Russian Mobster's Secret (11 page)

His heart pounded frantically in his chest. The shots had stopped, and the sirens were close. He had almost no time to end this. Around the corner in another alley directly across the street from Susan’s house, he heard movement. Someone leaped down to street level. He heard their boots hit the asphalt.

Whipping around the corner with his gun drawn, Kirill took a deep breath to fortify himself for what was to come. “You might as well stop walking and turn around.”

The dark figure swung around and stopped in his tracks.

Kirill approached slowly, holding his gun at the ready. There wasn’t much light. A single floodlight from a nearby garage provided the only illumination. Then the stranger threw back his hood, and Kirill nearly sank to his knees.

“You’re alive!” Kirill called out hoarsely, slowly lowering his weapon. “How are you alive?”

Jacob’s bitter laugh filled the alley. “Some simple medication to slow the heart rate, and it only seems as though someone has no pulse.”

“But why? You’ve been the one getting the jump on the contracts and jerking me around? Why?”

“I never wanted an apprentice. And you’re not cut out for this life anyway. I figured I would get rid of you and then things would go back to the way they were.”

Kirill felt his anger building. “So you shoot at my
family
?”

“To warn you off.” Jacob made a
tsking
noise. “Is there really any better way to get a point across? Now, though, I do apologize, but you’re going to have to die.”

Kirill was already lifting his weapon. “Not a chance.”

The shots in the alley were deafening. The sounds ricocheted off the narrow brick structures and echoed in Kirill’s ears until he thought his head might explode. Pain lanced through his shoulder, and he went down on one knee.

A few yards away, Jacob was dead on the ground.

Chapter Fourteen

Susan nearly retched at the coppery scent of blood that filled the alleyway. Behind her on the street, she could hear Oksana shouting at the paramedics and ordering the police around. For now, Oksana’s highhanded behavior provided the perfect cover for her to find Kirill.

She gingerly stepped around garbage cans and over piles of items tagged for recycling. Then she saw two figures slumped on the ground. Her heart nearly stopped. One of the men she didn’t recognize. The other was Kirill.

“Kirill,” she whimpered, kneeling beside him on the hard asphalt. “Are you hurt?”

He seemed to perk up when he heard her whisper. “Susan?”

“Yes. It’s Susan. We have to get you out of here before the police search this area.” She was already pulling on his arm. He struggled to his feet. She braced his weight on her shoulder as best she could. “Who is that? The person you’ve been chasing?”

“It was Jacob.” His voice was strangely flat. “This whole time Jacob has been double crossing me.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s no time. The cops are going to find you here. We have to get out and make up a story or something.” She tugged him along. “This way. It’s only a few blocks to the hospital. We’ll say we were walking out here and you got hit by a stray bullet.”

“My gun,” he said dully. “I have to get rid of the weapon. The ballistics won’t match the bullets in Vlad and myself, but it will match the one in Jacob.”

“Where is it?” she demanded.

He held it up. “Wipe the prints off. Get them all, okay? Yours and mine.”

She felt like some character from a crime novel as she used the tail of her T-shirt to scrub at the surface of the weapons. Then she tossed it into a pile of refuse.

“Perfect.” He was slurring now. She knew he was losing blood fast.

She tugged him along with her. “Come on, Kirill. Hurry. Can’t you hear them coming?”

There were voices getting closer and blue and red lights flashing on the street out in front of her house. Oksana’s yells had subsided, suggesting that she’d gone to the ER with Vlad. It was time to go.

Susan couldn’t have said how long it took them to stumble through the back alleys of the neighborhood as they made their way to the hospital. Finally she saw the brilliant red cross that hung above the front entrance to the emergency room. Immense relief rushed through her at the sight.

“We’re almost there,” she urged. “Come on, Kirill.”

He wasn’t answering, and he was barely managing to drag himself along beside her. Even in the darkness she could see the blood dripping down his fingers and leaving a trail on the street behind them.

“Don’t you dare quit on me,” she panted. “I will kill you! You understand?”

Finally, they were close enough for Susan to hail a person in scrubs standing outside to catch a breath of fresh air. “Hey! Help me! Please? My friend is hurt!”

There was a shout, and then several people swarmed out of the hospital pushing a gurney between them. Susan nearly wept with relief. Her neck and shoulders were aching, and her back was killing her from dragging Kirill such a long distance.

“What happened?” someone demanded.

“I think he got shot!” Susan wailed. “We were just walking, and then there were shots. It happened right near my home. I don’t know what’s going on!”

The medical professionals shared a glance over her head, and Susan could only hope that it was a positive thing and not a negative one. If she had to break Kirill out of this hospital in order to keep him free, she would do it.

“Susan!”

She turned to see Oksana charging up, phone still in hand.

“Oh, Susan, you’re safe!” Oksana flung her arms around Susan and squeezed the life out of her before she noticed Kirill on the gurney. “Oh my God! My brother! My big brother, is he dead? Oh my God, he’s dead.”

“He’s not dead.” One of the nurses assured her. “He’s just passed out from blood loss.”

Susan wrapped her arm around Oksana. “Let’s go inside. How’s Vlad?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine. Apparently it’s just a tiny scratch.” Oksana actually rolled her eyes. “You disappeared. And then the shooting stopped.” She pressed her hands to her face. “The cops want to talk to you and my brother.”

“I’m sure they do,” Susan said firmly. “And you’re going to tell them exactly what I say. Do you understand? We have to have the same story.”

Oksana dragged Susan over to a bench just inside the emergency room’s waiting area. “I am so sorry, Susan. I can’t tell you how sorry.”

“I appreciate that,” Susan said suspiciously. “But why the sudden change of heart?”

“When all of that started,” Oksana trailed off. Her voice was quiet, and not a hint of drama colored her words. It was very unlike her. “Kirill risked everything to make sure you were safe. Yet I could hear you calling for him. The sound of your voice…” She smiled softly. “You really love him, don’t you?”

“I do.” Susan sighed. “I can’t say it’s probably the wisest decision I’ve ever made, but he is the only man for me.”

“Then I’m glad for you both.” Oksana gently touched Susan’s belly. “And I can’t wait to be an aunt.”

“You’ll be the best,” Susan assured her friend. It was so good to put that behind them! Now if only Kirill came through this ordeal in such a successful way.

KIRILL BLINKED EXPERIMENTALLY and tried to figure out where he was. The insistent blip of a machine somewhere near his right ear was annoying as hell. Plus, he could hear the whir and buzz of more machines. The scent of the place was vaguely antiseptic and almost sterile.

“Susan?” he croaked.

“Kirill?” Susan appeared in his field of vision. “Oksana, he’s awake.”

His sister was here? Great. More drama. Kirill tried to open his mouth to tell her to go away, but he couldn’t seem to get his tongue to work correctly.

“Here.” Susan held something to his lips. “Drink this.”

He managed a sip, and the cool kiss of water against his parched, raw throat felt heavenly.

Kirill finally managed to form a sentence. “What the hell is Oksana doing here?”

“All that is behind us for now, Kirill,” Susan said firmly. “Your sister and I have come to an agreement that your safety and health is far more important than all this petty crap we’ve been worried about.”

That didn’t sound like Oksana, but Kirill was in no shape to argue. “Cops?” He had come in with a gunshot wound. That meant he was guaranteed a visit from the boys in blue.

Susan leaned down to his ear. “They’ve been waiting for you to wake up. This is our story.” She whispered for several minutes, giving Kirill a very thorough accounting of what they were apparently going to tell the police.

“Got it?” she asked.

Kirill had barely managed to croak his assent when the door of his hospital room was flung open. Two officers strode inside wearing the mantle of arrogance that often accompanied their position.

“Kirill? We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.” The first officer appeared to be playing the part of good cop.

Kirill sighed. This was going to take an eternity.

To his surprise, however, his sister and Susan jumped right in.

Susan held her hand to her chest. “It was the most amazing thing, Officer.” She blinked several times to maximize the innocent surprise on her face. “The four of us were going out, you know? We were just waiting for Oksana and Vlad to get to the house. So Kirill and I went for a walk.” Susan glanced down shyly, touching her stomach. “We’ve just found out we’re expecting, so there’s just so much to talk about!”

Kirill watched in fascination as both officers seemed to become enraptured by the tale Susan was spinning. How did women manage to do that?

“When Vlad and I got to the house, we must have just missed them.” Oksana picked up the story threads seamlessly. “We were hanging about for a few minutes, trying to decide if we should wait or just text them to meet us somewhere.” Oksana batted her bright blue eyes at the officer. “And then someone started shooting at us.
Shooting
! Can you believe that?” Oksana’s accent thickened as she grew more agitated.

Kirill had to hand it to his sister. She was damn good at giving a performance. Kirill wondered if anyone would bother questioning him further.

Then he realized the cops were staring at the women as though they were missing something.

“The alley across the street from Susan’s house was dark, Officer,” Kirill said. “I’m so sorry that I don’t remember anything other than the fact that there were two other men there. The first one shot me, but I got the feeling he wasn’t actually aiming for me. It was as if the two men were aiming at each other and I simply got in the way.”

“Why would you go toward the sound of gunfire?” one officer asked tersely. “Most people run away from that sort of thing.”

“It was my fault,” Susan murmured. “I ran toward the house because I could hear Oksana screaming. I was terrified for her. Then the next thing I know I’m in the middle of this mess and Kirill is shouting at me to get down.”

“You’re lucky you weren’t shot.” The officer touched Susan’s shoulder. “You could have been seriously hurt.”

“I’m just lucky my boyfriend is such a quick thinker.” Susan took Kirill’s hand and lifted it to her mouth for a kiss. “Do you have any idea who those men were?”

The officers shared a glance, and then Officer Number Two decided to answer. “We believe you ran into a mafia turf war. The man who was dead is a known hit man. We believe the other man to have been his protégé.”

“Weird!” Susan’s eyes opened wide for maximum effect. Kirill almost laughed at the sight. “So you’re going to catch him, right?”

“We will try our best, of course,” the officer promised. “But until the man makes a real mistake on one of his contracts, we won’t get a chance. These mafia men are difficult to nail down, as you might imagine.”

Oksana passed the officer a flirtatious glance. “Well, I for one am glad to have such competent officers on the job. You gentlemen were so quick getting to the scene this evening. I was so afraid, and yet you don’t seem in the least bit frightened.” She batted her big blue eyes, and the officer seemed to fall directly beneath her spell.

Susan snorted under her breath, and Kirill rolled his eyes.

Then Susan passed Oksana a meaningful look. “How is Vlad doing?”

“They’ll release him anytime now.” Oksana looked relieved. “I’m sure he’ll be glad.”

“Yes. We’ve already spoken to your friend.” The officers glanced at them all individually.

Kirill wondered if Vlad would be the one to bring them all down just by refusing to participate in their story. He found he was holding his breath. Then Susan reached down and threaded her fingers through his. She gave his hand a squeeze, and he knew everything was going to turn out just fine.

The first officer sighed. “Unfortunately, he was so hysterical from his wound and the intense situation surrounding the gunshots that he is completely unable to recall a single event from this evening. He remembers walking into the house, but nothing after that.”

Beside him, Kirill felt Susan struggling to hold back a laugh. It gave him real joy to see that she was going to be just fine after all of this insanity. Now he just had to make sure her happiness lasted well into the next few decades of their lives.

Chapter Fifteen

Eight months later…

Kirill rolled his eyes as he watched his sister make goo goo faces at his baby son. He still couldn’t believe one woman could cover so many spots on the crazy meter, but Oksana managed it with style.

“You wuv your Aunt Oksana, don’t you, my little chubby wubby,” Oksana crooned to the baby in his swing.

Kirill snorted with amusement. “You’re going to turn his brain to mush before it’s even finished developing.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Oksana told him. “It’s good for babies to hear positive sounds. Isn’t that right?” Whatever else she was saying was lost in the coos and strange noises coming from her mouth.

Across the room, Susan was struggling not to laugh. Even after giving birth less than a month ago, she was still the most beautiful woman Kirill had ever laid eyes on. He smiled at her now and gave her a wink.

Kirill poked his sister in the back. “I think it’s time for Aunty Wanty to go. Mommy and Daddy need to put Baby Boo to bed.”