In For the Kill by Shannon McKenna Read Free Book Online Page B

from glowing possibility to bittersweet memory.
    She wasn’t ready for the shift. It pressed her chest, hurt her heart. The driver accepted his fare and tip. The cab pulled away.
    â€œStop!”
    The car lurched to a startled halt.
    Sveti reeled, swaying on the sidewalk. Shocked at the enormous sound that had just emerged from her body. Not a yell. Not a screech.
    No, that had been a wake-the-dead bellow, like a maddened bull.
    He shifted into reverse and backed to where she stood. She jolted into movement, wrenched open the car’s back door.
    â€œDid you forget something, miss?” he asked.
    â€œYes.” She slid inside before she could chicken out. “I forgot where I was going. Will you take me to 233 Hauser Street?”
    The driver looked perplexed. “It’ll have to be a new fare. I already zeroed out the meter.”
    â€œThat’s fine.” The vehicle surged forward. Her heart was bruising her ribs from the inside. Oh, God, oh God. She was about to smash herself full-on into a brick wall. Just to see how it felt. For the pure, bloody, messy, masochistic fun of it.
    What the hell. She was no stranger to pain.
    Â 
    Amazingly, Kang dared to peer out the window again, tempting Josef to kill him now before he fucked things up any further. “I told you, get down! ”
    â€œShe won’t see me,” Kang said, his voice defensive. “She’s in the cab again, turning the corner. So’s the van. Chan Yun’s following.”
    Josef bolted for the window. Fuck. He seized the walkie-talkie. “Chan Yun!” he barked. “You’re following her cab?”
    â€œYes,” Yun replied. “They’re a block ahead and heading north.”
    â€œKeep on them,” he snarled. He’d been so primed to touch her.
    His cell vibrated. His boss. Micromanaging, as always. “Yes?”
    â€œHave you questioned her yet?” the vor demanded.
    â€œNot yet. She arrived, but got back in her taxi and left again without coming upstairs.”
    Cherchenko was silent for a beat. “So. You lost her. Again.”
    â€œNo, sir. I have never lost her. Chan Yun is following the—”
    â€œAnd you trust that snakehead filth?”
    Josef’s nostrils flared. “He’s competent enough to follow a cab.”
    â€œCan it really be so difficult to subdue a little doe-eyed hundred-and-ten-pound cunt, Josef? Have you lost your touch?”
    â€œShe was up all last night with her upstairs neighbor, packing and trying on clothes,” Josef said through his teeth. “The night before, the landlord had a barbecue on his lawn and half the neighborhood was there until dawn. Before that, she was up at Steele and Janos’s residence on the Washington coast, and I could not risk—”
    â€œThere’s a great deal you do not risk, Josef. Because I am the one who carries the risk. I took a risk on you when you brokered that deal with the Georgians for the generators, remember? I risked twenty-eight million euros, and where is it? Have I seen it? I am the one fronting the fee for your snakehead patsies, too, so do not talk to me about risk.”
    â€œI will earn back that money for you ten times over,” Josef said.
    â€œYes? And while you hypothetically multiply my cash, my sons are left unguarded. Sasha got away, Josef. He went straight to the press.”
    â€œThe press?” Josef was aghast. “But Aleksei and Andrei—”
    â€œAre fucking fools. Aleksei barely caught him in time. He was with a journalist. We recovered an envelope. Full of photographs that would have ruined us all, including you, my risk-averse friend. He knows exactly where The Sword of Cain is hidden, that lying piece of shit. Six years, he’s fucked me over. My own flesh and blood.”
    Josef was startled. Sasha? He would never have thought that frail, wasted bag of bones would have the nerve. “Is he dead?”
    â€œNo,