He pushed air at her palm. More than air. Something deep inside him rose to rush toward her. He felt it rise, a connection that would be unbreakable. He was giving himself to this woman not knowing if she could accept him as he was, rough and scarred and very lost. He didn't know if he would even come out of this alive, but he had to do this one thing. The need--the compulsion--overcame everything else. He belonged--somewhere. With someone. Airiana Solovyov was his someone.
He heard the sound of the air hitting her palm, an electrical charge that actually zapped her. Two intertwined circles flared into life, a brand. A tattoo. The rings blazed a bright gold and then slowly faded into her skin, disappearing entirely.
Airiana yelped and tried to jerk her hand away, but he held her wrist firmly and brought the injured palm to the warmth of his mouth. His tongue stroked over the exact spot where the two rings had sunk beneath her skin. He traced each one, feeling the brand of Prakenskii, knowing it was on his own hand, trying to soothe the ache she felt. Her eyes widened and she gasped, heat flaring between them.
"What have you done?" she whispered.
He allowed her hand to slip away from him. She rubbed it down her thigh, her gaze clinging to his. "I gave myself to you. What you do with me is up to you. But I don't lie to children, and I won't lie to you. I'm coming back, Airiana." He stepped closer and framed her face with his hands. "I'm coming back for you."
She opened her mouth to answer him, to protest or to plead. He didn't know. He didn't care. He stopped all words with his own mouth, kissing her like a man drowning. Hot. Passionate. Pouring himself into her. Just this one time he took what he wanted from her, dragging her response from her, kissing her again and again, unable to stop himself from sinking further under her spell.
Abruptly he jerked away, and without another word, left her there. He swung his war bag over his shoulder and stalked out, closing the hatch behind him. His body was on fire. Crazy in the situation he was in, but still, he felt alive for the first time in more years than he cared to count.
He checked the other two cabins and both were empty. That meant the boy was on the next level down. There would be more bodyguards and probably a crew member or two. There would also be a despicable deviant who would torture and kill a small boy just because he could.
He had no compassion for any member of the crew who had signed on to work this cargo vessel. There were no secrets on a ship this size out to sea for long weeks. Every man who worked on board the ship was aware of what took place in the cabins.
He went down the stairs using extreme caution. Without Airiana he could move much faster, using his stealthy, silent mode. Air cushioned his sound, preventing any spills so, although he was large, he could move easily through the ship and never be heard. He kept his image distorted so a quick glance from someone passing at the end of the passageway wouldn't be enough to spot him.
His gifts allowed advantages, and as a covert operative, he needed--and used--every one of them. As he neared the bottom of the stairs, he waited a moment to allow the air to speak to him, delivering vital information. Being bound to air was a part of him, natural, like breathing, and he read every nuance in the displacement like a map.
There were two men in the passageway, down toward the end. No others seemed to be around, but it was a long way to get to them without being seen. He slipped down the last two steps and into the shadows just beneath the stairwell, studying the situation.
Two bodyguards--he recognized them both. They were mercenaries out of Italy. Both had belonged to the mob, worked as contract killers, and when it got too hot, they left the country to hire out until things cooled down. He had an entire dossier on both and wasn't surprised in the least that they were on board this particular type of vessel, because the last he'd heard, Evan Shackler-Gratsos had hired them.
Leone Marciante was a brutal killer. He had grown up a bully and had continued to be one. His uncle was embedded deep in the mob in Italy and he had naturally gravitated toward his uncle's work. He rose fast, a ruthless, dangerous man who had no problem killing anyone, even when he was a boy.
His partner, Ricco D'Amato, had grown up down the street from Leone. He'd been wild from the beginning, beating up his mother often and raising hell at school. The two stayed close, probably because their similar personalities allowed them to feel safe tormenting schoolmates and families. It was a natural progression for Ricco to join the mob with his longtime partner.
Leone had a penchant for women. He thought of himself as a charming ladies' man, and often bragged about what a lady-killer he was. He laughed heartily at the intended pun.
Ricco preferred men. Not men, younger boys. Teens as a rule, but it was rumored he sometimes preyed on street boys even younger. He generally garnered their loyalty, using his street teams for information, spending money on them and setting them to be drug runners, even occasionally using them for other crimes. He was far more careful than Leone, making certain no trail ever led back to him. Where Leone loved to brag about his prowess with women and his work, Ricco rarely spoke. Maxim considered him the far more dangerous of the two.
He always found it interesting how criminals found one another so easily. They formed packs when they came across one another, especially child abusers. They exchanged pictures, stories and even children, aiding one another across countries.
These two men had left Italy, but they found the very man, Shackler-Gratsos, who would allow them to continue their lifestyle. Maxim slipped his gun into his belt and loosened his knife. He breathed into the air, blowing out a steady flow from under the stairwell. The surrounding air turned warm as it streamed along the narrow corridor, filling it from floor to ceiling, slowly elevating the temperature.
Evan must have provided the bodyguards for whoever was in that room. The man probably wanted to torture and kill a child in private, far from anyone who would know him--including his own bodyguards. There were a few, like Saeed, who thought themselves so powerful it didn't matter, but most didn't want their sins out in the open where they might be blackmailed.
He waited a short time until he knew the two men would be feeling the rise in temperature and then blew more air, increasing the heat until it was much hotter in the passageway. Both men took off their jackets, exposing the harnesses their weapons were housed in.
Leone swore loudly and walked over to tap on a vent. "What the hell? The air down here is stifling," he snapped, wiping at the beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
"It's happened before," Ricco said, his voice low and calm.
"Not like this. It's bullshit. I'll bet Galati's room is plenty cool for him and his little friend." He laughed. "That kid looked like a scared little rabbit. He thinks you're going to save him. I love that look of utter devotion they give you. They do anything you want them to, don't they?"
Ricco shrugged. "He's a smart kid. He could be of use to me, but once they're aboard this ship, there's nothing to be done but get rid of them. I tried to steer Galati to another boy, but he chose Benito." Ricco turned cool eyes on his partner. "We were given orders to give Galati whatever he wanted so . . ." He shrugged.
"Too bad. Are you in love with him?" Leone taunted. "Maybe you want to take him home with you?"
He sounded jealous, which again, didn't surprise Maxim. Leone might appear the dominant in the relationship, but it was actually Ricco. Leone had no one else in his life and he didn't share well with others. Maxim would bet his last dollar that Leone had helped Galati choose Benito out of Evan's special catalogue of young children, probably from a video recording.
"What I want doesn't much matter. Galati has his hands on him now. He'll be brutal with the kid and ruin him. The kid's straight and needs to be handled with care, but Galati plans to kill him so he's not going to bother with finesse." Again Ricco shrugged, but his eyes were watchful on Leone's face.
"You're the one who killed his family," Leone pointed out. "Just so you could cultivate him. I wonder how he'll feel when Galati
whispers that to him right before he kills him, or maybe he's already done it. He likes the kids to know ahead of time what he plans to do to them. He said the terror increases the fun. He strangles them and lets them come back just so he can do it all again."
Maxim increased the temperature again, this time the heat rising fast, as if fires had broken out all around them. The metal on the walls of the passageway nearly glowed. Both men's shirts were damp, sweat running in rivers and pooling on the floor. They began to look uneasy, tempers increasing along with the heat.
"This is bullshit," Leone said, kicking at the wall.
Ricco said nothing, but he tested the temperature of the wall, using the flat of his hand. It was hot, but not excessively so despite the fact that it nearly glowed, a trick, maybe, to the eye. "I think the ventilation system stopped working is all," he said.
"I don't give a damn what happened," Leone snapped. "Someone needs to fix it."
Maxim added a whisper of condensation, so fine it could barely be seen, but the water in the air increased, hot now, turning the passageway slowly into a steam room. Again it was a slow process to fill up the corridor, and at first neither noticed until the long fingers of haze began to creep around them as if they were in a sauna.
"I'll go check and see what's going on," Ricco said abruptly.
"The hell with that. I'm not staying here to burn to death," Leone protested. "I'm going too. No one's going to disturb Galati and if it's getting hot in there, he can boil for all I care."
Ricco shrugged and started down the passageway toward the staircase. Leone followed, grumbling every step of the way. Maxim let them come within several feet of him before he fired two rapid shots, aiming for the kill, a bullet right in the middle of the forehead, his signature shot. Both went down simultaneously. Neither ever saw Maxim and probably didn't know what hit him.
Maxim used a silencer, but still, he remained beneath the stairwell, in the shadows, in case Galati or anyone else heard the shots. He was patient, taking his time, ignoring the two bodies lying on the floor. He allowed the temperature in the passageway to cool just a little, although it didn't affect him. He kept a bubble of cooler air surrounding him, but he didn't want Galati to get spooked and maybe kill the boy.