Page 98 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

Exactly what I was looking for.

I walk up to the car casually, hands in my pockets, and lean down to look in the window. I can’t see anything because of the tint, but I know he can see me. I offer a friendly smile.

The window cracks a few inches and a pair of eyes, glowing white in the street light above, gleam out at me. “You need something?”

“Just tryin’ not to freeze to death,” I say, pitching my voice with a skewed flair to hide my accent. “It’s startin’ to piss rain out here.”

“You waiting on someone inside?”

I nod. “Boss doesn’t like to leave home without at least one guard. Paranoid.”

“I hear you. All of them are. Always convinced someone wants to kill them.”

I laugh. “You’re tellin’ me. But whatever pays the bills, I guess. I just don’t want to catch pneumonia while I’m doing it. Mind if I sit in the front seat?”

The window rolls down a bit more. I can see the driver is in his thirties, at most. He’s got his phone resting in the crook of the steering wheel, watching the same soccer game that was on the bar TV inside. There’s a gun, still in the holster and hanging halfway off the passenger seat.

“Taras wouldn’t like it…” he says cautiously, glancing up towards the bar. “Bah, fuck him, though! He’ll call when he’s ready for me to drive around and pick him up. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

The doors unlock with an echoing click. I smile as I walk around to the passenger seat.

This man was wrong, though.

What Taras doesn’t know is about to hurt him very, very badly.

The man starts chatting idly about how underappreciated he is. How little the Albanian mob thinks of him. He wants me to commiserate, but I don’t offer much aside from a few sympathetic hums.

“…these fuckin’ pigs keep all the cash, all the girls for themselves. Share the wealth, brother! Am I right?”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “You’re right.” My eyes stay trained on the man’s gun holster. It’s slung casually over the middle console and part of my seat. I finish my cigarette and throw it out of the window onto the damp ground.

As soon as my window is rolled up again, the driver’s phone rings. “Yes,” he intones into the phone. “Yes, sir. Be right there.” He hangs up and gives me a tired shrug. “That was the boss,” he explains. “Time to roll. Good luck out there. Hopefully, you won’t be waiting much longer.”

He leans over to adjust his seat back upright, but when he does, his phone clatters to the floor. “Fucking fuck…” he curses.

That’s when I make my move. By the time he fishes it from the floorboards and straightens up again, I’m pointing his own gun in his face.

He jumps and curses. “Fuck! What the fuck, man?”

“I’m not getting out and you’re not going to tell Taras I’m here. Got it?” The folksy accent earlier is gone. My native Russian coldness seeps through again. Sharp and merciless.

“What do you want?” the driver breathes in terror.

I move the gun closer to his head. “I want you to drive this car and keep your mouth shut. If you so much as breathe wrong, I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

“Are you after Taras?” he asks.

I nod as I sink down into the well in front of the passenger seat, keeping my gun trained on the driver.

“He isn’t so paranoid after all,” I comment. “Now shut up and drive.”

The man mutters Albanian curses under his breath as he reverses out of the lot and drives down the alley. His eyes are darting all around and the car is moving jerkily.

We pull up in front of the bar. The back door is wrenched open and Taras slumps into the rear seat, his eyes closed. He reeks of vodka.

I duck lower and tighten my grip on the gun.

“Fucking hell,” Taras scowls. “What a shitty night. Take me home.”

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