The Cleaner (Born Bratva Book 4) (25 page)

Nikita

We get Jasmine settled in a hotel that’s run by a man on our payroll. She has strict instructions to stay put until I get in touch with her. Here’s hoping she knows how to obey orders.

“Real nice, Natasha,” I say as we pull away from the curb and head for home. Time to give my father another update. But first, I need to deal with the mind fuck Natasha just laid on our ‘guest’.

“What did I do?” she asks innocently.

“Telling her to ‘sit tight until we decide what to do with you’? Seriously?!”

“Well, I was afraid you were gonna go in for a group hug and a chorus of ‘Kumbaya’, with the way you were fussing over her and reassuring her. You heard your father, she’s our responsibility now, and you also heard your father give me carte blanche over her…welfare. Whether or not I put a bullet between her eyes is up to me now.”

“So I had to have a guard posted at her door like she’s a fucking prisoner because you undid every bit of progress I’d made with her and got her all paranoid again. Not. Helpful. At. All.”

I gun the engine, blowing by slower vehicles as I weave in and out of traffic. I’m blowing off steam, yes, but I’m also trying to get face time with my father as soon as possible. But it’s hard to drive with Natasha going all napalm on my ass from the passenger seat.

“Let me tell you something,” she hisses indignantly and I go white-knuckles on the steering wheel, trying to keep my cool. “I’m sorry life dealt her a shitty hand, but I’ll kill her before I let her pull
my family
into the mayhem she’s created. The only mercy I’ll show is to make it quick. Maybe you need to tell your father to inform the governor that we won’t participate in this game he’s playing to save the day and wipe out police corruption--”

“I don’t tell Glazov what to do. No one does.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t trust the governor’s motives. He’s up for re-election, you know, no surprise there. What better way to get votes than make a show of cleaning up law enforcement? I don’t like politics, and I damn sure don’t like being a pawn for that man’s personal ambitions.”

“Natasha, if you don’t calm down, I swear….” I mutter as I pull into the driveway for the Glazov compound and clear the security gate. “While you may have a point…”

“Oh, thanks for that, I’m touched.”

I take perhaps the deepest breath of my life before I continue, speaking slowly as if I’m talking to a child. “I’m trying to be patient here because I know you’re motivated by your love for me, but you’re really pushing it. Yes, I agree it would be wise to take a closer look at the governor and his motives. But, ultimately, that’s a relationship my father handles and I won’t interfere.”

“Fine,” she sighs, leaning her back against the headrest and closing her eyes. “Your father’s probably a million miles ahead of us on this anyway, you know how that goes. I think our first order of business needs to be finding this Gina Edwards woman. She might be backed into a corner enough that she’s willing to give up information.”

“In due time,” I say as I open my car door and step out. “Before we do anything else, we will inform my father that the killer is holed up in one of his hotels. God help us if he finds out from someone else and thinks I’m hiding her against his wishes.”

“Novak’s going to be so pissed,” she says with a grin.

“When is he not pissed?”

“Good point.”

“He’ll get over it. When it concerns my father’s orders, he doesn’t have a choice.”

“Well, if those two ever get in the boxing ring, I want a front row seat. Now
that
would be one hell of a fight.”

“Yeah, they can beat the shit out of each other and then hug it out.”

“Isn’t that what family does? It’s fine for us to give each other shit, but let an outsider do it and we’re ready to kill for the same person we were ready to beat down only moments earlier.”

“Dad and Novak will be fine, they’ve been doing this shit to each other since they were kids.”

“Do you think he’ll bring Novak in on the diamond business?”

“You know Dad’s going to include family on any of his business pursuits. No outsiders.”

I’m hoping to catch Novak here so I can witness my father telling him that Jasmine is under Bratva protection. After all, we’ll need her to help us locate the missing thief before the crooked cops get their hands on her, if they haven’t already.

Once again, we’re standing outside my father’s office, knocking. Dad wastes no time telling us to come in. As I round the desk to kiss his cheek in greeting, Novak looks on from his usual seat with an inscrutable look on his face. I begin to question my earlier desire to have him in the room for this conversation.

“I’m sure you’re here to fill me in on this woman who seems so intent on disrupting all our lives,” my father says with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. He isn’t a patient man and I can tell he wants this matter settled sooner rather than later.

“I’ve got the perfect remedy for that shit,” Novak growls insolently.

Great, we’re already starting off on the wrong foot.
Where my brother Kodiak and my sister Roksana would probably make a smart ass comeback, that’s not my style. I’m accustomed to thinking through my approach to win over an opponent. Novak may not be an opponent exactly, but he’s on the defensive because our hotel guest eluded him. I need to tread carefully.

“Novak, I get that you’re pissed she got away, but this can work in our favor,” I suggest.

“How?” Glazov cuts in to ask imperiously, “How can this woman who has caused nothing but trouble possibly be an asset to me?”

“She’s made me aware of a situation that’s causing considerable instability within the ranks of the dirty cops. Obviously, they’re more nervous now than ever. I think we could turn it to our advantage.”

“Well, we all know strife from within can destroy an organization and police corruption is certainly running rampant. Now, on principle, I wouldn’t be overly concerned about these things. But their foray into the sale of illegal drugs encourages the kind of street thuggery that gives crime a bad name. Our ‘Jasmine’ may have gone about this the wrong way, but I don’t altogether condemn her efforts. In fact, I appreciate the purity of spirit that motivates her. It is nearly impossible to find anymore.”

“Exactly,” I concur.

“So where is she now?” he asks abruptly.

I explain about her hotel accommodations and my directive that she wait there for further instructions. Then I tell him the new information we have, courtesy of Jasmine. “There’s a woman in the circle of corrupt cops who’s been skimming money and drugs that were supposed to be split up between the members.”

“Ahh,” Glazov chuckles and shakes his head as he leans back in his chair. You’d think he was discussing the misadventures of a precocious child – and he knows all about those. “Greed and opportunity, the perfect accelerants for infernos of all kinds. Perhaps you have a point, son. If we handle this right, we’ll get what we want and the governor will end up looking like the second coming of Christ for ridding our fair streets of police corruption. Everybody wins.”

“That still leaves some loose ends,” Novak says with all the bitterness of a man holding a grudge. “Namely, a woman who’s made a hobby out of killing cops.”

My father doesn’t miss a beat as he replies, “We both know how I feel about loose ends, cousin. Leave Jasmine alone while we get the information on this greedy woman who tried to pull one over on her greedier colleagues. What’s her name?”

“Gina Edwards,” I reply.

My father nods and jots the name down on a Post-it note. No matter how hard we all try to get him to keep notes in an encrypted tablet, he insists on using paper and Post-It notes.

I know he’s going to be doing some research of his own on this latest twist in the case, now that it’s all out in the open. I’m past the point of being able to conceal any information or protect Jasmine. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out.

I wait for Dad’s signal that we’re dismissed, but it seems that Novak still has an axe to grind.

“So what happens to this ‘Jasmine’ after we get the information we want?”

The sinister gleam in my father’s eyes puts my nerves on edge.

“We do what we always do, Novak. We tie up the loose ends.”

Cop Killer

I’m going stir crazy in this damned hotel room. I’ve flipped through every TV channel, taken a shower, raided the snack bar and spent an embarrassing number of hours engrossed in a CSI marathon. I feel good about my alliance with Nikita Glazov, though. I don’t think his fiancé and I will be besties, but I’m not here to make friends so that doesn’t bother me.

All things considered, my prospects are much improved, not only because I’ve got a lawyer if I survive long enough to need one, but because I may have dodged a bullet named Alexander Glazov.

Nikita doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to set me up, although I know you can’t grow up around gangsters and not carry some of their traits. I’m hoping he will use that street knowledge he’s been privy to in the courtroom. If you have business knowledge and street smarts, you are a force to be reckoned with. This also gives me a chance to find Gina Edwards without having to look over my shoulder.

Suddenly the thought hits me that I need to call Mrs. Harris so she doesn’t worry. She answers on the first ring. The conversation is bittersweet since I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again. Hopefully, she’ll never realize she had a murderer for a neighbor. I end the call and boot up my computer.

It’s not going to be hard to find who I’m looking for because Gina hasn’t had time to go underground. It takes a lot of preparation to get an alias and all that goes with it. I have all the makings of a computer hacker, if I ever need another line of work. I get into the police department’s employee website with no problem, type in her name and get the standard information on file like her most recent address and phone number. I send a link of her police bio to Nikita so they’ll know what she looks like and where to start their search – and as a gesture of good faith.

I mentally toss around the idea of setting Gina up to take the fall for the crimes I’ve committed. I wait for my moral compass to weigh in and object vociferously to my train of thought, but it remains silent. Huh. I marvel at how the most unconscionable thoughts and actions are far more palatable to me these days as I move forward on this path I’ve chosen.

Gina could be a viable option for my plan. It wouldn’t be hard for people to believe that she’d not only been stealing but killing off her team. I can’t expect Nikita and Natasha to read my mind though. I’ll need to discuss this with them.

I don’t kill for sport. I’m a vigilante and there’s a big damn difference. If I make it through this in one piece, I’m going to go somewhere far away and start over with a new identity. And if I don’t make it out alive, I’ll be beyond caring anyway.

Most people don’t get do-overs in life, but I will -- one way or another.