Russian Lullaby Read online

  He ended the call and half an hour later Maksim’s wife arrived. Her pretty brown eyes held a worried expression.

  “What’s going on, Vitaly?” she asked as she entered the room.

  “Bogdan and Pyotr found Montoya,” Vitaly gave a terse answer as he shrugged on a jacket. “I’m going to meet with the bitch.”

  Olivia frowned and laid a gentle hand on his sleeve. She looked up at him. “Don’t do anything to shame your wife, Vitaly. Please.”

  His eyebrows rose. “You want me to show mercy?”

  “Gia would want you to show mercy,” she clarified. “I want you make her suffer.”

  His surprised expression made her chuckle and comment, “Perhaps I have been living with Maksim too long.”

  He shook his head. “No, you’ve been good for Maksim. He is a better man because of you.” He glanced at his wife then back to Olivia. In an almost inaudible whisper, he said, “If she wakes, do not tell her where I’ve gone or what I’m doing. Reassure her I will return soon.”

  She nodded. Vitaly left.

  He drove carefully, aware of his weariness. Stopping at his house, he picked up his bag of tools and a change of clothes. What he intended to do was going to get messy, very messy.

  Gennady met him in the hotel lobby and debriefed him on the target’s location and activity. “We have all exits from her room covered,” he said.

  “The window?”

  “She’s on the eighth floor. She won’t be jumping. Besides, the windows in this building don’t open.”

  “Don’t underestimate her. Call someone in and put him to watching her window.”

  Gennady nodded and placed the call as he walked alongside his colleague.

  Vitaly called Pyotr: “Do we have people stationed at the elevator and fire exits?”

  “Da. I am watching the elevator. Iosif has one of the fire exits and Bogdan has the other. She cannot leave her room without one of us watching her.”

  Vitaly would have preferred that she not be able to leave her room at all.

  He would have preferred to surprise her in her room, but was prepared for her to know all about the pending confrontation.

  “Do not allow her past you.”

  “She’s a woman,” Pyotr sneered.

  “That woman stole from Maksim, evaded us for weeks, and shot my wife. Underestimate her at your peril.”

  “Did you ever wonder why she remained in this area?” Gennady quietly asked as they rode the slow elevator to the eighth floor. “With what she stole from Maksim, she could have traveled anywhere. Why didn’t she?”

  Vitaly shot him an appraising glance. Gennady had hidden depths beneath the brutish exterior. He answered, “That’s one of the questions I’ll be asking her.”

  The elevator stopped and two giggling, teenage girls got on. They sent covert glances toward the two hulking men and whispered and giggled to each other. The men appeared to ignore them, though Gennady licked his lips. The elevator stopped again and the girls got off.

  “No,” Vitaly said.

  Gennady looked at him.

  “No.”

  Gennady shrugged. Easy come, easy go, his demeanor suggested. He missed the days then this local arm of the Bratva trafficked in young, pretty girls. However, he’d found that the flash of a gold watch or a diamond studded ring in a bar drew young—and not so young—pretty girls just as easily. They ignored his ugly face in favor of his hard body and promise of hard cash for a night’s pleasure. What few of them realized was that the pleasure was his, not necessarily theirs.

  He made sure never to visit the same bar within a six-month period. People needed time to forget him before he trolled for jailbait again.

  The elevator arrived at their designated floor and they walked toward Carmen Montoya’s hotel room. A middle aged couple passed them in the corridor. They paused by a maid’s cart and entered the room she was cleaning.

  “Ma’am?” Vitaly called softly to get her attention.

  Startled, the maid let loose a short shriek, then frowned. “No, no, you must not be in here. Go!”

  Vitaly set down his bag and pulled out his wallet and began counting off bills.

  “We need your assistance,” Gennady said, making sure to keep his tone friendly. Well, neutral. Well, not threatening. “We will pay you well and it will only take a moment of your time.”

  Vitaly held up several crisp one hundred dollar bills, more than what she’d earn in a week, probably more than what she’d earn in two weeks.

  “What must I do?” she asked suspiciously.

  “My friend here,” Gennady gestured with his hand toward Vitaly, “wants to make up with his girlfriend.”

  The maid frowned again, not believing a single word.

  “She thought I was cheating on her,” Vitaly lied with the ease of long practice. “But I was merely escorting his little sister as a favor. I just want to surprise her, let her know how much I care.”

  The maid’s expression did not change. Vitaly pulled out a few more bills.

  “What must I do?” she asked.

  “Simply pull your cart to her door and knock on it. When she sees that it is the housekeeping service, she will open the door. Then you can go back to work doing what you normally do.”

  “Which room?”

  “Eight twenty-seven”

  “I have already cleaned that room.”

  “Tell her you think you forgot to replace the shampoo and soap.”

  The maid glanced longingly at the fistful of cash while her conscience warred with greed. She needed the windfall, but she also needed her job.

  “I could lose my job.”

  Gennady rolled his shoulders and said, “We will not tell anyone you have done us this favor.” Then he began rolling up his sleeves. The crude tattoos on his arms offered their own persuasion. The maid knew what tattoos like that meant and decided that greed was safer than valor.

  “Payment now,” she said, the glint in her eyes reflecting her determination not to give into fear. “And you leave me alone after this.”

  “Done,” Vitaly agreed, satisfied that he wouldn’t have to unleash Gennady on her. He handed over the cash, which the maid tucked into the deep pocket of her apron.

  He and Gennady moved aside so she could walk past them without interference. They followed her to room eighteen twenty-seven, where she gathered a few bottles of shampoo in her hand and knocked on the door. She stood directly in front of the peephole to assuage the occupant’s caution.

  “I am sorry ma’am, I think I forgot to replace the toiletries,” the maid said.

  “I’m busy, can you come back later?”

  “I’m almost finished cleaning the rooms on this floor and will not have time to come back later, ma’am. If you’ll just open the door a little, I’ll pass the shampoos to you.”

  “Very well.”

  The door opened the measly three inches allowed by the safety latch. Gennady and Vitaly shoved the maid out of the way and threw their shoulders into the door. The latch failed beneath their combined weight and the door swung open fully. With a shout, Carmen Montoya shot backward and darted for her gun.

  Vitaly launched himself after her and tackled her. They rolled to the floor, the woman screeching and spitting, scratching and punching, kicking and biting. In short, she employed every maneuver, every dirty trick, she knew to free herself. But Gennady was there, too, and—no matter how skilled—a woman’s strength was no match for two strong, determined men who were ex-military.

  “Hold her,” Vitaly ordered as he dabbed a tissue to a bleeding scratch on his neck.

  Bogdan and Iosif, hearing the scuffle, had arrived. They looked at the door which hung askew on its bent hinges.

  “Do you have a vehicle ready?” Vitaly asked them, horrified at the close resemblance between his wife and the thief who had nearly murdered her.

  “Yes. It’s parked near the stairwell.”

  “Good, I can’t interrogate her in here.”
/>
  With each arm firmly held by a man and a third man who walked closely behind her with the sharp point of a small knife digging into her spine, Carmen Montoya allowed herself to be escorted to the waiting vehicle.

  Gennady drove to an old warehouse in the downtrodden industrial district at the lake’s edge. The sounds of industry could still be heard, with container ships being loaded and unloaded with iron, grains, coal, lumber, and other large, bulky goods. Before letting her out of the vehicle, Vitaly took a roll of duct tape from his bag of tricks and wound a length around her wrists. Carmen Montoya glanced at the shiny implements in the bag and turned pale.

  Iosif and Bogdan again forcibly escorted her into the Bratva warehouse where they led her into a small room appointed with an overhead light, two wooden chairs, thick solid walls, and a heavy steel door. She struggled against them, but they forced her to sit on one of the chairs where they bound her. Vitaly wrapped duct tape around her waist and the back of the chair, around her ankles to the chair legs, around her shoulders and the back of the chair. He pulled a clean handkerchief from the bag, wadded it up, and stuffed it in her mouth.

  Sweat beaded on her skin and trickled down. Vitaly leaned down and pulled out a thin, small mat onto which he carefully displayed an assortment of tools. Voice muffled by the cloth in her mouth, Montoya moaned. Vitaly picked up one of his smaller knives in one hand and pinched a lock of her hair in the other. He sliced through the lock in one easy swipe, showing her how sharp the blade was.

  “Here’s how this is going to work, Carmen,” he said in a soft, menacing voice. “I’m going to ask you questions and you’re going to give me truthful answer to each of them. For every lie or hesitation, I will cut something. It may be a simple cut or I might actually sever something important.” He shrugged. “It’s all up to you.”

  Her jaw worked and muffled sounds came through the wad of fabric. He pulled out the handkerchief and asked, “You have something to say?”

  She spat and started cursing at him in vitriolic Spanish. Vitaly dug his fingers into her jaw to lock it open while he stuffed the moist wad of cloth back into her mouth.

  “That wasn’t ladylike,” he commented and deftly sliced open her shirt. Then he cut her bra and the elastic material snapped back to expose her heaving, sweaty breasts. With a delicacy that no one mistook as care, he lifted her left breast and smiled a little at the small, distinctive tattoo placed under the soft flesh. Then, without warning, he sliced off the tattoo, leaving a gaping, bloody hole and the white gleam of bone.

  The woman’s incoherent shriek of agony filled the room, but thick concrete floor, ceiling, and walls and a thick steel door held in the sound. Her bladder released, the pungent urine puddling under and around their chair.

  Neither Vitaly nor Carmen noticed the heavy, careful thunk of the latch as Gennady, Iosif, and Bogdan left the room so their boss’ lieutenant could work his bloody magic. They called Maksim.

  Two hours later Vitaly walked through the door carrying his bag, now closed. Maksim rose from his chair and asked quietly, “Do you have the information?”

  Vitaly wearily set down his bag, opened it, and retrieved a notebook. He pulled out a handful of bloodstained pages onto which he’d neatly jotted down his notes from the interrogation. “She did not remember the account numbers where she sent the money, but she did give me the name and contact information of the person who hired her. You’re not going to like it.”

  Maksim read the notes and frowned. “Is there anything left of her?” he asked as he folded the papers twice and stuffed them in his pocket.

  “Not much. But Giuseppe might like to play with what remains.”

  “Ah. She’ll be a gift from us to him. He’ll like that.”

  Maksim’s approval didn’t ignite that glow of pride and accomplishment like it usually did. Vitaly nodded and ran the back of his forearm over his eyes. He felt no satisfaction in having done his job with his usual level of excellence. His belly rolled. Saliva filled his mouth. He lurched to the toilet room and vomited. No one followed him, no one watched his weakness, but each man there knew when he emerged that Vitaly Synvolka had lost his taste for torture.

  “I’m not doing that again,” he said quietly.

  Maksim nodded. He hoped such gruesome skills wouldn’t be needed any longer, but couldn’t count on it. He glanced at Gennady whose usually impassive expression couldn’t mask the interest and excitement in his gaze. He doubted Gennady would ever have Vitaly’s finesse; he would be more likely to use his fists and some blunt weapons. Gennady liked violence.

  “Clean up and go back to your wife, Vitaly. I’ll call Giuseppe.”

  Vitaly nodded, his gratitude silent but no less sincere.

  “Why did she stay in greater Cleveland?” Gennady asked as he walked by.

  “Her daughter lives here.”

  “Daughter? I didn’t know she had a child,” Bogdan’s quietly voice surprise echoed their collective astonishment.

  “She’s only seven and placed with a foster family.”

  “The foster system is not a good place for a child,” Maksim commented thoughtfully, thinking of how much Olivia missed having children underfoot since their youngest had departed for college and their oldest had not yet produced grandchildren for her to spoil. “Livy will be happy to take in the girl.”

  Vitaly did not remark upon the irony of the Bratva leader taking in the only daughter of the woman whose torture and death he had ordered. With luck, the girl would never know.

  He walked to the executive office where Maksim kept a comfortably appointed bedroom, kitchenette, and full bathroom for those times when business took all day and much of the night. The bedroom had seen illicit use in the earlier days of his business, but Olivia had put a stop to that. Vitaly himself had spent more than one night in that small apartment behind the office. He was grateful that Maksim kept it stocked.

  When the water ran clear off his skin and he could detect no residue of blood, Vitaly put on clean clothes. He wadded up his bloodied clothing in a towel and dropped them down the chute to the incinerator where no trace of them would be found ever again. He wasn’t sure what to do about his tools, so he took the time necessary to clean them thoroughly and sharpen the blades. He could not leave them in the warehouse and did not want to bring them home.

  With a muttered oath, he called for a taxi.

  His footsteps sounded hollow in the big building as he walked across the concrete floor to meet the taxi which took him to the hospital. A text message from Gennady informed him that his car had been picked up and returned to the hospital parking lot. He quickly typed a thank-you to Gennady.

  “You’ve been a long time,” Olivia commented in a quiet voice when he returned to Giancarla’s room.

  He nodded and replied, “It’s done.”

  She nodded in understanding and turned to look at Giancarla. “She’s the same. There’s been no change.”

  “Thank you for staying with her,” he whispered.

  She looked up at him, expression softening to see his eyes shining with tears. She rose and wrapped her arms around him. Vitaly bent his head to her fluffy hair and wept. Silent tears ran down Olivia’s cheeks as shudders and muffled sobs wracked the big man’s frame. In a few minutes, he regained control. Olivia handed him a pack of tissues after he sat in the chair beside Giancarla’s bed.

  “Spasibo.” Then he apologized, “Prosti.”

  “There is no need,” she said gently, laying a hand on his meaty shoulder. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Visit the chapel. I will send Pyotr and his girls to give you break later.”

  He nodded and thought that, perhaps, she was right. A visit to the chapel was in order.

  Chapter 8

  Vitaly spoke softly, continuously, the Russian words barely heard above the hum and beeping of machines. He reached over every so often to stroke fingertips down her cheek, brush back her lank hair. He held her hand constantly, yearning to feel the flut
ter of her fingers under his. When words failed him, he began to sing, starting with half-remembered lullabies caretakers sang to the youngest children in the orphanages.

  His breath caught when her fingers fluttered.

  “Giancarla?”

  A breathy moan escaped her lips. Her eyelids fluttered, but did not open.

  “Giancarla?”

  “Vitaly,” she mumbled.

  “Ah, dear God, thank you!” His hoarse voice cracked. He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. Tears welled in his eyes as he stroked her face. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

  Her eyes fluttered open, the chocolate gaze bleary.

  “Vitaly?”

  “I am here, moy sladkiy.”

  She blinked several times, slowly. “Were you singing?”

  “Did you hear me? I called for you. I talked to you and, yes, I sang to you.”

  “I heard you.” She blinked again and seemed to fade. “So tired.”

  “Sleep, then, my Giancarla, and return to me.”

  Her breath sighed from deep within her chest and her eyelids drifted shut. Vitaly gave her hand a light squeeze and his heart sang when her fingers briefly tightened upon his in response.

  After a while—Vitaly didn’t notice the time—a nurse entered the room to check Gia’s vital statistics.

  “How’s she doing?” she asked.

  “She woke,” Vitaly whispered back. “She recognized me.”

  “That’s wonderful. I should fetch the doctor. He’ll want to check on her right away.”

  Vitaly nodded. The nurse departed.

  Chapter 9

  With great care, Vitaly carried his bride over the threshold. Pyotr held open the door. Cecily and Olivia came bustling from the kitchen. Latasha walked immediately behind Vitaly, a constant stream of warnings and instructions pouring from her mouth until Iosif swung her around and shut her mouth with his own. Maksim carried in bulging shopping bags filled with everything the invalid could possibly need for the next two years.