Ripped Veil

Chapter 3 Episode 3

He’s been avoiding me, though. I’d scored this meeting only because I’d lied about the reason for it. A temporary truce is what I told him. An attempt to broker a mutually beneficial deal between the two biggest players in Las Vegas. It was too tempting an offer for Ozol to pass up, so I’d secured my meeting.

But I’m starting to smell a rat. Because there’s no excuse for this kind of delay.

Ten more minutes and his absence will go from rude to insulting. And the only answer to insults in the underworld… is violence.

I’m about to reach for the shiny new bottle of Isabella’s Islay —when the door bursts open. I whip around, abandoning the whiskey to face Viktor Ozol.

Except it’s not Ozol at all.

The person standing in the doorway is a frail blonde who looks like she’s been plucked off the poster of some Gothic horror movie. She’s wearing a ripped wedding dress, torn in several places, dusty and bloodstained at the hem.

She stares at me without seeing as she stumbles blearily into the room. I walk towards her cautiously, wondering what kind of game Ozol is playing with me.

My hand strays towards the tiny knife I managed to conceal from security, but I resist pulling it out. No sense in showing my cards before I have to.

The girl—I suppose she’s a woman, but she looks so young and innocent that “girl” seems more appropriate—looks up at me. She has huge amber eyes fanned with thick black eyelashes and ringed with smudged mascara. Her blonde hair has lost its sheen to sweat, and her breaths burst from her in small, pain-filled gasps.

She looks like every other girl I’ve seen here tonight: beautiful. Young. Broken.

The only difference is that, on her… it shows.

“Who the f**k are you?” I snarl.

She blanches, her eyebrows furrowing as though she’s trying to shake off the voices in her head.

I look around the room, but it doesn’t appear that we’re being watched. Of course, that means f**k-all. There are a million places to hide a camera in here if someone with bad intentions wanted to observe.

I turn back to her, unmoved by the tear tracks leaving streaks down her hollow cheeks. She still hasn’t answered my question.

“I asked you a question,” I repeat. “Who the f**k are you?”

“Please,” she whispers, as though terrified to speak out loud, “don’t curse.”

I raise my eyebrows. Did she just tell me to watch my language? I almost laugh. I’m thirty-two years old, and it’s been more than two decades since someone has told me to watch what I say.

Her eyes dart from side to side and her hands twitch at her sides. I look down and notice that her fingernails are bloody. She seems to be shivering, too.

“I… I… The lights were so bright,” she stammers. Her words slur. “I was just trying… trying to get away from everything… A door was open… I went… I came in here… and there were… I saw… I saw…”

The trembling is more pronounced now. Her eyes are unfocused. I’ve seen this before, more times than I care to relive.

She’s drugged.

“Listen to me,” I order, raising my hands palms up. I don’t touch her, but I take a step closer. “Calm down. Breathe.”

She complies instantly, melting with innocence and looking into my eyes like she’s desperately waiting for my next instruction.

This girl doesn’t fit the mold of a spy or an assassin. She can’t possibly be working for Ozol. But maybe the fact that she’s an unlikely recruit is exactly the reason he’s sent her in here.

“How do you feel now?” I ask.

“I…” She shakes her head, and a fresh tear squeezes from the corner of one eye. “I’m scared,” she admits, her voice breaking.

“Did someone bring you in here?”

“No. I was on the streets… There were so many lights, so many people… I just wanted some quiet. I needed to think.” Her eyes dart around the room. Whatever she notices clearly doesn’t make her feel any better, because she clams up instantly. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“No,” I agree, “you shouldn’t.”

Any minute now, a very bad man is going to walk through that door. The only thing that would keep her safe is the very bad man who’s already in here.

Me.

“But I can’t go back out there,” she pleads desperately. “There were men and women. They were everywhere. They were…”

“f*****g,” I offer coldly.

She flinches at the curse. There’s no way this woman works for Ozol. There’s no way this woman has spent any time in the underworld at all.

But then again, she’s standing in front of me in a bedraggled wedding dress and bare, dusty feet. And there’s literal blood on her hands.

So she can’t be as innocent as she looks.

“I was trying to get out,” she says in a small voice. “But I just… The rooms got worse. There were men and they looked at me… They tried to touch…”

Her breathing is getting panicked again.

“It’s okay,” I interrupt. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know,” she replies instantly. Her answer seems to surprise her. It sure as hell surprises the f**k out of me.

I frown. “You know?”

Her brow wrinkles as she tries to gather her thoughts. Her eyes keep going in and out of focus. Whatever she was slipped, it’s strong. She’s still fighting the after-effects, even if she doesn’t yet know it.

Before she can respond to my question, the door opens slowly. Acting on instinct, I grab her hand and push her behind me.

This time, the person at the door is exactly who I expect to see.

“Viktor,” I greet coolly, trying to salvage the situation despite the desperate girl trembling behind me.

He’s dressed to kill in a navy suit and a white collared shirt. His cufflinks catch the candlelight—a pair of black swans, set in metal. His alarmingly light blue eyes linger on me for a mere second before they fall on the unkempt bride trying to disappear under my shadow.

“What the f**k is this, Kovalyov?” Ozol asks, his tone rippling with annoyance. “We agreed to meet alone.”

“She’s not part of this,” I snap back.

He looks at me suspiciously. So I’m right in assuming she’s just a cosmic fluke that’s stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong f*****g time.

“You told me you wanted to meet to discuss a truce.”

“Among other things.”

His eyes narrow dangerously. Movement flickers from just beyond the door. Enough to let me know that Ozol is not alone like he claimed to be.

“What kept you, Ozol?” I drawl. I know I need to play this smarter, but my hatred for the man runs deeper than he could ever imagine. It takes so much effort to keep the black rage from pouring out of me. “You were scared to meet me alone?”

“Says the man who brought the bride of Frankenstein to the party,” he retorts. “Why the hell is she dressed like that?”

The way he looks at her has me seething. Is that the way he looks at all his victims before he tears their lives apart?

I step right in front of her, blocking her from view. “Like I said, she’s not part of this. She stumbled in here moments before you did. Wrong room.”

“And yet you seem keen on protecting her.”

“From you?” I say. “Someone has to.”

He glowers at me. “You didn’t come here for a truce, did you, young Phoenix?”

“Oh, I did,” I tell him, my fingers twitching with anticipation. “And I plan on seeing it through.”

I push the girl to the side, forcing her behind one of the wing-backed armchairs. Then I whip out my knife.

Ozol moves at the same time. But when he raises his hand, it’s a gun he’s holding.

He sees the blade glimmering in my hand and laughs. “You brought a knife to a gunfight? Stupid Russian.”

I’m not scared for myself as I stare down the barrel of his gun. Death stopped scaring me a long time ago. My only point of concern is the terrified girl cowering behind the black armchair.

Viktor stalks closer. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupid to ask for this meeting. Stupid to think you could walk onto my turf and leave in one piece.”

I spit on the floor at his feet. “I’m still standing, mudak.”

A slow smile pulls up the corners of his mouth. “Not for long.”

Chapter 3: Elyssa

3

I’m caught between two angels of death.

The man closest to me is all darkness. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark, handsome features. He’s wearing dark pants and a black t-shirt underneath a black leather jacket that fits him perfectly, accentuating the raw power of his arms.

The man standing against the open door is his opposite. He’s got light hair and pale blue irises. His skin is ashen, almost sallow. And he’s dressed as though he’s going to a wedding.

Somehow—of all the rooms in all the buildings in all the world—I’ve managed to stumble into the worst possible one I could have chosen.

And I’m forced to look to a devil for protection.