Bone Deep(48)

The little girl skated to the edge of the ice, ready to come off, and Bone moved toward them. She lowered her hand and shook it slightly, feeling the weight of a blade fall into her palm. It was cool, though it had been against her body.

She smiled again, this time at one of Dostoyev’s guards as she stepped up to her prey and pulled him close. She shoved the knife into his side deep enough that he would feel it—deep enough for him to realize she wasn’t playing.

He glanced at her, eyes wide, jaw going slack. He started to turn back to his child.

“Tell her to keep skating, comrade,” Blade demanded harshly in English.

“Derzhite kataniye, dorogaya,” he called out, voice wavering, fear rising in a stench off his skin.

“She is a pretty child. She reminds me of others you’ve sold into the hands of the devil—you remember them, yes?” Bone pushed a little deeper and he grunted.

He didn’t answer but she knew he spoke perfect English and understood her question. So she shoved the entire tip of the knife into his pudgy side. She wasn’t close to anything vital…not yet.

“You remember them?” she asked again, keeping her voice low.

His guards had noticed how close she was standing to him, noticed his face, and the mask of fear upon it.

“I don’t remember them,” he admitted and she smelled the pungent aroma of urine.

“You disgust me, Dostoyev. Perhaps we should send little Layla to The Collective. I wonder how long your child would last in the hands of pedophiles and murderers. She is especially sweet and her laughter—ahhh, she would be a delight for them to break,” Bone mused aloud.

“You will not take my child. I will give you anything, but not my child,” he stammered.

“I want nothing you have to give me. Your presence here was enough,” she muttered as the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed into her neck. She leaned toward Dostoyev’s ear and whispered, “Thank you. Make sure you take her home before you come visit me, yes? I would hate for her to be harmed. I would hate for her to watch you die.”

Then she dropped her knife and stepped away from him raising her arms. His guards took her down immediately and she allowed it. She had not come so far to waste Dostoyev’s death. Oh, he would die, but after she made it into Bratva headquarters under St. Basil’s Cathedral.

Always they used religious sites for their business. It was abhorrent to her.

His guards didn’t say a word, simply trussed her arms behind her back and lifted her up roughly, pushing her toward a waiting vehicle. Bone glanced back once, seeing the little girl’s face, confusion and fear lining the chubby planes.

Bone smiled and one of the guards slapped her. The inside of her cheek split and she spit out blood and saliva, continuing to smile.

“Ona skhodit s uma,” one of them said. She is crazy.

“Da,” she responded with a laugh.

“I vskore ona budet mertva,” another chimed in. And soon she will be dead.

Not until she was finished, she thought.

They shoved her into the blacked-out SUV, pushing her head down between her legs and taking off. There was no conversation between them after that and the trip was short. They were taking her to the cathedral.

Bone had planned this for years and it was going as she’d envisioned. She’d be a fool to think it had nothing to do with luck. They could have taken her somewhere else. But she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The SUV skidded to a stop and the men got out, pulling her to the ground and dragging her down a set of stairs. Bone glanced up to the sky, saw the onion-shaped domes of St. Basil’s glowing eerily and she smiled again.

It seemed she was doing a lot of that lately.

She forced her mind away from Dmitry. He had no place here. She’d come to Moscow for one reason—to eliminate the other head of the Bratva. And she was close now.

She remained still as they dragged her through a series of tunnels, the moldy, wet smell telling her they were getting close to their destination. The Moscow River bordered the Kremlin and the Red Square. It was the origin of the water she was being hauled through.

They pulled her into a large room and threw her on the ground. She glanced up and around, taking their number and waiting.

“Who are you?” the first question came from the man she’d stuck in the side with her knife.

“No one,” she whispered, the smile never leaving her face.

Another shot to the side. “What are you?”

“Nothing,” she responded automatically.

She was so close. Her body was ready for what they would dish out here tonight. They thought to break her. It was nothing but pain. She was going to show them strength.

He stepped to her and slapped her full on the face.

“If that is the best you have, Dostoyev, I wonder how you climbed the ladder to Pervichnaya Okhrannik,” she said, spitting out more blood.

He kicked her then, in the head and she fell to her side, absorbing the blow and loosening her muscles. She had a hard head. It was yet another part of her training with Master that she’d become accustomed to blows to the head.

“How do you know me?” he asked in a hard voice.

“I know you all. I know your mothers, fathers, children, and I know your leader,” she whispered.

They were on her then, at some unseen signal from Dostoyev. At least three of his men began a systematic round of kicks and punches. She took them all and when her eyes were swollen and her ribs screamed, she glanced up at Dostoyev and she smiled once more.