In For the Kill (21 page)

Sam just looked at her. His expression gave her a strange, nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach. “What? What's the look?”

“Just jealous,” he said. “All that passion from you. All that loyalty. Lucky Sasha.”

“Sam, that's stupid!”

“I was there for you,” he said. “Sasha gets a break, even if he's a junkie. But there's no break for me, is there?”

Her first response was anger, but it faded as the scene played, in brutal detail. Him, bursting through the door, against all hope.

Yes, Sam had been there for her. But she couldn't say it. The channels were stopped up. She felt like a volcano straining to explode beneath mountains of solid rock.

She shifted gears, instinctively. “So giving myself over to your voracious sexual appetites does not count as giving you a break?”

The guy behind them in line choked and sputtered.

Sam's mouth twitched. “Talk a little louder, Sveti. I don't think they heard you in the baggage claim.”

She nudged him toward the window of the customs agent, her face hot. “Go on,” she hissed. “We're holding up the line.”

At the arrivals hall, she was startled to spot a man holding a placard with her name on it. She was about to say something when Sam jerked her around and dragged her in the opposite direction.

“Don't look at him,” he said harshly. “Just haul ass.”

“Sam, relax,” she soothed. “Probably Hazlett is just—”

“No, there's no reason anyone should be waiting for you. You didn't communicate your new flight number. The flight that went through New York landed two hours ago. If it's Hazlett's guy, he's overly focused on you, waiting too eagerly. And if it's not Hazlett's guy . . .” He steered her toward a tall man, holding a sign that read
WESTWICK INC.

“You had a driver meet us?” she said.

“Not a driver. I don't like to be driven, but neither do I like to stand in lines at rental agencies. I called ahead, had a car delivered.”

A scrawled signature later, she was being handed into the plush leather interior of a sleek silver Audi, waiting right outside. “What rental agency has cars like this?” she demanded, when he got inside.

“Do not give me any shit about that, or anything else for a while,” he said. “Driving in Rome takes up a lot of disc space. I don't have any left to navigate your convoluted thinking process. Today is a good day to die, Sveti. Tell me where the merciless mafiya vor lives.”

Sveti pulled the address from her phone and passed it to him.

“He doesn't live here,” she said. “He bought this house for his wife, Marya, but he never lived here. He's always off on business.”

Sam snorted. “Business? Nice euphemism.”

“Sam, I have to make sure Sasha is okay. I don't have a choice.”

Sam guided the car through dense traffic. “Being compelled to do something crazy and self-destructive, against your better judgment?” he said, finally. “Yeah, I can relate to that. But I don't have to like it.”

Her chin went up. “Feel free to leave,” she said. “I'll get a cab.”

“You're missing the point,” he said grimly. “It was never a choice.”

Sam was quiet for the hour and a half or so that it took to get out of the airport and through the morning rush hour in Rome. Sveti was nervous, too, but she could not afford to admit it to him. Her last visit here had been disquieting. Pavel Cherchenko had been absent, to Tam and Val's relief, but she'd met Sasha's mother, Marya. A thin, grayish woman who reeked of alcohol and never looked anyone in the eye. She'd died of liver disease not long after. Sveti had been unsurprised.

They parked two blocks from the lavish eighteenth-century palazzo. Sam followed her to the door. She buzzed the bell, which bore no name.

“Chi e'?”
someone barked.

“I am Svetlana Ardova,” she said. “I'm looking for Sasha.”

The pause was so long, she'd reached to buzz again. The door lock suddenly released. Sunlight spilled through arched windows into a large entrance hall, making the pink veined marble walls glow.

An elevator began to hum. Someone was coming down.

Sam jerked her closer to his body as the silver doors slid open.

 

A thick, slab-faced guy glared out at them. He wore an expensive suit. A weapon bulged beneath it. Sam's head was aching from clenching his teeth so hard. He hated being unarmed. Not that he could have carried a gun into Pavel Cherchenko's lair in any case, but still. The man barked out something inquisitive in Ukrainian.

Sveti replied in the same language, asking again about Sasha.

Another query, and the guy jerked his lantern-jaw toward Sam.

“I'm Sam Petrie,” he said. “Her boyfriend.”

“I have to search you,” the man said in thickly accented English.

Sam submitted to the pat down, but stiffened when the guy approached Sveti. “Watch where you put your hands,” he growled.

The menace in Sam's voice froze the guy. He searched Sveti, with careful, gingerly gestures, and then gestured toward the elevator.

Sveti asked about Sasha again, but Slab Face ignored her.

The elevator opened directly onto a lavish
salone.
Spindly baroque furniture, Persian rugs on a vast expanse of gray-veined, gleaming marble. A pallid, sullen boy with longish dark hair waited for them.

Sveti gasped. “Sasha?”

Sam was taken aback. That couldn't be right. This kid was Rachel's age, and Rachel had been a toddler in the Zhoglo days.

“That is not my name,” the boy said in British-flavored English.

“Oh, of course. You're Misha,” she said, also in English. “I'm sorry. You looked so much like Sasha when I first knew him.”

“I am nothing like my brother,” Misha said.

“Of course you're not,” she said warmly. “You're your own person. Sasha told me about you. He's so proud of how talented you are with computers. He told me you're a genius.”

“He lied,” Misha said icily. “Drug addicts always lie.”

“He wasn't lying about you,” Sveti said.

“Shut up about Sasha. Andrei didn't want to let you in. I made him, because I wanted to warn you to stay away from Sasha.”

Sveti's smile faded. “I was hoping you could help me find him.”

“Why?” Misha demanded.

“I love him,” Sveti said quietly. “He's my friend.”

“Stop loving him. Find a better class of friends. He's junkie scum, and a traitor, too. He'll be dead soon. Don't waste love on a corpse.”

Wow. Brotherly love at its most warming. Sveti pressed a hand against her belly. “Why do you say that? What has he done?”

“None of your business. I'm doing you a favor, and I don't owe you any favors. Stay away from my brother. Forget he exists.”

Sveti stared into the boy's face with that look, as if she could see a million miles inside him. “A heart can't forget,” she said.

“Such a stupid heart might get a bullet right through it.”

“Time to go, babe.” Sam took Sveti's arm. When the threats of deadly violence started to fly, that was their cue to fuck off, pronto.

But Sveti resisted, digging into her purse for . . . what? A business card. Oh, of course. It made perfect sense to give her contact info to this mouthy, pimple-spotted little dickhead who dared to bully and threaten her, just to make it convenient for him to continue his abuse at some later time. “Sveti,” he muttered. “Goddamnit. Don't.”

Sveti held out a card. “Here's my number, and e-mail. If you want to talk to me about Sasha, or anything else, please, call me.”

Misha flinched away. “Take it back! I don't want it!”

Sveti kept her hand outstretched. “Please, Misha.”

“I don't want to talk to you! And I don't want your card!” The kid's voice was wobbly, as if he were about to cry.

Sveti's arm lowered as she gazed intently into his eyes. She placed her card on the edge of the marble mantelpiece. “I'll just leave it here.”

“No!” Misha yelled. “Take your fucking card!”

“Tell Sasha I looked for him, if you hear from him,” she said, as gently and calmly as if the kid weren't screaming obscenities at her.

Andrei was as taciturn escorting them out as he had been on the way up. Sveti did not attempt to speak with him again. He saw them to the door and shut it smartly in their faces.

Sam hustled her along so fast, she stumbled over her own feet.

“What do you make of all that?” she asked him.

“Let's get away from this place before we discuss it,” Sam barked. “That kid was scared shitless. And now, so am I.”

“Hey!” A shrill voice sounded. Sam shoved her behind him and looked up. Misha Cherchenko hung over one of the ornate, carved stone balconies on the first floor. He waved Sveti's business card in his hand.

“I told you to take your fucking card back!” he shrieked. “Stick it up your ass! You make me sick!” He flung the card, which fluttered and swayed on air currents before landing on the sidewalk ten yards away.

Sveti started toward it. Sam grabbed her arm. “No, Sveti!” he said sharply. “Enough! This is the part where we fuck off!”

“Let me go, Sam.” She wrenched herself out of his grip and ran lightly to the card, and picked it up. She looked up. “Misha?”

“Take it! Get out! Go!” The kid's voice cracked from screaming.

Sam scooped his arm around her shoulders and half-shoved, half-carried her down the sidewalk. “You've pushed me too far. There could have been ten guys in there, with bad intentions. Never again, get me?”

“Sam!” She barely registered his tantrum, she was so busy scrambling not to trip, and staring at the card in her hand. “Look!”

“At what? My life, flashing before my eyes?”

“No, at the card! Look at the card!”

He finally heard the excitement in her voice. He stopped, looked.

A phone number was scribbled hastily upon it. A time, too. 15:00–16:00. They used a twenty-four-hour clock here: 3:00
P.M.
to 4:00
P.M.

His stomach sank at the look on her face. “Don't give me that big-eyed hopeful look. It's probably a trap. That kid is not normal.”

“Of course he's not normal,” Sveti said. “You said yourself that he was scared shitless. And all that swearing and screaming was forced.”

“Sveti,” he said. “I'm begging you. Do not add Misha Cherchenko to the list of people who are your personal responsibility to save.”

“Sam.” She planted her feet, forcing him to grind to a stop, and slid her hands up on either side of his face. She gave him that wide-eyed, radiant, soft-focus angel look. “Sam, breathe.”

His groin tingled. He was such a chump for this woman, it embarrassed him. He popped the trunk of the car and pulled out a briefcase. Once the Glock 19 inside was tucked into his waistband his heart rate came down, but he had a way to go before he hit normal.

Sveti was startled. “That is one full-service car rental you've got!”

“Val and I worked it out days ago. His contact will bring me more hardware tomorrow, in San Anselmo. This will tide me over for now.”

Sveti dialed the number. A phone rang on the other end. A voice responded, tinny, distorted.
“Un momento,”
Sveti murmured, and held out the phone to him. “Italian,” she said. “Would you . . . ?”

He took the phone.
“Con chi parlo?”
With whom am I speaking?

“Noi siamo La Gelateria del Corso,”
said an irritated, older male voice with a Roman accent.

“Dove siete locati?”
Where are you located?

“Al centro!”
the guy responded truculently. Downtown.

Sam pushed his luck a little further. “Downtown of what town?”

“
Sul serio?
Castellana Padulli! Don't waste my time!” He hung up.

Sam pulled over in the next free spot. Typed the
gelateria
and the town into his phone. Waited while it sifted data, churned out mileage.

“So?” Sveti demanded impatiently.

“It's an ice-cream shop,” he said. “In a small town south of here.”

They stared at each other. Horns blared. Traffic swirled outside.

“Sasha must be there,” she said.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “That kid is fucking with you, Sveti.”

“I want to go to this ice-cream shop. Could we get there by four?”

He thought about it. “Maybe, but it's two hours from there to San Anselmo. We can't drive there, do whatever we end up doing, and make it back in time to check in, find you formal wear, and get cleaned up for the gala. So, ice cream in Castellana Padulli or the Solkin Prize?”

Sveti's gaze slid away. “Shit,” she whispered. “But what if this window of time is only a one-day thing?”

“Then he should have communicated better. Sasha's waited this long. He can wait a little longer. If this is Sasha, of course.”

“Okay. The gala. But I'm going to Castellana Padulli tomorrow.”

They were quiet as Sam wended his way through the thick traffic. Then Sveti spoke up again. “Misha must feel guilty,” she said.

“Why?”

“Sasha said that Zhoglo made his dad choose which son to sacrifice to the organ traffickers. He put it like a favor. Your choice, go ahead, discuss it with your wife. The two-year-old or the ten-year-old, either one is fine with me. Sasha told me he was glad he was picked. It would've been worse, having his little baby brother condemned.”