Authors: Camille Taylor
“We stall and hope like hell Lucas will bring the cavalry.”
She nodded, and he wasn’t sure if that meant she agreed with his plan or not. He took her jaw gently with his fingers and kissed her hard on the mouth. When he was done he pulled back and stared into her surprised eyes.
“I didn’t want you to forget what Mikhail interrupted,
malyshka
.”
They walked to the entrance of the museum together, the box under his right hand, his left resting on the small of her back.
“Of course not,
dorogaya,
how could I?” Carey replied, the words dripping with sweetness.
He grinned at her sarcastic
darling
as she stepped through the door, placing the keys to his vehicle on the conveyor belt next to the x-ray machine. The museum was deserted, no guard manning the metal detector. The mansion was silent and the atmosphere eerie. He placed the box containing the egg down on the belt as well and followed Carey through the metal detector. The machine stayed silent.
“It’s always bugged me how they managed to bypass this.”
Dmitry had some ideas, none of which he shared. They collected their things from the end of the belt and made their way gingerly through the mansion. He could see the security cameras attached to the corners of each room and knew they were being watched. The mansion had three levels and from the sign he’d just passed, the first level along with the majority of the second were used as the main museum and viewing areas. The second also housed the security office. The third floor was off-limits to visitors, containing the offices—which he assumed also included Carey’s—and the preservation rooms. They were coming up to the first staircase when he caught movement out the corner of his eye. Carey noticed it too, and she swung around to face whoever it was.
“Carey, is that you?” came the voice from the parlor. A young man with obvious Italian roots stood in the doorway, looking about the mansion warily.
“Milo, what’s going on?” Carey asked, as she stepped closer to the terrified looking man.
“Jesus, Carey, am I glad to see you. There are men in the museum and they’ve taken hostages. I managed to avoid detection and have called the police. They said they’re on their way and to stay clear until they get here.”
Carey shook her head. “No, Milo, they said not to call anyone. This is going to get ugly. We have to get to Mikhail before he hears the sirens. Milo, you need to make a break for it.”
Milo balked. “I can’t do that, I’m the head of security.”
“Okay, then you have to help us. It’ll be good to have a man on the inside.”
Dmitry refrained from saying he didn’t like the idea, instead following Carey as Milo led them up the stairs. He noticed there were no cameras pointed at the staircase. Carey was only a step behind Milo. She watched him closely and as soon as they were in the middle of the staircase she pushed him hard against the wall, while simultaneously grabbing the Glock from his belt holster and pressing the barrel into his chest. Hard. The man winced.
“What the fuck?” Milo said, his eyes once more going wide. He tried to shrink away but couldn’t, not with his gun digging into his flesh.
He quickly moved in close and flanked her in case she required assistance. Milo’s eyes remained wide as he took in his situation. While Dmitry wasn’t certain what she was doing, but trusted her and went along with it.
“Do you think I’m stupid, Milo?” She took his pepper spray and handed it to Dmitry. “How is it that you evaded being taken hostage by the Russians? While we’re on that subject, where were you when they shot Brian?”
“Jesus, Carey, I was with you, for fuck’s sake.”
He tried to struggle, but she pushed the gun barrel into his chest harder. Dmitry glared at him and he stopped moving. He wasn’t sure if it was him or the gun that had changed his mind.
“Before that, Milo. You weren’t at security when I called. Were you too busy dismantling the metal detectors so our new friends could get past without the sirens going off? Coincidence is one thing, but twice is a pattern.”
So that’s where she was going with this. They had a mole inside the museum, probably keeping an eye on Brian or cataloguing the artifacts for a robbery.
“I didn’t think they were going to kill him, Carey, I swear. I just thought they’d rough him up a little. You know, keep him in line.”
“So you’re still on their payroll, then?”
“It’s not easy to get out. I was des—”
“You were greedy, Milo, that’s all.”
His face turned ugly with rage. He glared at Carey and called her a bitch, pushed at her, intent on taking the gun back. With one hand, Dmitry grabbed Milo’s arm and twisted it behind his back. Before he could scream in agony, Carey clobbered him over the head with the butt of the gun. When he remained standing, yet dazed, she hit him again, this time harder and he crumpled to the floor unconscious.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem. Maybe next time you might forewarn me about your plans so I can be prepared.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “I wasn’t planning that. It just sort of happened. I saw Milo and it all clicked into place.”
“Like how the Russians were able to get past the metal detectors?”
“Not once, but at least three times. It had to be someone on the inside. Milo was the logical choice.”
He looked down at Milo. “What are we going to do with him? We can’t leave him here.”
Carey pointed to a door at the top of the stairs and Dmitry handed her the box before lifting the man into a fireman’s lift, and followed Carey up the remaining stairs and past the door to find himself in a large cleaning supply cupboard.
Switching on the light, he searched the shelves for rope or something to tie Milo up with. Carey tapped him on the arm. He turned to her and grinned. She’d found a roll of heavy-duty duct tape.
“That’ll do.”
Elena’s cell phone made a shrill noise from where it sat on the wooden coffee table. She was sitting on the floor playing with the musical buttons on the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Musical Table she had bought for Yvonne, who found it quite entertaining and funny. She glanced over her shoulder at her phone. She’d kept it close since Carey had left with Dmitry, wanting to be available if something happened.
She grabbed it, finding an alert from her CIA email account which only ever sounded unless it was of high importance. She frowned when she saw it was listed as
unknown sender
. Intrigued, she opened the message and sucked in her breath as she read the content. Blood rushed from her face and she called out to Lucas who was in the laundry room.
Yvonne crawled over to her and made a gurgling sound. She scooped her daughter up and started towards Lucas.
“What’s up,
sladkaya
?” he asked, grinning at his daughter.
“I got a message. I think it’s from Dmitry.”
Lucas frowned and took the phone from her and read the message, then read it again. She was certain it was from her brother. It sounded like Dmitry. He had used the program he had implemented to get the message across to them. Lucas’s own phone sounded, and he pulled it from his pocket.
“I got one too.”
“That must mean they’re in trouble. Mikhail is the name of the man who killed Carey’s boss.”
Lucas tapped speed dial number five on his phone and ran his fingers through his blond hair while he listened to it ring. When the man on the other end answered, Lucas detailed what he wanted and that he wanted it now. She followed him as he stalked into their bedroom and opened the small safe in the closet and retrieved his firearm, clipping the holster to his belt and then secured his badge next to it. Hanging up, he turned to face her.
“I’ll be home shortly,” he promised. “I’m just going to shoot your brother for interrupting my day off.”
He gave her a long kiss and lightly pinched Yvonne’s cheek. Elena followed him to the front door.
“Be careful.”
He gave her a brief nod. She was worried about Carey and Dmitry. She hadn’t liked this situation from the start but it was the only way Carey would’ve agreed to it. She knew Dmitry was more than capable of looking after her, otherwise she wouldn’t have let Carey go with him, but the mafiya didn’t play nice. She had seen the crime scene photos of more than one mob hit—Alan Thomas’s included—to know what they were capable of doing to a human being and she felt useless, unable to do anything but sit and wait for news.
Lucas opened the door, fear for him making her want to keep him there. She stamped down on the emotion. Lucas could handle himself, and so she ignored her fears and kissed her palm, blowing it across to him.
Lucas grabbed it and placed the kiss on his lips. “Love you,” he said, as he stepped out the door.
Carey stepped out of the supply closet, close behind Dmitry. They had bound Milo’s wrists and ankles with duct tape so he couldn’t go anywhere. She had added some to his mouth as well, in case he regained consciousness while all the shit was still going on. Dmitry told her to keep the duct tape with her in case they needed it again. After swapping weapons—his pepper spray for her gun—they moved silently towards the security office where Dmitry planned to shut off the metal detectors using Milo’s cyber trail.
“The man is an amateur,” Dmitry said with a hint of derision. “I doubt he was smart enough to erase his path. I should be able to follow it with my eyes closed.”
She barely refrained from rolling her eyes at his arrogance but she knew it was well justified, having seen firsthand what Dmitry was capable of. Still, the man was a major snob.
Using her pass, she unlocked the security office’s door. He went in first and sat down at the unmanned station. She followed him, keeping her focus on the door, occasionally allowing her gaze to flick over to the monitors looking for sentries. There were none. This seemed like a small operation, which suited her fine.
Dmitry brought up the command dialog box and began typing. His fingers flew across the keyboard with such speed she found herself in awe. She was no slouch but Dmitry’s typing skills seemed to defy all odds. Should she happen to blink, she would miss it completely.
“Like oily fingers on glass,” he commented, and she assumed he’d found Milo’s imprint on the hard drive and was now following the commands to disengage the metal detectors. A warning popped up on the screen informing him of just that. He sat back in his chair and grinned at her.
“Done. Easy as pie. The man’s computer skills are almost caveman drawings. I could have done with something harder.”
This time, she did roll her eyes. “We have bigger issues right now than your superiority.”
He caught her waist and dragged her close. “Yes, we do, but just remember I am the superior man. Your words.”
She playfully slapped him before turning serious. Taking a deep breath, she took his hand in hers and led him out of the room and up the stairs to where the offices were situated. Vasily and Thug Number Two waited patiently at the end of the hall guarding the only entrance to her office. Dmitry reached around his back with his free hand to ensure Milo’s Glock was concealed.
The two men stood straighter when she and Dmitry approached, their stances immediately more alert. Their hands went to their waists, resting on the butts of their guns. Their eyes narrowed, watching them warily, as if they would be stupid enough to try something.
Not going to happen. She alone with her untrained eyes could count more than one concealed weapon. Once again the cut of their jackets wasn’t done to their specific need. She could only wonder how many knives each held hidden on their person. She shivered, wishing to never find out. Dmitry’s arm brushed against her own and she felt extremely thankful he was here with her. She knew she would be a puddle of nerves if it hadn’t been for him.
She stopped before them and glared at the two beefy men. “You owe me for a rear window and back paneling,” she told them, thinking of her poor car, now hidden away in Elena’s and Lucas’s garage.
Thug Number Two smirked. “Yeah, I’ll cut you a check when you leave.”
“
Sraka
.”
Asshole,
she muttered not so quietly, as Dmitry pushed on her lower back, gently propelling her forward into the room. Mikhail sat behind her old desk which faced the door, and she could see the connecting door to the inner office was closed. Were the hostages still alive?
Mikhail’s eyes narrowed as they entered. He glared before speaking. “I must say you threw me with your name, Mrs. Thomas. I knew you looked familiar and it ate away at me, driving me to locate the missing piece of the puzzle that was you.” He shifted in his seat and adjusted his tie, pulling it tighter. He regarded her with cold eyes. “I was one of Iosif’s men in Moscow. He was extremely annoyed that my brothers had missed you in that room.” He smiled cruelly when he saw her flinch at the casual way he spoke of her near death experience, knowing full well the kind of images he was conjuring inside her head. “And now I find you here. Such coincidence.”
She shrugged, fighting to remain calm and in control. The odds weren’t so astronomical. “Not really. Russian antiquities is such a small world when you think about it. Especially with the major players. Shall we get on with it?” she asked, sounding braver than she felt. “Where are the hostages? I want to see that they’re all right, since we complied with your wishes.”
Mikhail’s attention shifted briefly to Vasily and Thug Number Two. Both were staring out the door as if waiting for someone.
Probably Milo
, she guessed.
Well, good luck with that
.
She moved closer to her office, waiting. She would have felt better with a weapon but she had left both the duct tape and pepper spray in the security office since she had no place to conceal them and was now regretting the decision.
Mikhail nodded curtly, his greedy gaze on the box she held in her hands as he opened the connecting door. She peered into her new office, seeing the hostages. As Mikhail had said, several members of the staff were there, the museum guards who’d been on duty, and the rest were unknown faces she assumed to be tourists in the wrong place at the wrong time. None seemed injured. A few torn items of clothing, but that was the extent of the damage. This would not end well for the museum. Word of mouth was a killer to a museum’s reputation, and Carey was sure the visitors would not go home with praise on their lips. She noticed that Mr. Helpful with the roaming hands was not among the captured. Dismissing the notion that he was somehow involved, she knew he was going to be disappointed that he’d had the day off.
Closing the door again, Mikhail waved her towards the desk. “Now, if you please. The treasure.”
She stepped up to the desk and placed the box down, then re-joined Dmitry. Vasily and Thug Number Two both hovered in the doorway behind them. She could feel the excitement and anticipation in the room, and she recognized it to be somewhat similar to what she had experienced, only she had seen it as the find of a century instead of with obvious greed.
She swallowed hard, unsure what to do. She had given them what they wanted, now all she had to go on was Mikhail’s word. She had trouble trusting anybody at the best of times, let alone in her current situation. She was scared and not just because she was standing unarmed in a room filled with the Russian Mafiya, but should she survive this meeting, she still had the police to deal with. There was no doubt they still believed she was Brian’s murderer, and at the moment, she wasn’t sure what kind of evidence she could give them to disprove that theory.
The only thing in her favor was the egg which she assumed would be long gone by the time police arrived. Maybe her car could be evidence, but there was no way to prove who’d riddled it with bullet holes. Carey hooked her thumbs into her jeans pockets. She was nervous enough, her voice less than steady, and she didn’t want shaking hands as well.
“Just out of curiosity, how did you obtain it?” she asked, interrupting Mikhail, who was gently removing the egg from the box.
She had to bite her lip to stop from saying anything about how he handled it. He was not at all qualified, of course, and she fought the urge to snatch it away from him. His gaze moved reluctantly from the treasure to her stare. He raised a polite eyebrow, telling her silently he hadn’t been listening to her.
“That’s the Empire Nephrite Egg, isn’t it?” she asked. “How did you acquire it? It’s been unaccounted for since the Bolsheviks moved the Imperial Treasures to Sovnarkom in 1922.”
Mikhail smiled, seeming happy to tell the tale of how he’d obtained one of the most important historically significant finds since the Titanic. “It was found amongst the estate of one Boris Milyukov, once a member of the Bolsheviks. I have recently discovered he was one of the members who had the order to transport the Imperial Treasure and who apparently kept some things for himself. His grandson was more than reluctant to part with it.”
The name Milyukov was familiar. She frowned, the significance of the name eluding her for a moment before she recalled the Georgian newspaper article Google Alerts had sent her, of the man murdered in his home found with an Imperial antiquity. Mikhail must’ve killed the man for the egg. It was a sad fact that so many people had died over the centuries for other people’s greed. She considered the grandson’s motives. An honest man would’ve turned the egg over to the Ministry, but then Russia didn’t have the greatest relationship with Georgia.
“Even after all these years, when the egg was worth so much?” she asked.
“Apparently, there are some things money can’t buy.” Mikhail shrugged, as if not understanding the reasoning. “The egg had sentimental value.”
She nodded, knowing it was part of history, a reminder of one of the worst times in Russia in the last century when food had been scarce or cost more than they could afford. At the time of the Revolution, the country was in a worse state then the U.S. had been during the Depression in the 1930s. She could understand why the people chose to turn their backs on the royal family.
“Yes, I can imagine,” she said sarcastically. “A souvenir to remember the slaughtering of the Imperial family.”
Nicholas the Second, along with his wife, Alexandra, and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei together with a few servants were taken to the basement of Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on the promise of having their photo taken. Once inside the basement, the entire Romanov family had been killed.
Unfortunately for Nicholas’s daughters, the Grand Duchesses, the bullets had bounced off their bodies due to the jewels hidden in their corsets for protection, for if they escaped their captors they would need money for safe passage. The guards who were supposed to protect them proceeded to clobber them with the butts of their guns before shooting them in the head. It was a tragedy, one she couldn’t understand. She knew full well there were certain rules for war—rules of engagement. But the murder of the Romanovs didn’t fit into the code.
“I can’t help but notice you didn’t call the family
innocent
,” Mikhail said.
“The children were innocent. There was no need for that cruelty. Alexei had only been thirteen. As for Nicholas…” She shrugged. He had been disposed of, and the monarchy had been abolished. “How many leaders have been assassinated over the years? I guess it’s the price you pay for being in charge.”
Mikhail chuckled.
She glanced over her shoulder at Dmitry, confused at Mikhail’s attitude. She’d spoken before she’d even let the words play through her mind. She had expected to anger him, had been fully prepared to take the brunt of his fury if it only bought time and kept his mind occupied—away from shooting hostages. Dmitry raised his shoulders. Big help he was. He nodded slightly towards Mikhail, urging her on.
“I had no idea what I was missing out on when I brought Brian Nichols on board,” Mikhail said. “How I wish I’d approached you instead of that useless one. You’d have proven your worth, I’ve no doubt.”
Her stomach clenched. The thought of having Mikhail approach her made her blood run cold. She had no doubt as to the method of persuasion she would’ve endured to join his band of thieves. She was glad Brian had been the more likely candidate, but that made her feel guilty too. Would she have been strong enough to fight him, or would circumstances have taken the same turn as they had in Russia?
She shook her head, her messy ringlets falling over her shoulder. “No use wishing for something you’d never have gotten. I would’ve turned you down and you know it.” She took a deep breath. “Then I would’ve turned you into your government.”
Her voice was strong as she spoke the truth. Her convictions could never be swayed.
Mikhail let out a soulful sigh. “You learned nothing from your experience in Moscow?”
Her teeth ground t
ogether. She hated Moscow being thrown in her face. “Oh, I learned plenty, I assure you. But that still doesn’t change right and wrong and whether you threaten me or not I will always do the honorable thing. Unlike Brian,” she continued, “I have loyalties and integrity. I also believe those acquisitions belong to the world, not in some rich man’s private collection. A piece of history is priceless. No one should be able to put a price tag on the significance of the piece. As for Imperial Treasures such as that egg, the find would mean so much more than money to a lot of people.”
“A naïve view if I’ve ever heard one.” Mikhail scoffed.
“No, not naïve, just a believer in what I do. I’m someone who preserves artifacts. Money and greed don’t enter into the equation. It’s just pure love for the task.”
Mikhail grunted, obviously finding her lacking in intelligence.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what other treasures you’ve absconded with?” she asked, intrigued. She didn’t have to pretend either. She would probably fall just short of killing someone to find out what had inadvertently slipped past her fingers. If only she’d caught on to his scam before all this mess happened.