Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) (23 page)

“
I can assure you we took
every precaution before raiding the residence. I had to act fast
before the suspect fled.”

Nikolai bit his lip, not quite willing
to disclose his findings. He recoiled as she thrust her face only a
few inches away from his.

“
At least have the courage
to look me in the eyes when you lie.” Nikolai managed a playful
smile in light of her boiling fury.

“
Forgive my indiscretion.
I’ll keep you apprised as new developments unfold.” Tatiana crossed
her arms and glared at the newspaper clippings pinned to the
wall.

“
I’m not as powerless as
you’d like to think, Nikolai.”

He didn’t respond. They worked
silently and ruefully in the small office without exchanging the
slightest pleasantry. She dominated his space like a tyrant,
keeping a watchful eye on him. It amused him all the same. The
silence was so acute he could almost hear her thoughts.

“
Tatiana… Could you tell me
about the organ trafficking operation you were assigned to?” She
cocked an eyebrow at the intriguing question.

“
It was a covert operation
code-named ‘Human.’ We busted an organ trafficking ring run by a
former kickboxer. Dozens of young women were being confined in a
warehouse. The traffickers didn’t even use anesthetics during the
operations—just a crude cocktail of vodka and painkillers. The
trafficking ring extended all the way to the Ukraine.

“
Typically, these networks
set up shop in underdeveloped countries and coerce the poor into
submitting to horrific procedures. Then the organs are shipped off
to more wealthy and affluent nations. We found close to forty
million dollars’ worth of organs packaged into tubs. Unfortunately,
many of the women came down with infections months after the
procedures. One of the girls was only nine years old.”

“
Nine years old?” Nikolai
gasped.

“
Yes.” Tatiana sighed and
slid into a chair. “It was a tragic situation. The traffickers had
removed her kidneys, corneas, and several skin grafts from her
chest. Anyone capable of doing that to a little girl probably
doesn’t have a heart of his own—”

“
What was her name?” he
anxiously pressed.

“
Nikolai, what’s the matter
with you?
” He suddenly realized his hands
were digging into Tatiana’s shoulders, his sweating face only a
hair away from hers. He reeled back, bashing his knee against the
desk and knocking over a lamp. Porcelain smashed against the floor,
and Nikolai could already feel the cracks widening in his
mind.

“
What just happened?”
Tatiana demanded.

“
My head is spinning…” He
shielded his face as he scavenged the pieces of the
lamp.

“
Are you on any
medication?”

“
Just some pills for
anxiety. It’s nothing to worry about.” Suddenly, he clutched his
chest and swooned toward his desk.

“
Nikolai!”

“
It’s okay…” He could
suddenly picture a mess of scalpels and skin grafts and an innocent
girl’s face. He batted his eyes furiously as tears began to scorch
down his cheeks. His hands balled into fists, clutching his knees
with such fury. Tatiana’s hand came to rest on his trembling back.
“It’s okay,” Nikolai whispered again.

“
I’ll take you home. Come
on.” He nodded absently as Tatiana propped him up and slid his arms
through his jacket. Nikolai felt like a toddler as she buckled him
into the leather seat of his Skoda Octavia. The engine roared to
life and Tatiana teased the vehicle onto the main roads. Nikolai
watched the traffic headlights blur by in a mosaic of neon
streaks.

He had never truly noticed how
beautiful Prague looked at this hour. Time never ceased to allow
him a moment of tranquility. Not until now.

The face of an astronomical clock tower glowed
from Old Town Square. Its iron hands ticked ever closer to
midnight, ushering in the hours where the city passed over into the
reign of the dystopian, cyberpunk masses. As his car traversed
Charles Bridge, Nikolai concentrated on the glimmering waters
radiant with reflections. How he could lose himself in the Vltava
River, drifting away to another time and place that suspended
reality.

“
My daughter, Emily… she
was nine years old when she was taken from me.” Nikolai wrapped his
jacket a little tighter around himself like armor over his heart.
“She was murdered, but the details of her death were kept secret
from me. The investigation was eventually turned over to BIS. To
this day, I’m still trying to understand what happened to
her.”

Tatiana gazed ahead, bound in
silence.

“
Her name wasn’t
Emily.”

Nikolai slumped in relief.

“
I wouldn’t wish this on
anyone. She was my sole hope in the world after my marriage
collapsed.” Tatiana steered past a row of shops. She thought of the
times she and her husband dined at neighboring restaurants on
steamy summer evenings.

“
I’ve also endured my share
of divorce; trouble over finances, losing interest in each other,
the secrecy of my work… What else would you expect from a couple
that married too young?”

“
I completely understand.
The secrecy of my work tore my marriage apart, too. When I couldn’t
reveal where I had been and what I was doing, my wife began to
suspect I was seeing another woman. She would tear into me and hurl
baseless accusations that I must have found someone prettier than
her. Her paranoia actually drove her to hire a private investigator
to keep track of me. A word of advice:
Never
hire someone to investigate a
detective.”

A cold laugh rattled out of his
chest.

“
Eventually, she started
hanging out with different men to make me jealous. When I came to
realize I wasn’t jealous in the least, I wondered why I was
sticking with her. The only good thing that resulted from our
marriage was Emily.”

He closed his eyes.

“
She would always welcome
me home and proudly show off her drawings. She dreamt about growing
up to be an artist.”

“
How long did your marriage
last?”

“
Eight years. My daughter
was born when I was only a child myself.”

Tatiana sighed.

“
Marriage is a crapshoot
when it comes to those of us in uniform, whether it’s law
enforcement or intelligence. To be honest, though, I’m glad to be
rid of him. My ex drank every night and flirted with other women in
front of me.”

Nikolai shifted uncomfortably at the
mention of binge drinking. God knows he drowned in liquor almost
every night.

“
Take a right here and I’ll
point out my house.” Minutes later, the car swung into his driveway
and growled across the gravel. For a moment, Nikolai wallowed in
his seat, gazing at the lights in the windows. Sometimes he would
sleep overnight at his office just to escape this prison cell of a
home.

The passenger door swung open and he
turned to the hand beckoning him.

“
Come on. Let’s get you
inside.” He clasped Tatiana’s hand and embarked on the treacherous
journey toward the door. At last, he collapsed onto the
couch.

“
Feeling
better?”

“
A little.”

“
Let me mix you a drink.”
Her heels clattered across the kitchen tiles and she opened the
cabinets. “Good God, you have so much of it.” Nikolai flushed and
chuckled.

“
You mentioned your ex
drank a lot. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m guilty of the same
vice.” Tatiana nimbly dropped a few ice cubes in the glass of
Becherovka. That alcoholic blend of herbs and spices never failed
to fill the void inside. Its mysterious recipe was closely guarded
by only a few individuals in the Czech Republic. Tatiana worked
diligently as she mixed some tonic water in the glass.

“
You didn’t drink in front
of her, did you?”

“
What?”

“
Emily.”

“
Of course not,” Nikolai
retorted. “I barely touched liquor during my marriage. But I fell
into a rut after Emily…”

“
Take this.” Her fingers
brushed against his as she handed him the glass. Nikolai shivered
as he lifted it to his lips and drained it into the endless chasm
of misery he dared to call his soul. Suddenly, he pried it from his
lips and set it down.

“
I must look pathetic,” he
confessed. “What would she think of me? To see her father stooped
over a bottle every night. The liquor has probably replaced the
blood in my veins by now.” He pushed the half-emptied glass away
with disgust.

Tatiana plopped down in the leather
armchair across from him. Her eyes flickered from the abandoned
drink to Nikolai.

“
Why do you pity
yourself?”

“
I don’t.”

“
Yes, you feel sorry for
yourself, Nikolai. You think losing your daughter entitles you to
binge drink until you vomit your misery into the toilet? From the
moment I first laid eyes on you, I could tell you hated everything.
You think everyone harbors resentment against you, and you’re all
alone in this deceitful world. You think Emily was the only one who
ever really cared.”

“
Don’t you dare speak about
Emily.”

“
That’s why you resent me,
isn’t it? You think my interests align solely with BIS. You suspect
I’ll remove any trace of the killer and the murders—and Krista,
Natalie, and the other victims will fade from the headlines. The
grieving mothers and fathers will face their sorrows alone. The
same way you were left without answers.”

Nikolai sprang to his feet, capsizing
the table and spilling the mixed drink across the floor.

“
Enough, Tatiana!” She
lunged forward.

“
To answer your question,
yes, looking in on your fortress of bottles, you come across as
pathetic. You’re barely there, Nikolai, just a puddle of alcohol on
the floor. But I know there’s more to you than that. The real
Nikolai is buried under a wave of self-loathing and liquor.” Her
sizzling eyes plunged deep into his. “Where are you?”

He couldn’t breathe under the scrutiny
of those eyes. They stripped him down to the most basic emotions.
Vulnerability. Despair. Silently crying out for help.

“
I’m lost,” he
breathed.

Before he even realized it, her body
pressed against his. He didn’t resist as their arms entwined. He
grabbed at anything or anyone to save him from himself.

“
Then let me help find you.
There’s more to you than this.” Nikolai buried himself in her
warmth, taking comfort in her fragrant smell. He needed her company
to ward away the despair that haunted him tonight. He flinched when
he felt her wet lips graze his neck, and he instinctively curled up
in defense. Suddenly, the words she said about his insecurity
synapsed. The vexing truth glared into his soul, the reality that
he was a prisoner of his own self-loathing and paranoia. Maybe he
was wrong to judge everyone, including Tatiana, on that premise.
She welcomed him back into her arms as those chains of fear slipped
away.

He sighed as the tingling sensation of
her lips laced pleasure across his throat.

He unbuttoned her blouse and gently
removed her bra. Tenderness and brutality met in that instant as
their lips slammed together. But when isn’t desire accompanied by
the most violent of emotions, the most animalistic of
tendencies?

She clasped his hands and applied them
to her ample breasts. Her nipples pebbled under his fingers, and he
squeezed them harder.

“
Forgive me,” Nikolai
murmured, not quite aware what he was apologizing for. Perhaps the
harsh way he treated her since she first traipsed into his
office.

Tatiana traced kisses from his chest
down to his thighs. Her lips were the gateway to heaven as they
devoured every inch of his flesh. His nerves ignited with
unparalleled pleasure.

She leaned into him and her nails dug
into his skin.

Nikolai kissed her neck and cupped her
left breast in his hand. Her belt slithered to the floor as Nikolai
peeled away her pants, drawing Tatiana into frenzy.

Her lips smashed against his with
brutal desire, nearly sending his head spinning as their mouths
fused.

The sound of her body colliding with
his indulged him, an encore of salacious moans and cries singing
his praise. Tatiana arched her back in feral pleasure and Nikolai
dipped her forward. He cradled her just above the floor as another
sigh gushed from her chest, and her eyes lit up.

It had been so long since a woman
welcomed him inside. He could feel his loneliness melting away as
she buried her head against his chest. Her hair rippled across his
skin, carrying the luxurious scent of their sex.

How he wished she could sink into him,
their flesh melding to become a new being.

At last, he could see heaven from down
there in hell.

* * *

Mother, you cannot hurt me
anymore
. Those six words echoed ominously
in Vivian’s head. Every crime scene contained a variation of that
portending phrase.