Weather the Storm (Security Specialists International #3) (32 page)

“I don’t believe you,” she paused, “Crocker.” She spat the name and gripped the gun tighter. She had her back to a wall and could easily keep all three men in sight. She held the bloodied knife in her left hand and the matte black gun in her right. They didn’t know she had no clue how to use the ugly weapon.

Figure it out…fast.

Crocker’s left eyebrow arched, and a look of what might’ve been respect crossed his craggy face. “Believe me. We don’t want SSI on our case. And we don’t want to hurt you, just borrow you for a bit.”

“Borrow me?” She couldn’t believe this guy. “I’d rather die than go back to Demidas.” And she’d surprised him yet again if the look of shock on his face said anything. “Yeah, Vanko and I know you switched sides. I will not go back to the man who shot my parents in front of me and then raped and tortured me for three fucking days. He’s a sick, perverted animal. I won’t go back to him. I’ll kill myself first.”

She hated the sound of hysteria in her voice.

“Demidas won’t ever touch you.” Crocker stepped forward. The average-looking guy backed toward the closed hotel room door and leaned against it.

“Stop!” She yelled at Crocker and placed the bloody knife against her carotid and allowed the gun hand to drop to her side. “I’ll do it. Without Vanko I have nothing to live for.”

Crocker kept moving toward her step by step.

Her breathing was harsh and rapid. “I said stop.” She raised the gun and tried to pull the trigger and nothing happened.

“Sweet cheeks, you don’t have the strength to shoot that gun one-handed.”

She let out a sharp cry at her weakness and dropped her gun arm once again. The gun was so heavy and the bastard was correct. She placed the serrated blade back to her neck and cut herself. She swallowed the whimper of pain.

“Don’t!” Crocker held up a hand. “Petriv is alive. I swear. Don’t do it. Put down the weapons. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Elana moved farther away from him and from the man on the bed. The black man, even wounded, could easily take her out if he wanted. So could Crocker.
Why didn’t they rush her?

They need you breathing. Demidas wants you alive.

“Y-y-you don’t know. He f-f-fucking tortured me,” she screamed and an unwanted sob escaped her. “Told me it was my fault—that I was the reason my parents were dead.” Her eyes filled with tears, making Crocker a large watery blob. “He…he…told me if I’d j-j-just accepted his overtures and run away with him, he would’ve spared them.”

“He won’t hurt you.” Crocker crooned in a low, calm voice, his hands held out in front of him. “Give me the knife…the gun. We’ll kill him for you, darlin’.”

Her hands shook, and she nicked her neck again. All three men cursed.

She shifted the knife so that the tip was the only point touching her neck. The warm blood ran down her neck and soaked her shirt. “I was sixteen years old,” she whispered. “A virgin.”

The black man growled. “Fucking Russian asswipe.”

Elana barely acknowledged the men now. The old images came back faster and faster. Things she’d buried so deeply, they’d only come out in her nightmares. “He whipped me when I told him I hated him.” Her vision blurred. Her hand jerked and she nicked her neck again.

The Average Joe at the door swore. “Fucking pervert. Killing’s too good for him.”

She laughed, hysteria tingeing her voice. Her eyes clearer now, she aimed her gaze at the man she’d cut. He sat as still as a stone statue, as if he felt no pain, and looked at her with pity, not anger, in his dark brown eyes.

“I-I-I’m s-s-sorry I h-h-hurt you, b-b-but you…I need Vanko. Get me Vanko.” She aimed her look at Crocker. “P-p-please?”

“Bert?” Crocker’s gaze was hard, but his voice held no anger.

“Yeah, Sam.” Average Joe spoke up.

“Go get Petriv. Bring him here, so she can see he’s alive.”

“Got it.” The man left the room on the run.

It was now two against one. Crocker stood maybe eight feet away. Too close. And the black man followed her every move with his steady gaze.

She hiccupped and let out a watery sob before she could stop it. She tightened her grip on the knife, keeping it by her carotid, and kept a grip on the heavy gun. If they jumped her, she’d die. They knew it; she knew it.

“Elana?” Crocker’s buzz-saw growl was gentle as if talking to a child. “I promise—I will kill Demidas. He’s a bastard.”

“Why?” He’d say whatever he thought she wanted to hear.

“He’s not honorable. He blackmailed me into coming after you.”

She laughed, the sound derisive. “And you’re honorable? You took a job to kill Keely. She has a baby boy.”

“That was business.” Crocker shook his head. “It’s different.”

“Unbelievable.” She waved the gun around wildly. “Your men chased me and tried to kill me, was that business, too?” She lobbed the accusation into his court, sarcasm oozing through every word.

What kind of man was this? Killing people was just business?

“Yes, it fucking was.” He glared at her. “Jesus, lady, I don’t have to justify myself to you. I take a job. I do the job. My emotions have no place in it. I did the same for years in the military, and I still do it now. Except now I get paid well for it and am my own man.”

“Do you even listen to yourself when you rationalize killing innocent women as
just
business
?” She couldn’t wrap her head around the man’s thought processes. Had she fallen down a rabbit hole? Would the Mad Hatter run through the room, declaring he was late?

“Yes, and now killing Demidas is just business. My business. After which, I will take over all his accounts. You’re no longer a target, but the crucial piece needed to get to him. We only immobilized Petriv. Once we’d killed Demidas, we planned to call SSI in to come get you. End of story.”

Amazingly, she believed him. It was all cut-and-dried, cold-blooded and in his self-interest. She was a means to an end. Crocker wouldn’t kill her now, because he had no personal or professional beef with her. And he was afraid of SSI. It had a twisted logic.

Sheesh
.

What a tunnel-visioned idiot. SSI would want to kill him for even accepting the job of taking out Keely. And Vanko and her uncles would want to kill him for taking her and exposing her to Demidas. The man wasn’t thinking clearly—and she wasn’t going to enlighten him.

But could she trust him to keep his word? Did she have a choice? If Vanko were alive, she didn’t want to die. Eventually one or all of these men would overpower her. The fact they hadn’t even tried yet, was in their favor.

“You really plan to kill Demidas?” she asked.

Crocker smiled, and it wasn’t a pretty one. “The fucker’s on the top of my do-no-work-for list. Yet here I am. I hate the fucking Russian
mafiya
.”

Her gut said he wasn’t lying. Should she take the chance?

Her throat tightened until it hurt to breathe.

Okay, not the time to panic. Bad guys in room. You armed, but useless. Think.

Okay, maybe she should trust him. No one had even gotten close to taking Demidas down over the years. This could be the best chance. He would be away from his power base in Moscow. These men had proven to be somewhat resourceful. After all, they’d found her and Vanko and had proceeded to enact their plan with a certain amount of success—their only fault, underestimating her.

The outer door opened. The other man. Bert, had Vanko over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and carried him into the bedroom.

“Put him on the bed,” she ordered, “then help your friend off it. I want to check to see if Vanko’s alive.”

The man holding Vanko looked at Crocker who nodded. “Do it, Bert. I think we’re negotiating here, aren’t we, darlin’?”

“I’m not your darlin’,” she snarled. “I’m Elana to you.”

“Elana.” Crocker’s voice held respect.

God, the man was a mercenary Jekyll and Hyde.

Bert dumped Vanko off his shoulder onto the king-size bed. He then moved to stand by Crocker’s side. The black man moved himself off the bed and took a seat on the desk.

“Step back toward the door to the main room,” she ordered Crocker and Bert. They moved back. She edged her way around the room, keeping the walls at her back and the three men within sight. The man she’d cut and stabbed, for some unknown reason, had a half-assed smile on his face. “What are you smiling for? I hurt you.”

“I’ll survive.” He grinned then. “You’re some woman. You fucking Petriv?”

“None of your damn business.”

“She is,” Crocker said. “You were injured. Dillman shot you. What was Petriv thinking?”

“Vanko didn’t hurt me. He’d never hurt me.” She’d never share the sweetly intimate acts she and Vanko had shared. But she couldn’t allow these men to think Vanko was an animal. “He’s a good man. An
honorable
man. And there’s too few of those in the world.”

“Gotcha, Elana. We’re pigs. Vanko isn’t.” Crocker coughed. “But we pigs can kill your nightmare…Demidas.”

The man had a valid point. Now, she’d see if he’d told the truth. She sat on the edge of the bed, placed the gun by Vanko’s shoulder, and used the free hand to touch the pulse point in his neck. She sighed with relief when she found his pulse was slow, but steady. Tears of relief streaked down her face.

“He’s alive. So you didn’t lie.” She turned to face Crocker. His stare was fixed on the knife which she still kept close to her throat.

“So, let’s make a deal.” Crocker moved to stand by the injured man. “You okay with me making a deal with little Elana, Deke?”

Deke nodded. “I’ve been hurt worse. I’ll be fine. All I need are some stitches. Shocked the shit out of me the kitten had it in her.” He shot her an admiring glance. “Too bad you like Ukrainian white meat, little cat. You’d make a fine wife for a man like me.”

Elana snorted. “Don’t bet on it.” She stroked Vanko’s hair with her right hand. Her left hand was getting tired gripping the knife, but she wasn’t ready to let it go. Negotiations weren’t completed yet. She had the power position for now; they needed her alive and unharmed. “So, spell out the deal.”

“You put down the knife.” Crocker patted Deke on the shoulder. “We do some first aid on Deke here so he can take your Hummer and get the hell out of here. Then we clean you up, and you walk out of here to our truck. Then you, Bert, and I head for the Florida Keys and meet my other team. At which point, Mission: Kill Demidas begins. We take out Demidas, while keeping you safe, and then we vanish and Petriv or someone from SSI can come get you.”

“Sounds so easy.” Elana watched each man’s face. They all seemed to be in agreement to the terms laid out. She’d be a fool to trust them, but she did. To these men, she wasn’t the job any longer, but their ticket to lots of money.

But the wild card was still and always would be Demidas. “Demidas has already planned to kill you, you know.”

Crocker threw back his head and laughed. The other two chuckled and looked at her as if she were a prize pupil. “Yeah, we know that, Elana. But we don’t plan on letting it happen.”

“You’re going into a strange place. You don’t know what—”

Crocker cut her off. “The other team?”

“Yes, what about them?”

“They have inside information. They’ve already scoped his island. They know who’s there and where the security is located. Some of the locals hate Demidas and have offered to help us neutralize his traps and alarms. Demidas doesn’t have a fucking chance in hell at escaping his death sentence.”

Elana angled her head and nicked herself again. The men winced. She barely felt the cut. Adrenaline was a wonderful thing. But her heart couldn’t continue to pound the way it was for much longer. She needed to get the deal done—her way.

“How are you going to get access to his accounts…I mean getting access to him and killing him is a long way away from…”

Bert spoke up, “Me. I already have leads to most of his funds from the deposit he put into Crocker’s account. But I need access from one of his computers to make the transfers out of his and into our accounts. Also, access to his computers means even more trails to follow.”

Elana knew exactly how that could be done, could probably do it herself if she had time and access to Demidas’s computers.

What it all boiled down to was if she went with Crocker and he and his people killed Demidas, then Elana could have a wide-open future with Vanko. No more hiding. No more watching her back. And the biggest plus? Vanko wouldn’t have to deal with Demidas. While she knew Vanko would have no problem killing the crazy Russian, Elana really had meant it when she’d told him she didn’t want him killing for her.

Taking the knife away from her throat, she held her hand up when Crocker moved toward her with his hand out. “Stop.” She pointed the knife at him. “I have some twists to the negotiations.”

“Elana…” Crocker drawled.

“No…you listen. My twists change nothing in the grand scheme of things. I’ll go with you and not make a fuss.” She gulped and glanced at Vanko’s face, so serene. “But before we leave, I want to call SSI—now—and let them know they’ll need to make arrangements to come get me. I also need them to call my uncles and get them off the chase. Their actions could make waves and alert Demidas, who’d in turn increase his security.”

“Smart lady.” Crocker nodded. “You’ll call SSI on one of our burner phones. If you say or do anything I don’t like, I’ll cut off the call.” He didn’t say how, but she assumed she wouldn’t like his methods.

She swallowed hard. Trust was such a fragile thing when it wasn’t between her and Vanko. “Okay, I don’t have SSI’s number.”

“I do.” Crocker grinned. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” she held up the hand holding the knife, “I want a real knife, not a steak knife. My uncles taught me how to kill with an intercostal thrust. I’m not picky as long as it is sharp, has a long enough blade to reach the heart, and can be concealed.”

“Fuck.” Deke looked at Crocker. “I’m lucky to be alive. She almost had me.”

She nodded. “Yes, but your arm was in the way.”

When Crocker opened his mouth, she jabbed the knife in his direction for emphasis. “No matter what you say,” she took in a deep breath and blew it out, “I will be the person who has to deal with Demidas if your plan fails.”