Turbulent Sea (33 page)

Ilya nodded. "I'm aware of that."

"You can't have her and keep up with this kind of work, Ilya. She's an all-or-nothing girl. She's never fallen in love before. She's wanted to, but she doesn't give her trust to anyone. If you're that man, you can't walk away from her. It would destroy her."

Joley was afraid of giving too much of herself and not surviving if something went wrong. Jonas didn't have to tell him that. He already knew it, because he felt the same way. But he wasn't going to run from his only chance at happiness. Joley had a family, he didn't. Joley had people who made her laugh and could share her troubles. He didn't.

"I wouldn't presume to tell you how best to take care of Hannah."

"The difference is, Joley's my sister. I've loved her since she was born." Jonas refused to back down.

"You'll just have to trust me then," Ilya said and pulled on a thin pair of leather gloves. He drew a very small but wicked-looking knife from a hidden sheath, palming the handle, blade up against his wrist. "Get out of here. We're about to have company, and no one can know you were here."

Aleksandr crouched low, pulling his weapon. "You got any backup here, Ilya?"

Ilya shook his head. "And you can't stay. If anyone spots you, it could tip them off. It was a risk calling you. And get me as much information on John Dylan as you can, as fast as you can. I put it through channels, but they're going to take some time."

"You got it," Jonas agreed. "But we're not leaving you to get killed."

"I don't kill so easy," Ilya said, his voice dropping even lower. "Get out so I don't have to worry about you. With the two of you gone, any movement means an enemy in the field, and I don't have to worry about fucking up."

Aleksandr nodded. "He's always worked alone, Jonas, we'll just be in the way."

Ilya watched the two of them slip away into the darkness. He took a deep breath and let it out. He'd deliberately lost the two men trailing him once inside the park so he could have a few moments to speak with Jonas, but he was prepared for a confrontation—in fact, he welcomed it.

Joley's distance had left him edgy and surly inside, his body demanding hers. The more she refused to speak to him, the more he whispered to her, seducing her day and night with his voice. It was a powerful tool, the one he could always fall back on when all else failed. Hunting would let him expend a little of that excess energy.

The trees weren't wide enough to hide his shoulders, and he preferred not using the heavier brush because there was more chance to make noise. He dropped low and moved with care toward the sound of approaching footsteps. A shadow lengthened and grew across the grass, as the man approached. He wore all black. He had two guns out and ready, holding them sideways. Joley would have laughed and said the man watched too many movies. It made Ilya want to smile to think of her, and somehow just the thought of her made him warm.

He stayed prone waiting for the man to come to him. As the shadow approached, he heard the soft hum of a radio and stiffened. The man was communicating with someone else. Ilya spoke several languages and manipulated sound easily. He could talk with perfect accents and imitate voices exactly after one hearing. His pitch was so perfect that when using audio scanners, it was impossible to tell the difference between his voice and whoever he was copying.

He let the man move past him. Rising up, Ilya covered the man's mouth and shoved a knife deep into his kidney. The guns dropped to the ground, and Ilya retrieved the radio, slipping it into his ear. He heard the buzz of voices. Not one more man after him, but several. They'd sent a team to kill him, and that told him they knew his reputation. This wasn't some idiot crew member of Joley's thinking he could protect himself by grabbing a couple of buddies and trying to off the bodyguard. This was a professional hit.

Nikitin had too many enemies. He was a highly intelligent man, and if Interpol knew a war was shaping up for Nikitin's turf, then so did Nikitin. Unless Ilya's cover was blown, the Russian mob boss would never order a hit on him. And Ilya doubted if anyone could unravel his cover. Aleksandr had known him most of his life, and he hadn't known for certain until they'd crossed paths recently and Ilya had allowed him glimpses into his real life.

Being alone for so many years had become wearing, and after a while, undercover agents really began to believe their own cover stories. He had wanted Aleksandr and Jonas Harrington to figure out who and what he was. If there was one man in the world he trusted, it was Aleksandr, and now that he'd come to know Jonas, he was beginning to believe there might be second man he could trust. So if his cover wasn't blown, then who wanted him dead—and why?

The attackers had spread out in a loose line. Ilya had taken out one in the center, but there were men on either side of him, working their way across the park. One appeared to be giving the others instructions. The voice was speaking English perfectly. There was no hint of an accent, other than New York. No European, certainly not Russian. The man he'd killed had also been American.

He pushed through the grass on his belly, rolled a few feet and came up on a second man. This one was much larger than the first. Ilya rose up like a monster, using the same method, taking him from behind, covering his mouth and sinking the blade into flesh. His opponent was enormously strong and wrenched forward, trying to tear out of Ilya's grip. He fired his weapon, making it no longer necessary for silence.

Ilya caught the man's head in both hands and wrenched, breaking the would-be assassin's neck. He crouched beside him, retrieving his knife and wiping the blade on his enemy's shirt. Having shoved the knife into his belt, he pulled his gun and proceeded to run in a straight line toward the next man. Two down. He was certain there were six of them. The other four burst into a furious round of hissing out questions and orders while he gained several yards on them.

He was adept at throwing sound and made certain to make noise to his left. A volley of shots rang out. He fired at the flash, heard a grunt followed by a thud. Ilya dropped to the ground when he heard the body fall. Immediately more gunfire broke out. The earpiece nearly burst as the leader shouted at the others to stop firing, warning them they might hit one another.

Two men nearly came together over the top of him; he rolled to fire off a shot as one fired simultaneously. The bullet kissed his arm hard enough to knock him back, taking a chunk of flesh with it. That would leave DNA he didn't want on scene. Cursing, he rolled and came up on his feet. The man who'd shot him was down, the bullet having taken him between the eyes. The second was on him, swinging a gun at Ilya's head.

He ducked, just not quite fast enough. The metal scraped across his cheekbone as Ilya jerked his head out of the way.

He kicked hard, aiming for a kneecap, striking just above his target. The man grunted, staggered, his leg buckling. Ilya caught him hard with a roundhouse kick to the head, driving him to the ground. He followed through with a kick to the trachea, stomping hard. The man's eyes went wide and the gun slipped out of his nerveless hand.

Ilya hastily tore his shirt and wrapped the wound on his arm to prevent throwing more droplets of blood around the crime scene. Four down. He had two to go and he had to kill them. He couldn't leave anyone alive, since he had only spotted the first two after him. He didn't know if anyone had seen Jonas Harrington and Aleksandr Volstov, but if they had, his cover was blown and Joley was a dead woman for certain.

He retrieved the fallen's man's gun, the one that had struck his cheek, ripping his skin. He couldn't leave that on scene either. That would have to be dismantled and gotten rid of far away from here. Tucking it into his belt, he began to move again.

The others were more cautious in the sudden silence. One swore, the other told him to shut up. Ilya slipped into the trees close to the playground. He could see childhood toys, a swing, a slide, a merry-go-round. Not that he'd ever played on such things. He'd climbed cargo nets over two stories high and scaled the walls of buildings, but he'd never even sat in a swing. His life had always been like this—hunted or hunter.

He waited, calm, not feeling the pain in his arm or face. The only thing that mattered was sound and movement. The wind was soft, rustling through trees, lifting the leaves to show glimpses of silver when the moon managed to break through the clouds. In the distance he heard traffic. In his ear, with the earpiece, he heard heavy breathing. A twig snapped a few yards to his right. He slowly lowered his body, keeping close to the brush to conceal his outline, turning toward the sound, waiting. Just waiting.

It occurred to him then that he'd spent most of his lifetime waiting in the shadows for someone to make a wrong move. He was done after this assignment, done with undercover work and living a solitary, cold existence. He was through killing people. He wished the killing mattered, that it bothered him, but he had been closed off to emotion for too long to resurrect guilt now. Undercover work, or taking out someone who lived beyond the arm of the law, was simply a job, and he had a code he tried never to deviate from, one that he could live with in a world of violence. He had a couple of triggers and his bosses knew it. The mistreatment of women and of children. He had seen too much as a child and wouldn't tolerate it, so he was often sent on the jobs demanding cleanup rather than arrest. Like the one he was on now.

The branches of a bush swayed against the wind. Another twig snapped. Loud. Too loud. He turned fast, felt the knife slice across his ribs as he slapped it down and away from him. A second attacker had come up behind him. The only reason the strike hadn't hit home was because Ilya was blurring his image a bit and his assailant hadn't seen him until he was right up on him. He'd swung a knife instead of firing his gun.

Ilya kicked the man's gun arm, smashing through bone, moving inside to whirl the attacker in front of him, facing the swaying bush. Bullets spat out and thunked into his human shield. Ilya dragged the deadweight with him until he had relative cover. He dropped the body, dove for the ground and crawled rapidly into thicker brush. The moment he was clear, he tore a strip from his shirt with his teeth and bound his wound.

He waited in silence again. Minutes ticked by. The shots were bound to have attracted someone's attention. He didn't have the luxury of patience. He began to work his way toward the remaining man. He could still hear heavy breathing, this time rasping, as the air burst from lungs overtaxed with anxiety.

The last attacker decided to make a run for it. He began to withdraw, backing through the brush, cracking small branches and crunching dry leaves. Ilya pinpointed his position and rolled toward him fast, coming up firing several shots in rapid succession. The attacker hunched over on the ground. Ilya crawled close, still covering him. A finger on the man's neck found no pulse. Ilya spent a few minutes looking for the knife that had scraped his ribs, retrieving it so he could leave a relatively clean scene behind.

He glanced at his watch and swore. Joley's performance was nearly over. The feeling of doom inside him hadn't lessened.

The danger he'd sensed hadn't just been this hit squad. He had to get back to Joley fast.

ILYA isn't in the arena
. Joley could barely focus. She was worried, worried enough that she'd reached out telepathically and tried to connect with him. He hadn't answered. Uneasily she glanced around at the band. Ordinarily, Staples Center in Los Angeles was another of her favorite performance venues, but this time, she felt overwhelmed instead of energized by the thought of performing that night.

She had a bad feeling. Her stomach churned with a terrible dread she couldn't shake.

"Come on, Joley, get dressed. We've got to go on in a few minutes," Logan said, glancing at Tish for help.

Tish sent Logan a quick quelling look and flashed Joley a bright smile. "Logan can watch the baby while I help you."

"Ten minutes, Tish," Jerry reminded her.

Joley realized they were all treating her carefully. She knew they thought her arm, which was swollen and bruised but healing fast, was much worse than it was. Only Tish and Brian knew the truth. She was pining away for the wrong man. He talked to her at night when she couldn't sleep. She wanted to beg and plead with him to come to her, but she'd remained silent. If she expected Brian to stay away from Nikitin and Denny to stay away from drugs and women, and Logan to toe the line with Tish, then she expected the same high standard of herself.

"It's amazing how you've just fallen right back into taking care of all of us," Joley said as she pulled open the door to the large room she'd been given to get ready. She preferred her own bus, it helped calm her down, but she'd come directly from the hotel, so she used the suite the center set aside for their performers.

"I forgot how much I loved to travel with the band," Tish said, shoving a long narrow box to the back of the table so she could set Joley's makeup case there. "Who sent the flowers?"

"Are there flowers?" Joley's heart leapt. Maybe Ilya had sent them. If he had, she'd do the right thing and throw them away. Or maybe that wouldn't be right. She wouldn't want them to go to waste. "Let me see. Is there a card with them?"

Tish dragged the box back to the center of the table and handed the card to Joley while she lifted the lid. Joley bent over her shoulder, ripping open the small card. She glanced at the card, hoping it was from Ilya.

DIE BITCH

The two words were typed in black bold letters across the white linen card. Tish shoved Joley back and dropped the lid. The box spilled out a dozen long-stemmed blackened roses and a grotesque decapitated doll cut into pieces.

"Okay, that's totally sick," Tish said.

Joley looked around the room. "Maybe it wasn't meant for me. I'm pretty sure I'm not a bitch. Well, at least most of the time."

Tish moistened her suddenly dry lips. "This is crazy, Joley. Who would do this?"