Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (9 page)

I
don’t know
how long I’ve been sitting here in the dark. It could have been minutes… or hours. It feels like months. I have no idea what time it is or where my grisly prison is located. In my head, without any physical distractions to stimulate my thoughts, I start to go a little crazy. My theories range from the relatively benign to the outlandishly catastrophic.

Maybe this is all an elaborate prank! I’m just in the basement of some building on campus, not far from home. It’s just part of a hazing ritual performed by the members of the gymnastics program or something. Any minute now, one of my coaches will pop out and tell me it’s all over — I passed.

Or then again… I don’t know how much time passed while I was knocked out. I could be halfway across the continent, in some Bulgarian holding cell. Will talked about somebody buying Maggie. What if this really is a sex trafficking ring or something? I watched a documentary once, curled up in my blankets at home in Toast. It had seemed like something that couldn’t possibly happen in my world. It was a far-away thing that happened to far-away people, not me.

But maybe, just maybe, that nightmarish world is colliding with mine.

And I’m caught in the intersection of two very different dimensions: the safe, cocoon-like shelter of my past, and the shadowy film noir of my imminent future. And where am I now? In limbo? The static place in between?

At this point, the loneliness of my predicament is digging in at me, tugging at the strings of my already-strained sense of sanity. There’s not a single sound, hinting to me that I’m either so far underground that sound can’t travel down here or that my little prison is sound-proof. Either way, I’m dying for any hint of humanity out there, even if it’s sinister in nature. Although I hate him with every fiber of my being, I wish Will would return, if only to remind me that other human beings still exist out there somewhere. Because down here in the dark, it really feels like I could be all alone in the world and I would never know the difference.

A shiver runs down my spine and I pull my legs up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my calves and resting my chin on my knees. There are goosebumps prickling up and down my limbs. It’s so cold down here, especially now that I’m alone. I didn’t realize how comforting it was to have Maggie curled up with me until she was gone. Now I long for any kind of human contact to make me feel alive again. I’m so lonely and lost and afraid.

Almost like a cruel answer to my wish, the door creaks open again and Flameface — Boris — hobbles into the room, a shaft of dull light following to cast his shadow long and tall on the concrete floor. I can’t decide whether it would be better to run back and press myself against the opposing wall, as far away from him as possible, or to go to the gate in the dim hope of obtaining some human contact.

Instead, I simply stay put, curled up in my little ball.

“Feeling lonely,
malyshka
?” Boris sneers, his voice dripping with faux sympathy.

I don’t respond, not even moving. He strolls to the gate and pokes his fat fingers through the links again, staring down at me with a hungry gaze. At this point, I hardly care what he says or does to me. I feel so empty and exhausted. It doesn’t matter anymore.

“Oh, come. Don’t be impolite. I know you’ve got to be dying for a friend by now. Isn’t that right,
suka
?” he goes on, tapping his fingertips on the metal gate. I begrudgingly tilt my head ever so slightly upward to look at him and he grins.

“You know… I could be your friend,” he growls lecherously. “We still have time before the team arrives to stand guard here. I could make you feel things you’ve never even imagined. The man who buys you won’t know the difference if I punch the card first. And besides, if Will won’t use up his finder’s fee… I won’t let it go to waste. They don’t pay me enough. What’s a man to do? Got to get my fair
stoimost
somehow — whether in money or flesh.”

“Leave me alone,” I murmur weakly, but at this point I hardly care anymore. Some man is going to buy me and run me into the ground. I get it now. This is exactly like the documentary I watched. Only I’m no longer the detached spectator; I’m the victim.

Boris chuckles and starts to pick up the combination lock to undo it. “No? I like when they fight, anyway. Adds just the right amount of spice,
vy znayete
.”

“Please,” I mumble, trying to scoot back away. But my body is so tired from trembling and sitting still in the cold. It’s as though the despair my mind is feeling has transferred to my body and now it’s given up on me. Boris pops the combination lock open and reaches to pull the gate, but before he can finish, there is the sound of several sets of heavy footsteps approaching. He swears under his breath and quickly shuts and locks the gate again.

“Another time, then,” he hisses to me as he turns around to stand up straight and face the team of burly men walking in. They all wear identical grave, empty expressions and plain black clothing. There are four of them, all staring straight ahead. One of them steps forward and nods to Boris.

“Egor, Bogdan, go up to guard the entrance,” he barks in a heavy Russian accent. “Boris and Josef, you will stay in this room with me.
Nachalnik
has concerns over this one.”

It takes me a second to realize I’m the “one” he’s talking about.

“Special plans,
da
,” Boris agrees, and there’s a gruff indignation in his tone.

The speaker of the guard team nods and commands, “Assume positions.”

Two of the men, presumably Bogdan and Egor, walk out and march up the stairs. Boris and Josef station themselves directly in front of the gate to my enclosure and the guard leader stands by the door.

“
Svet
,” he says gruffly. Boris reaches up and pulls the light cord and the leader shuts the door, leaving the four of us in the dim cell.

“What’s going to happen to me?” I can’t help but ask.

Boris chuckles and the other two don’t respond in any way.

“Please, just tell me,” I beg, feeling the tears threatening to break free.

“
Tishina
,” the leader hisses.

“Good things come to those who wait,” laughs Boris darkly.

“What did I do wrong? Why is this happening to me? Where is Maggie?” I ask, all my questions bubbling forth in a fount of uncontrollable emotion. It’s hitting me just how desperate my situation is. This isn’t a hazing ritual. This isn’t a joke. These guys are serious, and I can’t take it quietly anymore. I’m unraveling.

“
Bud spokoyen
!” shouts the leader. “I have no patience for the buzzing of little flies in my ear. Now is not the time for questions.”

“Please, just let me go. I’m sorry,” I mumble, tears spilling down my cheeks.

“She is not very obedient,” remarks Josef.

“I offered to break her in,” Boris replies, shrugging.

“The
suka
could definitely use some discipline,” Josef continues, turning to glare at me over his broad shoulder. “Maybe a team effort would suffice.”

Boris straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest in a show of indignation. “
Chert
, Josef, I am not a team player. I prefer solo acts.”

“Everyone, shut up!” the leader growls, and the other two fall into sullen silence.

For a while, I sit there just quietly crying, and none of them even give me so much as a glance. I wonder how many times they’ve done this: imprisoned a girl and held her captive underground in this wretched cell. How many tears have stained this cold, filthy floor? And where are they now? What is the life expectancy of a girl in my predicament? Something tells me it’s not a very long sentence to carry out. And in a very dark, morbid way, I think that might be a godsend.

Distantly, we hear a soft thud and all three of my guards tense up. They exchange mildly concerned expressions. I strain my ears to listen for more signs of activity elsewhere, outside of this dank little box. I don’t know whether to anticipate something better or worse approaching, but either way, none of the guards seem particularly concerned.

But then suddenly the door bursts open with a loud bang — as though it were kicked down. I scream and bolt to the back of my enclosure, cowering against the back wall in terror. The guards all jump into action, running toward the door. At first, there’s so much harried movement and shouting in the low light that I can’t even begin to make heads or tails of what’s happening out there. Then I see him — a stranger.

No… not a stranger.

A face I vaguely recognize.

The man slashes through the doorway and thrusts a large knife into the guard leader’s throat, blood spurting in a grisly, almost surreal scarlet spray. I immediately feel lightheaded at the sight of so much blood, my mind swimming faintly. Boris and Josef go barreling at the attacker just as he turns to run toward the gate to my cell. He’s definitely here for me — but whether his intentions are noble or dark I cannot tell. Maybe he’s my savior. Or maybe he’s my murderer.

“You!” howls Josef as he lunges for the strange man. But in one swift movement, the guy takes out something small and glinting in the light: a gun. He jabs the barrel into Josef’s gut and pulls the trigger, a deafening crack splitting the air. Another spray of bright red blood splashed against the wall behind Josef and he sinks to the ground in a convulsing heap.

A panicked, horrified shriek escapes my lips and I have to hold back the urge to vomit. The strange man with the familiar face looks up and locks eyes with me.

I know him now.

It’s Maksim Pavlenko.

O
ld reserves
of adrenaline that have long lain dormant are pumping through my body as I watch the life eek out from the two men I’ve just dropped. My vision is focused on the men who could end my life just as quickly if I make a single wrong move.

The well-to-do visage of the apartment building outside had been a front. I had made my way inside, expecting to find armed men ready to take me on the moment I stepped through the doors, but there was no such welcoming party. In every way, the place had looked as honest as an actual apartment complex, and if I didn’t know better, that’s precisely what I might have assumed.

But the lack of security just told me they weren’t expecting me. So I made my way to the one place I know they wouldn’t care to tidy up for public appearances — the door to the old superintendent's residence. And that’s where I found the filth lying just below the surface. I had burst through the door, this time finding not an old and grouchy French super, but a room with a couple of Chechens smoking and watching television. Their hands went to their weapons the moment they’d seen me, and that was when I started to leave a trail of corpses.

I had been wrong. These weren’t the same men who I’d slain all those years ago in this very building. The Chechen mafia was a different breed altogether I realize as I now lay eyes on the burned man in the room, whose eyes are wide at the familiar sight of me.

My gaze falls momentarily on Olivia, and my heart skips a beat at the sight of her unharmed and alive. We exchange a look of recognition, and I can see every bit as much relief in her eyes as there is in mine, mingled with terror from the firefight around her.

The scarred Russian in the room draws his gun and points it at me just as I whip around to train mine on him. I know the man, and I know he’s smarter than the rest of him, and twice as vile.

“Max,” the man, Boris, coos tauntingly, grinning a toothy grin as we hold our weapons to each other, muscles tense. “Can’t you see you’ve come at a bad time? I was just trying to get to know this young lady a little better.”

“What have you done to her?” I growl back in the Russian he speaks, about ready to pull the trigger despite the danger looking me in the eye down the barrel of a gun.

He tsks, narrowing his eyes. “Suddenly so sensitive, Max. That’s not the man I remember barging into a penthouse and giving me this little makeover. It’s a lot harder to get some action like this, you know,” he adds with a grimace. Neither one of us is willing to move a muscle, and my heart is pounding — we won’t be alone forever, and one of us will be forced to act. “But don’t worry, I don’t let that stop me. Those French girls you think you rescued? I caught up with them, after you thought you’d killed me.” He licks his lips. “So many things they say about French women is true, you know,” he croaks.

Before I have the chance to respond, the door is kicked open behind me, and I take the briefest flash of a distraction to dive out of the way just before Boris’s gun fires, catching one of the two men bursting in in the leg as I hit the ground and roll.

Still on the ground as shouts in Russian and gunfire goes off all around me, I aim my pistol at the wounded man and put two bullets in his head, blood splattering on the man behind him as I roll out of the way and get to my feet.

I let the weapon fall out of my hand. It’s out of bullets.

Before Boris can ready his pistol at me again, I rise to my feet and dive for him, drawing a knife from my side as I hear Liv’s shriek of alarm from my right. My body collides with his full-force, but I’ve caught him off-guard, and the two of us fall to the ground, struggling to grapple with each other.

Boris is strong, but I am stronger. I may have been out of the killing business these past years, but I never let myself grow weak. And nothing lets a man like me forget his killer instinct. His hands struggle to get a firm hold on my wrist as my knife wrenches around him, trying to find a suitable opening to sink into. I feel him wrapping his arm around my neck as he works his way behind me, and instinctively, I raise my knife defensively and slice his forearm.

I hear a scream of pain from him, and as we thrash, I catch a glimpse of the other mobster in the room, training his gun on us, trying to get in a good shot at me. My heart jumps in fear, not for myself, but out of fear that he might think to turn the weapon on Liv.

I know they won’t do that without damn good reason. But I haven’t given them cause to think I value her, and while these monsters might not see her as a living, thinking human being, they do see her as a walking paycheck, and they aren’t willing to risk that without a damn good reason.

Boris’s grip slackens after I slice him, but I don’t let him get away from me. The moment I leave myself exposed is the moment I sign my own death warrant. Instead, I twist with him on the ground, and I feel the cold metal of his gun brush against my arm. It’s still in his hand.

In an instant, I move my knife around and draw it across his hand, making him recoil and drop the firearm. When it hits the ground, to my horror, a round discharges, sending a bullet ricocheting around the room, and I catch a glimpse of Liv ducking for cover out of the corner of my eye.

Wrenching my knee free, I kick the pistol across the room and push Boris off me, using the moment of distraction to charge at the mobster in the doorway. He starts to point his gun at me as I close the distance, but I’m too fast for him. My free hand closes around his wrist with a sickening crunch, and he screams as he drops the gun to the ground, but there’s no discharge this time.

Wasting no time, my knife hand plunges the blade into his throat in two quick stabs, one after the other. My hands are crimson with the blood flowing from his throat as he croaks his last, and I shove him back to choke on his own lifeblood in the stairway.

“Enough games, Max,” I hear a chilling growl in accented English come from behind me, and I turn to see Boris’s burned face pressed up against Liv’s, his own long, wicked knife pressed against her throat as he holds her still, her eyes wide with fear.

“Boris,” I say slowly, holding my knife at the ready, “what kind of new low is this? Settle your score with me and me alone.”

The scarred man tut-tuts mockingly, malevolent delight in his eyes as he toys with the blade at Liv’s neck, and I see her take in a sharp breath as he puts a hand around her arm, securing her. “Those are the words of a dead man, Maxie. You’ve gone soft,
izmennik
.” He practically spits the last word. “You’ve caused a bit of trouble here, but I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with. We’re going to rebuild an empire in this city out of the ashes you left behind, and I think you’ll make a fitting addition to the fertilizer. Unless you want a little American blood mingled with everything else on your hands,” he says, pressing his face even closer against Liv’s and letting his breath wash over her neck. “You’re going to turn slowly with me, and I’m going to take her somewhere she’ll be useful. You must have tracked her this far, so don’t pretend you don’t care about her.”

My jaw clenches briefly. Boris is indeed sharper than most of the men here. “Your boss will gut you like a fish if you lay a finger on her. And even if she were worthless, I won’t let you hurt my student.”

“Student!” Boris laughs. “My my, a teacher? You’ve taken quite a career shift, my old friend. But I can’t blame you,” he adds, his tone getting low and raspy, “if your students are as lovely as this one.”

My gaze is steely on him as Liv’s body almost visibly tenses, Boris’s grip tightening just a bit on her arm and sliding up and down it. He presses his hips forward, and Liv’s eyes widen at what she must be feeling from behind. My blood is boiling hot in my veins, and my muscles poise, ready to move at the slightest indication of weakness.

“This student must mean quite a lot to you for you to go through all this trouble,” he says. “I wonder what the two of you get up to after class?”

My nostrils flare, but I won’t dignify him with a response. At my silence, Boris tilts his head to Liv, directing his wretched, sensual mockery to her.

“Does he hold you like this at night,
dorogoy
? Maybe you even like the knife play, you little American slut. Does your teacher toy with you before he fucks you raw? Maybe if he makes it out of here alive, he’ll buy you for himself, and then you’ll be at his mercy all the time. You’ve seen what he can do to fully grown men. Just imagine what he would do to a tight little American cunt like yours…but I’m afraid I’ll have to break you in before that,” he says, and I see his hand start to slide around her arm down to her stomach, and I hear a sharp whimper from Liv as his fingers move down to reach into the front of her skirt.

There’s a shriek from her a moment later as I fling my knife forward, sending it flying directly at the pair with deadly precision, and I watch Boris’s attention snap back up to me for half an instant before my knife strikes true, sinking deep into his eye socket. Right to the hilt.

His muscles tighten for just a moment, Liv paralyzed with fear as she looks at me, and finally, Boris slumps to the ground on his back, a trail of blood and fluid streaming from where the blade had sank into his head.

The next instant, I run forward to catch Liv as she nearly crumples to the ground, sobbing, her whole body shaking in fear as I bring her into a tight hug.

“It’s over,” I whisper as calmly as I can bring my husky voice to pronounce clearly, “Olivia, he’s dead. You’re with me now.”

“Oh my god,” she breathes, “oh my god, they…” her eyes are fixed on the dead bodies in the room, and I realize grimly that she’s never before been exposed to such violence.

“Liv, look at me,” I say urgently, bringing her attention back to my eyes, trying to keep her from going into shock from everything she’s seen. “Liv, are you hurt?”

“N-no,” she manages, swallowing hard. “No, I’m okay. What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

The question is strange to me at first, but I remember that while she and Maggie have consumed my thoughts for the past few hours, I’ve surely been the farthest thing from her mind for all this time. “I’ll explain later. We need to get out of here, now. Where is Maggie, is she still in the building?”

Liv thinks for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts amidst the storm of emotions she must be feeling, and she finally shakes her head. “I don’t think so, no. Will, the man who led me here, he...he took her away.” She clenches her eyes for just a moment, and I can tell how painful it must be to talk about this. “He said something about her already having a ‘buyer.’ M-Monsieur Pavlenko, is this…?”

I give her a look that gravely confirms her fears, but before I can speak to her again, the sounds of footsteps above us tells me we need to move quickly. “More coming,” I say, taking out one of the spare pistols at my side and holding it up. I gently touch Liv’s face, covering her eyes for a second as I aim the pistol at Boris’ corpse. This time, I’m not taking a chance with him, and I put a bullet into his brain, the carnage gruesome at the close range.

“Let’s move,
now
,” I say, and without another moment’s hesitation, I take Liv by the hand and head up the stairs, pistol at the ready. Once we’re up in the main room, I rush her to one of the windows, sliding it up, my instincts kicking in to get us out of here as quickly as possible.

I can hear the Chechen backup approaching the doorway, and I glance at it briefly, considering how easy it would be to end all of their lives...but I cannot risk Liv’s life again, not when we’re so close to escape.

Before I can move to help her out, Liv vaults out the window into the alley behind the building. I smile, remembering that she is indeed a gymnast, after all. Just as I hear shouts from behind me, I vault out myself, and the two of us sprint down the alleyway as I stow my weapon.

“How far will they chase us?” Liv gasps as she keeps up with me while we turn another corner and I guide her through a narrow space between buildings, a few rats scurrying out of our path as we take routes I haven’t had to use in years.

“Just stay close to me,” I say sharply to her as I start to take her around the twisting alleyways near the building I’m all too familiar with, “and whatever you do, don’t look back.”