Page 67 of Nightfire

Interesting. Nikitin knew her background, knew she was born on the streets of Tijuana. She’d educated herself out of that. Her English was, as far as he could tell, accentless and perfect. She’d turned herself into an American whore.

But under stress, her origins showed.

The board was inclined, feet up, head down. Nikitin dragged his stool over, sat next to her head at the bottom of the board. He leaned over, knowing his face covered her entire field of vision. Good. Right now, he needed to fill her world. He was her God and she had to appease him.

She stopped wrenching at her restraints and lay there, breathing hard. Nikitin looked at her carefully, going from her face slowly up the board to her feet.

She was naked for a reason. Being naked thrust you back into defenseless childhood, stripped you of all dignity. Not that a whore would know much of dignity.

She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, head to toe, though Nikitin was immune to her charms. Was immune to all women. But he could easily see that she had the kind of body and face men would pay a great deal to rent for a while. Very few men had something like this at home.

Intelligently, Sands made sure his whores ate well, slept enough, exercised in the Club’s downstairs gym; he also had a strict no-drugs rule which was enforced with pain.

The merchandise was protected and treated to last more than most in the field. Nikitin had once seen a whore on the streets of Odessa who looked forty but whose papers showed she was sixteen. Life on the street was measured in dog years. Each year on the street was like seven. Except at the Club, where the goods were pampered and had a much longer shelf life.

He was pleased to note that the whore was unmarked, save for a few bruises which could be covered by makeup.

His gaze drifted back from her feet to her face, the message clear. I own you. All of you.

He hitched his stool closer, bent down to her until their noses touched.

“Two of my men are missing,” he said, voice cold and clear.

The woman blinked, taken aback. This wasn’t what she was expecting. A frown appeared between her eyebrows. “You think I did something to them?”

“Yes.”

“To your…men?” She looked down at herself, then back up to him. If she’d said the words aloud, the message couldn’t have been clearer. What could one woman do to two of his men, former Spetsnaz.

Fuck.

For the first time, it occurred to Nikitin that she might not actually have any information.

If so, he was in deepest deepest shit. He’d come with only three men. How hard, how dangerous could it be to invest in a brothel? The mission had been more economic than military and Nikitin had chosen his men accordingly.

He hadn’t brought his entire A team. Most of them were involved in protecting a diamond route in Sierra Leone. Stupid, stupid. Because this investment here might prove to be even more lucrative than diamonds. Particularly diamonds that had to be mined a thousand miles from civilization and then accompanied to market.

He’d underestimated this, thinking there would be no opposition. They were flying right under the radar of the authorities and Sands had assured him that one of the mayor’s assistants and two DAs were members of the club and they’d be protected.

And yet, there were enemies of the Club out there, had to be, otherwise his men would be here now.

Two men—two good, smart soldiers—couldn’t simply disappear from the face of earth, could they?

They had gone to give a lesson to an Amerikanskaya who was a minor annoyance, like a piece of grit in a shoe. Creating disharmony among the women. Nikitin had even debated sending one man for such an easy task, but in the end decided on sending two. Lyov was harder but Ivan had better English.

Nothing to it. Have a talk with the woman who was disrupting their business, convince her to stop, call in mission completed. They never called in. They had dropped off the face of the earth.

Lyov and Ivan’s cellphones were offline and they weren’t contacting him.

This woman had to know something. She went to the shelter often. Sands was just now waking up to the fact that he’d allowed insubordination to seep into his stable of women.

“Where are my men?” he asked again. He kept his voice low, even. He didn’t have to scream to make his point. His point was clear. She was trussed like an animal and he held the power of life and death over her.

She tried to shake her head and forgot that it was bound. A sound like steam escaped her lips.

This was getting them nowhere. Nikitin looked up at Dmitri, flicking his finger. Get ready for another round.

Dmitri poured water from a large pitcher into a smaller one, so the trickle of water could be better controlled.