CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
Dragana Begovich had her father’s angular features and dark eyes but there the similarities ended.
As she strode towards Tudor she exuded confidence, power, and danger.
Deb’s had mentioned a daughter and two sons.
Seeing her now, Tudor decided that the boys would have to be quite something to outdo their sister.
A scowling bodyguard shadowed her every move.
Through the window, Tudor saw the familiar black Range Rover and two more henchmen standing with it.
He recognised the garb of hoodies and expensive trainers.
Evidently Miss Begovich’s taste in muscle was a little more modern than her father’s.
He turned to face the head of the family.
Dragana stopped and gave him an appraising look, a head to toe sweep.
She folded her arms. Her guard darted forwards and set about frisking Tudor, checking inside his jacket.
Tudor held his arms akimbo as if this was the most natural thing in the world.
Indeed, he had been expecting it, which is why he had left his Glock at home, choosing instead to strap a small Taurus 380 Auto to his ankle.
It was, as he had anticipated, a cursory frisk, more for form’s sake, and missed the more concealed weapon.
He noticed the diners had all stopped any pretence of eating now.
Their body language had subtly altered, each one of them showing signs of fear and respect for their true boss.
Wordlessly, Dragana brushed past him. He was unsettled by a curious heaviness that seemed to move with her. Hers was an oppressive, weighty presence. She went to her father, leaning down to kiss him tenderly on the forehead.
‘Ciao, Papa,’ she said, smiling at him sweetly.
As she straightened up again she draped one arm around his shoulders.
She wore expensive jewellery with a particularly masculine signet ring that seemed a little out of place.
Tudor expected to see the old man beaming after such an affectionate greeting.
Instead he seemed to shrink further into himself, his eyes wary, his enjoyment of his meal gone.
However gentle and attentive Dragana might wish to appear, there was no mistaking the fact that her own father was terrified of her.
‘So, Mr Tudor,’ she said, her English flavoured by sharp slavic consonants and heavy vowels, v’s replacing w’s when she couldn’t be bothered to resist the habit, ’have you come to try world famous Serbian food?’
Refusing to appear wrong-footed by the fact that she knew who he was and didn’t attempt to hide it he replied, ‘Tempting, but no thanks.’
‘No? Why else would you be here, I wonder?’
As she spoke Tudor became aware of her men closing in behind him.
And there was something else that made his scalp prickle.
Something in the young woman’s eyes. In the cast of her perfectly made up skin.
There was a transient blue tinge to her somehow, most noticeable in the whites of her eyes.
It was faint but eery and almost ghoulish, there for a fleeting moment and then gone.
Tudor was so distracted by it that for a moment he forgot how perilous a situation he was in.
All he could think of was that he had seen that strange colouration, that curious intensity to the eyes and dark shadow to the face, seen them somewhere before.
Somewhere else they shouldn’t have been.
In an instant it came to him. Mrs Salinger - the crazed old woman at the Aurora who had eviscerated her husband.
He noticed a taut silence in the room and felt that everyone in it was waiting for his response. He marshalled his thoughts.
‘You know, I don’t like dancing around a subject and wasting everyone’s time, especially my own,’ he said carefully.
‘And you know what else I don’t like? Murderous thugs leaping out of the dark at me and my daughter.
I don’t like that at all. And it seems to me you know who I am, and you’re not going to insult my intelligence by denying you were behind that attack.
Now, I have no idea what your interest in me is, and I’m pretty certain you are not going to tell me, so here’s the thing.
I don’t care. Whatever you think I’m connected to, you’re wrong.
I don’t know you. I’m not mixed up with anyone who could be part of your…
business. You’ve got the wrong guy. You made a mistake. Understand?’
Dragana took a packet of cigarettes from her Gucci handbag, selected one, and fished out a gold lighter.
Her movements were confident and unhurried, the behaviour of someone accustomed to making people wait.
As she lit her cigarette she continued to study Tudor minutely, narrowing her eyes at him.
Beside her, her father paled, his whole body trembling.
‘You think I am kind of person makes mistake?’ she asked him at last.
‘Well, I’m hoping you are, because if it wasn’t a mistake, that means you deliberately targeted me and my daughter. You deliberately had your hired help try to kill us. Are you the kind of person who does that?’
Dragana stepped forwards until she was standing close enough for Tudor to smell her perfume.
Close enough for him to feel the warmth of her body and again be assailed by her heaviness.
He knew nothing about auras but it occurred to him that if hers were visible, it would be black.
She was close enough for him to get to her quicker than her bodyguards could stop him.
Which meant she didn’t believe he would hurt her.
Or perhaps, she didn’t believe he could hurt her.
At such close quarters the blue in the whites of her eyes was even more noticeable, as was the sense that he could almost see the pulsing veins beneath her skin.
She was a strikingly handsome woman, but this unnatural hue and the way it moved across her face, rendered her almost repulsive.
Instead of exuding the sex appeal of an attractive and powerful woman, she had about her what he could only think of as an undercurrent not just of violence, but of malevolence.
Slowly, she exhaled smoke through her nostrils.
‘I do what is necessary,’ she told him. ‘If there is obstacle, I have it moved.’
‘I am an obstacle? To what, precisely?’
She thought about this for a long moment before leaning forward to brush a piece of lint from his lapel. When she spoke again her voice was softer. It made it no less menacing.
‘You don’t know,’ she said, a statement rather than a question. ‘Never mind. Never mind.’
She gave an almost imperceptible nod to the ex-fighter.
Tudor felt what could only be the barrel of a gun pressed into the small of his back.
Dragana turned and walked past her father towards the rear of the restaurant where a door was opened for her.
A shove between Tudor’s shoulders told him he should follow.
He looked at the doorway ahead. Whatever awaited him beyond it was not going to be good.
There was little prospect of him getting to the gun at his ankle.
He glanced at the onlookers. They were evidently content to watch him marched off at gunpoint.
The thought that a roomful of people could witness what was happening and make no move to stop it made his stomach lurch.
What made his blood chill, however, was that when he looked at those impassive faces he saw the same distinctive tinge, the same blueish cast that so ruined Dragana’s beauty.
If he had hoped that even the Begovich followers might object to someone being shot in front of them, that hope vanished.
Into this tense quiet came a burst of noisy chatter as a party of five bustled through the door.
They were tourists, their accents suggesting Australians, chance and a spirit of adventure having brought them to the restaurant at that precise moment.
Dragana paused in the rear doorway. The barman held up a hand and began to tell the would-be diners that there were no tables free.
The hungry tourists saw several empty seats and engaged the barman in good natured banter in the hope of getting fed.
Tudor saw his chance. He had to believe the Begovich family would not want the attendant attention from the authorities a violent event with foreign visitors might bring to their door.
Ignoring the gun at his back he turned, shoved the thug to one side while giving him a stare that dared him to shove back, and strode for the exit.
The henchman hesitated just long enough for Tudor to reach the Australians and weave his way through them with excuse me’s, praying he was not risking their lives by doing so.
His instinct was right. No shots were fired.
No-one came charging after him. Shaking off the oppressive vibe of the place, he pushed out of the front door and headed for his car.
Outside, the street was unhelpfully empty.
On seeing him, standing beside the black Range Rover, Dragana’s driver and spare thug, straightened up, glancing back at the restaurant.
Tudor slipped his hand into his pocket and pressed the car fob.
Blessing his boss’s insistence on all possible extras having been fitted as he heard the doors unlocked and the engine spring into life.
He resisted the urge to run, knowing that to do so could trigger the thugs behind him.
They were dogs who needed a command to act, but like dogs, their prey drive was high, honed by years of being set on fleeing victims.