Kill Me If You Can

Chukov picked up the vodka bottle and took a few quick swigs. Then he inhaled another lungful of albuterol from the little canister.

Bastard, he thought. I’ve created a monster.

Chapter 15

THE BRIGHTON BEACH section of Brooklyn is so heavily populated with Russians that its nickname is Little Odessa.

Nathaniel Prince, born and raised in Moscow, refused to live there. His logic: Brighton Beach was a hotbed of crime. And while he wasn’t intimidated by the street violence, he didn’t want to live where the NYPD had beefed up its manpower.

Instead, he chose Park Slope, a much tonier part of the borough. His neighbors were artists, writers, musicians, and actors. Prince liked that. With all those famous people to gawk at, nobody bothered to look at him. So, for four million dollars, he bought a luxurious hundred-year-old town house and total anonymity.

The master bedroom filled the entire third floor. With its high ceilings, parquet floors, and wood-burning fireplace, it was Nathaniel’s haven from the world.

He shared it with Natalia. She stepped out of the bathroom in a crimson silk robe that stopped midthigh. The belt was cinched tight, accentuating her narrow waist and her full, generous breasts.

She smiled at Nathaniel. “Who were you yelling at?” she said.

“Chukov.”

“What did poor Vadim do now?”

“Millions of dollars in missing diamonds,” Nathaniel said. “Walter Zelvas has screwed us from the grave, and it’s all Chukov’s fault.”

“Not all of it,” Natalia said. “I accept some of the blame.”

“You? What did you do wrong?” Nathaniel said.

“I thought I had Zelvas under control. He wanted to run off with me,” she said. “I never thought he’d leave me and run off with the diamonds.”

She unscrewed the top of a jar of Creme de la Mer. Nathaniel had no idea what was in it, but he had seen the credit-card receipts. Twelve hundred dollars for the tiny pink-and-white jar.

Natalia undid her belt, opened her robe, and began rubbing the outrageously expensive moisturizer into her long, firm, perfectly sculpted legs.

Only ten minutes before, Nathaniel had been between those legs, deep inside her, his face buried between her breasts, his tongue tantalizing her nipples, his brain intoxicated with her perfume. His orgasm, as it always did with Natalia, had left him blissfully happy and totally spent.

But as he watched Natalia slide her hands from her calf to her inner thigh, Nathaniel began to stir. He was still naked under the sheets, and he felt himself growing hard.

Natalia put some more cream on her fingertips and let the robe fall to the ground. Her skin was radiant, still glistening with moisture from the hot shower. She had towel-dried her thick raven-black hair, and it fell in ringlets on her shoulders.

“I’m glad Zelvas is dead,” she said as she massaged the creamy emulsion into her breasts and flat stomach. “The thought of having his fat, sweaty body on top of me even one more time makes me sick.”

“How do you think it made me feel?” Nathaniel asked.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had to sleep with him. It was the only way he would trust me enough to tell me he was stealing from you.”

Nathaniel grunted.

“Don’t be angry,” she said, dipping her fingertips into the Creme de la Mer. “You know you are the only man I ever loved.”

She walked slowly, seductively, toward him, and sat down on the bed. “You know Zelvas said I should dump you,” she said, rubbing the lubricant into the palm of her hand. “He said you were old enough to be my father.”

She slipped her hand under the sheet. “Little did he know,” she said, “you are.”

Chapter 16

IT WAS DARK when Chukov came out of his blackout. Too much vodka, he thought. This is why there is trouble. Two weeks earlier he had been drinking with Zelvas. They were shit-faced, and Zelvas was bragging about his many kills.

Finally Chukov could stand it no longer. “Any old lady with a gun can kill someone,” he said. “Come back and wave your dick when you kill twenty-seven people at one time. That, my friend, is my achievement.”

Zelvas belched and the air filled with the stench of the pelmeni and sauerkraut they had devoured together two hours before. “Bullshit,” he said.

“I swear on my mother’s soul. Twenty years ago my cousin Nathaniel’s wife, his son, and his daughter were crossing the street when a taxi came speeding around the corner and hit them. The wife and the little boy were dead before they hit the ground. The daughter was in critical condition. The driver never stopped.”

Zelvas was stunned. “I never knew Nathaniel had a family.”

“It was before your time with us. He was a devoted father. For the next six months he sat by his little girl’s bedside, singing to her, nursing her back to health. At night I would sit with him and we would talk about revenge.”

“He knew who the driver was?” Zelvas asked.

“No. But witnesses saw the blue-and-white taxi. It belonged to the Dmitriov Cab Company,” Chukov said. “One morning I took a dozen men, and we stormed the taxi barn as they were all starting their day. Almost every person who worked for Dmitriov was there. Many from the Dmitriov family — sons, brothers, cousins— family. I locked them in a storage room, turned on the gas main, covered the floor with petrol, and lit it. One match. Twenty-seven dead.”

“I have new respect for you, Comrade,” Zelvas said. “Whatever happened to Nathaniel’s daughter?”

“Natalia?” Chukov said. “She’s fine.”

Zelvas’s admiration turned to shock. “Natalia is Nathaniel’s daughter?”

Chukov realized he had just given away the family secret he had sworn to take to his grave. Nathaniel’s mistress was his daughter.

“Please swear to me you won’t repeat it. He would kill me,” Chukov said.

“Don’t worry,” Zelvas said. “It’s too vile to repeat.”

Zelvas went home. That night, for the first time since he was a little boy, he sobbed into his pillow. He had slowly stolen a fortune in diamonds from the Syndicate so that one day he could run off with his beloved Natalia.

But now he despised her. He would leave without her. Just him. And the diamonds.

Chapter 17