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“What’s wrong?” I tried to see what he was seeing, but the house looked fine. There weren’t any flashing “Danger ahead” signs as far as I could tell.
“Your house keeper leaves at five, every day, without fail.”
“It’s only five thirty.”
“So why is her car still here?”
I glanced over my right shoulder. Sure enough Patricia’s Toyota was parked on the far side of the drive, as usual. “Maybe she stayed late for some reason.”
Sasha didn’t hear me because he was out of the car and moving toward the house at a surprisingly casual pace, the gun hanging at his side.
Climbing out of the car, I chased after him. “You need the alarm code,” I hissed as soon as he gave me a furious look.
He snarled something in Russian and we both stopped short, looking at the front door. It was closed, but the jamb was busted and there was a black boot print next to the handle.
“We can get in through the garage,” I said.
He nodded and set off in that direction.
I punched in the code on the door and followed him when he ducked inside. My car was the only one in the garage, which meant Patricia should have been the only one in the house.
I had visions of the poor woman tied up in the broom closet with one of her cleaning rags in her mouth. Or maybe she heard the front door and went and hid somewhere.
“Watch the blood,” Sasha whispered as soon as we turned the corner for the kitchen. He stepped over a giant red puddle and carried on.
It streaked and smeared along the tile, a trail of bloody handprints clinging to doorways and swiping the wall.
There was a loud crash on the second floor that made both of us jump. Sasha started for the stairs, but I kept going down the hallway toward Dad’s office. Other than the electronics, he had at least one safe in there. If someone was going to burgle anything, it would be the master bedroom for the jewelry and the office for the safe. And besides, that’s where the trail of blood led.
As soon as I saw a wrinkled hand laying on the floor near the doorway, I ran the rest of the way. It was Patricia without a doubt. I reached for her and pulled back with a gasp. It was theonlypart of Patricia. Where the fuck was the rest of her body?
A heavy fist connected with the side of my face out of nowhere.
I stumbled away from the blow before a second one made contact.
A guy rushed out of Dad’s office and slammed me into the wall, squeezing all the air out of my lungs and rattling my brain. I had just enough sense left to shove him out at arm’s length before he could hit me again. Grabbing the back of his neck, I yanked his head down while driving my knee upward into bone. When he bounced back up, holding his bleeding nose, I returned the favor and threw a punch into his face as hard as I could.
He spun away, staggering, and collapsed against the wall.
That was my cue to fucking run.
I sprinted up the stairs, listening for anything that would point me to where Sasha was. It wasn’t all that hard — I just followed the sound of Russians swearing and shit breaking.
Turning the corner intomyroom, of all places, I watched from the doorway as Sasha and another guy traded vicious blows. Not surprisingly, Sasha’s size worked to his advantage, but the other guy wasn’t tiny by any means. When he landed a kick in the center of Sasha’s abdomen, it sent Sasha flying backward against my dresser.
He hit hard, grimacing and holding his stomach. Dodging another attempted kick, Sasha flung himself to the side and swatted shit out of his way as he groped the floor. He finally found what he was looking for, a gun laying in the corner of the room beneath the shattered remnants of my desk chair. The guy lunged for the gun at the same time. Sasha rolled onto his back and fired. Two rounds went straight into the other guy’s chest. He fell limp, bleeding all over the area rug.
I jumped, the concussion ringing in my ears. My whole body froze, watching Sasha rise to his feet and walk forward, planting a third one in the back of his opponent’s head.
Now that he’d stopped moving around so much, I tried to take stock of Sasha’s condition. Blotches of blood and sweat stained his dark blue t-shirt, but I couldn’t tell if it was all his, or the other guy’s. Probably both. There was a bright red mark on his jaw, along with a streak of blood near his mouth. More blood dripped down his left forearm.
Unable to move, I at least forced my vocal cords to work. “Sasha, are—”
Sasha jerked the gun up again, level with my face.
At almost the same time, cold metal pressed into my temple and a hand clamped on the back of my neck.
Sasha snarled something in Russian and took a step forward.
