8. Bratva #2
HALSTON
“You need to leave,” Gabriel said. “Now.”
“You need my help,” she replied. “You don’t know how many are in there.”
Within seconds, he’d come up with a plan, shared it with her. His mind worked fast… and she liked that.
No hesitation on his part. Zero fear.
Together, they sprinted around back. He keyed their way in through the basement, removed his gun from its holster as moonlight guided their path inside.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered as they cleared the movie room, the guest bedroom, and the bathroom.
No one.
Up the basement stairs they went. Halfway up, one of the steps creaked. They paused, listened. No sound. He continued up, she skipped the noisy step. The basement door was closed. When he pushed it open, it squeaked on its hinges. She held her breath, but they were met with more silence.
Moving fast, he cleared the first floor. She stayed close, all while watching their backs. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. This was a whole new level of crazy for her.
On the second-floor landing, he stilled. She stopped on the stairs.
A faint sound came from the room on the left. The house was dark, but the window treatments must’ve been open because the moonlight and the streetlamps provided them the visibility they needed.
Into the bedroom they went. The second Gabriel bolted into the bathroom, an ox of a man emerged from the dark closet, a gun in his hand.
Halston leapt onto his back.
“Privet!” hollered the intruder. Hey!
Gabriel emerged from the bathroom.
The hitman pointed his gun at Gabriel. Halston placed her hands over his chin and the back of his head and twisted it. Hard and fast. His neck snapped, and she jumped off as he dropped to the floor. Panting hard, she stood there staring down at him.
“Holy fuck,” Gabriel murmured, his eyes wide, before he bolted into the hallway.
She followed while he cleared the three remaining bedrooms and hall bathroom.
When finished, they returned to the first, peered down at the dead man.
Gabriel confirmed his back pockets were empty before rolling him over.
After pulling a cell phone from his pants, he turned it off.
Besides the gun and the phone, the killer had nothing.
Gabriel took his gun, disappeared into his closet, and flicked on the light.
Turning away from the bright room, Halston heard beeping, then the sound of a safe being opened.
Follow him.
She stood in the doorway, peered inside. In the lit closet, Gabriel stood in front of a six-foot safe, its door wide open. After wiping down the pistol, he set it and the intruder’s cell phone on a shelf.
She stepped into the closet, her focus on the contents of his safe. At quick glance, there were six more firearms. While the thumb drive she’d been searching for in Milan could have been in there, she didn’t see it.
He glanced over his shoulder. “You want a gun… for protection?”
A feeling of betrayal washed over her. He was her mark and yet she’d slept with him twice. Not for her job. For herself. A one-nighter had turned into a two-nighter. In a strange twist of irony, she’d saved his life. Twice. If anything, he should gift her that damn thumb drive.
“No gun for me,” she replied.
He shut the safe.
They exited the closet, returned to the massive body on his bedroom floor.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“A Russian mobster.”
Ah, fuck. Fuck me.
“The bigger question… who the hell are you?” Gabriel asked. “You took him out with your hands… in seconds. I’ve never seen anything like that, and I’ve seen a lot of violence.”
She’d acted on instinct. Years of training had paid off… or had they? She’d just murdered a Bratva.
“If this gets out,” she whispered, “I’m as good as dead.” A clamminess washed over her, and she wiped her hands on her pleated pirate skirt.
“We need to get rid of the body.”
“Master of the obvious,” she murmured.
“You got a hella voice. Much sexier without the accent.” He pulled his phone, made a call on speaker, then cemented his gaze on her.
“Develin,” the man answered.
Evangeline’s husband.
“I got ambushed… again,” Gabriel said. “I got a three-hundred-pound corpse in my bedroom.”
“Jesus. You okay?”
Please don’t tell him about me.
“I’m good. I gotta get rid of the body.”
“I’ll call CJ,” Develin said, his voice low and husky. “Can you move him yourself?”
How are we going to do that?
“I got this.”
In the darkened room, she could feel his power and confidence thundering off him.
“CJ gets paid, but tip him,” Develin said. “Stay until he puts the body into the cremator.”
What the hell?
Develin rattled off the address, hung up. Gabriel slid his phone into his pants pocket, walked right up to her. “Let me walk you to your SUV.”
She’d just killed a man… with her bare hands. A Bratva. With what little sanity she had left, she needed to see this through.
“You need me,” she said. “I didn’t hear this Develin offering to help load this whale into your vehicle. What do you drive?”
“A Ferrari and a pickup truck.”
“I have the SUV. I killed Orca. I must hide the evidence.” She’d never reacted like that, never taken a life so quickly.… or at all. She was struggling to comprehend what had just happened… let alone keep her accent intact.
A flash of gratitude washed over him. “Let get to work.”
After Gabriel closed and locked the front window, they lowered every window treatment in the house. He retrieved two pairs of gloves and a large tarp from the basement. Her fingers were swimming in them, but she wasn’t about to leave any more of her DNA than she already had.
As they worked together, her frantic heart beat slowed down, in part because Gabriel was rock solid. He stayed focused on one small task at a time, and he remained calm and in complete control. Had they been packing for a picnic in the park, she had every confidence he’d act the exact same way.
That helped her not freak the hell out.
They spread out the tarp, rolled the dead man onto it, then wrapped him in it.
Yes, Gabriel looked to be six-one and was built like a tank, but he was superhero strong.
She wondered if the intensity of the situation had bolstered his strength…
or maybe it was the fear of getting caught.
She had no idea why the mobster would be waiting to kill him, but there appeared to be a lot more to business magnate Gabriel Santini than finding some thumb drive.
With the fat man in the tarp, they got busy securing the body with rope.
When finished, they let gravity take it down the stairs to the first floor.
Beyond the sweating, her muscles would hate her tomorrow. For now, she was doing everything she could to simply manage through the current problem—the large one in front of her—before she moved on to consider anything else.
I’m in hella trouble.
He stepped close, removed the glove from his hand, and tilted her face to his. “How do you feel—a Russian woman with close ties to her government—taking out a fellow comrade?”
She peered into his sexy, almond-shaped eyes, refusing to answer that question.
The air turned charged with desire, the energy flowing from him into her, the need to kiss him taking hold.
I’ve totally lost it.
I was safer—way safer—in Russia.
He leaned down, dropped a tender kiss on her lips. “This stays between us.”
“You think?”
His killer smile turned her inside out, but it fell away before she could appreciate how truly handsome he was.
“Sinclair Develin knows, which means his wife does,” she murmured.
“They won’t tell anyone.”
They better not.
He stole one more kiss before he asked for her keys. She handed them over, he backed the SUV up the hilly front yard to the steps leading to his front door.
This was where things got risky. He had no garage. If anyone saw them, it was all over.
He killed the engine, exited the vehicle, and opened the back hatch.
Even though Halston did work out with weights, she had no idea how they were going to lift so much dead weight into the vehicle.
He popped his head inside the house. “There’s a large garden cart in the back. I’ll bring it around.”
She stood in the foyer staring at the tarp containing the remains of a man she’d killed.
I’m in over my head on this one. But I did what needed to be done.
Despite the perspiration covering her skin, a shiver skirted through her.
After he gunned down Gabriel, he would have come for me.
A minute later, Gabriel opened the front door, pushed the cart into the house. Using muscles she didn’t know she had, they got him into the cart. Outside they went, the frigid winter air wicking away the sweat.
Knowing that someone could see them, they moved fast. Minutes later, they’d gotten the body into the cargo area, both panting from their efforts.
“How can you do this with your injured shoulder and leg?” she asked.
“No choice,” he replied matter of factly.
Gabriel shut the back hatch, pushed the cart into the house, and locked the front door.
She climbed into the passenger seat, he got behind the wheel.
As he drove her SUV slowly down the front lawn, she said, “You can’t stay here anymore.”
“I haven’t gotten that far.” He pulled onto the street, put the address into his phone, and drove out.
She glanced at the time. It was almost five in the morning. “I did not see today starting this way.”
Killing the Russian mobster had shaken her to her core.
“That’s the thing about life,” he replied. “It’s one big fucking surprise.”
“My boss, the ambassador, arrives today.”
“You want me to drop you at home?”
“No, I need to see this through.”
“Don’t trust me?”
She thought about that for several seconds. “When it comes to work, I trust no one, but in my personal life—my family, my friends—I trust them one hundred percent.”
To her surprise, he clasped her hand, and her heart skipped a beat.
“Where am I in that?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ve never killed someone before.”
“Welcome to the club,” he replied dryly.
What have I gotten myself into?
GAbrIEL