When Laney woke the next morning, Jin was gone. She blinked and sat up, expecting to see the little girl playing on the floor or something, but there was no trace of her and the pink backpack was gone. Laney leaped from the bed and ran from the room, her heart pounding in panic. She nearly ran into a man standing just on the other side of her door.
He looked down at her as she halted in front of him. “Master wants to see you.”
“Where’s Jin?” she demanded instantly.
He shrugged. “With the nanny. Saw her leave. Now get dressed, Master wants to see you right away.”
Laney nodded and retreated back into her room, taking deep breaths to calm herself. She had no reason to disbelieve him about Jin. She just wished she had woken up when her daughter had left. She had laid awake late into the night plotting their escape for the next evening. She must have been tired enough to sleep through the nanny’s removal of her daughter. Damn it!
She showered quickly and pulled on a pair of olive coloured cargo pants and a white T-shirt. Exiting the building, she swiftly made her way toward the great hall. The faster she got this meeting over with, the quicker she got back to Jin and her escape plan. Rain splattered against her once more as she treaded across the stone paths separating the buildings.
“Laney!”
She halted upon hearing her name shouted by a man’s voice. She turned in confusion when she saw the Master standing in the courtyard next to the Eastern wall with several of his people. Changing directions, she walked quickly toward him. As she approached, she saw two fellow assassins and several Yakuza enforcers that she had trained with before. She nodded at them, but they did not nod back. She wasn’t entirely surprised. There had been plenty of resentment each time she kicked a man’s ass or outshot one of them. Sensitive little bunnies.
She glared at one guy she particularly hated. He was twenty-three, the same as her, and had grown with her in the compound. There the similarities ended. He was a ruthless piece of work with a side helping of slimy. He would sell out his own grandmother if he had one. The smirk stretching his thin lips gave her no comfort.
Why wasn’t this meeting with the Master private? Something was definitely wrong here.
She stopped in front of her father and raised her eyes to meet his. She could read nothing in their cold depths. As always, his gaze gave none of his thoughts away. They studied each other in silence as the moment grew increasingly tense. The rain was light but began to fall faster, soaking into her clothing.
Other than her intense blue eyes and slightly paler skin, Laney didn’t look like her mother. She wondered if it bothered her father or if he was pleased she took after him. Though he treated her badly, constantly locking her up and controlling her every movement, he had loved Dana. She had been soft and kind and beautiful. He had wiped all of these things out of his only child’s life.
“You failed,” he announced to her, loud enough that everyone in the courtyard could hear.
Ah. So, he knew. Laney dropped her eyes from him and stared at the uneven paving stones and the grass that was poking up between them.
“For seven months, you were ordered to watch Boris Grekov with the single goal of disposing of him when ordered, correct?” he demanded.
“Yes, Master,” she answered swiftly keeping her head bowed. Her heart pounded painfully in her chest. She was familiar with this routine. She had seen the results of failure. Death. Was that to be her fate too? Would he stand by and watch his own daughter killed?
She fought back tears, hoping she could be brave if that was his intention. At least she had been able to see Jin one last time. To touch her skin, talk to her, hug her and kiss her.
“I had an expert on Russian mafia look at those photos. He discovered immediately that you killed the wrong brother. The tattoos aren’t right.”
Damn it. She’d tried to get as few tattoos as possible in the pictures, knowing they could be a giveaway if the right people examined them. Apparently, she’d been right. She should have tried to leave the compound with Jin the night before, but she knew the Master would have her watched closely her first night back.
“You knew, didn’t you daughter, that you had the wrong brother? You knew that you were betraying us?” he demanded in a voice that came as close to emotion as she had heard in years. Not since the night he discovered his virgin assassin was no longer a virgin and cut off the head of her lover.
She raised her eyes to meet his and nodded. Of course she’d known. How could she not know which brother was which? She’d spent nearly a week in the arms of one of them, touching him, tasting him, learning him.
She knew the blow was coming and did not try to duck it. She felt her lip split against her tooth and her head swing around. Unable to keep her footing, she stumbled and fell to the uneven cobbles, catching herself on spread fingers.
He bent next to her form and spoke for her ears alone. “Blood has always been my weakness. As it is yours. You could have disappeared, but blood is what brought you back to your death.”
She spat blood onto the stones and turned her face to glare at him. His head was only a few inches from hers. “No,” she whispered. “Blood did not bring me back, love did.”
He nodded briefly. “I will care for my granddaughter.”
Tears filled Laney’s eyes and spilled over her cheeks. Not for herself. She’d known this end was coming for as long as she could remember. She had too much Dana in her to survive a Yakuza upbringing. She knew eventually she would fuck up and end up like her first love. No. She cried for Jin. Because Jin was the exact same age as Laney had been when the Master took her and began twisting her into the thing she was now.
Her father’s eyes filled with disgust when he saw her tears and he stood, pushing away from her. “Finish her,” he said coldly. “Get rid of my weakness.”
***
Had he arrived in time? It had taken him longer than he had hoped to track Laney’s whereabouts and then he’d had to arrange transport to Japan. Not an easy country to get into when you had as many mob connections as he did. It killed him that his woman was alone, possibly in grave danger. That she hadn’t waited for him, trusted him to help her take care of whatever drew her back to Japan.
Now he and his men were finally there, at the Master’s compound. He had a source on the inside that had given them all the information they needed. He knew they outgunned the Yakuza, which wasn’t difficult given Japan’s heavy gun laws. He’d brought enough people to almost equal the strength within the Master’s compound. He also had the element of surprise.
Unfortunately, he still had no idea who Jin was and his people were under strict orders not to kill a Jin. Not an order they were happy with considering he couldn't give them more information than that. His guy on the inside hadn’t known a Jin either. He’d been brought in to identify the photos of Dimitri. Which he’d unfortunately done a little too accurately before understanding what identifying the pictures correctly would do to Laney. It was his call to Boris that had tipped Boris off to Laney’s whereabouts. He’d become suspicious when he’d had to identify the body of the brother of one of the top Bratva.
Boris had immediately arranged transport for himself and a dozen men. He’d also arranged a few more that were loyal to meet him in Osaka. A call to Sitnikov had also given him reinforcements in the form of two of Boris’ former enforcers and an extremely grumpy, jet-lagged Mack Hudson.
He watched grimly as Hudson put his rifle together with militaristic precision. “What the fuck did you say you did for the marines?” In another life, Mack had apparently been a highly skilled sniper. News to Boris.
“Didn’t say,” Hudson grunted, knocking a lock of dirty blond hair from his face. He lifted binoculars to his bloodshot eyes and scanned the Yakuza stronghold. “Need to get on top of that building for the best shot,” he said, handing Boris the binoculars and pointing.
Boris took them and nodded. “We will get you up and then you are on your own. Don’t fucking shoot my people.”
He grunted back. “Think I can tell Russian meat from Japanese asshole.”
Boris thought about pounding Hudson, but decided he better not. Hudson came close to him in height and weight and the guy had a chip on his shoulder that screamed suicidal tendencies. Best leave that one alone. At least until after he helped them rescue Laney. Then all holds were off on kicking his disgusting, racist ass.
“Time to get into position,” Boris growled, nodding toward his waiting men. “Let’s go get my woman.”
***
They were playing with her. Giving her a chance to climb painfully to her feet, take a few swipes at the idiot that came at her first and then they would rush her and take her down. Then they would back off, give her time to recover. They slapped, punched and kicked her. They hit her in the places that hurt most, but they didn’t use weapons. Though she was a mass of bruises, she didn’t think anything was broken. Yet.
It was only a matter of time. She knew the Master wanted this to end in her death. They would become progressively rougher until there was nothing of her left. She had seen these beatings before. Failure was unacceptable. And disloyalty was worse.
“Stand up, bitch!” Someone snarled from behind her, kicking her thigh hard enough to knock her forward. Rain pelted her, plastering her cargo pants and white T-shirt against her body. She knew her shirt was becoming muddy and transparent, but couldn’t bring herself to care.
Laney pulled herself into a crouch only to get kicked in the stomach. She bit back a scream as she was flung back into someone’s legs. Whoever had been behind her was quick to aim a kick at her head, breaking the skin over her eye. Laney curled in a ball and rolled painfully away before he could kick her in the head again. She knew it was useless. There were at least half a dozen of them and only one of her. They were all skilled fighters, and though she was one of the clan’s best, she couldn’t match their numbers.
“I said, stand up!” the man snarled again, gripping Laney’s ponytail and dragging her to her feet.
She was unable to hold back a shriek of pain as he stretched her body, forcing her to feel every hit they had meted out over the past ten minutes. Her vision blurred as blood mixed with rain and dripped steadily from her head wound into her eyes. She blinked until her eyes were clear and swung her elbow back, connecting with his jaw. She knew the hit was clumsy, but she was determined to cause a little pain of her own. He bellowed and let go of her hair to clutch at his face.
Laney stumbled away from them, reaching out with slippery hands for the stone wall that overlooked the cliff. She looked up, panting as the men advanced. Toward the great hall she could see the Master watching them. He stood with his sword, ready to finish her off when his assassins and soldiers were finished beating his daughter. She raised her chin, spun on her heel and kicked the man nearest to her in the face, pleased when she heard the crunch of bone and his accompanying scream.
Three men rushed her at once. She went down under their savage assault, knowing she would not rise again. A shot rang out, deafening her. She gasped and jerked in terror, thinking perhaps they had shot her. But then she saw the body of a fellow Yakuza assassin hit the stones near her and realized he had been shot in the head.
The remaining men shouted and looked around at each other in panic as more shots rang out. More bodies dropped onto the mud and stones around Laney, who watched in shock and pain. Pandemonium broke loose as men screamed, shouted and ran. She heard fighting all around her. No one paid attention to her anymore.
Laney reached out and pulled herself toward the wall. The same wall that her mother had thrown herself over eleven years earlier. Laney left a trail of bloody handprints on the wall as she tried to stand. She was so weak, she just wanted to lay in the mud and rain and close her eyes.
“Jin,” she whispered to herself. “Get to Jin.”
A shout brought her head snapping up.
“Umri ty ublyudki!”
Someone was yelling ‘die you fuckers’ in Russian. Hope filled her chest. If some idiot was shouting in crass Russian, perhaps her particular Russian Godzilla was here. She pushed away from the wall and tried to run toward the buildings, praying she wouldn’t get shot in the head on her way to the nursery. She barely made it ten steps before her beaten, bruised body refused to hold her up any longer and she collapsed with a moan.
Laney forced herself to crawl forward, gripping the slippery, rain-soaked stone pathway and grass poking between with desperate fingers. She would reach her daughter if it killed her.
“Mama!” a panicked child’s voice reached her ears.
Laney’s eyes lifted in fear as she watched the nanny rushing toward her with a wide-eyed Jin clutched tightly in her hand. As soon as the nanny got close enough she flung the little girl toward her mother and turned on her heel to flee the massacre taking place all around her. Though Laney was horrified that the stupid woman would place a child directly in the middle of the bloodshed, she supposed she should at least be grateful she hadn’t left Jin by herself.
Sobbing, Jin huddled against her bloodied and beaten mother, wrapping her tiny arms around Laney’s stomach and burying her head against Laney’s chest. Laney desperately wanted to get them to safety, but her body simply wouldn’t obey commands. Her eyes were beginning to droop, she suspected from either concussion or blood loss. She had so many wounds, she couldn’t tell.
“Shhh, my darling… I’ll keep you s-safe,” Laney whispered brokenly in Japanese as pain engulfed her. She rested her lips against Jin’s soft hair. “We are… t-together now and I won’t… let anything happen.”
Each time Laney’s eyes closed she felt certain they wouldn’t open again. The fighting grew dimmer and silence reigned in the courtyard once more. She wasn’t certain if it was because the Russians had won, the Yakuza had won or because she was about to pass out.
She heard footsteps approach from above and managed to open her eyes. Tilting her head back, she watched with a mixture of resignation and fear as her father limped toward her with his sword clutched in his hand. He was hurt. She could see blood pouring from a wound in his side. It made him seem more human. Less indomitable. She knew right away what he wanted.
She moistened her lips and tried to beg Jin to run away, but her voice was too weak. Only a cracked whisper emerged, causing the child to nestle closer against her. Laney watched helplessly as her only living parent pressed his foot against her back and shoved her forward, over top of his only grandchild so he wouldn’t have to watch either of their faces when he disposed of them. He pressed the tip of the sword against Laney’s back, over of her heart, right where Jin’s head was pressed.
“No more weakness,” he declared.
Laney closed her eyes and dreamed of Boris and a heaven where she could spend every day and every night with her daughter. She felt no pain. Instead the tip of the sword was jerked away from her. She heard gurgling and a terrifying snap that could only be one thing. She wanted to roll over and see what was happening behind her, but was too weak in body and spirit to complete the task.
“Laney kotenok,” the most beautiful deep, rumbling voice she had ever heard spoke over her shoulder. “Please be alive. Fuck, my beautiful kitten, I will sink this fucking island if they killed you.”
With a gentleness she hadn’t known he was capable of, Boris wrapped his long fingers over her shoulder and rolled her toward him. She moaned in pain, showing him that she was very still much alive. She managed to open her eyes and gaze up at him with agonized sapphire eyes.
Though terribly worried, his own eyes lit up in relief. “My Laney,” he breathed, touching her bloodied cheek.
Movement against her breast drew his eye toward the terrified little girl huddled against her. The tiny black head moved enough that he was able to see the pixie-like face that, except for the dark eyes, was an exact miniature replica of Laney’s. Surprise and understanding finally flashed through him. Reading it, Laney nodded and closed her eyes with a sigh.
“My Jin,” her lips formed the words, though no sound came out.
Boris reached beneath Laney and lifted both the woman and the child that clung to her in his massive arms as though their weight meant nothing to him. Jin shifted to wrap her arms more firmly around her mother’s middle as though determined not to let go now that she finally had her. Boris understood. He had no intention of letting go of either mother or daughter ever again. He strode toward the exit with his small family tucked safely in his arms, ready to head hack to their new life in Russia.