The Dark Duet (19 page)

I slam the phone down on the table, surprisingly without shattering it. It is time for me to play the wild card I’ve been holding in case a situation like this one developed between Alese and me. A man should always train his student, but only enough so she will always remain at a pace of five footsteps behind him.

I pull out the GPS tracking unit Crow gave me and push the green power button. I enter Alese’s cell phone number and wait for the tracking code, the mechanism that’ll now lock onto the chip I inserted into her cell phone while she was sleeping the last night we spent together, a last resort.
A move of desperation.
I sit back and watch the little green arrow, the indicator for the location of Alese’s phone, and wait.

CHAPTER 21

~Alese~

“You turned us both into monsters,” I say to Rudolph Burkenstein, my body a muscle of tension and anxiety. “You killed my husband. Ruined my life.”
And Nikolai’s.
He’s a victim in all of this, too, even though I might not want to admit it. The things he told me that happened in his past weren’t the made up stories of a man who wanted to worm his way into my bed in order to betray me. Instead, the horrid abuse he told me about happened as a result of the psycho-scientist sitting here in this room with me. If Nikolai was the one responsible for what happened all those years ago, then it was a direct result of this man.

“No, little ghost. I made you into the killer I knew you could be. Face it. You’re not the white picket fence kind of girl. That abomination you called a husband was abusive, your marriage a farce of a train wreck cooked up by the CIA in order to make well on a case the two of you were working on. Aaron Jeffers loved no one but himself,” Rudolph explains, taking a sip of Riesling.

“You’re lying,” I reply, thinking of the man from my dreams and the way he kissed me so tenderly. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

“It would be such a shame for something to happen to your grandparents simply because you’ve decided to pursue the role of vigilante.”

I shoot to my feet, the knife I’ve kept concealed the entire time poised toward Burkenstein’s face. “Do not threaten my grandparents,” I warn, shaking because I’m pissed.

Both Gash and Sparky, the loyal dogs, move toward me. Rudolph holds up his hand, shaking his head the tiniest bit. “No need for me to do that. Nikolas has already covered that base as well.” He gives me a wicked smile, and yet, his words hit hard. Of course Nikolai has taken care of making sure my grandparents keep silent about Rudolph harboring me. My energy level drops, and I want to cry, but I refuse to let this monster know just how much he has affected me. I drop back down to the couch and stare straight ahead.

“What the hell do you want from me? I won’t be your clean up girl,” I say, although the thought of someone hurting my grandparents bothers me. It doesn’t matter that when I talked to them a few nights ago, Grandma confirmed she and Grandpa knew about Burkentstein’s reconditioning, but they were led to believe the treatment would help to stop the nightmares and mutilations I inflicted upon myself throughout the years after my parents’ deaths. They even played along with the name change and concealing my identity so the CIA wouldn’t classify me as a spy, since I am a girl who has returned from the dead and could easily be mistaken as a traitor. Just as Nikolai said, we’re all victims in this game of insanity and power.

Nikolai isn’t the only one who craves revenge now. I play along with Burkenstein and pretend to be more upset than I genuinely have been. I need to find out what he’s up to, what he has planned for my family ...
and Nikolai. Admit it. You still care.

You can deny it until you turn blue.

“I don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” I begin. “What do I need to do?”

“There’s my girl,” he says, coming to sit beside me on the couch and tucking my hair behind my ear, little gestures of deception to make me think he cares about me. “We start here. With this woman.” He places a photo of a woman with long, golden hair and a movie star smile in front of me. Even though I know she’s probably older than she appears, the photographer has made her look like a supermodel. Curiously, she reminds me of that celebrity-designer Rachel Zoe. Right away, I connect the dots to her identity even before Rudolph says, “Katerina Dostovsky. The source of your pain. It was she, along with her husband, Sergey, who was responsible for ordering the hit on your parents.”

“What? How?” I ask.

“Your father was a prominent member of the CIA, ambitious like his daughter. He, along with another agent, stumbled on the information to bring the Dostovsky empire crashing down, and deservedly so. To silence these witnesses, the Dostovskys ordered hits to be taken out on the two men scheduled to bring down their house of corruption, Agent Angelo and Agent Frederick Broussard.”

“I don’t believe you. Nikolai would’ve said something.”

“Would he? Still trusting the feeling between your legs over that which is blaringly obvious in your head. Read the contents of the file taken from the CIA’s vault.” I do as he says and fall deeper into despair each time I turn a watermarked page, each time I imagine the way Nikolai and I shared our bodies, two wounded souls blending as one for a stolen moment in time.

I don’t want to see anymore. Closing the folder, I, accept his order to negotiate the terms of a hit on Katerina Dostovsky, even though deep down inside, I know I’ve no intention of fulfilling it. However, I want to find a way to destroy Burkenstein, and this might provide my only chance, since I’m now on my own

“Look at me, Alestasia,” Rudolph says, placing a finger under my chin and turning my head toward him. “All I’ve done has been to protect you. You’ve become like a daughter to me.”

“An experiment, you mean,” I correct. His hands stop caressing my face for a few seconds just before he begins again.

“Ah, but you’re so much more,” he answers, a wild look in his dead, dark eyes. Of course I’m more, his freak of nature, a bride to the monster he created in the man I care about, both Nikolai and myself the products of a mad scientist gone wild. Someone has to stop him and the Dostovskys. Guess that’s going to be me. I’ll make all of them pay for what they’ve done to my family.

“Are you ready for revenge, little ghost?”

“Oh yes,” I answer truthfully.

With the details of the hit burning a hole in my head and heart, I leave Rudolph’s penthouse and take a car out to Bellaggio, a city located just outside of Milan, my chest feeling as though it’s going to cave in the closer I get to my destination. Leaving Milan’s streets filled with life, lights, and fashion houses, I travel further north toward the city with luxurious houses situated along the edge of Lake Como.

I’m not the least bit surprised to discover Katerina Dostovsky’s oversized Lake House. The exterior has a Tuscan farmhouse kind of appeal to it except for the professional landscaping and overall modern design. I ease to a stop outside of the house, not caring one bit about breaking protocol by being out in the open this way.

Maybe a part of me wants to get caught, to end this depression I’ve fallen into over into over the past couple weeks. Just when I began opening up, I was hurt again. Obviously, I don’t know how to choose men. From now on, I think I’ll stick with assignments.

I sneak around to the back of the house and use the decoder Rudolph confiscated from his inside governmental contacts to crack the security code on the lock. Since Rudolph has been watching her house over the past few months, learning her schedule, he already knew she’d be home alone. I’m supposed to inject her with phenylephrine, a tranquilizer to keep her sedated until the cleanup crew comes in after my negotiations are done. At the time of hearing about this woman’s part in my parents’ deaths, I couldn’t care less about her removal or whatever cruelty I’m sure Rudolph has planned for her; unlike Nikolai, I’m no murderer, my conscience still rules over my actions, even the missing parts of my memories. As I creep through the sun room and make my way across the kitchen and up the winding stairway, my anger fades with each passing second.

In the upstairs hallway, I head toward the third doorway on the left, Katerina’s room. Surprisingly, she sleeps with her door wide open, so there’s no need for me to worry over picking a lock. Pausing long enough to fill the syringe with the sedative, I inhale a shaky breath and remind myself of why this is necessary and why Nikolai’s family deserves to suffer the same way as mine. I stand above Nikolai’s stepmother, my heart racing, my hand with the syringe aimed at the spot in her neck where I should be plunging the needle into right now, and my knife poised for action in my left one. I freeze.
I can’t do this
, I think to myself.

Suddenly, Katerina awakens, her gray eyes fully alert and focused on my face. At once she bolts upright, pulling her hands out from under the covers, a gun pointed directly at my face. Checkmate.

Chapter 22

~Alese~

“Sending little girls to do his dirty work. I expected more out of Rudolph,” Katerina says, her voice as deadly as the gleam in her eyes. With the glow of the moonlight illuminating the golden hair hanging loose around her head and her silver nightgown, she looks surreal; the angel of death and no mercy. Of course she’d be the type of woman who sleeps with a gun.

“This isn’t what you think,” I whisper.

“Oh, it’s exactly what I think, Alestasia Broussard Jeffers. Drop the syringe and the knife.”

Hearing her call me by all my real names throws me off. I do as she says with the syringe, anyway, but the rebel in me says, “I’ll drop my weapon when you let go of yours.”

“Feisty. Just the way he likes them.” She gives me a tiny, crooked smile.

“You know my real name?”

“I know everything about the women in my sons’ lives,” she answers without flinching. “Move over to that chair by the window and sit. Make the wrong move and you’ll be saying goodnight. And then I’ll be forced to face a pissed off Nikolai after doing so. Do us both a favor and behave.” I hold my hands in the air and move over to the chair across the room, the knife still in my hand. I know it doesn’t stand much of a chance against a gun, but holding it gives me some sense of control over this screwed up situation. Slowly she eases up out of the bed and inches toward me.

Tears actually start forming in my eyes, the reality of my weakness tonight finally hitting me. Who am I kidding? Tonight’s botched negotiation has nothing to do with why I’m about ready to bawl in front of the woman who’s indirectly responsible for my pain and suffering. Hearing her say Nikolai’s name is what’s causing my breakdown right now, tying all parts of this fucked up situation together and making everything hard and real.

“You killed my parents. Nikolai took out my husband. Wow, I wonder what you guys have got planned for me ...” My voice catches in my throat, and a knot forms inside of my chest. I must escape Burkenstein, but can’t destroy him on my own. I’m completely alone in this situation.

“I did no such thing. Neither did Nikolai. Rudolph told you what you needed to hear in order to get you back on his side.”

Something inside of me snaps. “You’re all fucking lying! Sadistic, cruel people who take children and destroy our hopes and dreams!” I’m yelling and sobbing now. Great! I’ve finally gone insane.

She waits for me to gain some sense of control over my emotions and stares at me for so long I start fidgeting in my seat. “I know someone who can help us both,” Katerina assures me, her gray eyes filled with sincerity as she takes a seat in the chair beside mine.

“Why would you want to help me? Especially after this,” I ask, holding my blade up between us.

“This isn’t for you. My Nik has been lost ever since my daughter followed the heat between her legs instead of her heart,” she explains. I frown because this is the first time I’m hearing a secondhand version of what the mystery woman who broke Nikolai’s heart has done. He has suffered greatly, and I wonder if any woman, including myself, will ever be capable of easing the pain inside of his heart.

“I love my children, Alestasia. If you had not come to me on this night, I had planned to seek you out.”

“I don’t understand,” I say, lowering my knife. I don’t believe Burkenstein’s words about this woman being the cause of my suffering; it doesn’t add up. The only thing I see is a woman who’s guilty of loving her children too much.

Katerina lifts her tall body out of the chair and walks over to her dresser, looking bored as though she wakes up and finds an assassin in her bedroom every day. “Rudolph Burkenstein, the man who hired you and my Nikolai, has been a pain in the ass for both my ex-husband and me for a very long time now. I’ve been thinking of ways to cut down that gutter rat for decades.”

“How did you know I work for him?”

“I know everything, darling. I know about the experiments back in that Swiss lab of his. An abomination of sorts as vile as the man who created them.”

I hold my knife steady. “He told me the Dostovskys were responsible for the lab. That Sergey and his wife ordered it to be built as a means of torturing his enemies. He said your husband ordered the hit on my parents. That’s why he had to ... he ...”

“Unfortunately, that part is true, my dear. A story retold so you’d have justification for killing me, I’m sure. And after the deed was done, then you would’ve gone back to Burkenstein and worked as his negotiator just as my Nikolai has done over the past eight months. My husband was a cruel man, which is why I left him. I’m so very sorry for the pain he has caused you.”

All of my energy leaves me, and the knife drops from my hand, thudding to the floor. I clutch my stomach and start sobbing again, the intensity of regaining my memory, along with the agony of losing the man I love—correction: the two men I love—making me both nauseous and dizzy. I don’t know who, or what, to believe. I want Burkenstein to pay for what he has done to my family and Nikolai, but I’m trapped. There’s nowhere for me to go. “I’m lost. I don’t know what to do.”