Covert Operations (20 page)

***Sneak Peek***

Left For Dead

Guarded Secrets, Book Three

Sara Schoen

Prologue

Katya

Gorod, Russia: my home, our heritage, all under my father’s rule. We lived in a small town in the proud country of mother Russia, but my father’s reach went far and wide. He had been given the land by his father, which had been passed down for generations. The family ruled with an iron fist and covered the land with the stench of the many deaths from starvation, the cold, and of course the blood of those he murdered. In short, it meant those who opposed him were dealt with and those who appeased him lived. The same idea was upheld for my mother and me, both a nuisance to my father as he rose to power, but he kept a front for his followers. A family man seemed more desirable according to him, and a wife with daughters was all the better. I rarely left our home, but when I did, my father’s bodyguards—Nikolai and Alexander—took me where I needed to go.

Today, my father requested I go visit with him at his warehouse near the Lena River. It wasn’t out of the ordinary that I would be called to my father’s office, but I knew today would be different. A heaviness hung the air around me, crushing me under its weight. I tried to play it off, twirling my long brown hair around my finger. Though it didn’t make me feel better. A sensation of dread sunk over me as I got into the car. I paused momentarily as I realized why my father had asked to see me today, but I banished the thought. I knew my father couldn’t have figured out my mother had escaped. She had only been gone a few hours, so I couldn’t imagine he had already figured it out.

I should have known better than to underestimate him. 

My mother had been ushered into the car moments later, having been caught. Tears streamed down her cheeks, blood trickled from the corner of her mouth from where someone had hit her, and she had a black bruise forming on her face. Someone had dragged her back here. My father knew what I had helped her attempt. My heart pounded in fear. The punishment for treason was death.

She seemed ashamed she had dragged her eldest daughter down with her, but I couldn’t be angry with her, especially now that I could see the bruises on her face. My chest tightened as I watched her cry silently. I reached out and took her hand, squeezing it. I wished I could offer her comfort in some other way, but we knew what was about to happen to her. To us. We were heading to our deaths. Attempting escape from my father’s rule, assisting in the attempt—treason. Treason had one suitable punishment according to my father: death. I should have known I had been walking toward my final resting place because he’d sent his personal guards. They never left his side unless they were ordered to for something more important. They were always tasked with capturing traitors.

“Mama,” I said, regaining her attention. She cast me a sorrowful glance, silently begging for my forgiveness. Of course I forgave her. She had raised me, cared for me. Even attempted to escape for us.

She quickly explained how my father’s men had found her about an hour from town. They didn’t believe her lie, so they dragged her back here. “I’m sorry, Katya,” she muttered in broken English. She might’ve hoped the men in the front of the car wouldn’t understand. She explained, turning back to our mother tongue. “You’ll be charged for treason with me. They already know you helped me. Your father must have heard our plans, or someone must have told him.”

“Mother, it’s going to be okay,” I said hopefully, even though I knew it was a lie. We would both suffer the consequences of our actions, no matter what we said to try to save ourselves.

Tears slipped over my eyelashes as I took in the severity of our situation. My mother squeezed my hand as the car navigated the freshly fallen snow. It would be the last snowfall I’d see, the last shred of daylight I’d be graced with, the last moment with my mother. The car came to a stop, and we were quickly ordered out of the vehicle. 

I tried to remain calm as we were forcibly removed, and they ripped me away from my mother and presented me to my father. A brief exchange between the guards and my father occurred the second we were extracted from the car. They explained that I didn’t know why I had been called, but my mother had filled me in. They asked what our punishment would be, and as my father looked us over I prayed for whatever amount of humanity that remained in him to take pity on us and let us live. Once he uttered our sentence, I felt the hope drain from my body: drowning. 

I knew the process would be long and painful. Growing up, I had seen him murder countless others the same way. They fought against it, failing as the air slowly left their lungs. There were at his mercy, just how he liked it, but none of them would know mercy. They would only know death as my father drowned them, then left them there to freeze in the frigid Russian air. Now, I got to experience the slow death I had watched countless times. 

A rough hand grabbed me from behind, and I let out a scream as the man picked me up and forced me toward the river. “Mama!” I cried, even though I knew she wouldn’t be able to help me.

“Katya!” my mother shouted as she was plucked from the ground and brought toward the river.

We continued to scream for each other as the men put distance between us. I knew they wouldn’t have us close together for fear we would lash out, but I wanted her by my side in our final moments. When I didn’t stop calling for her, Nikolai beat me. He punched my stomach, causing me to double over in pain as the breath left my lungs. While I couldn’t move away, he hit me in the face with the butt of his gun. I crashed into the snow as he landed a few more hits anywhere he could reach until I gave up. 

Once he stopped beating me, he lifted me off the ground easily. I cried out in pain, and dark blood spilled from my mouth. It covered the purity of the fresh snow with the blood that ran deep in the veins of our homeland. 

“Let’s clean that off for you,” Nikolai said with a smirk as he dunked me into the ice cold water of the river. I panicked as the cold water caused me to tense and fight against his hold as he held me below the water’s surface. I lost air quickly as I tried to fight him. The water rushed past me, the cold water racing over my head before he pulled me up momentarily. I had enough time to get one breath in, but Nikolai shoved my head back into the river and slammed my skull against a rock.

My vision blurred from the blow. I could see the blood rushing from the wound, and soon I lost control of my breath. The last bit of air left my lungs as they screamed and ached for oxygen. A pain spread across my chest as my lungs filled with water. My vision turned black, and suddenly I felt nothing as Nikolai took one last push to shove me under the water for good measure. I prayed I would have a better life after this one.

Chapter 1

Night Stripe

I sat in the back of some Russian nightclub I couldn’t pronounce the name of, looking for my target. Luckily for me, Rum had taught me enough Russian to get by and they understood enough English. I guess it paid to have them working with Americans in this case. Otherwise, I’d still be in lockdown at the CIRA building. A year under their idea of house arrest, and Sharp Shooter still thought I hadn’t been punished enough. It’d been a year since I had been recruited, since I’d gone rogue and killed Ash Crest. It was time he got over it, but clearly it wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

Before every mission he’d look at me and say, “Night Stripe, you mess around again and you’ll never leave this building.”

If he hadn’t forgiven me by now, I wasn’t sure what I would have to do to gain his forgiveness. Probably die in a mission, and earn it postmortem. 

I glanced around, noticing the differences between this club and what I knew of nightclubs in the States. I pictured all of them with a mosh pit, similar to raves back home. While the music still flowed through me, and the minimal liquor I drank loosened me up a little to the task at hand, I couldn’t help but compare. This one, while it had some dancing, mostly by women for the men at the bar, seemed less crowded and involved more heavy drinking than I anticipated, by all ages. It shouldn’t have shocked me that Russia had little to no drinking age. Not being able to purchase alcohol under the age of eighteen, but even that didn’t keep young teens from the club.

There were a few men who had already bought me drinks, which I graciously accepted. It would have been rude to turn them down. I had even been asked for dances, and more personal alone time. I did my best not to cringe and break their hands when they touched me. One man had the audacity to attempt to lift my skirt, and I almost stabbed him. Being drunk didn’t account for their actions. If they couldn’t handle drinking, then they shouldn’t do it at all. Though I’d never say that to a Russian, because it would be worse than insulting their mother. So instead I pulled a knife and plunged it into the table as a warning. That was a language he understood.

“Maybe it’s the outfit,” Demon offered as a suggestion from the bar stool beside me.

I let out a breath of a laugh, but didn’t respond. We weren’t supposed to communicate, but he was right. It had to be the outfit.

I wore a tight black skirt that hugged my legs, which had become shapely and toned from the training I had completed over the past year. Demon had even complimented me on them when I stepped out in my heels. He said I’d gather all the attention in the room, especially when the fur coat covered everything except my legs. I shivered in the cold. While there was no snow on the ground, which wasn’t how I pictured Russia, the temperatures dropped drastically throughout the day. I don’t think it hit above thirty-four degrees, and it decreased as the night went on. No wonder people in Russia drank all the time. It had to be the only way to keep warm.

I pushed aside the thought as I noticed my mark step up to the bar, just as planned. The fur coat I had worn into the club brushed against my hand and I gestured to my things. “Would you like me to move them?” I asked, flashing a soft smile. I repeated the question in broken Russian when he didn’t seem to understand. I’m sure I caused a few to cringe at how badly I ruined their mother tongue.

He offered a smile, and thanked me for the gesture as I moved my things and made sure to show the scandalous outfit that had garnered a lot of attention tonight. It was time to see if it would work on the man I needed it to work on.

I leaned forward, letting the low cut top show off more skin than usual. Normally, I would have pulled away, unwilling to show off this much skin, but for some reason once the mission aspect came into play I became more confident than normal. I tried to ignore his intense stare, and instead followed Demon’s and Renegade’s advice on getting a man’s attention. Growing up, I needed the help. Boys never looked twice at me when I was younger, but now, I had to say I looked deceptively innocent and gorgeous to the men I targeted. Now I needed this guy to play along. I hated when men played hard to get, in a mission and in life.

“Would Renegade be proud of what you’re doing?” Demon whispered as the mark turned to converse with another bodyguard.

I smiled at the mark before glancing down at my drink so I could answer Demon. “He’s the one who picked the outfit,” I said. I turned slightly to see Demon’s smirk and slightly lifted eyebrows as he found a new amusement in my words. “And don’t say he suggested this so I go back to the agency like this.”

“You said it. I didn’t,” Demon muttered, glancing at a blonde in the corner of the club who stood with a friend.

I scoffed.
Typical Demon
, I thought before I turned my attention to the man who had finally noticed me, once his friend left with a beautiful woman on his arm. Nikolai Pyotr worked as the bodyguard of the dictator of Gorod, Russia. We needed information on what the mafia had planned, and hopefully we’d take down the dictator with that intel. I was sick of working cartel and mafia cases. I wanted to expand as other agents had done and experience other types of missions. Though I did enjoy the danger and risks of working against cartels and mafias, and it allowed me to travel, I grew tired of it. I had seen mafias in Italy, organized crime in Spain, and now the Russia mafia.
Let me go back to Spain. At least then I wouldn’t turn into a popsicle when I walked outside.

I’d worry about getting a new line of jobs once this run with the Russian mafia ended, and the Cardoza Cartel was eliminated for sure. Sources said the Russians were pushing their boundaries, starting to leak into other countries. We came to put an end to it, and we wouldn’t stop until they were all taken out. Until then, I had been given the job of flirting with the burly man beside me to discreetly gather information.

Luckily, with my new confidence and looks, flirting had become an enjoyable game for me with a mark. It was like subtle manipulation, and I enjoyed the power I held over them. Though I didn’t enjoy the upper hand being taken from me, and that’s why Demon had to be there with me. I needed him in case I slipped up, as I had a habit of doing since I was still classified as a rookie by CIRA standards. You needed a few missions under your belt before being stripped of the rookie status, or a big move to give yourself a new label. So far, while some still called me a rookie, most called me a rouge and refused to work with me. I needed a shirt that said
‘
I don’t play well with others
.’
Either that, or others didn’t play well with me.

Nikolai bought me another drink. If anything, I wouldn’t need the fur coat by the time I left this club. I’d have what my sister used to call an alcohol blanket because I couldn’t fake drinking as I did on missions in the United States. Russians took notice when you weren’t drinking, which is another reason Demon stayed close—to keep me in line.

“Watch it,
NS
,” Demon growled as Nikolai offered to pay for another drink, careful not to use my code name or an actual name. I had told him we needed a cover story to come here, but he thought he knew better. It would have been easier to communicate with one, but he didn’t think we would be here this long. Plans changed as new information came in. Unfortunately, that meant almost a month in this frozen town.

I tipped over my glass, and let the alcohol fall onto Demon’s lap. I uttered an apology in Russian, knowing Demon understood as much of it as I did. Then I leaned over and whispered, “I told you we needed new names. Now make sure he’s ready to go because he’s seeing this going a different direction than I am.” I pulled away, and Demon nodded slightly before he started cursing in Russian and rushed off.

Most would’ve assumed he was going to clean the spill off his clothes, but I knew he was finding a new position in case Nikolai decided to take it a step further. I had been here long enough to pick up on the signs, and knew enough when men were trying to escalate casual conversation.
Now there’s something Renegade wouldn’t like
. I smiled at the thought, and laughed slightly at the joke Nikolai had told, even though I didn’t understand a thing he said.

“Who are you looking for?” Nikolai asked me asked me in almost perfect English. “You aren’t from around here. Is there someone you’re looking for?”

I knew it was obvious I was American. It took a lot of effort to blend in with locals, and even more time. Time I hadn’t had to prepare for this mission thanks to Renegade’s cover being blown. So I had to be sent out instead of on whatever mission Camo had been assigned to in my place. I had been so close to getting out of working against the mafia. Maybe next time. 

“I’m looking for a Volodya Petrov,” I stated, attempting to make it seem as if I couldn’t be certain. If I came out and made it clear I had come to visit the dictator as an outsider, I’d be taken and never seen again. They took protecting their leaders to an all new level, the ruling swift and permanent. It would be even worse because of Renegade’s recent blown cover. If I died because he couldn’t keep his cover, I’d haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Why are you looking for Volodya Petrov?”

It was a good question, but I didn’t have an answer. I barely knew why. CIRA believed the less they told me, the better. I thought they would have put an end to that rule after it almost got Renegade and me killed in our last mission together, but then again a dead agent is better than one who can tell every secret we knew.

“I’d been sent to speak to him. Offer some entrainment.” Nikolai appeared more cautious. I was losing the mark.

I flashed Demon the signal, a short stroke of my hair with my right hand and palm toward my face, to let him know the plan had started falling apart and we had to speed up the process. We weren’t supposed to drug him until after I had gotten him out of the club, it would be less suspicious, but I had blown my chance and I knew it. Demon quickly approached the bar and ordered a drink. While the bartender made Demon his drink, and Nikolai had turned his focus from gawking at me to questioning me, Demon slipped a mixture into Nikolai’s drink. I toasted to the health of the dictator, who had to be praised whenever possible, and watched as he drank the concoction. Now I had to wait.

It didn’t take long. He was already inebriated and the drug kicked in quickly with an empty stomach. “What are you doing here?” Nikolai questioned as he started to sway in his seat.

I took that getting him back to our place would be difficult. I sighed sharply, bored with the conversation, as he waited for an answer, and I gave him the truth for the first time tonight. “I’m here to murder everyone you care about with my bare hands if I don’t get the information I need to save lives, and prevent your ilk from spreading.”

There was a pause as Nikolai took in what I said. Once it connected in his drunken mind, he started laughing. His laughter reverberated through me, but I wasn’t amused. Luckily, the drug kicked in and knocked him out soon after.

I turned to Demon, who had been prepared to help Nikolai up and out the back door so we could leave as unnoticed as possible. “Why does everyone think I’m joking when I threaten them?”

Demon flashed me a warning glare before ordering me to take my new friend from the club and back to our hideout. He’d make sure we weren’t followed, and by the time the mark woke up, he wouldn’t have a clue how he ended up with us. We’d get the information we needed.