Dressed to Kill (Wayward Heirs #1)

1. One

"A man's got to believe in something." I loaded a bullet into the revolver, snapped the cylinder shut and gave it a spin.

"God, the devil, I don't care. Your bosses?

They don't believe in shit except money.

Cleared out this morning, took everything, and left you here to clean up their mess.

To die if it came to that. That's what you get working for Italians. That's—fuck, that's cold."

I turned around to face the two men behind me. They were kneeling on the cold concrete, hands already bound behind their backs. Neither of them could've been more than twenty. The fucking Italians sent young guys to do a man's work. God, I hated that.

I paced in front of them, the gun hanging loosely at my side while my men finished their search.

"Me? I believe in luck. Fate. Something bigger than just us standing here in this shithole warehouse.

So here's what we're going to do." I squatted in front of the one on the left, and he let out a small sob as I slid the gun under his chin to lift his face.

"One bullet. Six chambers. Two of you. We'll see who God likes better. "

He tried to answer. Nothing came out but a whimper.

"No?" I stood up and walked to the other one. He was older than his friend by maybe five years, with a scar cutting through his eyebrow and a look in his eyes like he thought he was hard. "How about you? You got anything to say?"

He spat at me.

I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and laughed. "There it is. You believe you're tough enough to spit at a man holding a gun. I respect that. Stupid as hell, but I respect it."

I pressed the barrel to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Click.

He didn't even flinch. Tough bastard. I grinned. "You're braver than I thought."

I moved to his friend, the one who'd been sobbing. "Your turn."

Click.

He pissed himself. The stain spread dark across his jeans and pooled on the concrete.

"Two clicks. Four chambers left. One bullet." I went back to the tough one and crouched down so we were eye to eye. "Your bosses don't even know your names. You're just bodies to them. Disposable. But fate? Fate knows exactly who you are."

Click.

His jaw tightened, but he still didn't look away. I had to give it to him.

I moved back to the sobbing one. He was hyperventilating now. "Please, please, I'm only doing this for my sister; she's got medical bills. I swear I don't know nothing—"

"Shh." I put the gun to his head. "We're having a moment here. Don't ruin it."

Click.

Two chambers left. One bullet. This was the part I liked. Fifty-fifty odds. Pure chance.

I stood up and stretched. My knees were killing me. Forty years old and I was squatting on warehouse floors playing Russian roulette with guys who should've known better than to work for Italians. This was my life.

"Last chance," I said to the tough one. "Where'd your bosses move the operation?"

He stared at me for a long moment. Then his shoulders sagged. "Docks. East container yard. They moved everything maybe six hours ago. Boss got word vory were coming for them."

"Smart man." I stood up and pressed the barrel to his temple. "Wrong answer, though."

I pulled the trigger.

The shot cracked through the warehouse. The sound bounced off concrete and metal, echoing back at me louder than it should've been.

His body dropped sideways with a wet thud, blood spreading dark beneath his head.

The air smelled like cordite and copper.

I stepped over him and looked down at what was left.

Half his face was gone. The scar through his eyebrow was still there on the intact side.

He'd been tough right up until the moment he wasn't.

I flicked the cylinder open and shook the empty casing into my palm. Still warm. I pocketed it and snapped the cylinder shut. My hands were steady. That was good. Twenty years doing this and my hands still didn't shake.

The warehouse had gone quiet. My men had stopped what they were doing to watch. They knew better than to comment.

I looked down at the sobbing one. He was staring at his friend's body, shaking so hard the zip ties rattled.

"You. You didn't talk. You believed in something bigger than saving your own ass.

" I glanced over at Gregori. He was standing by a pile of counterfeit handbags near the wall, and the whole warehouse smelled like chemicals and fake leather. "Cut him loose."

Gregori raised an eyebrow. "You're serious."

"He got lucky. I don't fuck with luck."

My radio crackled. "Aleksi." Dmitri's voice cut through the static. "Second floor. You need to see this."

"See what?"

"Found somebody. Tied to a radiator up here."

"Italian?"

"Negative. Redhead. Looks Irish, maybe."

I looked down at the guy on his knees. Still breathing because luck had decided he could.

"One minute to disappear," I told him. "After that, if I see you again, the deal's off."

Gregori cut through the zip ties. He scrambled to his feet, nearly fell, and caught himself. He looked at me, looked at his dead friend, and ran.

I headed for the stairs. My knees protested with every step.

The gun was still warm in my hand and the chamber was empty now.

I should reload. I pulled five bullets from my pocket and loaded them one by one, the metallic clicks echoing in the stairwell.

I left one chamber empty out of habit. Always one chamber empty.

My father had taught me that. Not the Russian roulette part—that was my own addition—but the superstition. One empty chamber. Room for luck. Room for God, whatever. I didn't know what I believed in anymore. But I knew I didn't load all six.

The stairs creaked under my weight. Below me, I could hear my men moving through the warehouse, Dmitri coordinating over the radio. We'd done this a hundred times. A thousand. Walk into a place, take what we needed, leave the rest.

Except this time we'd found someone. A redhead. Irish, maybe. Left to die.

I stopped on the landing and looked back down. The body was already being moved. The blood would be cleaned up. The counterfeit bags would be destroyed. Everything would disappear like we were never here.

But I was going upstairs to see about a guy who'd been left behind.

I didn't know why that mattered. It shouldn't have mattered. But I kept climbing.

The second floor was a maze of offices that had been stripped down to nothing. Empty filing cabinets, bare desks, walls with cleaner squares where photos used to hang. The Italians had cleared out fast, but they'd been thorough. Dmitri was standing outside the last door at the end of the hall.

"In here," he said and jerked his head toward the door.

I went through. They'd cleared this room out like the others, but they hadn't taken everything. A guy was slumped against the radiator in the corner, one wrist zip-tied to the pipe, head hanging, red hair gone dark at the temples with sweat. He wasn't moving.

I crouched and pressed two fingers to his throat. The pulse was there, and I didn't like it. It came fast and thin, skipping under my hand, his skin cold and damp. I'd watched enough men die to know this was the quiet kind, the kind where the body gives out before anything shows.

I reached for the tie to see how long he'd been cinched to that pipe, and his wrist turned over soft in my hand. No calluses. Long fingers, fine bones, the kind of lean you saw on dancers. Pretty, even half-dead and gray. Whatever he was to the Italians, it wasn't muscle.

I went over the rest of him. No blood, no wounds, nothing to say why anybody wanted him dead, no ink, no vory marks.

Just a skinny kid in clothes washed soft and thin.

When I turned him to check his back, metal caught the light at his wrist. A cheap bracelet, the kind nobody bothers to steal. I flipped it over and read it.

He was diabetic. Type one.

"Shit." I glanced at my watch.

"He alive?" Dmitri asked from the doorway.

"Barely." I stood up. "Get Gregori. Tell him to bring your kit up from the car."

Dmitri pulled out his phone. He'd been diabetic since before I knew him and kept a kit in the car for the bad days.

Gregori had brought him back from a couple of them.

First time it'd be for somebody else. The empty office stared back at me while he made the call.

Bare walls, stripped filing cabinets, nothing left but this one guy zip-tied to a radiator.

They'd cleared out the operation, taken the workers, left one diabetic guy to die slowly while his blood sugar tanked. That was cold even for Italians.

What the fuck had he done to earn this?

Gregori appeared in the doorway with a small red case. "You're serious about this."

"Give him the shot."

He knelt beside the guy, prepped it, and jabbed it into his thigh through his jeans. "If this doesn't work—"

"It'll work." Hair stuck to his forehead, damp with sweat. Freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks. The medical bracelet was too small for the zip tie marks around his wrist, red and raw where the plastic had cut in.

"Aleksi." Gregori stood up. "We don't know who this is. Could be a plant. Could be bait. Could be anybody."

I pulled out my knife and cut through the zip tie. His arm dropped limp. "Get him to the car. We're taking him."

"Boss—"

"He was left here to die, Gregori. Same as those two downstairs." The empty office, the bare walls, the stripped filing cabinets. "The Italians left him here for a reason. I want to know why."

"What if he doesn't know anything?"

"He was in a room full of their operation. He knows something."

Gregori shook his head, but he didn't argue. He knew better. "Where are we taking him?"

"Safe house on Livingston. Get Collins there with her full kit. If he wakes up, you call me immediately. Keep him quiet. Tell him nothing."

"And if the Italians come looking?"

"Then you handle it." I headed for the door. "But keep him breathing. He's the only thing we got out of this mess."