An Obsession with Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 3)
Read An Obsession with Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 3) Online
Authors: Nancy Haviland
ALSO BY NANCY HAVILAND
Wanted Men Novels
A Love of Vengeance
The Salvation of Vengeance
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Nancy Haviland
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503944466
ISBN-10: 1503944468
Cover design by Kerrie Robertson
To my readers, with deep appreciation for the enthusiasm and support you’ve shown for my beloved characters. Thank you so much!
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Balashikha, Russia
Eighteen Years Earlier
Walking through the gates of
Akademiya
, or the Executioner’s Domicile, as the students privately called it, Maksim Kirov squinted his eyes against the glare of the late-May sunshine and took in the five vehicles parked, with their noses facing the only way out of the lot. None of the cars belonged to Boris Kirov. Maks felt something try to rise in his throat, emotion he was sure, but he swallowed it with a little help from his autonomic nervous system. He hadn’t expected him, so Maks wouldn’t allow himself to feel bad that his father hadn’t come. Fucking refused, actually. He’d finally accepted the man didn’t deserve the sentiment. Therefore, he wouldn’t give it.
Slinging the heavy bag, which held two years of his life, over his shoulder, he started for the road.
“Let us drive you.”
He paused, turning back to see Micha Zaretsky looking at him with pale-green eyes as solemn as usual. Even at their age, Micha’s voice was low, their mother tongue, Russian, coming out a pleasant tenor. But then Maksim’s was the same, and he’d turned fourteen only three weeks ago.
Shaking his head, he looked down to make sure his boots were tied well. But of course they were. Had they not been, he most likely would have been bleeding from somewhere around his muzzle area by now. The few guards that had stuck their heads into the hallway to offer their moody “Good luck, boys” would have made sure of it.
“Thanks,” Maksim said, “but I think the walk will do me good. Clear my head of . . . all of this.” He waved a hand to encompass the tall concrete wall and training center that had once been a jail. But how could he clear his head of all he’d learned in this place? Where did you put information like the quickest and easiest way to kill a man? In the deepest, darkest parts of your mind, he supposed. To take out only when needed. Then again, when would you need to know the most effective forms of torture, ones that would guarantee your target gave up whatever information was asked for in the shortest period of time possible?
Why had his father brought him to this underground training facility? he wondered again with that one sliver of remaining interest. Had Boris Kirov, two-bit criminal that he was, thought Maksim had an interest in a military career? Had he thought his son would somehow thrive in a place where the boys were forced to practice many of their lessons on each other? From torture to sparring, and everything in between. They all had the scars to show for it. Some of them even had headstones.
Or maybe, as Maks knew deep down, his father had simply wanted him out of the way so he could start his life over again.
“Will you go home?” Micha asked, his tone careful because he knew Maksim’s story.
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Your father was aware today was graduation, yes?”
“He was aware.”
Micha’s lips thinned, his gaze growing cold. Colder. “If my mother hadn’t had to miss work to make this trip, I would walk with you.” Micha’s mother was picking him up after grad all normal-like because her son was one of the few who’d actually volunteered to be there. Others had been placed by parents who thought to control their sons’ futures by deciding the military—or a form of it—was what was best.
“I know you would, brother.” He stepped forward, and they clasped hands before embracing. “I’ll try to stay in touch,” he said, but they both knew he wouldn’t.
They parted ways, and Maksim began his journey, feeling adrift as thoughts of fathers and sons continued through his mind. Micha’s father had abandoned him through death. Something a guy could understand. Maksim’s had simply turned his back on him, his firstborn. Why? He still wasn’t sure. But the day Maks’s mother had been buried—when he was only eight—things had changed. Not that Boris had ever been the type to call him out for a game of catch, but he’d at least been civil.
Until his wife died.
Maks remembered his mother. She’d been softhearted and beautiful, statuesque. Like a supermodel but nice. He wasn’t surprised things had changed when cervical cancer had taken her from them so swiftly. His father had fucked off for weeks afterward, leaving Maksim with the neighbor. When he’d come back reeking of booze and women, he’d been a different man. Completely closed off. Had Maksim been a rebellious asshole, he’d have understood better. Sort of. But he hadn’t been. His mother had raised him to be loving and respectful and good.
And the Academy hadn’t taken that away from him either. Just because he’d kept those qualities hidden in the presence of his instructors didn’t mean they weren’t still in him. Really. They were there somewhere. He just had to find them again. For her. To remain loyal to the one person who’d loved him, he would find them again, no matter how long it took.
Five cars passed him by, one after another, the sound of the engines fading as they disappeared from sight. The sound of a sixth vehicle met his ears, and he turned to see an unmarked delivery truck slowing behind him. He could see two men in the cab, and the looks on their faces had him stiffening. The monsters that now kept him company in his head stirred. His hand went to the small of his back. He was reassured when he felt the shank he’d made for protection—and named Angelina, after his mother—ready for action.
“Need something?” he called, and only then did they close the fifteen feet remaining between them. The truck drew up next to him, engine idling, fumes slowly surrounding them.
“Yeah. Sorry, man,” the middle-aged passenger said, offering a weak-chinned smile. Obviously he’d judged Maksim to be older than he was because of his size. Being five foot nine at fourteen made that a common occurrence. “Didn’t want to spook you into reacting. Just got released from the Academy, huh?”
Maks ignored the question. One never offered information. Ever. “You lost?” He took their measure in seconds.
The driver still didn’t speak; he was too busy playing with what looked to be some sort of wooden flute.
“We are,” the passenger replied. “You know offhand how much further to Noginsk? We’re turned around, and it seems like we’ve been driving in circles for hours.”
They were on the outskirts of Balashikha, between Moscow and Noginsk—
The driver brought the flute to his mouth, turned toward Maksim, and pushed out a sharp breath. Maks felt a prick in his neck and reached up to feel a small, sharp object embedded in his skin. A dart. He quickly yanked it out even as his vision warped and the world tilted on its side. Didn’t stop him from reaching out to grab the passenger by the throat and squeeze. Or he tried to squeeze.
“Sorry, buddy.” The guy’s unapologetic face clouded, disappearing fast. “Boris always was an asshole.”
CHAPTER 1
New York City
Present Day
Annoyingly, the quasi-adrenaline tingles in her extremities continued as Sydney Martin put the finishing touches on her makeup. No matter that she’d been doing this for nearly a year, the fifth of every month was a day she dreaded. Because it was on the fifth that she made her buys from a pair of dealers who worked for one of the largest drug lords in New York City.
Tonight would be her last. Oh, how she prayed it would be her last. The verbal contract she’d made with Luiz Morales had been for one year. Which meant they would reconvene in the next week or so, and she’d tell him she’d decided not to continue their association. Hopefully he’d allow her to live. Her hand shook, and she had to pause with the mascara wand held away from her eye.
“How could you have been so stupid?” she whispered to her reflection. She knew better than to make rash decisions when upset. And normally she didn’t. When faced with tough choices or hairy situations, her thought process was normally spot-on. She steadily clicked through logic, step-by-step, and came out on the other side with a rational, smart solution.
As she had thirteen years ago when she’d been seventeen and had found out she was pregnant. Sitting in the massive upstairs bathroom in her family’s mansion, she’d known within minutes of seeing those two pink lines what she would do. She’d been thrown a massive wrench when she’d shared her news and let her parents in on her decision—to keep and raise her baby—and in the end had had to alter her plans. After her father had ordered her to be ready the following morning to visit their private clinic to have an abortion, she’d gone up to her bedroom; packed a bag; grabbed her ID, passport, and bank card; and she’d left through the servants’ entrance. Rather than attend an appointment at daybreak to have an abortion she did not want, she’d bought a plane ticket with her credit card number given over her cell phone—before deliberately leaving the expensive piece of technology on the first bench she’d come to in the airport.
Flying to Canada in an effort to throw her parents off her trail, she’d then made her way to New York City and had never seen them again. At first, because she’d been too afraid to contact them in case they attempted to drag her home without her son. Later, as the years passed, she’d simply found she couldn’t forgive them for not supporting her decision, even though, in a warped way, they’d thought they were doing what was best for their daughter. But then, their overcontrolling, smothering ways had usually fallen under the label of it’s-for-your-own-good, when that hadn’t always been the case.
Not liking to think about them, especially now that she was a parent herself and knew there wasn’t a reason in existence that would make her command her son to destroy a part of himself, Sydney picked up her brush to pull it through her hair. Things had worked out for her and Andrew, despite their rocky start. They’d survived, thanks to some hard work and a cheating wife, and should be thriving.
“We
are
thriving,” she muttered as she untangled a knot at her nape. “It’ll work out. It will. This is the last buy, and then things will go back to normal.”
Please let things go back to normal
, she prayed, closing her eyes to the anxiety drawing her face tight. God, she hated the fifth of the month.
“You leaving soon, Mom?”
She spun around, the hairbrush falling from her fingers to clatter on the floor. The light of her life stood in the bathroom doorway, a ginger ale in one hand, an Xbox controller in the other. Fear gripped her throat as she imagined being led away in handcuffs, or, worse, in a casket, from her beautiful boy. Taking after his father, Andrew was big for twelve, almost as tall as she was. But where he was big-boned, she was petite. His hair was blond, like hers, and he’d recently begun using product to keep it up off his forehead. Right now he was looking at her curiously through eyes identical in color to her own.
Andrew had grown up in neighborhoods nothing near the gated community where she’d been raised, and she would swear he was better off for it. Some days—the fifth of the month—he seemed better equipped to deal with life than she did.
She bent to pick up her brush and pasted a fake smile on her face. “I will be, yes. Did you need something, Nipper?” she asked, using the nickname she’d gifted him with way back when he’d let her know, in no uncertain terms, that it was time to stop breast-feeding.
“Nah. We’re good. The guys just got here with pizza. Do you want a slice?”
Sydney wondered how Heyden—the now lone female in the trio—felt about being referred to as one of “the guys.” Their close-knit group used to be a quad, until Andrew’s original bestie from birth had suddenly left their lives last year.
Refusing to go there right now, Sydney shook her head at the offer of pizza and followed him out into the loft. She chatted easily with Andrew’s friends, reiterating the rules for them as she got some plates and napkins to put on the coffee table. All was ignored when
Call of Duty
flashed on the TV screen.
“Pause it,” she said and waited for three pairs of eyes to look up at her. “No leaving the loft, and when they go home,” she said directly to her son, “you text me once you’re back up here and locked in. Understood?”
They all nodded before returning to the game, and Sydney knew if she popped back upstairs later, this was how she’d find them. After heading to her bedroom, she slid her feet into a pair of boots with no heel and squirted herself with her favorite perfume. She gave the kids a final wave and headed down to her office, which was on the level between the loft and the nightclub she was sole proprietor of that took up the entirety of the main floor.
She’d just closed and locked the door leading upstairs when her phone buzzed in the pocket of her leather pants. She read the text, warded off a renewed feeling of dread, and kept moving. She ended up in the alley behind the building, where two of her more sinister-looking—and most trustworthy—bouncers waited for her. Protection in the form of hard bodies and little-to-no conscience.
“Hey, boys,” she greeted them, offering what she hoped was an it’s-all-good smile. “We ready?”
Never chatty, they nodded and got into a big black Ford F-150 while she climbed into her BMW. Once on the road, she led. They took the Lincoln Tunnel and ended up in Union City, and it wasn’t long before they were parked behind the same abandoned building they always returned to since that first deal. Entering through a side door, the wait lasted only minutes before Sydney muttered, “They’re here. Look alive.”
Attempting to force calm into her system, she tilted her head and observed the two men sidestepping the remnants of what must have been one hell of a rave. A recent one, if the not-yet-dusty baggies that had once held ecstasy or a drug equally mind-altering were any indication. Scores of aged salon chairs and pull-down hair dryers had been shoved aside and now resembled wallflowers waiting to be asked to participate.
Please let this be the last time I have to go through this.
The muscles along her spine tightened.
I’ll never make another impetuous decision again as long as I live. I promise.
The dealers stopped a few feet away. She recognized the one on the left because she’d done more than half her deals with him. He had a slight accent. That, paired with his skin tone, had Sydney plunking him on the Mexican border. She wasn’t prejudiced by any means, being a foreigner herself. She would admit that whoever had given him his latest trim either needed glasses or had been using some of his product, because his brush cut was definitely shorter on the right side of his head than on the left. Or maybe it was deliberate. Who knew?
Turning her attention to the other man, her already-sick stomach rolled. This one she’d never seen before, and she wished it had stayed that way. He gave her that tired once-over most women detested. She would have dismissed him had Crooked Hair not been standing just behind him, making the pecking order obvious. He was the higher-up of the two, which meant she would have to deal directly with him. Why was he here? She wondered as she catalogued his looks so she’d be able to identify him if the need arose. The movie
Machete
floated through her mind, possibly because the guy looked like a flat-out killer, and that pockmarked skin spoke of wicked acne as a teenager. His dark hair was long in the front, and it fell into his hooded eyes. He stared through it rather than swipe it aside, which lent a horror-movie flavor to the meeting.
“New face?” she questioned evenly to let them both know she didn’t appreciate it, though whether she was in the position to make her displeasure known, she wasn’t sure. Did the buyer hold the upper hand in these things or the seller? Too bad that wasn’t something she could Google.
“Eberto’s gonna take over from here,” Crooked Hair informed her, eyes on his dirty boots. “I’m moving on.”
“Very well,” she said instead of the “why” she was dying to ask. Could they know she wasn’t doing her part? But how? How could they possibly be aware that she bought their shit and did nothing with it but burn it to ashes?
They don’t know anything. Relax.
To his credit, at least attempting professionalism after the initial eye-rape, Eberto slowly stepped forward and offered his hand. A hand she was loath to shake but did anyway because it was expected of her. He released her immediately but continued to stare at her in a way that spooked the shit out of her. Not at her body anymore, but straight into her eyes. “You have the cash,
chica
?” he asked.
Striving to appear unaffected, she moved to the side and reached behind an exposed steel girder to bring out a plain black over-the-shoulder carrier bag. Her movements were slow and measured, careful. She held it tightly in her grip, not stupid enough to hand over $50,000 until the drugs were in her possession.
Machete lifted the back of his shirt, and she heard rather than saw her bouncers tense as he went into the waist of his jeans. But all he did was pull out a package the size of a hardcover novel. She took it from him when he offered it to her.
“What’s this?”
“A goodwill gesture from my brother,” Eberto said, making her nerves stretch. His
brother
? She was now dealing directly with the freaking drug lord’s immediate family?
“Why is he extending it?” She fished some more, desperate to know what was going on here.
“He wanted to let you know he appreciates the business and hopes to continue working with you. Maybe he thought to soften you up before you meet to discuss a new deal.” The smirk that pulled his full lips up showed no humor, and Sydney knew right then that something had changed. This wasn’t a goodwill gesture but a message of some sort. But because this wasn’t her world, she was clueless as to what it meant.
Oh, Emily, what have I done?
she wailed silently.
Emily had been her best friend, and she was the reason Sydney was standing here praying she made it through this. They’d met in the hospital and had been sent to the same halfway house after giving birth to their babies. Emily had had a girl. After struggling for nearly a year to make ends meet, they’d eventually gotten jobs in the club Sydney now owned. They had helped each other by trading off; when one worked, the other babysat. Their children had grown up together, the four of them eventually sharing an apartment. Until last year, when everything had changed.
After Sydney had bought Pant from the previous owner in the deal of a lifetime, Emily had become one of her full-time managers. Much to Sydney’s dismay, her friend had also started using drugs. She had excused herself to use the restroom before leaving work that last night, and Sydney, exhausted and ready for bed, had gotten tired of tapping her foot and had gone in to hurry her along. Emily had been slumped against the far wall, half-dressed, eyes staring straight ahead, an open baggie in her limp hand, spittle running off her chin.
OD
, the EMTs had said.
Looks like she got some tainted product.
Grief-stricken, Sydney hadn’t even begun funeral arrangements when another blow had landed. A gruff social worker had shown up to take Emily’s eleven-year-old daughter, Eleanor, away the morning following her mother’s death. Sydney would have done anything to have been able to keep the young girl with them, but the worker had told her they’d found Emily’s father and he wanted his daughter. Because Sydney wasn’t a blood relative, she wasn’t entitled to any more details and no further contact would be allowed.
Reminders of the past make the transition too difficult for the child
, the woman had said. Sydney hadn’t agreed with that, but in the end had had no choice but to let Andrew’s sister of sorts go.
Her pain had reached yet another level hours later when she’d walked in and seen Andrew’s shoulders shaking as he’d lain in bed crying over the sudden loss of their family. She’d snuggled up behind him and comforted him as best she could, but her anger had grown by the minute.
It wasn’t until the funeral two days later—as she’d stood there holding her son, staring at her best friend’s casket, sobbing because no one had brought Eleanor—that Sydney’s fury had boiled over. She’d returned to the loft with Andrew and spent the rest of the day stewing and planning. By the time the club opened that night, her mind had been made up. She wanted the reason for their grief out of her club and would do whatever she could to make that a reality. She’d gone downstairs and headed straight for the darkest corner, where she knew a trapper—the bastard who drew the buyers in—hung out. No matter how often they were driven away by the NYPD, one always showed again. She told him what she wanted and gave him her number. It had taken five nights of the same routine, speaking to a different face every time, before she’d finally gotten a call from Luiz Morales. They’d met, discussed the details, and agreed on a deal. She would make a buy once a month and be the sole distributor in her club, and he would keep out any competition. One year had been agreed upon, and they would revisit their arrangement when the time came to discuss any increase in product or alteration of the deal.
