Vendetta Girl (A Natalia Nicolaeva Thriller Book 2) Read online

  “Forget about your petty old scores, Sasha,” said Aleksy. “It’s unhealthy. Why don’t you tell us what you’re up to since? Who are you working for these days?”

  “You know how it is. My clients demand discretion.” Leaning forward onto the table, Sasha’s expression lit up. “I will tell you this much… By this time next week, I stand to be a very wealthy man.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve got a little sideline venture going.”

  A cloud crossed Aleksy’s face. “What kind of sideline venture?”

  “A little bit of trading. That’s all.”

  “With who’s money?”

  Sasha smiled weakly. “A loan of sorts. Don’t worry about it.”

  Aleksy was genuinely concerned. “With you, I always worry.”

  On the table between them, Sasha’s phone lit up, vibrating against the hard wood surface. Incoming Call: Dmitri read the screen. Sasha’s face went slightly pale as he reached for the device. “I better take this.” He glanced anxiously toward his friends before rising to his feet and abruptly leaving the table, moving up the stairs and out toward the street as he answered the call.

  “Someone you know?” Natalia asked.

  “Dmitri?” Aleksy shrugged. “I know lots of Dmitri’s.”

  Natalia sipped her cold beer, a luxury she hadn’t enjoyed in a great while. Despite the hardships of her recent past, moments of brightness still existed in life. The trick was in learning to appreciate them. She ought to get out more, Natalia thought. By the time her drink was halfway finished, she felt the alcohol flowing through her veins. The bar was filling up, with more students trickling in as classes wrapped up for the day.

  “How long have you and Sasha been friends?” Natalia tried to make small talk.

  “Long enough to know better!” Aleksy laughed.

  They chatted about his job, and her school, and when their beers were nearly gone, Sasha still wasn’t back. “Why don’t I get the next round?” Natalia stood. Julia was right, she couldn’t have just one.

  “No, no! The next is on me, I insist!” Aleksy raised one hand in the air.

  “Why, because I’m a girl? My money is as good as yours. Save your rubles.”

  Aleksy threw his hands up in the air. “I’m not going to argue with a lawyer.”

  “Fine, but I’m not a lawyer.”

  “You see? I’m losing this argument already.”

  Natalia made her way her way to the far side of the room where she nestled up along one side of the bar. Waiting her turn, she kept an eye on the scene. At a table nearby sat a man with a near-empty bottle of vodka for company. He was middle-aged, though probably younger than he looked, with graying hair and creases in his face. The man took a drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out in a tray of smoldering butts. He poured the last of his vodka into a glass and threw it back, swallowing it in one go. Placing his glass on the table, the man’s head swayed gently side to side.

  “What will you have?” The bartender startled Natalia.

  “Oh! Three beers.”

  “Large or small?”

  Natalia may have been willing to drink another, but she still had no intention of keeping up with these boys. “Two large and one small.”

  The bartender reached for the glasses. As he filled them, Natalia peered back across the room. She saw Sasha come down the stairs and move toward their table. Something about his demeanor struck her as peculiar. He seemed unsettled. Wide-eyed and unsmiling. He sat without a word and put both hands on the table, pushing his phone to one side. Aleksy asked a question, but Sasha snapped in response.

  The bartender placed one beer on the bar, and then another. When he’d filled the third, he entered the charge. “Seven hundred and fifty.”

  Natalia tapped her card on the reader and out came a receipt. “Thank you.” She tucked the card back into her purse and slid it into her jacket pocket.

  Across the room, Natalia saw another man come down the stairs from outside. He wasn’t a student, nor a middle-aged alcoholic. This man was slick; tall and broad, in a designer suit. His dark hair had a salt and pepper gray at the sides. There was an air of confidence about him… or perhaps arrogance was a better word. His strong jaw tilted slightly upwards as he scanned the room. Natalia had experience with men like this. She knew what they were capable of. A chill took hold of her. She tried to remind herself that Istanbul was behind her. She was a college student, enjoying a beer with some friends. Nobody was after her anymore. And yet, when the man spotted Sasha, he made his way straight to the table. Something was not right, that much seemed clear. Sasha cowered, his body language giving away his deep unease as he slunk backwards toward the wall. The men exchanged words, the newcomer waving a finger in the air. What were they talking about? Natalia couldn’t tell. From the bar, she arranged her three glasses into a triangle between her fingers and gently lifted them into the air.

  As she moved across the room, Natalia saw Sasha force a smile. He reached into a pocket and pulled out Natalia’s flash drive, pointing to it as he explained something. The man took the drive, nodded, and then slid it into his pocket. What could he possibly want with her class notes? Aleksy turned in Natalia’s direction, a frightened expression on his face, too. He shook his head slowly, left to right, trying to tell her… what? To stay away? She was four meters from the table when the man reached under his suit jacket. Natalia’s world spun in slow motion as he pulled out a gun. She saw the glint of metal, the finger on the trigger. She saw the disbelief in Sasha’s eyes as the man opened fire, pumping four rounds into her young friend’s body. Screams rang out as Sasha collapsed onto the bench. Next it was Aleksy’s turn. Arms raised in the air, he was too terrified to plead for his life. This time the killer pulled the trigger just once, splattering her new friend’s brains against the wall. The three glasses slipped from Natalia’s fingers, floating downwards in free fall until they shattered against the stone floor. The gunman’s head swiveled toward her, gun aimed Natalia’s chest. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She caught a slight upturn in the man’s lips, as though the sight of her amused him. He tucked his gun back underneath his jacket and beat a hasty retreat, past the inert bouncer, up the stairs and out.

  As soon as he was gone, Natalia rushed to Sasha’s side. Blood dripped off the bench, pooling on the floor beneath his body. She felt for a pulse, but it was too late. One glance at Aleksy’s shattered skull and she had to look away. Her two friends were dead.

  Joining a mad rush for the exit, Natalia bumped and pushed her way along with the panicked crowd. Up the stone stairs they went, disgorged onto the street above, a stumbling mass of hysteria. Quickly, Natalia scanned the scene. Halfway up the block, she spotted the killer disappearing into the back of a black Maserati. The car sped off down the street. Natalia knew she shouldn’t get any further involved. She shouldn’t compound the situation by putting her own life on the line, and yet… instinct took over. She simply couldn’t help herself. The old Natalia, the Natalia who’d never strayed past the confines of her small rural village, never would have been so bold. That Natalia would have cowered at the prospect of confronting such dangers, but after everything that had happened to her over the past few years, the timid Natalia was long gone. In her place was the new Natalia, who instinctively chased after the Maserati on foot. What would she possibly do if she caught up to it? That thought was only a glimmer. This man killed her friends in cold blood, right in front of her. If Natalia had learned one thing in Istanbul, it was that such incidents could not go unpunished. And so she ran, weaving through startled pedestrians as she raced along the sidewalk, hoping for a miracle. The Maserati turned right and disappeared around a corner, wheels spinning.

  As Natalia approached the intersection, she heard the crash without seeing it; a loud screeching of brakes followed by crunching metal and shattering glass. Arriving at the corner, she spotted a city bus at the end of the block, resting diag
onally across the roadway with a gaping hole in the side. Spun around at a 60-degree angle was the Maserati, front end smashed into a heap of twisted metal. A red and white Japanese superbike lay on its side, the stunned rider sprawled on the pavement nearby. Natalia paused to take it all in for a brief moment and then hurried forward. She saw the crumpled door of the Maserati being pushed open from the inside. The driver emerged from under an inflated white airbag. From the back seat, the killer climbed through a smashed window, blood running down his face, soaking his expensive suit. Passersby stopped to gawk, edging closer to the unfolding drama.

  Slowing her pace, Natalia reached one hand inside her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone. She quickly switched on the video camera, pointing her lens toward the action as she tried to blend in with the gathering crowd. The Maserati driver was a man of Central Asian origin, with dark hair and a round face. He appeared unscathed as he came to the aid of the killer, who hobbled across the pavement on an injured leg.

  From the mangled bus, that driver stumbled down the steps to the street. He peered in confusion at the Maserati, then at his bus, before gesturing toward the two men as they shuffled away. “Hey, where are you going?! Look what you’ve done!”

  Caught up in the chaos, a silver Range Rover attempted to navigate past the scene. The Maserati driver blocked the vehicle’s path, pulling out a gun of his own and pointing it at the windshield. Screams of terror emanated from the crowd. With a quick flick of the wrist, the gunman motioned for the occupants to exit. A well-dressed couple climbed from the car, arms in the air. The gunman helped load the injured hitman into the back seat before taking his place behind the wheel. A moment later, the Range Rover lurched forward, hopping a curb. With a screech of tires, the SUV swerved across the sidewalk, plowing through pedestrians before dropping back onto the street beyond the bus and speeding away.

  Natalia quickly shut off her camera, slid the phone back into her pocket and zipped it closed. She ran across the intersection toward the young motorcyclist, helmet off as passersby attended to him. Hardly slowing, she heaved the motorcycle off the ground and hopped on. The injured rider jumped to his feet, but it was too late to stop her. Natalia hit the ignition, revved twice and popped the bike into gear. Weaving around bags, parcels, and pedestrians sprawled along the ground, she made her way around the bus and flew up the street in pursuit. Natalia didn’t spot the Range Rover right away, though they couldn’t have gotten far. She slowed at the first intersection, looked right and then left before seeing the silver SUV, barreling up another sidewalk. Natalia pulled a hard left and followed after.

  At the next corner, the SUV turned right, off the sidewalk and onto a wider avenue, sideswiping a rusty Lada as it went. Who were these people? What was this all about? And what was she getting herself mixed up in? These questions were only quick flashes through her gray matter as Natalia struggled to keep up.

  When traffic thinned, the Range Rover picked up speed until they were hurtling down the road at speeds reaching 160 kilometers per hour, heading toward the city center. Natalia kept pace, staying just far enough behind that they might not notice her. Hopefully they had more on their minds than some girl on a motorcycle. If she could figure out where they went, it would be a start. There were witnesses to their crime. She had the men on video just afterward. An arrest would bring justice, if the authorities could be trusted. All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t lose this car.

  When they reached the river, the SUV turned right onto a busy boulevard, flying through red lights as they went, just missing several more collisions. Natalia scooted through an intersection after them, drawing closer as she went. Too close? Just as that thought passed through her mind, the car’s rear left window shattered. The barrel of a gun protruded from the opening. Natalia hit the brakes, ducking low as she swerved away. She saw muzzle flashes as the weapon fired once, twice, three times. Her windscreen shattered, and then one headlight. Sparks flew off her handlebars as Natalia hit the brakes, her heart sinking as the Range Rover raced onto the Palace Bridge and across the river, disappearing into a sea of traffic.

  Natalia’s adrenaline surged as she pulled to a stop along the road. She quickly gave herself a once over, checking her arms, legs, chest. Aside from a few small cuts from shattered Plexiglas, she was unharmed. From a distance came the blare of sirens. Moments later, two police cars sped across the bridge in pursuit, blue lights flashing. Natalia looked over the rail into the cold, black waters of the Neva flowing silently below. With no warning at all, she was thrust back into this place of darkness, this cruel desert of the human spirit that she’d fought so hard to escape. Popping the bike back into first gear, Natalia spun around and headed back the way she had come, back along the river and toward the life of a quiet university student that she so desperately craved. Destiny, it seemed, had other plans.

  Chapter Two

  Approaching the scene of the bus accident, Natalia rode slowly rode toward the mangled wreckage. Emergency vehicles were only just arriving. Medical personnel scrambled from ambulances and rushed to attend to victims. Police officers questioned the bus driver. A photographer snapped shots of the Maserati. The young motorcyclist was on his feet and only slightly worse for wear. Natalia parked the bike at some distance and then approached as stealthily as possible, head tilted down and away. She could talk to the police, to provide a description and share her video footage, yet just the sight of these uniformed officers caused her anxiety to spike. They would most certainly confiscate her phone. If on the wrong side, they might just delete the video and then deny it ever existed. Worse yet, they could potentially relay her identity to whoever was behind this whole thing. These fears weren’t out of the question. She’d seen it before. No, Natalia couldn’t risk such an outcome. She couldn’t reveal herself, not yet, anyway. She spotted the motorcyclist’s helmet resting on the curb. Moving past, she bent low and dropped the keys inside as she went. She was a good ten steps further down the road before she heard the man calling out.

  “Hey! That’s her! She stole my bike!”

  Natalia took one quick look back to see his arm raised in the air, finger pointing toward her. Natalia ran. She ducked, and darted, winding through the traffic-choked streets and past the bar where the murders had gone down. She ran all the way back through the campus, heaving with exhaustion as her lungs filled with the bitter taste of blood. Approaching her dormitory, she finally slowed to a walk, looking over her shoulder to make sure nobody was following. She saw only students, coming and going as usual, some with books and backpacks, others heading out to the bars themselves, or coming back from dinner in the cafeteria. Instead of ducking into her building, Natalia continued past, taking a long detour around the block just to make sure. In her mind, she saw Sasha the jokester, laughing as he sat at their table. She saw the good-natured Aleksy, putting up with his annoying friend. She saw the hitman enter, remembering the alarm bells that instantly went off in her mind. This was a bad man, she’d known from the moment she spotted him. Natalia remembered the helpless feeling in her gut as she watched her friends gunned down right before her eyes. She pictured the bus accident, then chasing after the Range Rover on her motorcycle, the muzzle flashes as he tried to take her out next. What had she been thinking, going after them like that on a whim? What had she hoped to achieve? It was foolhardy. She didn’t know what Sasha was involved in, or what any of this was all about. What she did know, however, was that she couldn’t allow her life to be ruled by fear. She would pass along what information she had when the time was right, carefully and with forethought. Sasha was owed that much. Aleksy, too. But Natalia would do things her own way. She remembered Sasha handing over her flash drive. It made no sense. They were merely class notes, along with a folder full of music files and a few movie downloads. She tried to remember if any of the files contained her name or contact information, wracking her brain. Natalia didn’t think so, as far as she could recall, anyway...

  After circling back to
her dormitory, Natalia approached the front door, taking her ID out of her pocket and waving it in front of the reader. She saw a green light flash and heard the lock click open. Pushing the door, she looked up directly into the round plastic lens of a security camera, pausing as she considered the implications. With the right footage, whoever wanted to find Natalia could follow her all the way from the scene of the bus accident, back to campus and then home. With her ID scanned, they would know exactly who she was in an instant; when she left and when she came home. But did the killers have those connections? Or perhaps it would be the police who came calling? Somebody was bound to track her down. Natalia would be foolish to assume otherwise.

  Making her way into the building, she took the elevator to the sixth floor and walked down the hall. Opening her door, she was relieved to find the room empty. Without Julia there, it would give Natalia space to think. Moving to the window, she pulled the curtain aside and peered down into the quad below. Lamps were just coming on for the evening. All was quiet, with only a few students going about their business. Natalia let go of the curtain and then dropped onto her bed, back against the wall as she took slow, steady breaths. She was a witness. She could identify the killer and his driver, and that was enough for them to want her dead. Of course, everyone else in the bar and half of the people on the street could probably ID the man, but how many came after him in a high-speed pursuit? Natalia had to consider every potential outcome. A hitman showing up at her dorm room was certainly possible. It was best to disappear for a while.

  Natalia climbed off the bed and knelt to peer underneath before sliding out a black canvas duffel bag. She put the empty bag on top of the bed and unzipped it. Opening her bureau, she pulled out what clothes she might need for one week and stuffed them inside the duffel; T-shirts, clean pants, sweatshirt, underwear, socks… She paused for a moment before throwing in a tight red dress and a pair of heels. One never knew what might be needed. Taking off her high-top sneakers, she tossed them inside as well before putting on a sturdier pair of black leather boots and lacing them up the front. Next, she moved to her small sink, opening the medicine cabinet to remove her toiletry bag. With that packed away, she tossed in a pair of sensible flats and then zipped the duffel closed.