Two Cuts Darker Read online

  “Yes,” Matheson said softly. “He doesn’t like to be caught on camera. We’ve tracked Vlasenko’s crew going in and out of several hotels, getting on boats, leaving for Miami and returning. But we can never seem to get that man on camera.”

  “What makes you think it’s my brother?”

  “At first, nothing. We dug into Vlasenko’s file, but nothing pointed to this mystery man. Listening in to their operations, we learned they call him G or Ghost. Honestly, it wasn’t until I opened a certain file on Charles MacNiall, and learned your real name and background, that I started to wonder if there was a possible connection. I talked to Dad right away, and he told me you’d been driven to find your brother long before you dedicated your services to stopping serial killers. Then he let it slip that he’d called in quite a few favors to get an off-the-record confirmation that Vincent Gyres had indeed joined the CIA.”

  Charlie nodded. “Paul went to bat for me after we caught his younger brother’s murderer.”

  “Vincent Gyres’s last known location was Moscow.”

  “Still a stretch. Just because he might have been in Moscow doesn’t mean he decided to go rogue and join the mafia.”

  “Which is why I went back to talk to Dad’s old friend myself.”

  The waiter returned to take our order. I gave the menu a quick glance and the word scallops jumped out at me, so I went with it. Scallops were definitely not something we’d tried to make in Belize, and they’d be mild on my questionable stomach. Charlie ordered a steak, rare of course. The waiter asked if our stay had been pleasant so far, trying to engage in small talk. Charlie was polite—I’d never seen him rude to anyone—but he drummed his fingers on the table and gave monosyllable answers until the waiter left.

  “I played up your role in Rusk’s investigation and subsequent death to emphasize your own rogue tendencies.” Matheson smiled wryly. “My CIA contact agreed that the Gyreses possess an extreme propensity for deadly violence, but that’s exactly why they found Vincent so valuable. He wouldn’t tell me the exact details, and I think his own guilt in whatever went down made him tell me more than he cared to admit, even unofficially.” She leaned forward, holding Charlie’s gaze. “Someone had the brilliant idea to infiltrate the growing bratvas by getting thrown into a Russian prison.”

  Charlie picked up his wineglass and took a long drink. That told me more than anything how unsettled he was by all of this. He never gulped his wine, but preferred to sip it slowly, rolling the flavors over his tongue. I turned slightly in my chair so I could see his face and read his body language a little easier without getting a crick in my neck, then rested my palm on his thigh. I think the contact helped a little, because he was able to set his glass down and he sounded normal. “No one in their right mind would allow himself to get thrown into one of those hellholes just on the infinitesimal chance he’d get picked up by a bratva boss.”

  “Vincent did. My contact believes that Vincent was imprisoned for at least two years before ever ‘disappearing’ into Vlasenko’s service.”

  “Two years. In a Russian prison.” Charlie shook his head slowly. “For a man like...”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, but the word hung like a whispered curse in the air. A man like him. A killer.

  “Why is that so bad?” I asked softly.

  “Russian prisons are notoriously harsh. They’re not regulated like our prison system.” Matheson pulled a paper out of the file and pushed it across to us. “This is Vlasenko’s public service record. Of course we don’t know what his unofficial roles might have been, but he did spend some time at several Trans-Siberian work-camp prisons in the same time period where Vincent was supposedly incarcerated. We have no way of knowing for sure if they met but it seems likely.”

  Charlie remained silent, staring down at the pictures he’d scattered across the table. That shadowed face seemed to haunt him. The longer he stared at it, the lines deepened in his face. A subtle change that I doubted Matheson picked up on, but I was so in tune to his body rhythms I could feel his turmoil as my own.

  “I guess even an enforcer role for a bratva boss would be heaven after a couple of years in prison,” Charlie said in a flat, emotionless voice. “So Vlasenko uses his contacts to get Vince out of prison. Why now? What’s he using him for?”

  Matheson retrieved the paper and the loose pictures, though Charlie immediately picked up the one with the shadowy face and held it for closer examination. “We’re not sure, but we suspect it has something to do with a rival gang who’s been interfering in Vlasenko’s business. He’s losing ground, losing power, and I’m sure that’s a major concern for him. Maybe enough to bring in an outside enforcer as a spy on his own people. We’re trying to get closer now, but if Ghost is your brother, we need to know what we’re up against. He’s obviously trying to stay off anyone’s radar, obsessively avoiding all cameras and surveillance.”

  “Does he know about the surveillance?”

  “I hope not,” Matheson said grimly. “Too many lives are at stake if our investigation’s been compromised.”

  Charlie lifted his head and pinned her with his gaze. “You’ve got someone inside.”

  “I can’t share any information about an active, ongoing operation.” She tucked everything back into the folder but lingered over another item inside, as if trying to decide whether to show it or not.

  The waiter returned with our food and she slipped the folder back into her bag. The moment had been lost, but I silently swore to get into that file before we left the table. Maybe I could get Sheba to do a trick, or distract Matheson somehow, and I could grab it. Charlie needed it and I had the nagging feeling that she hadn’t been entirely truthful with us. She couldn’t. We were civilians—actually, wanted criminals. The last thing she’d want to do was tell us crucial details about whatever investigation they had going on.

  I squeezed his thigh and he glanced at me for a moment. Long enough for me to see the despair and torment in his dark eyes. He’d feared the worst about his brother before hearing all the details about the Russian prison sentence, and now, he didn’t have any hope at all. Everybody would be gunning for Vincent Gyres. Even if he wasn’t as bad as Charlie feared, he’d never be able to extract him from the mafia with heavy FBI surveillance.

  They wouldn’t care about Charlie’s brother as long as they got what they wanted.

  Chapter Ten

  Royal Reefs hotel

  Cable Beach, Nassau, Bahamas

  Vincent

  Vincent nearly had to shoot one of Vlasenko’s goons to get a seat in the Escalade transporting the blonde and two other women to the drop point.

  Ivan blocked the passenger door. “This one’s taken.”

  “Boss told me to go with you. So fuck off or take it up with him.”

  Ivan was one of the few men who hadn’t really seen him in action and resented an American having any sort of position or duty in the bratva. Vincent didn’t have a problem shooting the idiot, though Vlasenko might be pissed, especially with the rivals cutting into his business.

  The driver, Oryol, answered his phone, listened a moment and then jerked his head at Ivan. “Boss says G’s in the car. You’re out.”

  Ivan stroked the gun at his waist but backed off, muttering beneath his breath.

  Vincent slid into the seat and they pulled out of the underground parking garage to merge into Bay Street.

  The farther east they drove, the more traffic picked up. They lost sight of the scouting car, but another four-door sedan pulled in behind them. Minutes crawled by as they neared the main cruise terminal. Vlasenko had timed their arrival perfectly, so the area would be busy—but late enough in the evening that most of the tourists were too busy drinking and partying to notice anything suspicious. The much smaller former cruise ship didn’t attract much notice either, dwarfed by a massive
sleek cruiser rocking to reggae music.

  Waiting to turn off Bay so they could loop around toward Festival Place, Oryol called the lead scout car. He spoke rapidly in Ukrainian, so Vincent only caught a few words. So far, so good. They pulled down the side road and parked alongside the street. Vincent turned around and sought the blonde. She seemed as scared as the other women. She didn’t cry, but her hand shook as she tucked a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. Her bun was looking a little worse for wear. The woman beside her was slumped and barely conscious. The guards must have given her a bit too much sedative, or else she’d had a bad reaction to it. Hopefully she could run if anything went down.

  Finally the word came to head toward the boat. Vincent and the other men stepped out of the car and helped the women out. Vincent made sure he took the blonde’s arm. She wobbled on her feet and it wasn’t pretend this time. He gripped her elbow, holding her up when she stumbled. The two other guards and their charges walked down the middle of the sidewalk, rapidly making their way toward the small cruise ship, but he skirted the shadows close to the buildings. Scanning up and down the street, he tried to pinpoint anything out of the ordinary. The street was deserted. All the shops were closed and the main tourist action happened up on Bay. There really wasn’t any reason for anyone to be on this side street, let alone headed back to the ships. Not during prime party hour.

  “What’s your name?” Vincent whispered, slowing down.

  “Mads.”

  An interesting name. Certainly not the Hannah or Heather he’d expected. “Who are you with?”

  She stumbled again and he caught her up against him, pausing in the shadow of the shop. Blinking, she looked into his eyes, trying to focus on him. So tall, she barely had to tip her head to look him in the eye. Her hair tumbled about her shoulders, soft and silvered in the moonlight. Most men probably wouldn’t have registered the difference in a woman’s hairstyle, but he wasn’t most men.

  He jerked hard to the side and her thrust barely nicked him in the ribs, instead of sinking deep into his gut like she’d intended.

  The little slice stung. Nothing major. But she couldn’t possibly know what even such a small wound would do to him. He breathed shallowly, trying not to catch the scent of blood. Her arm rose again, to stab him better this time. Wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he twisted her arm behind her, high enough the strain showed on her face, but she didn’t drop the modified hairpin blade.

  “Nice try.”

  Her pupils dilated and she stared at him, waiting to see what he’d do to her. When he made no other move to punish her for the failed escape attempt or to completely disarm her, she tipped her chin up defiantly. “You ought to wear body armor like the rest of the guards. That would make you less of a target.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  She clamped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes.

  “Fair enough. I’m just trying to decide whether to throw you on that boat after all, or let you hightail it back to your friends.”

  Her eyes flared with surprise. “Wouldn’t you be punished for allowing me to escape?”

  Fuck. He’d tipped his hand. None of Vlasenko’s men would ever consider letting one of the captives go. He shrugged and scanned the road. Something wasn’t right. The same sixth sense that had kept him alive through dozens of classified missions buzzed with alarm. He pressed her back against the wall and watched, barely breathing. She squirmed against him and even managed to kick him hard enough that his breath hissed out, but he didn’t let her go.

  Flares shot up into the night sky and exploded. Fireworks had never been a part of the evening entertainment. Smaller flares came from the cruise ship. Gunfire.

  “Shit,” she whispered. “That’s not us.”

  He released her and looked back the way they’d come. The other SUV had just pulled in. The driver’s door opened, then the rear passenger doors. Vincent ran toward them as several men jumped out of a parked service van on the opposite side of the street. “Go, go!”

  With screeching tires, the SUV tore back down the road, one of the guards barely getting his door shut.

  “Hey!” the blonde called after him. “At least give me a gun!”

  He turned around, surprised to see her still there, instead of running in the opposite direction. “Get out of here.”

  “I’ve got to help the other women.”

  One of the attackers fired in their direction, and she jerked her head down. But she still didn’t run. She waved her hand impatiently in a give-me motion that made him shake his head. She actually expected a man working for a bratva to give her a gun—so she could escape the bratva. He huffed out a laugh and pulled out his spare weapon. “Full clip, fifteen rounds. Don’t shoot me.”

  “Sure.” He tossed it to her and she snagged it effortlessly, already turning toward the cruise ship under attack. “But I make no promises about stabbing you.”

  He stared after her as she ran toward the dock. He had a feeling Mads was a force to be reckoned with.

  He touched the small slit in his shirt and his fingers came away sticky with blood. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t had time to show her exactly what drawing first blood meant to a man like him.

  He licked his fingers clean and all his senses surged with awareness as if he’d just taken a shot of PCP or meth. The night exploded with color: a thousand shades of deep purple and gray and indigo blue. His ears caught the distant sound of screams, the pop of gunfire and, farther away, the rumbling clamor of thousands of tourists dancing to the rumbling beat that throbbed up through the soles of his boots. Adrenaline surged through his veins, his mind ultrafast. Yet he stared after the gleam of blond hair and remembered the heat of her skin, the strength of her body, her courage. What kind of woman would let herself get picked up by human traffickers?

  The same kind of man who’d deliberately allow himself to be thrown into a Trans-Siberian work-camp in order to draw a bratva boss’s attention. We’re both mad.

  A bullet bounced off the pavement near his feet. He focused on the other group of attackers.

  Four. No, five. All heavily armed but fairly lousy shots. Most men were running at full speed, high on adrenaline. Another bullet whizzed off the concrete railing, sending a shard of rock skittering toward his face. He turned his cheek aside and pulled out his favorite Glock. Everything slowed: his breathing, his heartbeat, the sound of pounding boots coming near. He had all the time in the world to check his weapon, lift it and blow out his breath so he was completely still and focused. Plenty of time to take aim at the closest man. Fifteen feet. Ten. He squeezed his finger on the trigger and the man fell.

  In quick succession, he eliminated the other targets, though he had to hurry his shot on the last man. Only a few steps away, the man crashed into him and fouled his shot enough that the bullet only grazed his ear rather than blowing out the back of his skull. Whirling to let the man’s momentum push past him, Vincent brought his elbow up in a sharp blow directly on the man’s throat. He fell to the ground with a horrible rattle, clutching his throat. This one wouldn’t get up again.

  Turning toward the other fight, Vincent raced down the pier, his heartbeat accelerating with every pounding step. Fed by his blood and the need for violence, the dark creature he kept under lock and key stretched inside him, spilling through his mind. He’d fought the beast as long as he could remember. Killing and blood were the only things that assuaged its terrible hunger.

  Mads had better free the women and hightail it away from the fight. He didn’t want another near-call like last time. Especially with her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Vincent

  Vincent paused a moment to assess the attack. Vlasenko’s men on the boat were firing down at two men who’d taken cover behind a stack of shipping crates. While Vlasenko’s men were well armed, the others ha
d enough cover and firepower to keep them pinned on the ship. They couldn’t come down the gangplank without getting picked off. One of the guards lay facedown on the dock. The driver and second guard had made it to the scout, but were cut off from retreat by a group that had probably hidden on the other side of the big cruise ship. They had cover, but they couldn’t get to the ship or off the dock. The scout wouldn’t have a gun, in case he got pulled over for some reason.

  It took Vincent a moment longer to find the women. When he found Mads’s gleaming hair tucked into a corner of crates, a tightness eased in his chest that he hadn’t even been able to acknowledge until it lessened. She’d made it. For all he knew, that guard lying dead on the deck could be her work.

  They wouldn’t have long before either local authorities—or Mads’s group, whoever they were—came to investigate. Plus the Tkaczuks would probably send reinforcements to cut them off yet again. Taking a deep breath to center himself, Vincent stepped into battle. The first Tkaczuk fell before they even knew they were under attack. The group split, leaving three to keep the guards pinned, and the rest turned to address the new attack. Only three. Easy. They hit the ground seconds apart, clean head shots.

  That drew the attention of the two with rifles keeping help from arriving off the boat. With that kind of weapon, they’d be shit up close, unless they had another gun stashed on them. Vincent sprinted toward their stack of crates, zigzagging back and forth across the dock as he shot to rattle them. Wood splinters exploded in front of him, but he ducked hard to the right, avoiding most of them. A large jagged splinter embedded into his arm. Another small pain. More blood to send him into a killing frenzy. He was the shark now. It didn’t matter if the blood scenting the water was his own.