Page 92 of Exacting Vengeance

The phone tucked into his back pocket next to the Makarov pistol dinged. He yanked it out and narrowed his eyes on the screen. One of the motion detectors he’d set around the house last night had been triggered. It was a cheaper version of the kind he’d installed outside his house in Chicago. The problem was, any animal lumbering past would set it off, but he had to be sure.

He grabbed the Makarov from his belt and yanked open the rickety door.

Sunlight cast shadows in front of the abandoned hangar at the end of the airstrip. Wind rustled through the pine trees. Yuri jammed the cigarette out on the railing, then stepped off the porch and picked his way through the trees to where he’d set the device that had triggered. Crunching came to his ears, the sound of something stepping on dried branches.

He hid behind a thick pine tree, aiming the Makarov in the direction the sound had come from. The crunching grew louder. Deliberate and heavy—not a squirrel or a deer.

A man.

Aside from the pilot he’d hired, no one knew he was here. The pilot had no reason to betray him. He’d still want the other half of the five grand that was due to him. This was probably an early season hunter. Either way, he was a dead man.

The guy stalked closer, no more than thirty feet away. The idiot had no idea he was the one being stalked.

Slacks and a brown leather jacket. Sunglasses, in the woods, no less. A quick flash of light glinted off the thick gold chain around the guy’s neck and⁠—

Yobany v rot. He was fucked.

Yuri knew this man from Chicago, and he’d been in the courtroom during Boris Kolbayev’s trial. Ivan Asimov. Nikki’s man. Nikki did have him followed. Soon, Nikki would know where he was, what he was planning.

Yuri curled his fingers tightly around the gun butt. This could not happen. He could not allow Asimov to report back to Nikki.

Relaxing his grip, he blew out a slow breath, sighted in on the man’s chest, and pulled the trigger. The blast reverberated in the silence of the woods. Birds took off. A squirrel scurried up a dead trunk.

Rising from his crouched position, Yuri walked to where Asimov lay on his back. He kept the muzzle aimed at the man’s chest, but it was unnecessary. The force of the gunshot had knocked off the sunglasses, revealing open, unseeing eyes. A blotch of red now soaked around the hole in his expensive white silk shirt. Too bad. A waste of a good shirt.

Yuri kicked Asimov in the ribs, just to be sure, and because he wanted to. A phone rang, and he automatically reached for his back pocket. But it wasn’t his phone. The sound came from Asimov’s breast pocket. He slipped out the phone. The letters NL lit the screen.

Nikki.

He set the phone on the ground, aimed at the screen and was about to pull the trigger. Instead, he silenced the ringing, then leaned down and pressed Asimov’s thumb on the home button. Working quickly, he pulled up all the recent calls. There’d been one to Nikki. Five minutes ago. At the very least, Asimov must have given Nikki his approximate location.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Where the hell was that pilot? Time was running out.

After dropping the phone on the ground, he aimed at the screen and pulled the trigger. The phone blew apart, sending shards of plastic and phone guts everywhere.

He searched Asimov’s body for a gun. Odd. There wasn’t one. So, Asimov hadn’t been sent to kill him. Only to follow.

Leaving the body where it was, he spun and jogged back to the house.

With the rounds left in the Makarov and the boxes of ammo stashed inside the trunk of the car he’d stolen, he had nearly five hundred rounds. But his greatest weapon was the woman chained up in the bedroom. Nikki knew who’d been safeguarding his money all these years. He wouldn’t want Vika dead, either. Not yet, anyway.

He slammed the front door shut behind him and cued up the number for the pilot. “Where are you?” he shouted when the guy answered.

The sound of an engine hummed in the background. “I’m ninety minutes out.”

“Are you kidding me?” Nikki and his people could already be on the way. He didn’t have ninety minutes.

“I couldn’t take off. Cloud coverage was too low. I’ll call you when I’m on final approach.” He hung up.

“Final approach my ass.” He hurled the phone at the sofa. If that pilot didn’t show as promised, he’d have to find another way to get Vika to Chicago. Yes, he’d put the fear of losing her baby into her, but there was no guarantee she’d play by the rules. His rules.

He stared at the bedroom door, his lip twitching uncontrollably.

Only yesterday, she’d fought him with a toilet brush. Today, it hadn’t taken much to bring her back in line. She had always been weak, easily twisted around his own personal needs. The way it should be. But was it all an act? He would be stupid not to consider the possibility.

Nine months from now, he would decide if she served any wifely purpose. If not…he’d kill her.