Diana drove out later that morning, wondering if she might just pass Will on any of these back roads. Probably that wouldn’t happen; he said he’d take two days to get home. While he might come down this very road, he wouldn’t do it today.
For a while, she wondered if she should be worried about him but then brushed it off. Will would say something. He’d texted back . . . and he was coming back. All the important bases were covered. On the other hand, there was new shit in Nick-land.
She’d fired up the burner phone Owen had sent her and sent out the first text.
N is K.
The ex-FBI man sent back only a question mark.
Crap. She didn’t want to give out any keywords, so she spent a moment crafting the next message.
N’s father is KK. K & R are his brothers.
She didn’t have to add, I killed his other brother.
If the Kurevs understood anything about Nick, they would know he hadn’t shot Ivan. He would have killed himself first before he took out any remaining family. Even with her limited and defined interaction with her boss, it had become clear to Diana fairly early on that family meant a lot to him and that he didn’t feel he had much of one.
Ironically, he came from one of the biggest and most interactive families in town, but understandably he’d been low man on the totem pole. That he was Kolya’s son had to have been a huge blow to Emilian. Diana wondered if Nick realized he’d been born a pawn in a game that had started long before his inception.
The near-silent beep on her phone told her Owen Dunham was somewhere he could chat. His phone line was open. Diana was grateful.
That explains a lot. Holy shit.
She felt the same way, but his response wasn’t helpful. Sighing, Diana wondered what she expected him to say. There would be no Oh, since he’s KK’s kid, you should do X or Y.
There was not much to do now. She wasn’t ready to out Nick as the new leader of Vasilescu—not to the FBI. Honestly, given the head wound and fear of retaliation, she wasn’t sure that transfer of power had actually taken. Since she already exposed him enough by asking for all the background info and following up with the Chicago lecture series, she didn’t add anything extra for Dunham. Maybe the FBI was watching the Kurevs—probably they were. So they might already know that Nick had been there.
Her phone beeped again while she was enjoying being upset. She was out in the middle of a random patch of woods, somewhere near a cell tower, and nowhere near anything else. Anyone who found her here would earn death; she wasn’t going to worry about it.
Is he trying to unite the families?
Her eyes widened and she blinked. In the deep back of beyond she was allowed facial expressions, reactions. And when she dropped her poker face, apparently she had plenty of them. The thought had not occurred to her.
It would explain them sending Churkin after him though. If the two remaining Kurevs thought Nick was trying to blend the territories, they might not like it. Especially if they got wind of Nick’s weird “benevolent mafia” scenario. The Kurev boys were turning out to be exactly the kind of thing he didn’t like about his grandfather’s organization.
So she said the only thing she could think of that wouldn’t bring the FBI down on Nick. She needed him.
Don’t know. I do know N wants things clean.
That was a good note. If the FBI knew Nick was in with Vasilescu, then Dunham would take that to mean in the organization. If they didn’t know about his involvement, she’d just made him look like a squeaky cop from a bad background.
But she didn’t know how he’d taken it. There was no return text.
For another forty-five minutes she waited for a response. They never formally signed off, just went silent. When her stomach growled and she had no message in return, she gave up, started the car, and headed back to town.
A peanut butter and jelly sandwich she’d made at Nick’s and bottled water made an on-the-road meal. She had enough fuel and food to get back to White Oak without a stop. Her car wasn’t going to be on any unnecessary video surveillance footage linking her to this spot or any gas station or fast food joint in between. Her GPS had been turned completely off as had her cell phone. Diana was avoiding any links to this area, this cell phone, as much as possible.
On the way back she thought about Nick. Wondered if he’d visited the Kurevs in order to talk about joining forces. Wondered if he’d been surprised by their level of antipathy.
If Nick had tried to unite the families, and Churkin had subsequently been sent to remove him and failed . . . Shit.
Diana turned on her monthly cell phone, the one registered to the Kincaids. It took too long to boot up; her heart rate was fast already, but the phone was still busy posting various logos and making digital swooshing sounds. It decided to update her service.
She couldn’t even call from the burner phones; she’d turned both of them off. Her breathing didn’t speed up, but not because she wasn’t scared, only because she’d had so much practice.
With nothing to do but wait, she scanned traffic around her. That was when she noticed the car behind her. She was still ten miles out of White Oak, so how had someone found her? Had they followed her out of town and waited?
Making two consecutive sharp turns successfully shook the small, dull-red compact, and Diana let out the breath she’d held. Paranoid. She was just paranoid. However, if she was following someone, that was the car to do it in. Almost half the cars on the road were red, and the compact had enough pickup to follow pretty much anything and was small enough to maneuver through dense traffic. It had a tight turn radius, too, great for unexpected corners. At least she’d learned what car she should be driving, even if she was simply overly paranoid.
Picking up the cell phone as it finally acknowledged that it was now ready to be of service, she called Reese from speed dial.
“Hi.”
Diana didn’t think, just spoke. “Get out of there.”
“What?”
“If Nick went to Chicago to try to join the two families, they rejected it. They’re trying to take out the competition.”
“Oh.”
For the first time Diana noticed that Reese sounded odd. Stilted. “Reese?”
“Yeah. I’m here. So we stopped Churkin—”
“Temporarily.” Diana added
“And they still want to stop Nick?”
“I suspect so. We aren’t safe at the house. We weren’t thinking.” She’d been thinking it was her house they were after. Big mistake. Diana took another left, trying to figure out the most direct route to Nick’s from the . . .
“That explains why someone’s in the backyard right now. They’re trying to break in.”
“What?” Shit. She was too late. She’d been too slow.
“We’re trying not to fire shots. Neighborhood and all.”
Of course Reese was thinking about the innocent bystanders. “Are they firing?”
“No. I assume not because in this area, even a single gunshot will bring the police down. They’ll have to get to us before they shoot.”
“What do you have?” Nearly frantic now, Diana merged onto a road that led right to Nick’s and kicked up the speed—enough but not too much. If she were pulled over, they would recognize her and let her go, but she couldn’t afford the time or the attention. Her foot itched over the gas pedal, but she only pushed it so hard.
“Baseball bat, a sword we found in your bag—pretty wicked looking by the way—and of course our guns. Nick has two with the serial numbers filed off.” Reese’s voice sounded like she hadn’t contemplated that possibility before. Maybe she believed Nick wasn’t quite as dirty as he was. Diana wondered what Reese would say if she knew how many of those guns Diana had.
“Hold tight, I’m on my—”
The small red car pulled in behind her, taking up her rearview mirror. Shitshitshit.
“Diana?”
“I’m being followed.”
“By whom?”
She almost laughed. Then she gave in and did.
Someone was breaking into Nick’s house with Reese and Nick trapped inside, and Nick still recovering from a serious head injury. Someone else was following Diana . . . had possibly followed her from across the state border. Yet Reese still made sure to use the proper form of the objective case.
“I have no idea whom it might be.” Squinting, Diana added what she could, “Looks male.”
“Well, no help there. Could it be Shvernik?”
“Could be.” Diana shook her head. Enough of the giggles; it was time to make some decisions. “Who’s at the house?”
“Don’t really know. Didn’t stick my head out to say ‘hello’ or anything.”
Diana didn’t know whether to praise Reese for being calm and collected or yell at her to take things seriously. At least she knew her friend. If she had to pick anyone other than Will to have at her back, it would be Reese. “Do I lead this guy to the house? Come join you? Or do I go away and fight my own fight?”
“Might as well come here. Sandwich this fucker and maybe get him. Or her. Whoever is following you will probably come here if you shake them anyway—hold on.”
Diana put pedal to floor as she heard the phone being set down. Something happened in the background . . . A door opened, slammed maybe? There was a grunt. Then footsteps.
“Come here.” Reese’s voice came back on the line, “We have Churkin, and she now has a nasty lump on her head.”
“You have her prisoner?” Jesus Christ, listening to this shit over the phone was going to give her a heart attack. Attempting to hold Churkin prisoner would likely get Reese and Nick strung up by their guts before Diana made it there.
She was five minutes away.
“Nope, pushed her back out the door with the baseball bat.”
“To the head?” Holy crap, Reese was playing hardball. With an assassin’s head. “She’s not dead?”
They had already learned that Churkin had a skull like iron.
“No, she went backward into the wall, hit her head, and is regrouping. Get here fast. She’s around back. Gotta go!”
The line went dead.
The red car stayed tight on her tail.
Diana wondered if maybe the driver hadn’t seen her on the phone, noticed she picked up speed, and caught on to what was happening.
She took the next turn fast, but the red car anticipated the curve.
There were two options Diana could see. One, these were two unrelated incidents. Someone happened to follow her at the same time as someone tried to get into Nick’s house. This was possible, since both the Kurevs and the Vasilescus were after Nick, but the timing was highly coincidental if that was the case.
Even just thinking through that scenario made it seem even more unlikely. She went with the second option: the two were related. Thus, they must have waited for her to leave the house, must have thought to divide and conquer, which would make sense if they knew what she was. According to Will’s info, they had figured it out.
It was what she would do in the same situation. From the Kurev camp’s point of view, Nick’s house held three people—among them, a mafia leader, a trained assassin, and three cops. Diana and Reese had gotten the better of Churkin in the last encounter, so separating them was key. Diana had done that for them.
Nick was injured, badly. That helped the other side, too.
Because she’d been thinking along these lines, Diana was ready when she turned off the main road. Three turns to Nick’s house and—
The small car made a move. Hitting the gas, he tried to come up even with her, but her cop instincts didn’t let him. She used the cars parked on the side of the street as buffers and hoped no one noticed his little “my balls are bigger than yours” move. There were still businesses here, still several lanes for traffic.
But in a moment her turn would come up, and they’d be on a residential street. She didn’t put it past this guy to pull up even with her and pull a gun. Leaning over, she reached under the seat and pulled out a Springfield. Then she put it back.
She was about to possibly fire a gun in Nick’s neighborhood. Best bet was to use her PD-issued Glock. This shit was getting complicated. For a moment she yearned for the old days of shoot first and regret never. When she and Will had been out, they planned everything, allowing no collateral damage except to a few walls or some furniture.
One of the first things she’d learned as a cop was protection and safety. Sure, if your life was threatened, you were authorized to use lethal force . . . but you might be called upon to defend that in court and Americans weren’t known for being generous with leeway for their cops. Often officers were forced to let the bad guys go in favor of keeping those around them safe, and a streetside shootout—like the one she felt coming on—was a last- ditch effort only.
She was at last ditch.
As Diana pulled a little more ahead and chambered a bullet in the Glock, she saw the man in the small car reach over into his passenger seat. She hit the gas just a heartbeat before her back window shattered.
There was no time to stop and check who might be wounded on the side of the street, and getting out of her car was a bad idea. She was already reaching for her phone to call it in; this was official now. Sorry Nick, she thought even as dispatch came on her speaker.
“Just had my back window shot out on Bernard Street.” She rattled off her direction of travel, cross streets, and info about the red car.
It was a split decision. She could drive around and hope to keep this man off the residential streets, but business streets were just as bad. She would also run out of gas sooner rather than later, since she’d been driving on this tank most of the morning. And she was away from her team. She, Nick, and Reese would fare best together. Everyone knew it; it was why these two had waited to separate them and waited until they were complacent. Diana was confident now that she’d shaken this guy on her way out and he’d waited just close enough to home to catch her when she came back. She’d probably interrupted Churkin’s home attack.
That meant the red car’s job was to keep her away.
Daytime meant fewer people in their homes. School-age kids would be in class. It was a risk she had to take, so she cut a hard right, gunned it, and took a rapid left onto Nick’s street. She was hitting buttons on the phone, hanging up on dispatch, and calling Reese back. She hollered that she was coming in hot, even as she squealed around the next turn.
In the back of his brain, Nick knew Reese’s phone was ringing, but the sound barely registered. As he watched, she ran past it, hitting the button but not saying hello or anything.
He was left sitting on the floor, in front of the couch, because that’s where Reese put him before she ran off. She wanted him out of any line of sight from the big windows and he agreed. But he figured he should do more than just sit here.
He’d picked a hell of a time to decide it was okay to take something more serious than Tylenol. It wasn’t just him, though; they’d all thought the situation looked good. Diana had left the house; Reese had offered him the better drugs. . . .
His head didn’t hurt and he didn’t know if that was because he was so focused or if the Percocet was working just a little too well. He had to wonder if Churkin had been watching, waited for him to take the meds and waited for them to take effect. The thing was, this wasn’t Vicodin. Some of the drugs made him sleepy, lazy, loopy, but Percocet didn’t feel that way. He understood now why people got hooked on it. All the glory, none of the nasty side effects.
Nick had maintained small stashes of a variety of prescription drugs obtained from the streets. He wanted to know what was available and for how much, but he wasn’t prone to taking them himself. Still, right now, he was concerned only that he wasn’t concerned. He knew Yulia Churkin was outside his house. He knew what she’d done to Reese and Diana the last time those three had come in contact, and even with two against one, Churkin had walked away. Run away, in fact. He knew he should be very concerned. But he wasn’t.
He pulled out a loaded TEC-9, and was aiming it forward, thinking that a man on Class Three narcotics shouldn’t hold a bow and arrow, let alone a 9mm gun. He had enough firepower and ammo in his hands to make some truly bad decisions.
Diana’s voice yelled over the phone speaker. She seemed to know she’d been turned on and set down. Her ability to work in tight situations was proving uncanny. Or practiced. The thought passed before he could really grab onto it and turn it over. Her voice cut into the train of his thoughts. “Just had my rear window shot out. Called dispatch. Backup is on the way and so am I.”
Well, shit.
He heard the door slam, followed by Reese making noise in the back room. Several grunts were rapidly followed by the sound of a bullet puncturing the wall. He hadn’t heard it fired. That meant the bumps and other fight sounds had masked that, and that meant the gun was silenced. So Reese was being shot at, not the one doing the shooting.
Was it wrong that he was thinking she was hot?
Backup was on the way.
He pushed the TEC-9 back under the couch, shoving it up into the cushions where he’d long ago hollowed out a spot for just such a need. There wasn’t time to wipe it down. He bolted into his bedroom, impressed by the clarity of his thoughts. He heard two grunts—presumably from hits by Reese—between the living room and his bedroom. He shouldn’t have run in here unarmed. It was too late to go back, but he’d made it alive, so he flipped open his unlocked safe box and grabbed his PD-issued Glock, shoving the loaded magazine in with the smooth efficiency of habit.
Running now to the dining room and through the kitchen, Nick stopped at the doorway, a bullet now chambered and the safety off. Throwing himself against the wall, he listened for a split second . . . Reese and her assailant were moving away from him.
Turning the corner, he saw what he’d at least partially expected: Yulia Churkin.
From the back he could discern that she had something aimed at Reese. Must be that silenced gun, given that he had heard bullets but not the sound of them leaving the chamber, and given the look on Reese’s face. She wasn’t afraid, but she was very cautious—and that meant that Churkin was most likely holding some serious firepower on her. Reese still clutched the baseball bat in one hand, even as she held them both up.
Nick paused. He hadn’t actually seen Churkin shoot at Reese, even though he knew it had happened. Currently, no one was firing, and he was trained to diffuse exactly this type of standoff situation. As much as he’d like to just shoot the bitch, he didn’t think it was wise to go off book when on drugs. Backup was coming. He would be found out and he would not be cleared.
He must have been silent—not sure how that happened—but Churkin didn’t turn around or acknowledge him and neither did Reese. She just breathed in and lifted her hands a little higher, baseball bat still clutched, nearly uselessly.
Everything happened at once. Churkin lurched slightly for some reason Nick couldn’t see, but Reese had seen it coming. She had dropped to a full crouch and choked up on the bat just a fraction of a moment before the bullet entered the wall where she’d been standing.
Nick was a little slow on the draw himself, but he’d seen all he needed. Churkin had actively shot at an officer. Before he could even think he was justified, his bullet had left the chamber.
There was no time for Churkin to be surprised by the sound of the gun or the fact that there was someone behind her.
It must be the drugs, because Nick would swear he could see the bullet hit, blow a small hole in the back of her jacket, and propel her forward toward Reese. It was a clean shot; he’d left Churkin with at most two painful minutes to live, or—as he suspected—she’d be dead before she hit the ground.
He was lowering his weapon, watching Reese, still stuck in her crouch, hands on the bat, when Churkin hit the ground and rolled.
Nick frowned, watching as the assassin made it cleanly onto her back, the back he’d just put a bullet into. Her silenced gun was aimed right at him, center mass.
She should be dead . . . He blinked, uncomprehending.
Luckily, Reese was now standing above Churkin’s head and out of her direct line of sight. Swinging the bat, she smacked the gun away just as it fired. The bullet went past him, and Nick turned to watch as it traveled. Even as he moved his head he thought he shouldn’t be able to track the bullet, but he sure as hell thought he’d done it. It left another small hole in his house, this one up near the corner of the laundry room behind him. He heard a gun clatter to the floor and knew it had to be Churkin’s; Reese held only a bat.
More scuffling came from behind him, from the ground, from Churkin. He frowned again; it must to be the Percocet, because he would swear he’d nailed the woman. She should be dead.
When he turned, he stumbled back from the shock. Churkin was standing, one hand out toward him and one toward Reese. Her hands were bloody, from getting whacked with Reese’s bat no doubt, but she didn’t seem affected by it. She was poised, carefully watching both of them somehow.
She wore a dark leather jacket, but no blood dripped out from underneath. She breathed evenly and stayed steady on her feet.
What the fuck?
Reese didn’t seem surprised by any of this. Nick decided he must be hallucinating. So what the hell? He raised the gun again to Churkin. Obviously she saw it coming but did nothing to stop it. She simply looked at him as though he was as harmless as a hamster.
He shot her again. This time dead center. It was almost as if she turned to him, choosing suicide, a standard death-by-cop, but that was totally out of her personality.
It didn’t matter.
The bullet hit and she absorbed it, stumbling back a few steps.
Again he could see the puff of particles as it hit.
Reese acted faster than he could follow. Churkin was even turning to look down at the petite blonde, having taken a bullet and summarily dismissing Nick.
Lightning fast, Reese gripped the bat and made an obvious swing for Churkin’s knees.
And she fucking missed?
They were in the back room—incredibly close quarters for guns and bats—and Reese missed? She missed knees?
And how the hell was Churkin still standing? Was he shooting blanks?
Both he and Churkin were looking down and to the left as Reese popped up faster than either of them could even register. Her right foot came up, extending in a beautiful arc. Her toe caught Churkin under the chin, the assassin’s head moving at just the right time to bring her jaw into painful contact with a heavy shoe at high speed.
Nick watched the scene unfold in awe. Churkin’s head was higher than Reese’s by several inches, but Reese still managed to get that foot up there. And when she set it back down it was damn graceful and steady. She was still standing, but Churkin crumpled into a heap on the floor.
He grinned. “Remind me never to piss you off!”
“You already did—”
He almost didn’t hear the last word; he was hit from behind and fell forward into Reese’s open arms. The baseball bat clattered to the floor as she dropped it in order to catch him, and they both stumbled over Churkin’s prone form.
Nick tried desperately to not pull the trigger.