Switched (14 page)

     "Sir, Rich got shot. Hit in
the chest," came the breathless voice on the other end of the line.
"Don't know if he's alive or not. It looked pretty bad."

     Victor pushed himself away from the
table, ignoring Misha's confused look.  "What happened?"

     He heard Jason take a deep breath.
"We went to grab the girl as she was leaving the eye doctor and we didn't
know there were some of Alexi's guys in the SUV waiting for her. Tinted
windows. We didn't even see them. One of them shot Rich in the chest. Frank got
grazed in the arm. We shot one of their guys. When we heard the sirens and we
ran. We didn’t take the girl with us; she was behind one of the gunmen."

     "Fuck," Victor breathed.
"That bastard. Alexi Amelin doesn't know who he's messing with. Did the
police see you?"

     "No, sir, we got away on foot
before they got there. We left the rental car there in the parking garage. It
was rented under one of Rich's aliases so they shouldn’t be able to track it to
us," the man explained. "But Rich's ID and phone and all that, I
think it was on him."

     "Okay." Victor had to
think. First he had to find out if Richard was alive and make sure the police
didn't know Victor had anything to do with it. Then, he'd call Alexi directly
and tell that son-of-a-bitch exactly what he thought of him. No, no, he wanted
to confront Alexi directly. Finally he said, "Wait for me there. I am coming
to Boston and we'll take care of this directly with Alexi."

     Jason sounded surprised. "Uh,
okay? Are you sure, sir? I mean, if they had no problem killing
Richard..."

     "We do not know if he is dead
or not." He looked at Misha. "I'll have Misha call around to the
hospitals in that area to find out. If he is in a hospital we need to make sure
he doesn't share any information with the authorities."

     "I'm pretty sure Rich would
never do that, sir," the man assured him.

     "Not of his own accord, no.
But I don't trust police. They could talk to him and get information from him
when he's semi-conscious. He knows too much about my business. We can't take
the risk. If he is alive I'll send one of the girls in to pretend to be his
sister and sit with him." He shook his head. While he liked Richard and
Richard had been a valuable employee for a long time, if Richard was dead there
was nothing Victor could do about it. He could only do damage control if
Richard was alive and that's as far as it concerned him. "I will contact
you again when I arrive at the airport. Rent another car under a different
alias."

     "Yes sir," Jason said.

     Victor hung up without another
word. He looked over at Misha. She appeared concerned. He knew that she and
Richard had their flings every now and again and he didn't mind sharing her.
"Start calling hospitals around Boston and find out if Richard was taken
to one of them for a gunshot wound to the chest. Find out if he made it."

     Her hand went to her mouth and her
eyes brimmed with tears. "Oh my God!"

     "You can pretend to be a
reporter or his sister. Whatever. If you pretend to be his sister just say you
got an anonymous text that he'd been shot. If you say you're a reporter, just
ask for his status. If he's alive I'll send you out there to be with him as his
sister. Do you understand what I've just said to you?" His eyes bore into
her.

     She nodded and wiped her eyes.
"Yes, sir."

     "Don't fuck this up or I'll
publicly cane your ass." With that he strode off toward his home office to
get Margaret, his personal secretary, to make his travel arrangements. It was
turning into a fucked up day.

***

     "Someone claiming to be
Richard's sister just called the front desk and they told her he had died. It
came from a number with a California area code," said a short, dark haired
female agent from the doorway.

     Richard winced as the doctor put
the last staple in the back of his head to close the gash. "I don't have a
sister."

     "Good. That means Victor knows
what happened and they all think you're dead. Everything is going as
planned," Brocco said. "We might just have this son-of-a-bitch. But
you two," he motioned to Richard and Kali, "Still need to record your
testimony and sign affidavits. Yours,” he pointed to Richard, “will be
back-dated, and yours, Ms. Stanton, will need to happen before we execute the
next part of the plan. We have to catch Victor in the process of kidnapping
you."

     "Wait, that wasn't part of the
deal,” Richard said.

     Brad sat up, “Yeah, that wasn’t
part of the deal.”

     “It was always part the plan. There
was no deal,” Brocco said.    

     Kali shook her head at Brad before
he said another word and put her hand on his shoulder to get him to lie down.
She looked down his wounded thigh and watched as a nurse sutured it. The bullet
had gone through the fleshy muscle and made a clean exit.

     On the opposite side of the room
Richard sighed. “My guess is I won’t be able to contact Misha at all?”

     “Dead is dead,” Brocco replied. She
noticed he seemed to have become more callous and all business ever since they
left the house that morning.

     “She’s really the only friend I
have,” Richard said. “She could use an out, too.”

     Kali shrugged. She wanted to see
Misha get out of Victor’s grasp, too. “Once they nab Victor, Misha could
disappear and join you in witness protection? Her entire family is in Russia
and she’s been estranged from them for years.”

     Richard nodded. “True. By the way,
Laura, it’s good to see you. I’m glad you’re okay.”

     She smiled at him, noticing Brad
didn’t seem as thrilled about Richard’s comment. “I’m glad you’re no longer
employed by Victor. He would have killed me you know…”

     “Unfortunately, I know.” A deep
sigh escaped his lips. “He still might.”

     Kali smiled at Brad when she saw a
flicker of jealousy flash through his eyes. She leaned down and whispered into
his ear, “Don’t be jealous. He’s Misha’s and you’re mine.”

     Brad seemed to relax a bit.

***

     Alexi Amelin wasn’t expecting to
return home this early, but the message on his voicemail from that
govnjúk
,
Victor Kolknov, set his blood boiling and instead of calling back, he
immediately headed back toward Boston. While he didn’t recall taking one of
Victor’s girls, it was possible. Some of his girls had been around. The
accusation that Alexi had stolen money, however, was ludicrous. If anyone had
stolen money, it was Victor. As he saw it he had three choices. He could give
Victor his girl back and allow Victor to think he could push him around, or he
could have Victor and his minions beaten senseless and sent back to Los Angeles
with their tails between their legs. The final thought was that he could have
Victor and his guys taken out, but that was both messy and dangerous. He
already had some cops snooping around two of his auto repair operations looking
for evidence of a chop shop. He didn’t need this headache, too.

    His friendship with Victor had gone
awry when Victor cut him out of a lucrative import deal after they had agreed
to invest the same and split the proceeds down the middle. Victor still owed
him a quarter of a million for that
little
deal. The more Alexi thought
about it, the more his anger grew and the more he wanted to twist Victor’s head
off his shoulders. That
súkin syn
didn’t know who he was messing with.

    One of his own men, Gary, an
American raised by Russian immigrant parents, sat quietly in the passenger seat
of the silver Lexus. He stared straight ahead.

    “When we get back to the house we
need to find out when Victor’s plane comes in. Did we find the girl? This Laura
Stanton?” Alexi’s tone was stiff and clipped. He turned on the blinker to
switch lanes, checked his rear view, and accelerated while changing to the far
left lane.

    Gary looked at his phone as if he
was reading something, then answered in a surprised tone, “Oh, well I guess
she’s not one of yours. It was one of Victor’s little whores who ran off, but I
guess she lives here now. Goes by the name Kali Michaels. She’s the girlfriend
of one of the owners over at
The Black Lily
. Brad Hudak. Hey, isn’t that
an
s-and-m
club?”

    “Yes, but I don’t know these
people,” Alexi said with a frown. “Have someone pick up the girl. If Victor
wants her, maybe he wants her bad enough to pay me the quarter million he owes
me.” Alexi shrugged. It was nice having friends in all the clubs and even in
various branches of government and law enforcement. It certainly made finding
people and doing business that much easier. Now if only he could infiltrate the
car theft task force and direct their attention elsewhere. Certainly there were
real chop shops they could be concentrating on.

    Gary began tapping his phone. “Rory
and Case are on their way to pay Mr. Hudak a visit now. They have all the
information.”

    “Good. Perhaps if things go well
tonight I’ll open that bottle of
Cosson Seul Clos Des Lambrays
I have in
the wine cellar. I should have figured Victor’s obsession with kinky sex and
women would be his undoing,” he commented with a grin.

    A chuckle emerged from Gary. “If you
get your money back from that
súkin syn
I will happily toast that.”

    “It’s a 1937 Pinot Noir,” Alexi
explained. While none of his guys probably cared about wine or had a palate for
it, Alexi appreciated the finer things and had educated himself on wine. The
bottle cost him several thousand dollars to acquire and he was saving it for
such an occasion even though it was worth more corked than in the glass. He saw
no point in one owning a bottle of wine no one would ever drink.

    “That’s a red wine, right?” Gary
tried.

    Alexi nodded with a smile, but
didn’t say anything. Gary was happy with his
Stoli
and could, in all
fairness, probably taste the difference between a glass of cheap Russian vodka
from an expensive one. That’s how it was among Alexi’s men. At least his girls
appreciated fine things. He kept them dressed in designer clothes, adorned in
diamonds and furs, and sipping on expensive wine and champagne. They rewarded
him with attention, adoration, and sex. It was a fair trade off despite having
to listen to his parents lecture him to find a wife and settle down. They
wanted grandchildren and did not keep it a secret. That’s the only reason he
broke down and proposed to Helena who was all too happy to share Alexi as long
as she was in the will and she and any children she produced were cared for at
least until her death. He sighed and looked at the dash clock. If all went well
they’d be in Boston in the next few hours and he could have all of this dealt
with by morning.       

Chapter Ten

      
Amy hadn’t expected the big man to reach out and grab her out from behind the
screen door, put the hood over her head, bind her hands behind her back, shove
her into a car, or any of those things. She remembered only two years ago when
her mother had suggested she take a self-defense class and she’d laughed at
her. After all, who was going to come after her?
Two Russian guys, that’s
who,
she told herself.

   The men in the front seat were
speaking Russian and she didn’t understand a damn word of it. All she knew is
she got the call from Kali that she and Brad were heading home from the
hospital with agents in tow and she’d asked Amy to order a pizza. Amy did, so
when she answered the door she thought the man standing there would be holding
a pizza. It was a little too late when she realized he wasn’t the pizza
delivery guy.

   The guys seemed to be arguing about
something. Finally, one of them asked her in very clear English, free from any
accent whatsoever, “You’re Laura Stanton, yes?”

   Oh shit
, she thought.
These must have been Victor’s goons. Did she correct them and make them turn
around? At least there would be FBI back at the house. “No. No I’m not Laura
Stanton. I’m Amy Myers; I’m a friend of Ms. Stanton’s.”

   The driver groaned. “You grabbed the
wrong one!”

   “No I didn’t,” the second one argued.
“She’s just lying and saying she isn’t who she is. Why would her friend be in
her boyfriend’s house?”

   The driver said something in Russian.

   “Fuck you, Rory,” the second one
said.

   There was an uncomfortable silence.

   Amy wondered if she should interject.
She wasn’t sure what she should say. Finally she came out with, “Victor is
really going to be pissed off when he finds out you’ve got the wrong girl.”

   “And you would know Victor is looking
for you because?” the guy in the passenger seat asked.

   “The Russian was a dead giveaway,”
she deadpanned. The cloth bag over her head was getting kind of annoying. Her
nose itched and it smelled like potatoes.