to keep moving.

I need to get out of here, call for help. Find Chase.

Please be alive, Chase. Please be alive
.

I race to the edge of the roof. The next building is further away than I imagined—a good five feet? Seven?

Can I make it? I can't even get a running jump, because of the wall. I could hide up here, maybe wait out the gunfire…but what if the bad guys are winning?

Bad guys. I used to think Chase was a bad guy.

I've been so wrong. About so much.

I climb up on the wall's flat edge, moaning despite myself. The wind feels stronger up here, and for one second I lose my balance, my arms flailing wildly. Four stories high; it doesn't seem like much, until you're standing on top of it. It's a long way down. On the street in front of the house is a large, black van. Like, an armored
tank
. Men are streaming toward it, and I pause, wondering wildly if I can see Chase.

And then I do.

Oh, thank Christ—I do! I'd know that swagger, that stance, anywhere. He's moving slowly. Is he hurt? He's talking to the men in the truck.

"Chase!" I shout, waving my hands. "Chase!" I scream.

And he hears. He looks up. He points and shouts—

And someone grabs my waist, presses a blade to my neck, and pulls me back from the ledge.

"No," I scream. I'm wild, a trapped animal. In shock and beyond thought. I kick my legs and flail my arms and scream
No
over and over again.

And then the man holding me turns me around and slaps me in the face. Hard. Stars cloud my vision, but when they finally clear I see that it's Xavier holding me, a knife to my throat. And Sergey is standing behind him.

"Let me just kill her now," Xavier wheezes. He's been shot, I realize with a start. The shoulder of his suit jacket is wet with blood.

Sergey shakes his head. "Not until he comes up here. I want to watch
him
watch her die."

Xavier turns and shouts at his boss. "We're surrounded, you fool. Quit your playacting and just let me toss her over the ledge. Or we're
dead
."

Sergey considers it. "That's a good point, Xavier. Quick thinking." Then, before I can breathe, the older man pulls a pistol from his side and shoots Xavier right between the eyes.

I scream as the body drops beside me.

Sergey walks over and examines the dead man, nudging him lightly with his foot. "Too bad I don't pay you to think."

Then he looks at me. His perfect suit is covered in blood, but I can't tell if it's his or someone else's. His glasses are bent, and one of the lenses is delicately cracked, like a barely cracked egg.

His eyes are dark with madness.

"But perhaps Xavier was right. Enough with the knives and the fucking stories. Any last words?" He raises the pistol and points it at my heart.

And that's when I see movement behind him.
It's Chase
. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, open them, and force myself to watch Sergey. And only Sergey. Not the man stalking him.

"Last words?" I whisper. "Yeah.
Fuck. You
."

Sergey's eyes widen for a moment, and then he smiles, so cold and cruel and smooth, then I start to shake.

"If only we had time, darling." Then he takes a step closer and—

Chase moves, so fast he's a blur of anger and strength, tackling Sergey and pushing him away from me. The gun goes off but misses me, but I still jump at the sound.

Chase is on top of Sergey, and for a moment it looks like they're frozen together. Then I realize they're fighting over the gun. Which is lodged between them. The two men twist and whirl, a deadly, unwieldy dance. Chase is dressed all in black, he's larger than life, and he's easily overpowering Sergey.

Then Chase's eyes find me, even in the midst of fighting for his life.

"Get out of here, Elle," he shouts.

His eyes are still on me as the back of his legs hit the roof's wall. He stumbles, not expecting the barrier. He begins to fall, taking Sergey down with him. It happens so quickly. Chase's hands are still wrapped around the gun, fighting to steal it from Sergey. But when he falls backward, it gives the Russian one second of control—enough time for the Sergey to pull the trigger.

And then the gun goes off. Directly into Chase's torso. Then again. And again. His powerful, massive body jerks with each shot.

And blood is pouring from the wound in his neck.

"Chase!" I scream.

Sergey's head drops to his chest, as if he can't believe it—he can't believe he finally got his revenge.

But Chase is still alive. He's slumped on the ground, his torso propped up against the wall. He looks over at me, but he's unable to stand. Unable to speak.

So much blood.

And then Sergey slowly staggers to his feet.

I drop to my knees.
The knife. The knife
. I scramble over to Xavier's slumped form, trying not to look at his face. God, his eyes are still open. And the knife—it's under him. I can see the blade. I lift Xavier's arm and pull the damn weapon out, grasping it by the carved hilt.

It's old and unwieldy, and I don't think I can use it. Can I really push a piece of metal…into someone's flesh?

Sergey staggers to his feet, still holding the gun. And then he stands, his back to me, directly over Chase's body, and aims the gun straight down at Chase's head, and—

I attack.

I don't scream. I don't say a word. I just run at his back, arm raised, and when I reach him I slam the knife down as hard as I can. Into his back, directly below his right shoulder.

It barely goes in
.

Sergey turns around, slowly. He's been hit somewhere. He's injured. But not because of me. I watch in horror as he grins, then pulls open his jacket. I can see something dark underneath his white dress shirt.

"Bulletproof vest, darling. Apparently it works for knives, too."

I can't say a word. I can barely breathe.

"Well, this didn't go as planned, my sweet. I had hoped to slowly carve you open while your lover watched." He looks back at Chase, then shrugs. "But what can you do? Best-laid plans and whatnot." He raises the gun, points it at my skull, and pulls the trigger.