Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas Part 18

"I left them at a blackjack table...who the h.e.l.l was that?"

"The viper being nursed in Rome's bosom."

Dena gave me a look. "Caligula?" she asked flatly.

"That is who that quote references. Anyway, he's the one who equated himself to Caligula, I'm just taking him at his word."

Dena put a little more weight on her cane. "Caligula was psychotic."

"Yes, but he built some very useful aqueducts."

"Well I guess that makes up for throwing all those innocent people in with the lions...you know, I think I've seen him before."

"My Caligula? Where? At the Hotel Noir?"

"No, I think I saw him in the lobby just a little while ago, when we were going down to the casino. He was talking to this really gorgeous Latina woman and this other guy. Normally I wouldn't have noticed them but again, this woman is a showstopper."

"Really," I said quietly. "I wonder if that was his housekeeper."

Dena laughed. "Trust me, she's not anyone's housekeeper. She's still downstairs. I saw her on the way up."

"Wait, what?"

"She's..."

But I didn't wait for her to finish the sentence. I grabbed my purse and was immediately out the door and rus.h.i.+ng toward the elevator.

"Sophie! Where are you going?" Dena called after me.

"No time to explain, I'll be back later!" I called back. It was questionable whether or not she heard me but I couldn't worry about that. I jumped on the down elevator. I had to see if it was Margarita...and if so, was she the woman Alex was speaking to on the phone? What was the significance of that? Why would he bring her here?

When the elevator got to the ground floor I rushed out and practically ran to the lobby. Once I got there I swiveled my head this way and that trying to spot Margarita...but I didn't see her. I didn't even see a single Latina woman who Dena would have considered a showstopper. "f.u.c.k," I muttered. I turned around ready to walk back to the elevators and smashed right into Marcus.

"Caught you," he said. "Dena just called me. She said you took off like a bat out of h.e.l.l to find a Latin love thang."

"She's not here," I said disappointedly.

"She? Are we playing on a coed team these days?"

"Come on Marcus, that's not what's going on here, and you know it."

Marcus shook his head and pulled on one of his locs. "All I know is that you can't just run off on Dena like that. She can't keep up with you anymore."

"I didn't want her to keep up," I said irritably. "I wanted...Marcus!" I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the arbor trees the hotel had placed along the outskirts of the room.

"What are you--"

"Shh!" I tried to hide behind a ten-inch-wide trunk. Keeping my head low I gestured toward a woman dressed in what looked like a very expensive outfit walking past us with a man who had an arm full of tattoos. The woman was Margarita.

"Who's that?" Marcus asked.

"Margarita, she's a housekeeper."

"Yeah right. Seriously, who is she?"

"I told you, she's...oh just come on!" I grabbed his arm and walked him through the trees until we were forced to be in the open again. By then Margarita and her friend were walking out of the hotel.

"We can't let them get away!" I cried, still yanking Marcus along.

"Could they be dangerous?"

"Maybe, but so am I! I have a gun...oh, wait I forgot to bring it."

I wasn't looking at Marcus but I could actually feel him rolling his eyes. I threw the doors open as we walked outside. I didn't see them.

"They probably got in a cab," Marcus said but just then I spotted them walking and turning toward the strip.

"Perfect! Let's go!"

"What's perfect about this?" Marcus asked. "If I'm understanding this, we're following potentially dangerous criminals and we're unarmed."

"Yeah, but they're on foot and it's not like they're going to shoot us in the middle of the Vegas strip."

"Really? Tell that to Tupac."

"Shh!" I said, more out of frustration than necessity. "I don't see them, do you?"

We had just turned onto the Vegas strip. There were people everywhere but I couldn't spot Margarita or the tattooed man to save my life.

"Maybe they finally got in a car," Marcus suggested again.

"Or maybe they turned down a side street." I pointed to the nearest one and gestured for Marcus to follow me. There were still people on the street when we got off the strip but their numbers dropped off dramatically.

I didn't see them.

"This is not happening," I moaned.

"You know, they looked rather...Latin."

"Yeah, so?"

"So I thought we were fighting the Russians? Did we switch nationalities?"

"Well, maybe not everyone who works for the Russian mafia is Russian."

"Really? From what I've heard, the Italian mob is only open to Italians. I know the Chinese gangs are only open to the Chinese. But you're telling me that the Russian mafia is an equal opportunity employer?"

"Maybe?" I said doubtfully. I kept walking, not because I expected to spot them now, but because walking helps me think. There was something very familiar about that tattooed guy...had I seen him at the Hotel Noir? But so much of that night was blur. I just couldn't be sure.

"I'm texting Dena and telling her we're all right," Marcus said as he pulled out his phone while walking beside me. "But I do have another question for you."

"Shoot."

"Why is the mafia so intent on hunting Anatoly down?"

"I told you, the FBI agent--"

"Yes, yes," he said stepping over a discarded plastic bag on the sidewalk. The pedestrian traffic was getting lighter and lighter. "But it's not like he could introduce another FBI agent to them now and he hasn't been involved in the crime family for a while so he has no new information to pa.s.s on to the Feds. Why are they so intent on coming after him now?"

I hadn't thought of it in those terms. "A show of strength? A warning to others who might try the same thing?"

"Maybe," Marcus conceded. "Or maybe someone's just f.u.c.king with us."

For a brief moment I felt giddy. It's not that what Marcus was saying hadn't occurred to me but having it come from his mouth gave it validity. It was possible that we were dealing with individuals rather than an entire crime organization. Individuals I could deal with.

I was about to grab Marcus' hands and do a little happy dance when a limo pulled up beside us and a door opened. Natasha stepped out, a tight smile on her face. "Just the people I was looking for."

Marcus and I exchanged looks. I wasn't ready to give up my newfound hopefulness quite yet, but Natasha showing up out of the blue probably wasn't a good sign. "Is Anatoly with you?" I asked.

"No. But come take a ride with me anyway."

In fact it was a very bad sign. "I have a gun, you know."

"Really?" Natasha asked, as if somehow charmed by this. "Can I see it?"

"Well, I don't actually have it with me but if you give me a second I'd be happy to run back to my hotel room and--"

"Not necessary." She knocked on the roof of the limo. From the pa.s.senger side of both the front and back seat two very large men stepped out and stared down at Marcus and me.

"They have guns on them," Natasha explained. "So we won't be needing yours."

And now my giddiness was completely and absolutely squelched. I threw a questioning glance at Marcus who looked absolutely terrified. "You can't kidnap us right here in the open!" I said hopefully. "Someone will see."

We all looked around. The only one anywhere near us was a homeless guy who seemed very intent on not noticing anything.

"We're gonna risk it," Natasha said sweetly. "Get in the car, please."

I swallowed hard and allowed Natasha to usher Marcus and myself into her limo.

CHAPTER 16.

"I don't mind that my husband still enjoys b.u.mper cars. I just wish he would refrain from the sport while on the freeway."

--Death of The Party Marcus and I sat stiffly against the leather cus.h.i.+ons as Natasha and one of her gun-toting bodyguards got in after us. At Natasha's instruction, he searched my purse and kept it by his side. Then she rapped her knuckles against the part.i.tion and within seconds we were moving down the street.

For the first few minutes of the drive Natasha just stared at me. I met her gaze without flinching. My life expectancy might not be very good at the moment, but I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't going to go out sniveling.

Finally she graced me with a smile. "Anatoly thinks you're a victim in all this, maybe even a p.a.w.n."

I studied her expression carefully. "You don't agree."

"I don't. I think you're a manipulative b.i.t.c.h who has been sleeping with my husband." She leaned forward. "I think that maybe you know a lot more than you're letting on. I think that you might very well have booked that room at the Hotel Noir after all."

"And why would I do that?"

Natasha shrugged. "I don't know...revenge maybe? I know a little about that." She pulled a switchblade out of her purse.

"Oh dear, G.o.d," Marcus gasped, "she's about to go all West Side Story on us."

"A couple of weeks ago a man was killed," Natasha said. "I saw them hold him down. I watched as he begged before my friend pushed a gun into his mouth and blew his head off." She paused for a moment. "I know what you're thinking."

"Really?" Marcus asked weakly. "Then you know you're going to have to pa.s.s me a barf bag in about five seconds."

"You're thinking that the scene I just described is brutal," she continued, completely ignoring Marcus' warning. "But brutality has its place. Sometimes you have to send a message. The guy Igor killed was stealing from the family and he had to pay for that. He had to pay in a way that let everybody else know that his mistake should never be repeated."

Marcus pressed his lips together, probably battling his urge to vomit.

"Did you order the hit?" I was surprised at how steady my voice sounded, particularly since what I really wanted to do was jump out of this moving vehicle, drop, roll and run for my life...it always worked in the Mission Impossible movies.

"That's dad's job, not mine...sometimes my uncle gets to make the call." She s.h.i.+fted her body and stared out the tinted windows. "I considered running off with Anatoly and rejecting the violence altogether, but it turns out rejecting violence isn't like dieting. You can't just cut down on it. It's more like giving up smoking. You can pretend that you're not really a smoker because you only have a cigarette or two while you're drinking but it's obvious to everyone else that the only way you can be a nonsmoker is if you stop smoking entirely. No cigarettes, no cigars and definitely no chewing tobacco."

She seemed to expect me to comment on that but I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"When it comes to violence," she continued, "Anatoly is a smoker, just like me. The only difference between the two of us is that I own it. I was raised in it, I was nurtured by it and I embrace it. I know who I am and what kind of world I have chosen to live in. Anatoly's life with you is nothing but a facade to help him hide the truth about his nature from everyone...including himself. But when offered a stick of violence he will always inhale."

Marcus was now looking more than a little green. I clasped my hands in my lap and sighed loudly. "I'm sorry, am I here for a satellite course in criminal psychology, or do you actually have something important to say?"

Watching the anger distort Natasha's features was fun...probably dangerous, but definitely fun.

But Natasha pulled herself back from the brink quickly. The bodyguard next to her was looking at Marcus with what appeared to be concern. "Are you okay?" he asked him, which was enough to make all of us do a double take.

"Bo, he's fine," Natasha snapped before Marcus could answer. She turned to me with a glare. "It was Innokenty who brought in the FBI agent who went by the name of Daniil...you've heard about this?" she asked.

Innokenty? I thought Alex had told me that someone named Kenya had brought the FBI guy into the fold.

"That name sounds familiar," Marcus said quietly.

Again Natasha ignored him. "Anatoly was as clueless as the rest of us. He never wanted to hurt my family. Not even for a second."

"Okay," I tried to keep a poker face but my mind was spinning. Why would Alex lie about the name...or was Natasha lying now?

"But Alex didn't think so. I believe you've met Alex, the GM at Hotel Noir?"