Secured By The Seal. Carol Ericson

Chapter Fifteen

       Epilogue

       Extract

       Prologue

      The sun shimmered across the water of the Black Sea, but Alexei had his Dragunov pointed at the land, specifically a patch of emerald green lawn that rolled down to the beach. Alexei’s lip curled at the deadly irony of training his Russian-made sniper rifle on...Russians.

      The boat bobbed, and Alexei widened his stance, speaking into the mic clipped to his T-shirt. “We’d better get a signal here soon before the wind kicks up any more.”

      From another boat, his team leader’s voice crackled. “We’re waiting for one more member to show up—the most important one, an old-style gangster from the Vory v Zakone.”

      A muscle in Alexei’s jaw jumped at the name of the gang that used to be the most feared and influential criminal organization in the old Soviet Union. New gangs had cropped up since the breakup of the Soviet Union, but the Vory would always be revered by the criminal world even as its relevance slipped away.

      Slade, the team member sharing Alexei’s boat, hunched forward slightly. “Why do we have to wait for him? We’re not shooting any of the mob, right?”

      “Nope.” Alexei licked the salt spray from his lips. “But he’s going to lead his terrorist friends into position on the lawn. I guess it’s his house. He’s their host.”

      Slade whistled between his teeth. “Who said crime didn’t pay?”

      “Not me.” Alexei swept his scope along the large, rambling summer mansion perched at the edge of the sea in the Bulgarian Riviera.

      Their team leader issued a command. “Get focused. We have movement.”

      Alexei tracked the new arrival through his scope. He focused and his heart slammed against the wall of his chest. A flood of adrenaline coursed through his body. He lined up the owner of the extravagant home in his crosshairs—the face older, puffier, but unmistakable.

      He swore under his breath.

      Slade shifted beside him. “You okay? You got your guy?”

      Tracking his rifle from the old gangster to the Chechen terrorist walking toward the sea, Alexei said, “I do now.”

      The countdown started. “Five, four, three, two...”

      Alexei squeezed the trigger of his sniper rifle and dropped the target. His sniper teammates had hit the other terrorists at the same time, but, as Slade had pointed out earlier, the mobsters were off-limits. They’d set up the Chechens for the US military to take out.

      Fighting terrorists sometimes led to strange bedfellows—despicable bedfellows.

      Slade crouched on the deck of the boat and began to break down his rifle. He nudged Alexei, who was still hunched forward in his sniper posture. “You didn’t get a clean shot on your target?”

      “He’s dead.” Alexei swung his rifle from the lifeless body of the Chechen in the sand and zeroed in on the old Vory v Zakone, now laughing and smacking the back of one of his fellow gangsters, celebrating their safety.

      Alexei’s pulse ticked up a notch. His breath hitched in his throat. His trigger finger contracted a centimeter.

      Slade hopped to his feet and jabbed Alexei’s back. “Let’s go, man.”

      Releasing a breath, Alexei lowered the Dragunov and rolled his shoulders.

      You escaped this time, Belkin, but next time I have you in my sights you’ll be a dead man.

       Chapter One

      Three Years Later

      “Britt, I thought you were coming out here for a visit. I’m...in a bit of trouble. Call me.”

      Britt Jansen cut off Leanna’s voice-mail message and stuffed the cell phone into her purse. Dragging the back of her hand across her nose, she blinked the tears away. She flipped down the car’s visor and dabbed her pinkie finger at the edge of her heavily made-up eyes. She couldn’t afford to lose this job before she started.

      The Tattle-Tale Club was her only link to her missing sister.

      She slid from her car, an old compact she’d bought from a private party when she got to LA. Although she’d parked outside the Tattle-Tale’s lot, she didn’t want to be tooling around in a rental car. She’d gone through too much trouble setting up a fake identity.

      In the alley behind the club, she stepped around a transient’s grocery basket to make her way to the back door beneath a red-and-black-striped awning. As she grabbed the handle of the metal door, the owner of the basket approached her.

      “You got any spare change?”

      “Sorry, no.” She held up one hand as she yanked open the door and slipped into the back hallway of the club.

      Irina Markov, the manager, had shown her the ropes yesterday, and Britt plucked her fresh time card from the rack and inserted it in the clock, stamping her arrival time. As she placed the card back in her slot, Irina bustled down the hallway, her dyed blond hair floating around her face.

      “Right on time. Go introduce yourself to the bartender, Jerome Carter. We open in thirty minutes. Once the show starts, it’ll get packed.” Irina patted Britt on the back and then disappeared inside the owner’s office—the owner, Sergei, who’d lied to the police about Leanna.

      Britt squared her shoulders and blew out a breath. She could do this—she’d put herself through college working as a waitress. The harder part would be getting into Sergei’s office after hours, but she had a plan for that, too.

      She strode up to the end of the bar and waved at the bartender setting up. “Hi, I’m Barbie Jones. This is my first night.”

      Jerome wiped his hands on the towel tucked into the waistband of his jeans and leaned forward, hand outstretched. “Nice to meet you, Barbie. Jerome.”

      “Good to meet you, too.” She grasped Jerome’s hand. “Do you need any help back there?”

      He shoved a tray of small candles and cards printed with drink specials toward her. “If you could set up the cocktail tables with these, that’d be great.”

      Britt hoisted the tray and started depositing candles and cards at the tables closest to the stage.

      Leanna had mentioned a nice bartender in her infrequent phone calls, but Britt had no intention of revealing herself to anyone—nice or not—until she could get a handle on the situation. Anyone in this club could be complicit in Leanna’s disappearance.

      The cops had just done a cursory survey of the employees and had come away satisfied with Sergei’s explanation that Leanna—or Lee, as she was known here—had quit to take off with a boyfriend. As flaky as Leanna was, there was no way she would’ve taken off like that without telling her big sister—and there was that voice-mail message.

      As Britt moved to the second row of tables back from the stage, a woman approached her and tapped her on the shoulder.

      “You really shouldn’t put those candles on the tables ringing the stage.” The woman, outfitted in the waitresses’ uniform of short black skirt and white blouse, scrunched up her nose, shaking her head.

      “Why?”

      “Because when the show starts, those guys