Chapter 14 Viktor
VIKTOR
That conversation at the diner is still stuck with me. I didn’t mean to be as harsh as I was to her, necessary though it might have been.
It’s been a couple of days since and I can’t seem to shake it. The sight of her lowering her head, water hovering in her eyes. Hurting her was the very last thing I wanted to do, even if it was absolutely the correct response.
I can’t let Tati get ideas in her head about us.
About me. Whatever fairytale fantasy she has in her mind about the two of us riding off together in the sunset has got to be squashed at the first signs.
Defending her against her father that night sparked something in her, and she was trying to get close, trying to needle through my defenses.
She and I are not an option and we never will be.
That’s just our reality. I thought she understood that.
In the end, it shouldn’t matter and I should really stop ruminating on it. Especially with this job ahead of me.
I’m sitting in my car outside the bank where the target is supposed to be.
Nikolai offered nothing in the way of a description of them other than that it’s a woman and she would be wearing a red coat and walking out of the bank at a certain time and that I would know her because she was going to get a phone call right when she stepped out. I didn’t even get a photo.
The worst part is that I couldn’t even have asked any questions. I’m expected to take orders and carry them out. Case closed. Even with such a sparse description. I feel like I’m being set up to fail.
I suppose if that is the case, I deserve it. I did step right in the middle of his chastising his daughter, after all. I’ll bet he spent the entire two weeks dreaming up a situation like this just so that he has good reason to oust me.
But what can I do? I can’t refuse him. He’s a Pakhan. It would be worse on me if I told him no rather than trying and failing.
I’ve been sitting in my car for the past thirty minutes, watching people walk in and out of the bank. So far, there have been three women and four men to come out of those doors. All of them are of different ages, different races, different heights and weights… No one with a red coat.
And then it occurs to me that this could be some sort of distraction. Maybe I’m being kept away from something else. But if that’s so, what could it be? I have no family other than Nikolai. Not even a lover to speak of.
Well… except Tati. But that was only once, and no one knows about that but the two of us.
Unless he found out somehow. But… how? No matter how she feels about me, she wouldn’t dare tell her father. That would be suicide.
I’m overthinking this. I turn on the radio, turning the volume down so that it drones in the background. That usually helps when my focus is off for a job. I need to stop thinking that there’s something up about this. This is a hit, like any other. And I’m going to carry it out.
Two more people, a woman and a teenage girl… An older gentleman stops and holds the door open for…
No. It can’t be her.
I watch as a woman with rainbow-colored hair steps out of the bank and thanks the man. She’s wearing a bright red peacoat and blue jeans and a casual smile on her face. It’s just another day as far as Marla is concerned.
It’s not her. Nikolai would have called her by name. He knows that I’m acquainted with her. And if he doesn’t, he certainly would have given me more than just that she was a woman in a red coat. At least, he would have described her hair. No. She’s not the target.
I watch her walk toward her car parked a few paces away. Get in your car, drive away. Leave before the real target gets here.
She gets about halfway before she stops and reaches in her pocket… and pulls out her phone. She looks at it quizzically and answers it.
Shit. This is very, very bad. Why has Nikolai targeted her?
I get out of the car, my mind working. I can’t kill Marla. For a dozen reasons, I can’t be the one to do it. This has to be some kind of mistake or something.
I jog across the street, rushing to her as quickly as I can. When I get close, I see she’s frowning as she’s talking to whoever’s on the phone. “Hello? Sorry? I can’t hear you.”
“Marla,” I call out.
She looks up at me and smiles politely, hanging up the phone. “Hey. What are you—”
A shot rings out, cuts through the air, and brushes past my ear as I step up onto the curb. Marla stumbles backward, grabbing her neck. Blood pours down the front of her peacoat in a rush, pouring the life out of her in seconds. Her knees buckle as she stares wide-eyed at me. Her face goes white.
I grab her as she falls to the ground, holding her in my arms as her mouth falls open to gasp for air.
Someone’s taken the shot for me. I look up in the direction that I think I heard it, somewhere in the upper floors of the building across the street. There are a million windows looking back at me, and none of them tell me who the shooter was.
“Vik…” Blood spurts out of her mouth as she tries to talk. I put my hand over the bleeding wound in her neck and apply pressure.
“You’re going to be all right,” I tell her. “Just lie still. Don’t try to talk.”
Her eyes dart over my face in a moment of panic, then she taps my arm and moves her hand to her outside pocket.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay, don’t move. Help is coming.”
She keeps trying to get at her pocket, and she finally gets her hand in. Slowly, shakily, she pulls a key out.
“Take…” she says, pressing it against my wrist. Then the light fades from her eyes… and she’s gone.
All the sound from around me starts to bleed back in and suddenly, I realize I’m kneeling on the ground in the middle of chaos. People are screaming and running and calling for an ambulance. It’s too late, though. Marla’s gone.
I take the key as her hand goes limp and lay her down on the ground. As I step away and blood pools underneath her, I hear someone yell for me to stay where I am. Some random citizen with a phone in his ear.
I need to make tracks before the authorities get here. I run back to my car. As I get it started, I dare to take one last look at the scene. Marla is lying dead on the pavement, the whole world around her falling apart. This will be all over the news in less than an hour.
I just noticed that I’m covered in Marla’s blood. I’ve walked into my apartment and gotten as far as the kitchen before I realize that it’s all over my hands and sleeves and… It’s everywhere.
My instinct is to get clean. Being covered in blood is never good in any scenario, even if I’m not the one who did the killing. I grab a glass, fill it with water, and drink it to steady myself. Then I start taking off my clothes and I go to the bathroom to shower.
I go through the motions of getting myself cleaned up and disposing of my clothes automatically. Really, my mind is trying to piece together what the fuck happened.
Nikolai sent me to kill Marla, best friend of his daughter, girlfriend of his late son. Suddenly, he wants her dead. I’m his best enforcer so when I think about it logically, it makes sense to ask me to be the one to take her out.
So, why did someone else do it? And who was that someone else? Whoever it was, they’re a crack shot with a sniper rifle. That bullet threaded the needle past my head and hit her.
Or, maybe I was the target and Marla was just in the way.
No, Nikolai might’ve been pissed at me for speaking up for Tati, but that’s not a murderable offense.
And besides, putting a hit on me instead of just facing me like a man is cowardly. Nikolai is anything but that.
So, then, why? Why Marla? Why me? What the hell is going on?
After I shower and throw on some sweats, I put my bloody clothes in a bag to go to the incinerator. But before that, I go through my pockets. Immediately, I find the key she handed me before she died.
Kneeling in the hallway in front of my bathroom, a garbage bag full of my clothes, I hold a little golden key with numbers embossed in them up to the light.
There’s little flecks of her blood on the tip and around the key’s bow where she held it between her fingers.
She passed this on to me before she died. This little key.
As I stare at it, clarity comes. This is a key for a safety deposit box. That’s why she was at the bank. Why would she give this to me?
I put it in the pocket of my sweats and finish bagging up my clothes, then I make the trip down to the incinerator to burn it all away.
More questions fill my mind as I take the last step of covering up the evidence of my presence at Marla’s death. And when it comes down to it, I understand why she’s a target.
She’s got something on Nikolai. I can’t imagine what. The two of them have barely spoken to one another as far as I know. Then again, she was Nicki’s girl.
I walk back into my apartment, lock the door, and sit down on my couch, turning the key over and over in my hand.
If this key threatens my boss, then it means that someone might be looking for it.
The honorable thing to do would be to get rid of it.
Or better yet, tell Nikolai and hand it over to him.
It’s probably what I might’ve done if this had been any other person.
Or if it had been done any other way. The more and more I think about it, the more I realize that I was set up. I don’t understand why just yet, but I’ve got a feeling that this key might unlock the reason.
There’s a lot I could do about this, but I’d better be cool for now. Someone may be watching to see what I do next. I’d better keep this under wraps until I know more.
With that thought, I get up and go to my bathroom.
There’s been a loose tile in the wall behind the toilet for ages.
I’ve long since given up calling the landlord to have it fixed.
I kneel down and find it, the little piece of tile directly behind the tank, and pull out the piece of tile, then slide the key in.
It should be safe there for now.