Vegas Boss: A Mafia Hitman Romance Page 14

  “No, wait. Let me… just let me call the police, okay?” I tell him.

  “Nicole, we can’t depend on them,” he says. “These people do not want police involved.”

  “Please. Give me a chance. I-I know there’s got to be someone at the station who will listen to me. Let me try,” I say hastily, getting my phone out of my purse and dialing the number for the secretary.

  “Hello, Vice,” comes the cool answer.

  “Hey, it’s Nicole— Officer Burns. I need to report a missing person.”

  There’s a heavy sigh. “Officer Burns, you’re on suspension.”

  “I know, I know, but this is important. Just listen to me—”

  “Lieutenant Harden said to defer your calls.”

  I stop suddenly. “What?”

  “The lieutenant said to—”

  “Yes, I heard you correctly,” I snap. “But why?”

  “It seems you’re involved in something, uh, shady. I think that’s the word he used.”

  Fuck. My boss has been spreading rumors about me. He really does have it in for me.

  “Okay, well this is serious,” I insist. “Listen to me.”

  There’s a tone of pain in his voice when he says, “Nicole, if you have an emergency, you will have to dial 9-1-1 like anybody else.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I shout. There’s a moment of silence.

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  Click. I stare at the phone in disbelief for a few seconds. Misha doesn’t say a word. I look over at him with tears in my eyes.

  “They just… cut me out. Just like that. Like I’m just some common criminal or something,” I breathe, still stunned. “I should have seen this coming. Look, I’ll call 9-1-1.”

  I dial the number and spend a good ten minutes on the phone with the operator, who is more sympathetic, but also seems to think I’m crazy, spouting off some wild conspiracy about my kidnapped sister and the mafia and the vice department. I try my best to convince her, but she tells me there’s nothing they can do.

  I hang up, biting my lip and trying not to cry. I collapse back onto the bed and look up at Misha helplessly.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I admit. Misha walks over to me and sets a huge hand on my shoulder.

  “Like I said: we’re going to do this my way now,” he growls.

  I stand up quickly and start to get dressed.

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “No. No, Nicole. This isn’t your territory. Let me handle this,” he protests, shaking his head. I get dressed hurriedly, standing my ground.

  “I’m coming, and that’s final. Look, my sister is missing, and I don’t have anyone else on my side but you. I am coming with you whether you like it or not,” I tell him firmly.

  He stares down at me for a moment, and I can tell he wants to say no. But to my surprise, he takes my hand and gives it a light squeeze.

  “Okay,” he agrees reluctantly. “But you’ll follow my lead.”

  Misha

  “...Wow,” Nicole says as the two of us peer down into the trunk of my car. I have a smug look on my face, while her eyes are wide and staring at what she sees.

  It’s my arsenal.

  I have a sniper rifle and its tripod, four Uzis, five 9mm pistols with silencers, two hand grenades, four hunting knives, a shotgun, a can of tear gas, and enough ammunition to keep them all firing for a long time. All of it is carefully and professionally stored in a hidden compartment in the bottom of my trunk, locked with a key.

  It’s after midnight, and I’m shining a flashlight down on it all to show Nicole before we get going. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.

  “If you’re having second thoughts and care to arrest me,” I say to her, “now’s the time.”

  “I’ll pass,” she says, and I shut the trunk.

  We pile into the car, I turn the ignition, throw the transmission into reverse, and we peel out onto the road, a trail of dust flying up behind us in a long stream.

  “Why do you even have all that in the back?” she asks once we’re on the road. “I thought hitmen were subtle.”

  “Subtlety has its place,” I say casually. “For the other times, I like to be prepared.”

  “We’re headed into the city,” she points out as we move into the sea of towering casinos and bright lights.”

  “Yes.”

  “You said your contact told you Samantha was being held at some house in Blue Diamond, though.”

  “Yes.”

  She stares at me for a few moments before I raise an eyebrow at her and explain.

  “We have to make a stop on the way.”

  “This isn’t on the way,” she points out.

  “No, but we don’t know exactly where in Blue Diamond she’s being held. Unless you like the idea of just raiding every house in the town until we find her,” I add, and she rolls her eyes.

  “So what, we stop and chat up some more of your mysterious contacts to figure out what place she’s at?”

  “Not exactly,” I say with a bloodthirsty smile. “I have the names of the men who took her now, and I know the club they run. It’s a Thursday night, so they’ll be in the VIP room on their own. It’s a real nice place, they’ve got one of those massive aquarium panels that takes up the whole wall of a room, and it casts this blue glow on everything.”

  I realize she’s staring at me as I describe the place, and I give a light shrug. “I may be a killer, but I appreciate the finer things in life.”

  “I’m not sure a tacky aquarium wall counts as one of the finer things.”

  “That’s why you’re not a club owner,” I remark with a wry smile, and she rolls her eyes at me.

  We pull up in an alley behind the club. I normally need to be more cautious, but we’re in a hurry tonight — caution is something we don’t have time for. With a single streetlight flickering a few yards away from us, I pop the trunk open and start to arm myself.

  A knife on each leg, two pistols at my side and one strapped to my chest, and an Uzi on my back. Nicole watches me get ‘dressed’ and raises her eyebrows.

  “You look like you’ve gotten ready this fast a few times before.”

  “You don’t get to be pakhan without being able to move fast,” I say, then I nod to the trunk. “Take what you like.”

  She hesitates a few moments. I know she still has some reservations about doing this. She was a cop until a few days ago, and I’ve tangled with enough cops to know it’s in their blood, just like being Bratva is in mine.

  I don’t blame her for hesitating.

  But if she wants to be doing things my way, she’s going to have to get over it real fast.

  “What would Samantha do?” I ask.

  She looks me in the eye, nods, and picks up a couple of pistols for herself.

  I slip my jacket back on to conceal my weapons once I’m armed, and Nicole does the same for herself. The weight of the weapons on me feels good with the weight on my chest gone.

  This is the right thing to do, because I’m doing it for someone I care about. That much is clear to me now. I give Nicole one more look up and down once we’re ready to head inside, and my heart pounds harder than it did while I was considering the worst possible outcomes of this fight.

  “You look incredible,” I say in a low husk, and taken by surprise, she smiles.

  Before she can speak, I wrap my hand around the back of her neck and bring her into a deep kiss that she sighs softly into.

  “Are you sure you want to be here for this?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says, determination in her voice.

  There’s a lot to Nicole. Much more than I ever knew in the small woman I knew as Misty when I first brought her to my bed. Back then, I never would have guessed I’d be arming her and taking her to a firefight with me.

  I certainly didn’t think that after she arrested me.

  Yet here we are, and there’s nobody I’d rather have at my side.

  “Let’
s go,” I say, and she nods.

  We circle around the block and head into the club.

  It’s not busy tonight, but it’s not dead, which is perfect. The familiar sound of the music thrumming all around us and idle chatter around the club puts me at ease, and I notice Nicole relaxes a little bit too. She certainly did seem quite a bit happier stripping than she ever seemed as an officer, but considering our relationship... that could be explained by other things.

  The bouncer doesn’t give us a second glance as we stride in confidently, slipping through the sparse crowds.

  We make our way across the club floor to the VIP lounge, where there’s a bouncer eyeing us before we even get to the front. He doesn’t recognize me fully until we’re at the door, and his eyes start to widen as he does.

  Before he can make a move for his radio, I slip my hand in my pocket and whip out a roll of $100s, glaring at him meaningfully. He freezes as we stand there, just a few inches from this whole raid getting exposed before we even get started.

  “Three thousand,” I say calmly. “Leave the radio and your phone, take a vacation for a few days. Everything behind that door won’t matter in about five minutes.”

  The bouncer’s jaw tightens, and he considers my words for a moment... then slowly takes out his radio and his phone and sets them of the table beside him. He takes my money, and without a word, he stalks out the door, not making eye contact with anyone.

  I exchange a glance with Nicole.

  “Can we trust him? she asks.

  “No,” I say, “which is why we’ll be quick.”

  When I push the VIP room door open, my hand is already halfway through pulling out one of my pistols, and Nicole is right at my back.

  As soon as we step inside, time feels like it’s standing still for a fraction of a second.

  Every eye turns to us.

  The small party of Russians gathered there is all familiar to me. They’re my lieutenants, my advisors, and a few of my business partners. All of them are men I’ve smiled with over drinks, shaken hands with, and had dinner with.

  There are two strippers in the room, one of them standing at the bar holding two drinks and the other on the lap of my closest advisor. The only two souls who’ll be spared this bloodbath.

  To make things simple, I raise my pistol and put a bullet right through the head of my advisor, and just like that, the room erupts into chaos.

  The first stripper ducks behind the bar while the second screams as part of my advisor’s head gets blown off, and the other men reach for their guns and get up to take cover.

  Shouts in Russian start flying through the room as I fire at the men and dive for cover behind one of the sofas, Nicole yelling at the dancers to get down. The sofa I chose has a man already ducking behind it, and I tackle him to the ground as I get down.

  He punches me across the face, but I bring my forehead down on his nose and stun him long enough for me to deliver a quick strike to his neck that ends him while Nicole gives me covering fire overhead.

  With two down in less than ten seconds, I take out my Uzi, and Nicole shouts down to me, “Give me cover!”

  I sense what she’s planning, and without a second thought, I put my trust in her, popping out of cover to rake a hailstorm of bullets on the men against the other side of the room. More specifically, I fire on the aquarium tank beyond it, filled with thousands of gallons of water. The glass cracks and shatters, terrifying the men in the room as water gushes out, and they dart away from the surging stream while Nicole runs out to the center of the room.

  I fire on the fleeing men, dropping two of them while Nicole grabs the screaming stripper’s arm and pulls her, heading for the bar where the first stripper is taking cover, and within five seconds, Nicole had gotten down with the two of them.

  The floor is clear for me to do my work.

  I vault over the couch and splash into the flooding water on the floor, spraying the couch across from me with my Uzi. I hear the cries of two men as the bullets penetrate the furniture and hit them.

  One of them comes running out, clutching his wound and firing at me. A bullet grazes my arm before I put one of my own into his heart.

  I keep running across the room, this time turning to a set of columns at the far end of the lounge where two more men are blind-firing my direction. I take cover behind the sofa and crouch down to run behind it to one of the columns, dropping my spent Uzi and pulling out a knife.

  Whirling around the column, I catch one of the men by surprise and put a knife to his throat. I see the other man come out from his column to take aim at me, and I spin my hostage to use as a human shield just before he can get a round off.

  The bullet goes through the man’s neck and hits me in the shoulder. I clench my jaw, but adrenaline is coursing through me — I shrug off the pain.

  I lift my pistol under the dead man’s arm and fire at my attacker. The first round hits him in the chest, and he staggers back, into the open enough for Nicole to fire a round into the base of his neck and make him crumple.

  I smile at Nicole, but it’s short-lived. I see one of my Avtoryet charge forward, rushing her and raising his two guns.

  I’m faster.

  With two quick shots, I shatter his arms at the elbow and send him to the ground, splashing into the water and groaning in pain.

  All around us, the room is filled with death and water as silence falls.

  I slosh up to the man as Nicole holds the two dancers back, checking them to make sure they’re unharmed. I seize a broken shard of glass from the aquarium and grab my former Avtoryet’s collar, pulling him up and slamming him against the bar.

  “No bullshit,” I snarl at him, holding the glass to his throat. “Where is she? You know who I’m talking about. Make this easy, and I’ll go easy on you.”

  “Why should I tell you anything?” he sputters, coughing blood.

  “Because if you don’t,” I say, “I’ll turn you over to her.” I nod to Nicole, who’s training a gun on him with fire in her eyes.

  He hesitates for a few long moments, staring me right in the eye until he finally growls, “2334 Park Lane in Blue Diamond. She’s alone.”

  I drop the man, and he groans, curling up and holding his wounds.

  I look to the strippers and nod to the exit for them to leave. They don’t need to be told twice.

  “Are you okay?” I ask Nicole as we head for the back exit, and she nods.

  “Fine. You got shot,” she points out, alarm in her face.

  I grunt. “I’m still standing. Come on, we don’t have much time.”

  We race out to the car and jump back in and start barreling west. It’s not a short distance, which makes it even more nerve-wracking for Nicole as I fly down the highway to the sleepy little suburb where Samantha is.

  It feels like the last few minutes didn’t even happen, it was all so fast.

  “We just left a room full of bodies back there,” Nicole breathes, putting her hand on mine over the stick shift. The feeling of her warmth grounds me, and I give her a comforting smile.

  “The world is better off without them,” I say. “And don’t worry about the man I questioned — he was bleeding out before I even touched him. He’s a dead man. The only ones worth saving were the dancers, and they’re fine.”

  She nods resolutely, staring toward the horizon and the town that’s getting closer by the second.

  When we pull up to the address, we waste no time. Weapons still at the ready, we spill out of the car and race for the garage side-door and stand at the ready by it.

  One quick nod to Nicole says a thousand words before I turn and kick the door down.

  Nicole

  The door flings open with a bang and Misha rushes into the garage, with me following close behind. It’s dark in here, but with the light of Misha’s burner phone we look around the room. It’s still and quiet. There doesn’t seem to be a single person here. My heart is still racing, but I can’t figure out how I’m suppo
sed to feel. It’s like I’ve jumped on a rollercoaster, only for it to make an abrupt halt before the first big drop.

  “What the hell?” I mumble, glancing around the shadowy corners of the empty garage. “Did we get the house number wrong? This can’t be right, Misha.”

  “No. This is the right house,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m certain of it.”

  “Then what is going on? Where is my sister? Where’s Samantha?” I demand, starting to lose control. I thought we were so close. Everything has led us to this place, to this moment. I thought I was finally going to see my sister again.

  “I don’t know,” he replies softly. “Something is very wrong here.”

  “You think?” I retort tearfully. “Your contact screwed us over, Misha! They lied to us! Who is your contact anyway? Just another lackey for the mafia? We were so stupid to trust them. We can’t trust anyone.”

  “Calm down. We’re going to find her,” Misha assures me, but it’s too late. I am falling into pure panic mode. I am exhausted and heartbroken and terrified. I don’t know what has happened to my sister, I’m no closer to solving this mystery surrounding us, and now it looks like we’ve been duped.

  “I bet they did this just to fuck with us,” I mutter, swiping angrily at the tears burning in my eyes. “You might as well toss that burner phone off a cliff, because there is no one left in this world who can actually help us. Everybody has turned their backs on us. The mafia dropped you like a hot potato the second you became a liability. And whose fault is that? Mine! The police department has suspended me and won’t even help me save my sister. And whose fault is that? Mine again! I’ve messed things up beyond repair.”

  “Nicole, stop. Beating yourself up is not going to help us get any closer to solving this,” Misha tells me. “You’ve got to hold yourself together. I will help you in any way I can. You may think everyone has turned their backs on you, but I won’t do that. I won’t abandon you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I murmur. Tears track down my cheeks as I shake my head. “We need to face it: we’re outmatched here. Outmatched and outnumbered. It’s like they’re all five steps ahead of us every time.”