The Cardinal Bird - Book 1: Reverse Harem Series (The Cardinal Series) Page 2

  "Good. Sabra, can your team provide comm-support from back here at headquarters for us since you already know what's going on?"

  She nodded. "That is agreeable."

  "Good," Karl pulled at his tie to loosen it. "We'll ask the Emerson team for Brock, but I'd like to have a team with me of at least five. Maybe more. I'd also like to have CJ covering comms on sight as a go-between for there and base. Tate team?"

  Jace looked around at his team, getting nods from both of them. "Our schedule is clear for the moment or can be covered by others. We can go with you. Aleksander will need some papers falsified most likely to be able to travel about Europe without sending off red flags."

  Karl grunted. "I'll get it done. So, I'll have Aleksander, Brock, and Jace with me. I would like to have Sabra’s team on comms with CJ for safety reasons and extra support. I'd still like a couple more Delta agents on the ground though. Any suggestions?"

  Jace piped in. "Why not ask some of the others on the Emerson team. If you already plan to ask Brock, you know that he'll be able to work well with other people from his team."

  "The animal doctor and the prankster would be good options," Aleksander grunted.

  Jace shot Aleksander a look that went ignored. "He means Dr. Scott and Corbin Myers. They are both very good in combat situations. Corbin is skilled at going undetected and getting into all things locked. And Dr. Scott… well, he’s a vet and would be good for medical emergencies, if you can get him to take the time. I heard his clinic is playing hell on him right now."

  Karl thought it over a moment. He looked at Dr. Harper since he was usually the one to talk to that particular team about assignments. He was Dr. Scott’s mentor, after all. "I don't think we'll need Corbin. Jace can do all of the stuff he can do with breaking and entering. Besides, I imagine this will be more of a grand and loud entrance than sneak and retrieve. What about Dr. Scott?"

  "He might be too busy, but if it won’t break any of the secrecy statutes, I could read him in on the case to check. I can also let their team know about needing Brock while I’m at it," Dr. Harper said.

  "And if Brock’s busy?" Karl asked, unsure who to ask but wanting some options just in case.

  Dr. Harper gave a decidedly Grinch-like grin. "I'll make it so he’s not."

  Karl took his word for it. He grabbed up his notepad and folder and headed towards the door before he stopped and used the folder hand to point at CJ. "Keep in contact. If that hacker keeps talking to you, let me know." He started for the door again, already pulling his phone out to make some more calls. He walked and dialed, hollering back over his shoulder, "I want to be wheels-up in six, boys! And Sabra, for the love of all that's holy, find Darcy so she can make Aleksander a new passport!"

  Chapter 1

  Deep breath in. Slow breath out.

  I repeated the actions my mind coached, my body on autopilot. Already I could feel my fist relax, the tendons gradually unclenching their death grip.

  Ground yourself.

  I blinked back tears of frustration. My eyes never left the boy's face as I very carefully let gravity take hold of his body. His own eyes were open, a garish mockery of my inability to do something. Anything.

  There was nothing I could do for him anymore.

  His head gently kissed the floor as my trembling fingers tried to ease his eyes shut. It didn't work. They stayed open, and now there were bloody smudges across his face. Grotesquely symmetrical marks. Like a tribal warrior.

  Hysterical laughter tried to bubble up, but it was beaten down by a watery, heart-wrenching sob. We made a lovely pair. He and I. We were a perfect inversion of each other with my bloody smears on his otherwise clean face and my blood-misted face with the only clear spots from the tears carving tracks down my cheeks. I could feel panic trying to overtake me.

  Focus.

  It was hard to though. Nothing made sense anymore. Little Kazimir was alive, right there. Just seconds ago. So full of life.

  You can't let this consume you. Focus on what makes sense.

  I let out another shaky breath that ended in a sob. I looked away, already feeling the tide of emotions calming.

  It worked up until I turned my head.

  I had been gradually calming down until I morbidly caught sight of short blond hair out of the corner of my eye, normally so shiny and vibrant but now dull, gnarled, and matted with blood and bone. I wanted to brush away the dirt from him just to keep one less thing out of it. It had been so beautiful in life.

  My vision blurred as I was looking through the unfocused lenses of my eyes, tears ruining my clarity. It was hard to swallow past the clenched fist that felt as if it had lodged its way in my throat. My lungs were burning just as much as my heart like I was breathing thick, stinging vinegar instead of air.

  I wanted to deny my thoughts, but it was true. I had killed people I hadn't even met before, people whose lives had been taken from them in an instant, and that bothered me very much.

  But Kaz...little Kazimir…I would never be able to forget him. Not this time. I would always hold the memory of his once jubilant and youthful face turned garish and inhuman in its death.

  My face relaxed a bit as I repeated that. I wouldn't be able to get over it. I was done.

  I looked around at the others in the room, carefully avoiding Kaz, the only one that had mattered, lost forever. My eyes rested on the observant gaze of the one in charge, the one responsible for a seven-year-old’s death, Nikolai Ivanov.

  Nikolai Ivanov seemed unfazed and removed. His chiseled jaw and sharp features were relaxed. His hands were loosely resting on his pressed, black slacks. There was a singular, angry scar under his jaw. That scar was the only reflection of his true nature on an otherwise perfect visage as if his soul was so twisted, so horrible, that it couldn't be entirely contained. His long, spindly fingers creeped out across his thighs. His feet were crossed at the ankles, stretching out in front of him.

  Blood had somehow managed to ooze over his way, soiling his shiny, leather loafers that I was sure had cost a fortune. Of course, human lives were usually worth more, but such petty things had never bothered Nikolai Ivanov before--apparently not even for his own son.

  Tears welled up as I bit my lip in frustration. Kazimir Ivanov was supposed to be safe, untouchable. Now he lay dead, forever stuck as a young boy, killed by his own father.

  Ivanov’s ice-blue eyes were watching me, puzzling out my state mind. My next move.

  It was okay. Mine were doing the same thing.

  I clenched my jaw. I had been controlled and manipulated for so long. People had hurt and suffered for it. Died for it. But this was too much. It was time to stop worrying about myself.

  Nikolai sat forward, his pants riding up his ankles as he rested his hands on his knees. His blond brows were furrowed. "I trusted you with a lot of things," he said as his eyes traced my face. "I trusted you with my business. I trusted you with my home," he gestured around the warehouse before meeting my gaze again. I could barely focus through the hysterical tears. "I trusted you with my progeny. And this is how you repay me? You couldn’t follow simple orders. I'm disappointed in you, Callie Jensen."

  Nobody in the room made a sound. There was always at least six men with him at all times. From my quick glance around the room earlier, it looked like the whole compound was here. And yet not one person had stepped in to stop the senseless murder.

  Nikolai let out a sigh, shaking his head. He sounded inconvenienced. "And now I have to clean house. I have to move. Because of information you sent." He got to his feet, crouching down in front of me with all the deadly grace of a panther, a trail of bloody footprints behind him as he walked through Kaz’s blood. His gentle approach was contradicted by the bruising grip on my jaw. His long fingers held me hostage, impassive of the tears making them wet. "Who did you contact?"

  I met his eyes. "What reason do I have to tell you?"

  His jaw clenched. He switched to Russian "Tell me!"

  For once in my life, I didn't flinch at someone's aggression towards me. I was too far gone to care. I switched to Russian right along with him. "Why? My life will still be forfeit."

  He snorted, letting me go and got to his feet. He switched back to English. "No matter. I will clean my house. This was all for nothing. Nothing will change. Kazimir's death is on your head."

  Yes. Yes, it was. Sweet, little Kaz.

  My only consolation was that I would join Kaz soon. What reason did I have for staying alive? All of the information that I had been stockpiling on Nikolai was ineffective now that he had caught wind of my betrayal. Even if Megabyte_1, the anonymous but trusted hacker, was somehow able to send non-corrupted Russian authorities to this location, I had nothing to offer them. I was sure Nikolai only knew about the coordinates I’d sent out for this base, but he was too careful. He would clean everything.

  The thumb drive in my bra, the collective work of my years here, would soon be as useless as a dull knife. Nikolai would make sure of that.

  Nikolai maintained eye contact with me as he spoke to his most senior assassin, Dell. "Put her in the tank."

  "What if the authorities show up?" Dell asked.

  "I own the authorities. They won't save her," Nikolai said. "I want her to think about what she has done. She is still healing from your gunshot wounds. If she doesn't drown first, she will die of infection."

  Two other men stepped forward and grabbed me by my arms. I couldn't even bring up the thought to worry that my death wasn't to be a quick one. Likewise, my fear that usually reared up when faced with the tank was absent. I was numb.

  They dragged me away from Kaz's body. I didn't look back. I couldn't.

  The rusted stairs clanged angrily under the combined weight of two armed, muscled men. My feet
didn’t even touch the ground.

  We reached the top, and they turned me to face it.

  The tank.

  It was a dark, steel container that was about 7 feet in all directions. One of the men held me while the other walked around and used the crank to lift the huge lid, easily weighing a quarter ton. The clicks sounded like the popping jaw of a great beast opening wide for its meal.

  The lid was barely cracked before the smell hit me. It was enough to take your breath away. It smelled like death. It was probably very rare that Nikolai changed the tank out after other...uses.

  The water itself seemed alive though it barely rippled from the vibrations the lid made. It was a black, putrid green making it hard to see the bottom or sides even as the morning light from the window outside reflected off its dark surface.

  When I was first brought here and saw Nikolai use the tank - and then had the pleasure of having it used on me - I would worry about what I couldn't see in the inky depths. What dark secrets were in there? My mind would go over the possibility that he would leave the last occupant's body in there, bloated and swaying underneath my feet without my knowledge.

  That worry didn't cross my mind today. What was a dead body in the water when I would be joining that person's fate as well? I had once lasted four days in the tank, but Nikolai was right. With my bullet wounds questionably scabbed over, it wouldn't take long for the decaying water to take me out through infection, if not blood loss if they reopened.

  The steel lid rang out, reverberating through the water and echoing around the container as it reached its zenith, maws gaping wide open to receive me into its belly.

  "Strip her down," Nikolai ordered. "When she is found, I want her to be an unrecognizable piece of meat."

  The man at the crank came back to help undress me while the other continued to hold me. There was a serious tone to the air that kept them from taking liberties, but even if they had I probably wouldn't have noticed. I just stared ahead at the sloshing, rancid water.

  Something small and metallic pinged as it fell to the floor.

  "What was that?" Nikolai's voice asked, closer to the stairs now. His footsteps were much quieter compared to his men's as he made his way up to us.

  I felt the air move behind me and heard the rustle of clothes as someone bent down to retrieve whatever had fallen. One of Nikolai’s men said, "I think it is a thumb drive, sir."

  Nikolai softly chuckled and stepped up, crowding behind me as he leaned over my shoulder. "I will give you respect where it is due, Callie. You are perseverant."

  The thumb drive, in a macabre bit of foreshadowing, was tossed into the hungry depths of the tank.

  Nikolai ran his hands along my bare shoulders, raising goosebumps in their wake. "Such a waste."

  "Sir," Dell said from down below on the ground floor. "What should we do with Kazimir?"

  I could sense Nikolai's frustration at being interrupted, but he seemed to still in thought. "Bring his corpse here."

  My eyes finally widened in fear. It was as if my neurons were all jump-started as I came alive with movement. I did not want Kaz’s body thrown in the tank with me. It brought a new level of horror to old fears. I spun the best I could still being gripped by one of his men.

  "No, nyet. Please. Do not," I said, tears already filling my eyes again.

  Nikolai only smiled. If his eyes weren't so dead, he would have been breathtakingly handsome.

  I felt the vibrations of the steps as someone started up them. Desperately, I tried to turn and keep my eyes on the body, but Nikolai must've given some signal because I was suddenly being shoved. The world shifted, my bare feet scraping against the metal grating as I tilted over.

  It was one of those impossible moments of time where everything happens in seconds, but you can take an enormous amount of details in.

  I turned in midair so that I wouldn't have to see as the water grew closer and closer. It finally allowed me to see that Dell had indeed been bringing Kaz's body up the stairs. And then I was greedily swallowed up.

  The water closed over me, pulling me down nearly to the slimy bottom of the tank before I was able to swim and break the surface of the water with a gasp. Water was sloshing around, fighting to pull me back down and only desperation to see what was happening with Kaz kept me from being tugged back under.

  I blinked the water from my eyes, trying not to gag at the smell. A terrible, horrifyingly familiar groan sounded. I didn't even look up at what I knew was happening. If I did, it could be deadly. I was barely able to duck back under the surface again as the steel lid fell down with a deafening bang that was loud enough for me to hear and feel under the water.

  I didn't get a chance to see if they had thrown Kaz in the dark with me.

  My body became alive. Every swirl of the water felt like the caress of a dead body brushing against me. I went back to the top of the tank. There was maybe half a foot of air between me and the lid. I automatically tilted my head up and slightly to the side so that I could still breathe through my nose and listen with one ear out of the water.

  I was surrounded by darkness except for the 3-inch ventilation hole at the top. I looked up, not being able to see anything but the window from this angle. Boots sounded on top of the tank as someone walked across the lid. A face moved into my line of sight. Dell's face. It was a face I knew well, which was why I was so surprised to see...something...in his eyes. His eyes were always blank. Always.

  He kneeled down closer to the ventilation hole and suddenly I could see the bloody blond hair of little Kaz.

  "His life will be the last thing you think about as yours finishes," Nikolai’s voice sounded. "Make sure she can see him."

  Dell quietly put Kaz down, arranging him. The angelic face was turned towards me, sightless eyes seeming to meet mine. I wanted to move away or change the angle of my head, but the water was just below my chin, impatiently waiting to take me down again. I let out a sob, bobbing down a bit and nearly choking from it as my mouth went under.

  "Destroy the wheel," Nikolai commanded his men in Russian.

  More deafening sounds followed before dying down to tense silence. It took a moment for the ringing to stop in my ears and by that time, everyone had cleared the stairs and were back down in the warehouse.

  I could barely hear Nikolai's voice as he gave one last order. "Last person alive will be spared."

  There was the sound of a door opening and closing followed by a pregnant pause.

  The pause didn't last long though as his men opened fire on themselves, Kaz's face lighting up from the flash of their guns was the only thing that I could focus on until the sounds died out.

  And then, it was dead silent.

  Time passed. It was hard to tell what was going on. I'd given up on trying to listen to anything so that I could relax my neck and try to float. When Dell had come to get me out of the tank one time, he'd told me I had fallen asleep treading water, but that only happened once my body was well and truly exhausted.

  Apparently, I hadn't gotten to that point yet, so I was forced to try to float.

  I was in and out of consciousness. There was nothing to do but feel the lap of the cold water licking the sides of my face, lethally close to my airways.

  Well, that wasn't entirely true.

  I could float in and out of sleep, or I could look at Kaz. I had done that several times already, my eyes drawn to him in a morbid dance of Pandora's box. Every time I looked at him, my body seized up in sobs, causing me to sink into the water. It was a vicious cycle that went on endlessly until the shadows grew darker and night eventually fell.

  When it was truly dark, and I couldn't even make out the shadow of Kaz’s figure, I finally found some relief. But the knowledge of his presence weighed heavily on my mind.

  The water seemed to grow colder still, but that was probably just what it felt like as my body temperature dropped. It wasn't anywhere dangerous enough to cause hypothermia. That would be too easy. Nikolai liked it when people suffered.