Eagle elite volume ii, p.51
Eagle Elite Volume II, page 51
The car door jerked open, two long tan pale legs that went for miles stepped out, the legs were attached to a tall gorgeous blonde in a skin tight black leather dress, her blue eyes flashed in recognition. She looked from the man to me, then back to the man. “Is this a joke?”
“Um, if you’ll just follow me.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and held the door to the clinic open.
“Bitch.” She spat at me, pushing past and stalking down the hall to the right exam room. I didn’t go in with her, she paused in the doorway and turned back to me. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“I’m sorry…” I winced. “I don’t know you.”
“Oh, that’s rich.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me your dad brainwashed you like he did your mother.”
I stared at her blankly. “I’m sorry miss, I think you have me mistaken with someone else.”
“Maya.” She cackled out my name. “You know I always wondered if he ended up using you like he did the rest of us, but apparently not since you work for the doctor. Then again, he works for him too so you’re still a whore, just a different type of one.” I lunged for her, but Nikolai grabbed me by the waist and set me on the other side of the girl.
“Maya, why don’t you go check in with Jac, hmm?”
“Fine.” I swallowed down the anger and marched down the hallway in a fury. When I reached the receptionist desk, Jac was already sitting there in the chair, her eyebrows rose when I sat with a thud and pulled up the spreadsheet.
“Got your panties in a twist?” she asked, her face appeared lighthearted but her words sliced through the air, almost like she was being passive aggressive.
“Not now, Jac.”
She shrugged and leaned back in her chair while I scrolled through the appointments, found the correct time and went to mark the girl’s first visit.
It was her third.
Hadn’t Jac said they rarely made it past the third?
“She’s…” I whispered then narrowed my eyes on the name. “Galina Ivanov.” A vision of a little girl speeding by me on a red bike pushed forward to my consciousness.
“Galina wait up!” I yelled laughing after her. “Friends aren’t supposed to cheat in races!”
“Beat you!” She giggled, her blond pigtails flying into the air. I finally caught up to her and crossed my arms.
“That was mean!” I scolded her, half tempted to push over her bike.
“Sorry, Maya. Best friends still?” She held out her pinky finger.
I shook it with my pinky and giggled. “Best friends forever, Galina, you know it!”
“Girls!” Mother called. “Come on in for a snack… Maya, you must change your clothes before your father gets home, you know how he feels about getting your clothes dirty.”
I grumbled out a response and linked arms with Galina as we made our way into the house.
Impossible. I pushed back from the desk. I was having some sort of… meltdown or something. Why was my brain suddenly remembering that? And why was Galina in the clinic?
Panicked, I didn’t even think about the rules. I had to know. I ran down the hall with Jac calling after me.
When I found the correct exam room, I pushed the door open and gasped as Nikolai inserted a syringe into Galina’s arm.
Her eyes were open.
Like she was awake.
But she wasn’t moving.
“Maya,” Nikolai said in a detached voice. “Is there a reason you’re in here?”
“I know her.”
He froze, his movements pausing midair as he slowly met my gaze. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Galina.” I pointed at the motionless girl. “She was… I think… I think we were friends, when I was little. I had a red bike and she had a red bike, they both had baskets…” I tried to pull from the memory but it was slipping away.
Nikolai set down the syringe. “Don’t focus on the whole picture, focus on the details, like what the air smelled like, tasted like, did she hold your hand? Did you laugh?”
“You believe me?”
“I do.” His eyes were sad.
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I don’t… I can’t remember anything else.”
His shoulders tensed. “All right, since you were friends you may as well stay in here during the procedure.”
“Procedure?” I repeated.
“She’s in an altered state of consciousness,” he explained. “I oftentimes hypnotize the patients so that they don’t remember anything that takes place afterward, they feel pain in the moment but don’t remember they’ve felt it after. Hers will be brief, I need to draw some blood, and blood always makes her faint.”
“You hypnotized her?” Fear trickled down my spine.
Nikolai licked his lips. “Yes… because at least in her altered state if I ask her a question she can answer in the affirmative, and when one is relaxed…”
“Ask her about me,” I blurted, knowing full well that I was losing my mind or having some sort of breakdown. What alternate universe had I walked into? One where I had fragmented memories of a girl in pig tails? And why wouldn’t my body want me to remember? I had no idea the car accident had done so much to me.
Nikolai shook his head. “No, that could be dangerous.”
“Please?”
With a heavy sigh, Nikolai snapped his fingers, watching me out of the corner of his eye. Something was so familiar about his movements, like a dance, like a dance he’d taught me and I’d memorized. “Galina, it’s Nik… how do you know Maya?”
“Petrov.” Galina said in a pained voice. “He thought I was pretty.”
The room seemed to tilt around me, leaving me breathless, blood pounding in my ears.
“Said I could make money once my parents died.”
Nikolai drew another vial of blood and pulled the band off her arm then pressed a cotton ball to the inside of her elbow. “What happened, Galina? You can trust me.”
Galina shook her head vigorously then started bucking off the table.
Cursing, Nikolai snapped his fingers again and said. “Sleep.”
She stopped moving.
I was horrified, not by what he did, but how easily he did it… had he ever done that to me? Would he?
I couldn’t look at him.
Fear and guilt gnawed at me while I stared at her expressionless face.
“My father… he wouldn’t… do you think?”
“He owns several lucrative businesses that have to do with girls just like Galina… I don’t just think, I know. I help as many as I can, Maya, and that is all I can safely tell you.”
“Okay.” I took two steps toward the door. “I’m… I need to go home.”
“Tell Jac I said it was okay to close early and take you.”
“Thank you.” I nodded and walked away, because I didn’t know what else to do, and screaming seemed to be out of the question since finding my voice was near impossible.
What was he involved in?
What type of lie had I lived?
And the bigger question… would I have ended up like Galina… had I stayed with my father?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
One does not sharpen the axes after the right time, after the time they are needed. –Russian Proverb
Nikolai
Galina was sick, very sick. The strain of syphilis had lain dormant in her body for far too long. The new strain had been rampant throughout the whorehouses, infecting at least four girls, killing two of them, though their demise wasn’t because of the disease, at least not fully.
It wasn’t something I could help her with. I could give her antibiotics, give her some treatments with my serum, but the infection had already weakened her heart. This new strain had become less and less responsive to any sort of drug. My worry was twofold, keeping the disease contained, but also making sure that I stayed off Petrov’s radar so that I had more time to study it.
If she was still working with the rest of the girls, then another dose of heroine, or whatever drug they gave the girls in order to keep them loyal, could stop her heart.
I didn’t see any track marks, which worried me. It was the cheapest way to inject a person with the drug.
Had he moved on to something else?
Or was he simply connecting an IV to their veins and feeding the drug that way? Sick bastard.
I wiped the last remnants of blood and tried not to think about what Maya had seen. There was no stopping it now, no stopping the rest of her memories from pushing forward. Odd that one of her first strong memories would be of childhood, and not of the most traumatic experience of her life.
Galina let out a soft moan as she came to. “Nik?”
“Galina.” I forced a pained smile. “I need you to move very slowly. Your body is sick. It’s weak.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Sighing, I peeled off my gloves and washed my hands in the sink, my body tensing with disgust as I fought with my conscience to make her the offer I made every patient.
“How long?” she asked.
“I can’t tell, but your heart could stop if they force more drugs into you… It could be tonight when you’re working, it could be months from now. All I know is it will happen, eventually.”
She was quiet. “I trusted him.”
My stomach clenched.
“He was nice to me once my parents died, you know? Always bringing over food to my grandma’s house. He even bought me a red bike to match his daughter’s. He treated me like his daughter. I grew up adoring him, and then… when my bahba died, I had nothing. I was only fifteen.”
Shit.
“He told me he had a business, but it wasn’t legal to hire someone as young as me, so I’d have to sign a contract and keep quiet. But the money…” Her smile was hollow. “…was incredible. I was making more than my parents could dream of… I fell for the money, and when I started hating myself, they kept me there with drugs.”
She hung her head as exhaustion washed over her features.
“Galina, you know what I’m going to ask you.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You have a choice. You can choose how you die.” Why was I having trouble saying the words… offering her honor in her death? Maybe, for once in my life I was questioning if that choice was within my power to give? But going against my family’s wishes, against Jac, just seemed like asking for more trouble than it was worth. Besides, at least she wouldn’t live in fear, not anymore.
“Will you do it?” Galina said, surprising me.
After a quick nod, I gave her a prescription bottle of pills that by all appearances looked like morphine pills but were a placebo, sugar and powder. Then I walked her to the door.
“Done?” the guard, a new one, barked at her.
“She’s clear, but I had to prescribe something for the pain. Let Petrov know that it should be the same thing he’s been giving her but not to double dose her, or he’s going to kill a pretty face.”
The man grabbed the prescription and nodded.
“The other patient?” I asked, as I looked around the dark alley.
He rolled his eyes. “She went into the clinic hours ago, hasn’t come out since, and I can’t wait, put her in a taxi or let her sleep it off.”
“I’ve only seen Galina.”
“The older woman came and grabbed her, said you cleared it.”
“Right.” A tingling sensation washed over me. Jac had never done that before, she knew it was against the rules, knew what would happen if Petrov discovered her involvement and how we ran our side of the business.
“Same time tomorrow night, doc.” The car door slammed.
Slowly, I entered back into the building and searched every exam room for the missing girl.
Nothing.
The lobby lights were turned off, but the computer was still on. I went over to it to check the names, but only one was on the list, Galina. Who the hell had the other girl been? And where was she?
My eyes started to blur. It was time to go home, but first I needed to talk to Jac and tell her never again to involve herself in my business dealings. If I needed to put the fear of God into her, so be it. The last thing I needed was to lose more family.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
In order to prevent crime downtown, law enforcement has doubled its cops on duty during the late evening hours. –The Seattle Tribune
Maya
Jac had taken one look at my pale face and motioned for me to follow her to the door.
“Nikolai said you could take me…” My voice wouldn’t stop shaking. Damn it! What was wrong with me.
“Sure thing, honey.” Jac said in a sweet voice, like a switch had been flipped from earlier. I immediately felt comfortable once we were in her black Buick Encore.
I shivered even though I wasn’t cold.
Once we’d been on the road for a few minutes Jac started to hum, it was… eerie, the fact that she wasn’t talking.
I opened my mouth to say something when she reached over and gripped my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin. “So now you know.”
“Know?” I repeated. “What do you mean?” I tried to pry my arm free but she was freakishly strong for being in her late sixties.
“What he does, sweetheart.” Her words were nice; her voice, however, sounded… bitter, angry, and hurt. “He works with the girls who spread their legs, it is why his research is so good. Have you never wondered? He is the only doctor in existence that can study diseases the way he does, who can use his own brands of medicine not approved by the FDA. What he does is important, what you do with that information will either save your life or end it.”
Finally she released my arm.
I rubbed it and slid farther away from her so the door and seatbelt were poking into my lower back. “I would never betray him.”
“Good.” Jac nodded. “Sometimes though, a promise is not enough. Who’s to say you wouldn’t rat him out if your father threatened your life?”
“My father…” I kept my voice indifferent. “…couldn’t care less about me. Trust me, I’m the last person in the world he cares about.”
“Smoke and mirrors.” Jac cackled.
Holy crap, she was crazy! Did Nikolai know?
I looked down at my arm and frowned, there was a bloodied handprint where Jac had been gripping my arm.
And two more handprints on the steering wheel of the car.
We pulled up to the building.
I calmly, opened the door, offered my thanks, and moved as fast as my legs would take me to the elevator pushing the button harder than necessary.
“Come on, come on.” I stomped my foot a few times, then nearly had a heart attack when the doors actually opened and a person shuffled past me.
I was being ridiculous. I wasn’t some lost virgin in a horror movie, running up the stairs instead of down, or hiding in the basement. It was Jac, she’d been working with Nikolai for years.
Just as I was straightening my shoulders and getting ready to walk in the elevator a hand grabbed my shoulder from behind.
I turned around and screamed.
Jac took a step back, a smirk across her lips as she dangled my purse in front of me. “I figured you’d want your things.”
“Sorry.” I placed my hand against my chest while my other grabbed the purse. “Jumpy tonight.”
“I’ll say.” Her frozen smile didn’t crack. With a tilt of her head she gave me a nod then walked back to the running car.
Her hands were clean of blood.
And when I looked back down at my arm, it only had a faint remnant of red.
Had I imagined it all?
Or was she really bat shit crazy?
My nerves were shot by the time I made it onto my floor and into my apartment. I locked my door then double checked that the locks were in place. Once that was done, I walked over to the fridge pulled out a bottle of chilled wine and began to drink straight from the bottle.
A knock on the door sounded ten minutes into my drinking and shaking.
“Who is it?” I asked, in what I hoped would sound like a calm voice.
“Nikolai.”
Safe.
My mind whispered that word to me over and over again, until finally, I took the two steps to the door, unlocked it and let him in.
He looked like absolute hell.
From the dark circles under his eyes to the white shirt pulled out of his slacks.
Nikolai took one look at the wine bottle, swiped it off the counter, then started repeating what I’d done—drinking straight from the mouth.
“How is she?” I asked, joining him on the white leather couch, tucking my feet underneath me while he handed me back the bottle. I took a swig and waited.
He checked his watch—that was odd—then met my gaze with one of complete chilling indifference. “In exactly forty-two minutes, she’ll be dead.”
I gasped as he pried the bottle from my hand and took at least three long swallows.
“You… killed her?”
Nikolai laughed, actually laughed like I was making a joke. “What do you think?”
I gulped and shook my head “I really don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Did I pull the trigger? Stop the weak heart?” He cursed under his breath and ran his hands through his hair. It was getting long, I noticed absently, curling at the nape of his neck. I liked that; it made him look less controlled, more human.
He had a beautiful side profile, something that I imagined artists would kill to paint or sculpt. I reached out and touched his face.
His eyes closed as if my touch soothed him, and then he placed his hand over mine keeping it against the roughness of his five o’clock shadow. “You can touch me? You can bear to look at me? Even after all you’ve seen today.”
“You helped them,” I said in a weak voice. “Or are helping them…”
“Help”—he bit out the word—“is such a weak, troublesome word, with such myriad meanings that I simply don’t understand it anymore. Maybe I never did.”
“Drunk already?” I joked.
He smiled against my hand. Then, as it dropped from his face, he clenched my fingers in his. “You’re important to me, I hope you know that.”
