he felt a strange ache inside.
Not wanting to dwell on it, he slipped out of bed and washed his
hands. When he returned, John and Andrei welcomed him home with
an incredible tandem blow job.
He was numb by the time they'd finished, hardly aware that his
bandage had come loose.
John gasped when he saw the many little cuts. “How the fuck did
this happen?”
Chris nudged his hand away. “It's a long story. Nothing
important.”
“It looks like… writing?”
“No. That's crazy.”
Andrei switched on one of the bedside lamps. Chris squinted
against the glare.
“It's Cyrillic. They are words.”
Chris raised up on his elbows. “No shit.”
Andrei nodded, something odd in his eyes.
“What does it say?”
Andrei hesitated, glanced to John, whose expression took on a
worried cast.
“What. Does. It. Say.”
Andrei hesitated further. “Basically, it means, This is mine.”
“Fuck.” Chris got off the bed, not sure whether he'd sleep on the
couch or grab the next plane to Heathrow and then shoot Nikita.
He’s the best. He heard Katya's voice again and thought of that
expression in her eyes. Fuck. He wasn't headed the same way. He
wouldn't turn into anybody's fucking doormat.
Do you object?
No.
And that was the problem, wasn't it? There was no comfort zone
with Nikita, no safety net, no failsafe. The man was a booby trap, a
fucking landmine disguised as a human being.
“It was that Russian? This… Nikita? Are you fucking crazy,
Chris?” John asked, British accent clipped and angry. So precise. “You
did go out and meet him again? Knowing full well he's one of the guys
who tried to kill Andrei?”
“That's guesswork. We don't know that. Besides, Nikita is too
keen on Andrei's ass to want to kill him.”
“Hey, I'm in the same room,” Andrei said.
A three-way fight was the last thing Chris was now in the mood
for. “And besides, he came to me that night.”
“What does he want?”
“He figures I killed Andrei. I keep feeding him the party line.
He'll get sick of it eventually.” Chris pulled off the bandage, irritated
that those little words had given it all away. “And I'm okay, thanks for
asking.”
He headed down the stairs to get some food, uncomfortable at
how John's gaze followed him. Don't you dare drive me into a corner,
he thought as he began to rummage around the refrigerator. When he
set down the rest of the fruit salad from the evening meal at the kitchen
table, it wasn't John who stood there, but Andrei.
“Want some?”
“No, thanks.” Andrei switched the water kettle on. British and
Russian response to stress. Have a cuppa tea first. “You said he knows
me?”
“Yeah. He kept asking what our relationship was like. I told him
you hired me as a bodyguard after we met in hospital. Then I betrayed
you and shot you. It leaves out all the stuff about GORGON.”
“So you risked the wrath of some Russian avenger on my behalf?”
Andrei asked, and he prepared two mugs for tea.
“He seemed to know a fair bit of that when he came to me. He
definitely had some kind of working hypothesis. And I'm okay with
taking one for the team.”
Andrei grinned at the pun and poured hot water over the teabags.
“Do you have photos?”
“Yeah.” It might jog Andrei's memory, but almost nothing did.
He had the occasional flash of déjà vu, but GORGON's doctors had
declared his memory loss pretty much permanent. It wasn't likely that
anything would come back now.
Chris went to get the laptop. Andrei stood behind him, hand
resting on Chris's shoulder while he peered at the screen. A double-
click opened one of the “decent” images. Nikita was mostly dressed in
that one, and full frontal.
“Rings any bells?”
“I think I know him, but I don't know from where.”
“Good or bad feelings?”
Andrei paused. “Both, I think.”
Chris closed the window. “Well, he seemed to have quite a bit of
unrequited lust for you, my man.”
Andrei sat across from him at the table. “The feeling wasn't
mutual, that much I'm sure of.”
“Why?”
“I don't like the look of him. Add in what he did to you, to
callously mark that on anyone, mark anything on another person….”
He left the rest unsaid, allowing a tense silence to descend
between them. Still, Chris had no trouble filling in the blanks.
Who in their right mind would want to be treated that way?
Who, indeed.
Chris pushed his half-eaten salad away and stood. “I'm going
down to the gym. Go get some sleep.”
Andrei stood, tried to reach out. “Chris—”
“Goodnight.”
HE PUMPED iron until his muscles ached, wanting him to stop, and yet
he pressed on. With each rep he tried to make sense of this insanity that
gripped him, only to come up short.
Back in the condo, alone in the shower of the guest room
bathroom, it almost made sense.
This is mine.
Maybe that was it. The possession, the belonging. An only child,
an Army brat, he'd been moved from base to base like clockwork until
his mother couldn't take it anymore and split. Real smart move, that.
From bad boyfriend to worse boyfriend she went, dragging him along
on her downward spiral until Children's Services put him with a foster
family whose time and patience was stretched to the limit.
They were good people. They tried to give, but with their own
kids and a handful of fosters, they could only give so much. The ROTC
visitor at sophomore year career day came just as Chris was exploring
his fluid sexuality. The good-looking sergeant never overstepped his
bounds, but he did befriend Chris and steered him into an ROTC
scholarship and a stint in the military. He met up with his dad in
Germany.
The old man was none too happy to see his only son go beyond
being a mere non-com, and with the fact that Chris looked enough like
his mother to dredge up the painful past, they never really connected,
and the military began to lose its charm.
GORGON provided much-needed stability as well as an ample
paycheck and the honing of his sniper skills. It also provided John
Soong, a very calming, stable influence in a sea of too many partners,
too much adrenaline, too many hits taken on.
But then came Andrei Voronin, another lost soul in need of a
permanent place. Whatever he'd been before, he was a good man now,
a decent, dependable man. But even coupled with John, Chris now
knew that stability wasn't all he was lacking in life.
He needed the rush of danger, the threat that life hung in the
balance, and GORGON could only go so far in providing that.
“Fucking pro
cedures,” Chris muttered, turning his face up to
cascading water.
Nikita was all danger, no sanity. He felt like the mad rush of the
first job, and he certainly didn't seem to have any issues with the fact
that Chris killed people. He only had issues that he'd killed Andrei.
Of all people, a criminal, possibly a slave trader. God fucking
damn it. While his morals were as fluid as his sexuality, he couldn't go
that far. In a world full of grays, he could still tell black when he saw it.
And that kind of shit was pitch black.
He finished the shower, topped it all off with an electrolyte drink,
brushed his teeth, and went to sleep in the guest room. He didn't want
John's accusatory looks, he didn't even want Andrei understanding and
rationalizing things. Fucking lawyer… that was how the profession
worked: analyze and break any situation down into important facts.
Comparing that to Nikita's bad boy appeal, he knew who came out on
top. Same guy that always came out on top, by the looks of him.
Chapter 6
“HELLO, Andrei Alexeyevich.” Nikita sat down on the bench facing
the Thames. The lawyer coughed into the chicken sandwich he’d picked
up from Pret a Manger opposite the office.
Small coughing fit aside, Voronin shifted slightly to the far end of
the bench, even though Nikita hadn’t even begun invading the man’s
personal space.
“Napkin?” He offered from the lawyer’s plastic bag.
“Who… are you? What do you want?” Voronin regarded him
with distaste from head to toe, as if a tramp was asking him for change.
“Enjoying the early spring sun. Like you.” Nikita leaned back,
arms on the rear of the bench. “It’s good to be alive, isn’t it?”
“I guess.” Voronin dropped his sandwich into the carton, as if
suddenly queasy. He picked up his paper coffee cup. “Well, have a
good day.”
“Unlike this poor devil.” Nikita reached into his pocket and
dropped a photograph on the bench. “Know him?”
“What? No!”
“You haven’t read the news of the suspected gangland killing of
this lawyer? I thought people like you kept an eye on others of your
kind.”
“What… that’s… him?”
“Yeah. I guess the newspapers didn’t get these.” Nikita studied
the semi-naked body with all the bullet holes. He’d chosen the best
photo. Where they showed the fact the corpse was missing the
fingernails on both hands. “I do think that was excessive. He probably
talked even before they did this. Leaves revenge rather than
interrogation. Of course, it doesn’t show he was raped with a broom
handle, too. I think I have another photo….”
Voronin stared at him like he was a lunatic escaped from Arkham
Asylum.
“What do you want?”
“I thought you might want to know what happened to your
predecessor.” Nikita lifted an eyebrow.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Voronin snatched the
remainder of his lunch and turned to leave.
“Ah, but Andrei Alexeyevich. Even your six-figure basic salary
and generous bonus package isn’t enough to buy all those expensive
cars recently. Some very marked changes in behavior. I’m always
interested in such drastic changes. You party like there’s no tomorrow.
Because there simply might not be. You’re a very rational man. It’s sad
to see you go off the rails, but under that kind of pressure… who
wouldn’t?”
Andrei paused. “Who are you?”
“Nikita Kazakov. I’m here to make you an offer of my protection.
Why don’t you invite me to your office, where we can talk in private?”
The lawyer had listened to the proposal, growing paler by the
minute until Nikita feared he might faint or spew up that half-eaten
lunch of his. Neither were attractive outcomes.
Nikita rose from the leather chair and walked to the wide office
window. He peered at the wide sluggish river through the vertical
blinds and cracked his knuckles before turning to face the anxious
lawyer. “That concludes my offer. All that’s needed is your acceptance.”
Voronin scrubbed his face with his hands. Under normal
circumstances he was a handsome man, presented himself with an air
of confidence so sadly lacking at this moment.
“Since we’ve just met, I’ll do you the courtesy of letting you know
I never make a business proposal twice.”
“I… can’t.” Voronin stared at him, ducked as if expecting to be
hit. “You’ve… seen what these men do. I can’t sell a client. I just… I
just can’t.”
“I know where you live, Andrei. I know enough about you.”
“Did you kill… did you do that?”
Nikita walked back to the desk. Voronin cringed away from him.
For a moment Nikita thought he’d used too much force against the
lawyer’s ego. Shattered rather than broken him. Not necessarily
counterproductive, as he well knew.
“I need, I need to think about this, I can’t just make a snap
decision like that….”
“Maybe if I show you more photos?”
decide this.”
“You can. And you have. You’re scared. You’re looking for
protection. I’m the best bet you have.” He reached slowly out, saw the
wide eyes, that terrified, pale expression, and closed his hand around
the man’s shoulder, stepping slowly closer.
To his surprise, Andrei lurched forward and suddenly clung to
him, shoulders shaking. His aftershave smelled like moss and leather
and wood. Nikita paused a moment and then placed an arm around
Voronin, who shook in his half-embrace like a man condemned to die.
He abhorred weakness, especially in men, and yet something
about Voronin’s emotional collapse tempered his disgust. “Stop this at
once.” The phrase was clipped, but the tone was soft, more a strong
suggestion than a direct order. “Get hold of yourself and do it quickly.
Think with that rational lawyer’s mind of yours, Andrei Alexeyevich.
You know I tell the truth. Circumstance has chosen your course. You
will follow it to the best of your abilities and leave the rest to me.”
Voronin pulled back, took several deep breaths to compose
himself, then nodded, the look in his eyes resigned. He was undoubtedly
relieved the decision had been made for him. What an interesting
subject, so willing to follow a strong leader. So many possibilities in
that.
Nikita straightened Voronin’s tie, brushed the wrinkles from the
shoulders of his jacket, and swept the loose strands of hair back from
his sweat-dampened face.
“What—what do I do now?”
“Now, you will continue as you did, but you will get yourself back
under control. Get back to how you were. You cannot appear as a
liability to them, or they will replace you. And you’ve seen what that
means.” Nikita kept his gaze lock
ed on Voronin. “Meanwhile, you will
give me the full set of data, the whole file. Everything you work on for
Zaitsev. The more complete this is, the sooner you’ll be rid of him.”
“And if they ever suspect….”
“No. I will be there to protect you. I’m protecting my sources.
You don’t have to worry. Nobody in my care has ever died, do you
understand?”
“And if I… have to reach you?”
“Here.” Nikita noted his phone number on a card. “Call me
whenever. E-mail me the files, do it today, or I’ll meet you tomorrow
for lunch.”
“Lunch. Tomorrow. I know a place.”
And so they’d met, and Voronin turned over an incredible amount
of data, all neatly categorized and filed onto a USB drive. He handed
the drive over immediately and seemed to relax once the data left his
possession. He was affable during their shared meal, charming even.
Attractive, definitely, and it stirred things inside Nikita he never much
liked to dwell on.
“BUT that was then. This is now,” Nikita whispered before tossing the
surveillance photo of Voronin into the large glass ashtray in the run-
down rented flat in East Berlin that served as his current base of
operations.
Stirring tempered desires was the last thing he planned to do for
the foreseeable future. Work was a priority, and crushing Zaitsev was
as much a job as it was a private quest for vengeance. He'd never failed
at fulfilling his objective, whatever it had cost him.
He'd simply not expected anybody to try to kill Voronin while on
holiday. It seemed absurd to be shot in Monaco. And his own resources
had been spread too thin—he'd not expected an attack on Voronin,
because his sources in Zaitsev's inner circle didn't mention the lawyer
falling out of favor.
As far as assassination attempts went, this came out of the blue,
and he thought he should still have known. Should have anticipated.
Maybe read it in a fucking crystal ball. The lawyer didn't deserve to die
for what he'd done—or for the people that were his clients.
Even not approaching law enforcement was forgivable. Nikita
wasn't particularly impressed with the Brits' willingness to tackle
imported crime. They seemed to think if perps didn't speak English as
their first language, paid their taxes, and killed only their own kind, it