Last Kiss (Hitman #3) (19 page)

VASILY

I’m too replete to be angered by Naomi’s need for a shower, and for a moment I think about joining her in the bathroom and rubbing the soap down over her thick nipples and between her sex before abandoning the suds altogether and ramming myself into her tight cunt. I draw a finger across my cheek, the one she slapped so suddenly and unexpectedly.

As I rise from the bed, the dirty mirror across the room catches my eye. My chest is a morass of red scratches and nail gouges. I smile at the vision, and then the smile turns into a laugh. “
Okhuyénno
.” I say the outlawed
mat
profanity with wonder as my laugh dies out. Very good. I rub my chest, enjoying the sting. I want her to whip me. To command me to my knees and then draw blood as she strikes me again and again. I grow hard at the thought of the pain and then the pleasure she’d bring me.

Pain is the one thing that made me
feel
in the past. Before Naomi, sexual intercourse felt no better than pissing or a good meal, and going without mattered little to me. The few times that I felt something more than relief during sex was when there was pain involved, but I never explored it. I don’t know that I understood what I needed until Naomi struck me and marked me. Now I want her to take me again and again. My body aches for her touch, the scrape of her nails, the bite of her sharp little teeth.

She’s an animal.
Nyet
. I correct myself. She is my animal and I am hers.

With a smug smile, I dress and leave.

Naomi will likely be in there for hours or at least until the hot water runs out. While she is scrubbing away the germs of the mattress, I will take care of a few details so that we can be on the next train to Venice.

Florence is a small citadel of a city. The narrow, cobblestone streets are peopled mostly by tourists and students, but there’s an obvious unsavory element not so evident in Rome, where they hide it like the Vatican secrets away its treasures. There, but not seen.

Firenze, as the natives call it, suits me. It is the home of the Medicis. The epicenter of their power. I pause as I walk by the Santa Maria Duomo. Inside this church during mass, the Pazzi family, jealous of the Medicis’ power, sought to kill Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. Bernardo Bandi and Francesco de’ Pazzi attacked the two brothers in front of the altar, a shocking occurrence, but it had been sanctioned by Pope Sixtus, who rightly feared the Medicis’ growing power. Giuliano was killed, stabbed nineteen times, but Lorenzo escaped. He claimed the hand of God protected him and surviving the attack close range was a sign that even the heavens approved of the Medicis. Giuliano’s
ultimate revenge was from the grave when his illegitimate son went on to be Pope Clement VII.

The Medicis did not invent the idea of
familia
, but they set forth the blueprints of how to build a dynasty. They were ruthless in their retribution. In just hours after the attack during High Mass, the main conspirators, including Archbishop Salviati and signor Pazzi were hung by their necks outside the windows of Palazzo della Signoria. In the following days, the Medicis cut down nearly every male issue of the Pazzi family, and across Europe, their accounts were plundered by Medici friends.

Yet, the Medici dynasty is gone now. Their buildings having passed out of the family hands for the most part, their legacy one of history rather than current events.

As much as they can be admired, it is important to learn from their fall as well. Being mired in the past can only harm the future. The old guard of the
Bratva
with their nonsense desire for this painting will be their end.
I
will be their end.

I follow the maze of cobblestone roads until I reach Accademia di Belle Arti. Several tiny blocks down, I turn left and find my destination marked by a large green iron door that is as wide as my arm span and twice as tall.

I text my contact and the door clicks, signaling that it is open.

The moonlight spills into the open-air atrium, illuminating the broken pavers in need of repair, but the stairs leading up are almost completely shrouded in darkness. I know from past visits that there is a tiny elevator that Guillaume had installed for his tenants, but I eschew the metal cage for the dark recesses of the stairs. The limestone steps are smooth from the centuries of use. At the top of the fifth flight, I peer out of an arrow slit in the wall. To most, the courtyard, this fourteenth-century building
and its crumbling fresco walls would be romantic, but not to Naomi. I suspect she would explain to me how the first floor isn’t really a first floor at all, but merely the entry level where light and water were initially collected and then where trade and commerce took place. All the living was done on the upper levels with the kitchen on the topmost floor so that the smells and noise of the workers would not intrude upon the peacefulness demanded by the moneyed inhabitants.

On the fifth floor, the doors are secured by more than a simple lock. A small blinking red light to the right indicates an electronic protection, and there are three keyholes. Choosing the wrong keyhole will likely result in some painful warning. Idly I wonder if Naomi could break into these security systems. As I watch, however, the red light turns green, and the door’s locks release allowing it to fall open.

A narrow hallway leads into a large living space, where Guillaume sits in front of a huge bank of monitors. One shows the courtyard, another the exterior door, another the hallway I just walked down. The engines of his machines hum as his fingers fly across the keyboard—the middle one. There are four others. Naomi would squeal in delight at this show of computing power. It is better that I did not bring her. She may not want to leave.

If I lost Naomi to anyone, it would not be to a man with superior looks or money. It would be to someone who challenged her mind more, perhaps someone like Guillaume. He was a French national but got into some trouble after hacking into Interpol to clean the record of a handsome American thief. Others might flee to the beaches of Croatia or perhaps some island in the Maldives depending on the thickness of their pocketbook, but Guillaume came to Florence for no other reason than he said if he was to live
in exile from his beloved France, he would do it in a place of civilization, and that there is no other place that would suit him better than Italy.

Like Naomi he will talk only when he is done with his task. Most of the time I do not mind, but I find I am anxious to return to Naomi.

“
Buona sera
, Guillaume. Sorry to interrupt, but I have come to retrieve the items we had discussed.”

“
Buona sera
.
Un momento, per favore
.” He holds up one finger while continuing to type with the other hand. He is so much like Naomi, they could be twins. A thought occurs to me and I blurt out my question before I can stop myself.

“Guillaume are you a—” What does Naomi say? “Aspie?”

“Aspie?
Non capisco
.”

“
Avete la sindrome di Asperger
?”

His eyebrows shoot upward. “How did you know?”

“You remind me of someone.” I hesitate, not wanting to reveal Naomi to Guillaume, who trades in information. “The Aspie I know is very difficult to distract from tasks.”

“American, eh? They shorten everything. But I am done and yours now.” With a flourish, he takes his raised finger and slams it down on the enter key. Those French, always so exuberant. Unlike Naomi, he looks me in the eye at least for a few seconds before sliding away to land on a shopping bag with
Uomo
on the side. He slides the bag toward me.

Rifling through the bag reveals all the items I requested from Guillaume, and a thick cardboard envelope. I pop it open and take out the documents. There are the passports with our new identities as well as the invitation. This time I am from Georgia and Naomi
is from England. She stares at me, red haired and lovely. The digital manipulation of the camera-phone still I took earlier is remarkable.

“It’s all in there. I wouldn’t cheat you.”

“Of course not,” I say soothingly, remembering Naomi grumble that Aspies had feelings, too. “I am but curious about this invitation.”

I pull the thick linen paper out and wave it at him.

“I am curious as well. I don’t suppose you would tell me what you want it for. I’ve never heard that you were interested in that type of thing.”

“You would be surprised by what interests me,” I murmur, thinking of the marks on my skin.

“Still, this place? The man you seek is reviled by even those whose depravities are unspeakable. You know he collects paintings that depict women and animals together.”

“Is that right?” I coolly raise an eyebrow, hoping that I do not betray the quickening of my heart rate over the knowledge that we are close to our prey.

He leans close and his eyes glitter with excitement. “It is said he has Leonardo’s
Leda and the Swan
and that last year he acquired a Caravaggio from a Frenchman—”

At my cold look, he shuts up and proceeds to straighten items on his desk—his keyboards, both of them, his mouse, a USB hub, a wireless speaker. Taking pity on him and satisfied that he has provided all the items Naomi and I will need for our visit in Venice, I hand him a pack of cigarettes. He opens the top and nods. “This . . . friend of yours. What makes you say that he is Asperger’s?”

“My friend admitted it. There’s no shame in the condition,” I
reply, making no movement toward the bag. Guillaume taps out a cigarette and lights it. The smell of tobacco fills the room immediately.

“You don’t think he’s too odd with his fits and weird questions and tendency to forget you are even there?”

These sound like complaints Guillaume has been subjected to. Complaints that Naomi has heard. “
Nyet
. We all have our . . . quirks,
da
?” He nods. “My friend is interesting, talented.” I think back to the slap across my face and the scratches in my chest. Very talented. “Those things you speak of bother me not at all.”

“And in public your friend doesn’t embarrass you?”

I recall the incident with the customs official. “I am not embarrassed, although sometimes the behavior of my friend in public can cause problems. But those problems are minor and do not devalue the person in my opinion.”

“Then you are different than most, Vasily. Many do not enjoy being associated with us.”

“I do not find you weird or odd, Guillaume. No more so than anyone else. My sister, for example, likes things very orderly. And those calcio players have their idiosyncrasies, which everyone finds entertaining rather than off-putting.” And me, I think, I like to be hurt during intercourse. “We are all strange in our own way.”

“This is true.” He takes another deep draw and blows out a long stream of smoke. He’s becoming entranced by it. I recognize this focus as I’ve seen it before in Naomi’s eyes as she is distracted by something she finds fascinating. I prefer it to be me, but it can be something as ephemeral as the trail of smoke. “I love the flavor of these but so hard to obtain when I am not allowed into France anymore.”

“You but need to ask and more will be sent to you.”

He jiggles the pack, listening as the three diamonds inside clink together gently. “I am almost sad that you removed four to make room for these baubles.”

I give him a half smile. “I will send you a carton if you but ask.”

He doesn’t, though. To ask is to owe me a favor. “They say that the Petrovich
Bratva
is in tumult and that its hold in Russia and abroad may be faltering.”

I bare my teeth. “Those who say that are full of envy and will soon regret it.”

“Do you think you can hold that old family together? You are not a Petrovich,” Guillaume says, blowing out another long stream of smoke.

“No. I am better, and those that oppose me will feel my fist and heel on not just their person, but every person in their family.”

“But it is called the Petrovich
Bratva
so then you must be a Petrovich, no?”

“Every papal prince changes his name, but the Vatican built on St. Peter’s bones remains constant. So, too, is a
Bratva
. The prince who rules formulates his own rules, adorning the walls with his triumphs and writing his victories into the tomes on the shelves of the libraries. But he also preserves the papacy for the next ruler. I am merely ensuring that the
Bratva
is healthy for the next prince.”

I leave Guillaume studying his smoke stream. And all around us people are doubting the necessity of the
Bratva
, doubting both its friendly hand and the sting of its sword. But if I . . .
we
 . . . could generate the belief within the
Bratva
, that would radiate outward until the entirety of our community would rise up against our enemies if necessary, ensuring that only the
threat
of retribution could keep people safe.

I need peace for those that I love, not just my sister but . . . others. One other. The silly painting is becoming a symbol to me as well. If I can retrieve it, well then, I can rid myself of Elena Petrovich and ensure that Katya and Naomi are able to live a regular life, without fear.