Broken Bastard (Killer of Kings 2)

Chapter One

“Scarlett, are you being serious? No, I know you’re not being serious, because if you were, you’d be insane,” said Lisa.

“I have no choice. You heard Carter. He’s going to cut twenty freelancers this year alone.” Scarlett hooked her oversized purse over her shoulder, and then reached for the stack of colored file folders. “I can’t lose this job.”

“Fine, I get it, but this is suicide.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes. “You’re being dramatic.”

She made her way to the office elevator, her friend tailing behind her. Her next interview might be unorthodox, and theoretically a bit dangerous, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She’d only been at this company for eight months, officially still on probation, so she’d be one of the first her boss would cut. Scarlett was damn good at what she did. One day she hoped to reach reporter level, but right now she had to give the stories she always found to someone else. The truth was, her boss took the stories she’d researched and gave them to other girls. Still, she was determined to show her worth, and how valuable she could be as a reporter.

It wasn’t easy getting a personal meeting with Alexei Semenov. He was a big-time crime ringleader, not the biggest, but it would still be headline news. Her boss, Wilson Carter, had to see her value after closing an interview with a name like Semenov. Scarlett was sick and tired of pinching pennies and fighting just to maintain the status quo. She wanted to make something of her career, not to mention she didn’t have enough money for next month’s rent.

“Are you taking a camera crew?” asked Lisa, holding the elevator door open with her hip.

“Yeah, like that’s going to happen. Look, I’ll be fine. Promise. Semenov wants to portray a favorable image to the media, so he’s going to be on his best behavior.”

Lisa sighed. “You’re impossible. See you tomorrow then? I’ll bring the coffee.”

“Thanks.”

The doors began to close, and Scarlett watched her friend disappear from view. She wouldn’t admit that her heart raced like a freight train, and her hands felt clammy. If she wasn’t in such a dire predicament, there was no way she’d be heading out to meet one of the most hated men in the city. The man was a Russian mobster, and she had no wingman, camera crew … nothing.

Forty minutes later, she stopped her Kia Rio in front of a set of massive iron gates. She double checked the address she’d scribbled on a piece of paper, but this was definitely the place. The gates began to open, swinging inwards, so she continued to drive along the long path. She admired the manicured grounds, water fountains, and old-world architecture of the mansion coming into view.

She took a deep breath as she parked the car. You can do this, Scarlett.

The sky started turning a mix of orange and pink, signaling the sunset was fast approaching. She didn’t like meeting at night, but she couldn’t get off work early and Mr. Semenov insisted they meet at eight o’clock sharp.

Scarlett lugged all her supplies out of the passenger side. She’d brought an older model video camera with tripod, voice recorders, paperwork, and her laptop. This was a huge deal, so she wore her best suit, reserved for only the most important occasions. The wine-colored skirt and jacket did a great job at concealing her explosive curves. Her extra weight was only another reason she had to make this work. Wilson Carter only kept the young, thin girls at the front of the house, and the same was true for the news and weather editions of his cable network.

As she walked up the custom stone staircase toward the entry doors of the house, she was flanked by Alexei Semenov’s security detail. She held her breath as they approached her.

“I have an appointment at eight o’clock for an interview,” she said before being asked. Scarlett swallowed hard after speaking. The three men didn’t smile, their faces solemn as they glared at her with enough malice to make her question her decision to come. One of the men snatched her bags away from her and began rooting through them, while another patted her down like a common criminal.

“Mr. Semenov will see you in the sitting room.” Then he opened the door and motioned for her to enter. The foyer was bigger than her entire apartment, with vaulting ceilings and shiny white marble floors. There was enough artwork and stone sculptures in view to fill a small museum. She walked forward, in complete awe. No reporter had been through these doors, so she was one of the privileged few to see the inside the Semenov mansion. It probably helped that she wasn’t a reporter, and there was no mention of her in any of the articles she had been part of, not even as a researcher. She was a nobody, fighting to be a somebody.

“Sit here,” said another man, pointing to one of the sofas. “He will be with you shortly.”

She nodded and sat down, resting her bags by her feet. Within minutes she was alone in the sitting room. The place was quieter than a mausoleum. Scarlett tapped her foot, her nervous energy not letting up. The doors to a study were partially open ahead of her, the glow from a desk lamp catching her attention. Should she take some pics? She didn’t want to do anything that might get her into trouble, so she didn’t risk it. Instead, she began to attach the tripod to the clunky old video camera in preparation for the interview. After today, maybe they’d trust her with the newer equipment.

At just a few minutes to eight, a couple men in suits rushed down the hallway, brandishing handguns. She gasped and froze. There was commotion just out of sight, and then a gunshot shattered a large clay vase, the shards raining down on the marble. Scarlett dropped to her knees and crawled to the end of the sofa to hide. Oh God, why didn’t I listen to Lisa?

The doors to the study flung open, and a huge man in a navy suit stood in the entryway with an automatic weapon in both hands. He looked like the damn Terminator. She heard different men yelling in Russian but couldn’t understand a word. The big man didn’t even take a step before he collapsed to the ground after another gunshot rang off, the sound echoing in the massive sitting room. Then she saw him, Alexei Semenov, coming around from the grand oak desk in the office. Scarlett recognized him immediately. His stern, wrinkled face was always plastered on the news.

What the hell is happening?

Alexei spoke in a cool but arrogant tone, in his own language. Who was he talking to? Then a different man dressed in all black strode toward the office. He came out of nowhere, like a ghost. She noticed the hand holding his gun was covered in ink. In fact, the tattoos even peeked out from the top of his collar, climbing up his neck. He looked like a force, death personified. The two men spoke briefly, a calm exchange, and then she watched as the tattooed man put a single bullet between Alexei’s eyes. It all seemed to happen in slow motion—the gunshot, the spray of blood, the lifeless body crashing to the floor.

Scarlett let out a scream but q

uickly covered her mouth with both hands. It was too late. The killer turned his head and looked directly at her crouched down at the end of the sofa.

He cursed, holstering his weapon, and came toward her. She screamed again, toppling back onto her ass.

“Shut up,” he said, yanking her to her feet.

“I’m innocent. Please don’t hurt me…”

He noticed the video camera equipment on the sofa, and it set him off. With a powerful thrust, he smashed it against the stone floor and stomped it out of existence.

“You one of his whores?”

She struggled to speak, completely tongue-tied, so she shook her head. He growled, glancing around the ceiling of the room before grabbing a handful of her suit jacket and tugging her along with him. They ended up in a small, windowless room with wall to wall surveillance equipment. Probably every room in the house was being filmed on the small televisions, including every angle of the property. He took something out of his jacket, slapping it down on the desk. He hunched over, but she couldn’t see past his massive frame. When he stood back up, she saw the explosive device with a timer rigged to it. Forty-five seconds and counting.

She stared with her mouth agape. Was she dreaming? No, this was definitely a nightmare, one she wished she could wake up from. Things like this didn’t happen to women like her. Scarlett could imagine the headlines now: Thirty-six-year-old spinster dies grisly death, leaving behind no one and nothing. God, how pathetic. She nearly began to cry thinking of all the life she’d wasted. At least someone at her office would get a headline story out of this mess, but it sure wouldn’t be her.

Before she could react, he pulled her through the hallway, shooting every man that came into view with the pistol in his free hand. When they were in the parking area, the bomb in the surveillance room went off, the ground quaking beneath her feet. She flailed, but he had an iron grip on her arm. When she saw her piece of shit car, she wondered if she could get free long enough to make a break for it. Then she remembered her keys were in her purse, still in the sitting room.

“Please let me—”

“Don’t fucking speak,” he warned, his voice deep and authoritative. He popped open the trunk of a black BMW and shoved her in. She screamed and kicked, but he only slammed the trunk down over her, blanketing her in darkness.

****

Fuck! Fuck!

This was Bain’s first official contract working for Killer of Kings, and he’d wanted to prove himself a valuable asset. He knew the rules: no witnesses and a clean hit, nothing unusual from his other work. Bain wanted to send the woman in his trunk straight to hell, but she didn’t look like she belonged at Semenov’s place. Cops didn’t give a shit about dead criminals, but an innocent victim would lead to investigations and news reports. If it got back to Boss that his mission wasn’t clean, he’d look like a fucking amateur.

So his witness was going to disappear without a trace, and nothing would be linked back to him or to Semenov’s assassination. He still wasn’t sure what the fuck he was going to do with her, but he’d figure that out later. Killing was what he did best, and he’d handled worse complications. Bain drove a few miles up the road, then got out to remove the false magnetic plates. He opened the trunk to toss them inside, ignoring his human cargo. She gasped when she saw him, although with no street lights on this stretch of road, he’d be a dark shadow. Not that it mattered if she saw him clearly or not because he wasn’t letting her live.

“I’ll do anything. Please let me go. I promise I won’t say anything.”

She definitely wasn’t one of Semenov’s girls. Bain had been scoping out his interactions and routines the past week, and the old bastard preferred his bitches stick thin and highly processed. His witness had thick curves and not a stitch of makeup—definitely not Semenov’s type. He wasn’t sure what she was doing there—maybe applying to scrub the toilets or some other domestic shit. Then he remembered the camera equipment.

“Why were you at Alexei Semenov’s house?”

“I was just on a job, I mean I was doing an interview … well I was going to do an interview,” she stammered. “I’m a reporter. Well, I’m a researcher trying to be a reporter. I swear I don’t know him or you or anything about what happened.”

Of all the damn luck. A reporter, researcher, whatever the hell that meant.

“Who knows you were there?”