Seventh (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Hello, Alex,” she replied, sensing a slight thaw, a chance to strike.

  “You know you can take either of those glasses, my dear. I place an inordinate amount of value on honesty. Feel free to go back downstairs and ask my people.”

  He winked, putting her at ease long enough that she drank the water. To her surprise, it tasted of water, clean, clear and able to moisten her throat, which dried to a level that she was almost unable to speak.

  An hour later, perhaps longer she became aware of him on top of her, she was unable to push him away. When she tried, she realised she was tied down. He finished his athletic performance, gaining praise from the other three members of his clan who were all naked and watching, their flaccid state an indicator that there were either recovering from the same activity or waiting for more.

  She turned her head to the left upon hearing a noise, it was another female. Two other men were busy abusing her, but she seemed unable to even speak, her drug-induced state much worse than her own.

  Meanwhile, the video cameras whirred away behind her, capturing her face but not those of her abductors.

  She felt physically sick. How could she have been so gullible? Now, she was truly afraid. How did she miss the opportunity to kill him whilst she was alone with him? All that was required was a deft jab with the umbrella, the tip of which was loaded with castor oil seed from which the chemists had extracted ricin. He would have been dead within twenty-four hours, with no trace of the toxin. Her job, her singular task, done.

  But instead she lay immobile, naked and broken.

  He walked up to her, crowing like the bird that gave him his nickname, strutting almost, more powerful than ever, another young woman to count towards his sickening tally and there was no doubt she would not be the last.

  For the first time she saw pure evil, and every ounce of training ebbed from her body.

  He had taken away her liberty, her dignity, and most likely was about to bring her limited life to a close too.

  He clenched her cheeks with his thumb and forefinger and squeezed, gently at first until he found the trigger point.

  “You were amazing; we did things I did not know were possible! My friends, they found you incredible too. As a reward I will give you all the riches I have, you can choose anything, that golden necklace by the bedside, it is yours. Do you know why?”

  She shook her head rapidly.

  “Because I like you, I find your spirit most uplifting, your fight, your courage. Are you sure you are not from gypsy stock?”

  Again, she turned her head from side to side.

  “And you Nikolina now have a decision to make.”

  He released the grip, allowing her to speak.

  “I am sorry, whatever I said to upset you I am truly sorry, just let me go and I promise I won’t tell a soul.”

  He looked hurt, at least that is the face he portrayed. “Nikolina, Nikolina, I am so very hurt, I thought we were friends? You don’t remember the game we played? How you made a choice? How you agreed that we would become lovers? How I made you so powerful?”

  She didn’t.

  He turned the camera towards her and held her head so she could endure the imagery. The footage left little to the imagination. Every possible angle had been filmed, quite skilfully, certainly well enough to release onto a willing and voracious marketplace. Towards the end of the film the males backed away, leaving just her and the other female alone on the enormous bed.

  Stefanescu made them kiss each other; touch each other and then, unexpectedly, fight.

  He told them that the winner would be judged by him and him only, and that the victor would make a choice that would affect both of their lives.

  The other girl, poor thing, stood no chance whatsoever. At first, she was like a wildcat, scratching, writhing and bucking, fending off and striking out, but quickly Nikolina worked out her weakness and used her attacker’s own strength against her, repeatedly, until she was able to get on top of her and suppress her energy, slowly choking her to the point of unconsciousness.

  Her training had returned. Initially, she had been drowning in genuine fear, but her secondary response had been kick-started by a flood of adrenaline and a primal desire not to be second.

  Stefanescu had never been so aroused. It was visible, tangible almost.

  He saw in her a level of training and willingness and pure, raw combat that he had never experienced in a woman before.

  He held Nikolina’s hand aloft and shouted, “The winner!”

  Somehow, she managed to take a breath, a chance to recover, for she didn’t know if there would be a round two. She would be ready, in fact with adrenaline fuelling her she felt that she could easily fight two of the men in the room, and at that moment, they were incredibly vulnerable; it was a target-rich environment.

  But she knew that she needed to wait for the chance to get him alone, to entice him and then strike. Despite the atrocities committed against her, she felt strong; her instructors had told her that she would be able to rise above any such treatment. But then they were male, they would, wouldn’t they?

  He had placed a restore point in her mind – one she could return to at any moment, awake or subconscious, and in doing so he had signed his own death warrant. Her original mission, her primary goal was to find him and kill him – prevent him from becoming any more of an embarrassment to the region, but now she found that she wanted to wait, if it took the rest of her life.

  She was willing to wait until the ideal moment arose when she could drive her thumbs into his voice box, jarring it from side to side, crushing it and depriving him of his primary life source. A rapid set of kicks could follow, or a punch, driven into his solar plexus, then two in quick succession to the temples. Then, and only then, she could really start to enjoy a sense of personal recovery and blind revenge. Forget allegiance to her state – Alexandru Stefanescu was her prize and she would claim him. One day.

  “So, my pretty Nikolina, now, as the winner, you get to make the choice. Should you die or should your opponent?”

  His words were colder than the local lakes that were adjacent to his palace of ill-gotten gains; frozen, dark and forbidding.

  “Come now, the choice is easy, no? Who is it to be? You?” He cast his eyes sideways, without compassion. “Or her?”

  He pulled a mocking sad face and held the anonymous female’s head up by her pony tail; her eyes were lifeless. She had made the decision that for her the hell was about to end. She pitied the poor cow that had won, for her the journey was only just starting.

  Nikolina cleared her throat, knowing that this was no longer a game of cat and mouse; she was the mouse and even as she spoke the metal bar was heading towards her fragile neck. Soon she would lay lifeless; so close to the cheese, and yet, so far away.

  She had missed the prize and the only way to try again was to act as judge, jury and executioner.

  She nodded to the younger girl. She hoped it would be swift.

  “Good choice, then you get the first prize my love, and that, of course, is me. For we are now as good as man and wife. It is our tradition. Come, we must celebrate.”

  A lookout checked the street for the authorities – most of whom were in his boss’s back pocket anyway – all was clear.

  They exited the back of the building in a blue Mercedes van. Both girls were in the back, Nikolina was now dressed but her opponent was still naked. Her heroin-affected eyes, dark, lifeless and wretched, looked back at Nikolina, but there appeared to be no hatred. There appeared to be no life at all.

  The van travelled for about fifteen minutes until it reached a car park alongside the Lacul Floreasca.

  Stefanescu exited along with his closest allies. He nodded to the rear of the Mercedes. They opened the rear cargo doors and removed the girl; her mouth was taped, but she probably had insufficient energy to scream.

  They walked to the edge of the lake where another employee was stood with a spade.

  Stefanesc
u looked at his new bride once more.

  “So, my lover. I just want to make sure that you are happy with this. Last chance, you or her? How strong are you, my little lioness?”

  “Her.” She could say no more, knowing that she was condemning her sparring partner to death.

  “Good girl, you have passed the test. Now, come and enjoy some sport.”

  They walked her to the lake's edge. All that needed to happen was for the larger of the two males to strike her across the head and at least, for her, the nightmare would be over. She made an assumption that one or both would dig a grave in the permafrost and cover her, allowing nature to play her part in the conspiracy.

  The moon appeared from behind a dark curtain and threw a shaft of light onto the lake. It increased the risk of being detected but these were professional people, they always had a Plan B.

  Stefanescu looked to his employees.

  “Why are you waiting, my little Niko has made her decision. Do it and remember I have twenty on three minutes!”

  His words were beyond sinister. He was enjoying this.

  The spade struck the shallow ice once, then again before it broke through to the water beneath. Another six blows had created a hole about two feet in circumference.

  They removed the tape from her mouth, grabbed her by the arms and pushed her headfirst into the hole, kicking her legs down, deeper into the water until she was submerged. A gentle current took her.

  Stefanescu pulled Nikolina to the lake's edge. She knew she was next.

  “Watch my pretty, you have twenty on her only lasting a minute, remember, winner takes all! Now watch, enjoy and don’t forget to breathe!”

  She did. It was the most grotesque thing she had ever seen. The girl without a name, who had earlier put up such a valiant fight, now drifted under the moonlit ice; for a few pitiful seconds her fingers had frantically scratched against the translucent tomb, trying to regain her bearings, trying to fight. She was lost in so many ways.

  Her eyes became wider by the second, her lips taut and her hands now pathetically pounding on the ice, desperate to escape.

  “One minute boss!” shouted the younger of the two helpers.

  “She has guts, I give her that. Pity she lost Niko! But now, you are my girlfriend, the world is yours. Take what you want, it is free. Everything is free. For a price!”

  At one and half minutes she started to gulp for air. A large flat bubble rose from her lips and slowly dispersed, her skin rapidly greying and her hair lifeless. Her naked form drifted under the lake, being carried on the gentle current towards the centre. It was ironically a beautiful moment, a scene of such raw exquisiteness, perhaps the subject matter of one of the great classically trained artists.

  The moon departed behind another darkened cape as the spectacle came to an end. By the morning, the entry hole, the beginning of her demise, would be gone, frozen over and complete once more. They might find her the following spring.

  The next morning, Nikolina got a message through to her superiors.

  I am in the lion’s den. All is well. I need time. But the operation will be successful.

  She promptly vomited. When she had composed herself, she vowed to rid the earth of this evil being – in a way befitting his own malicious thoughts and deeds. Whether she would be present at his death hardly mattered, someone, somewhere would carry out her will. However, it happened, it needed to happen slowly.

  The mission would take a little longer than she or her organisation had hoped, but they had complete faith in her. It would be a successful assignment – No more Jackdaw, one less traitor and vitally, no loose ends.

  no-one could quite anticipate that Nikolina knew that she was the loose end. She was, after all, in the words of the people who had trained her, an extraordinary girl and she was two steps ahead of them.

  She would remain in the den for another four months until one day her boyfriend announced, quite unexpectedly and with little fanfare, that they were heading to Spain. A chance had arisen, an opportunity to work with a contact from within the Spanish Roma community and a chance to exploit the capitalists that ruled Europe.

  They had never met, and neither man knew much about the other.

  He was being offered an opportunity to steal countless high-end vehicles, rebirth them and ship them around Europe, into the Arab nations and possibly the Far East, and she would play a large part in enticing the co-leader, before consuming him like a female praying mantis feeds upon its lover.

  Actually, the ‘steal’ part would have little or nothing to do with him. His role was almost entirely detached from the tarnished world of car theft – he was the logistics man, the strategist, using his own people to facilitate what would be one of the largest auto-related inquiries the European police, and in particular Interpol would initiate.

  He needed to meet the leader of Fratia – The Brotherhood – there were three brothers, one in Spain, one in Bucharest, the last in London. His need was simple. He chose the weakest first, for although he was financially astute, unlike his brothers he had a reputation for comparative gentleness; once he was gone the dominoes would fall.

  The strangest fact of all was that Nikolina was beginning to enjoy the hedonistic lifestyle of a modern underworld criminal’s whore. As long as she gave him what he wanted she could live a life beyond the grasp of any girl her age: As long as she had an exit plan.

  Of all the women he had tortured, destroyed, belittled and abused, she was without a doubt his favourite. He almost felt a sense of compassion when he thought of her. Slowly, unpredictably, he began to fall for her and it made him happy. He was becoming soft in his old age; God alone help the next person that betrayed him, for he would need to unleash years of pent up energy carrying out his varied levels of punishment.

  A few weeks of negotiations, posturing and bribery would result in Stefanescu gaining a foothold on the illegal car market. Despite his detestation for the stuff, he even managed to negotiate some good quality heroin and transport it into Romania, the best cocaine too and some of the finest escorts he had ever laid eyes or hands upon.

  The deal was done, the final handshake came and Stefanescu walked away, his signature laughter ringing inside the leather-clad Audi 8, itself stolen, reborn and now, his. It was, he thought, payment in kind for what Fratia – or at least its leaders had planned for him.

  Their intentions, though far from honourable, were simple. Convince Stefanescu and his weak brother, and his band of inbreds to do the hard work, to carry out the burglary, theft and handling of countless European vehicles, skilfully give them a new identity and then store them on old Second World War bases around France before distributing them under the banner of a legitimate company. Why not use new software to alter the digital odometers too? And probably launder some of their excess cash?

  What The Brotherhood had failed to account for was in Alexander Stefanescu’s eyes a fundamental error. They had overlooked the fact that even at their lofty heights they needed to know every one of their team. Arrogance had allowed them to proceed with a business plan, involving rapid expansion and audacious profit margins. They even had a fictitious website to attract new, foolish and wealthy buyers looking to save a few thousand Euros. They were a class act.

  But they did not look inwards – and that cost them dearly with their lives.

  Andrei Dalca, only twenty-eight-years-old but already enviably wealthy had, as far as Alex was concerned betrayed both him and their people. Steal from someone else if you have to feed your family, but never from your own. It was…it was just not allowed.

  Niko had done a quite simply spellbinding job of luring him. Despite Dalca’s wealth, taste for hedonism and unusually a penchant for Russian fine art, he had rarely been successful with women. His brother Cezar had willingly accepted the striking genes of his father, leaving Andrei to live in his shadow, with a crooked smile and a slight affectation of blinking almost repeatedly. He detested the brightness of the sun, yet lived in a cou
ntry renowned for its endless summer days.

  When he had met Niko in the nearby town, he had literally walked into her. He was exiting his blue Maserati, parking it in plain sight of the police in a restricted area. She had timed her moment; it was faultless.

  Their collision was so skilfully crafted that not even his bodyguard reacted. Dalca brushed him away quickly when he realised that he was about to manhandle the girl.

  “No, it is OK. It was my fault. Entirely.”

  He smiled at her, and she repaid with a hypnotic look. He held her for a second, feeling her slim body beneath the hip-hugging navy shift dress. He ran his hand up her back, feeling only skin, and then let her go.

  “Sorry, Miss?”

  “Natalia.”

  “Miss Natalia, I am so very sorry. What must you think of me, barging into you in this way?”

  “I am thinking that it is how you normally pick up girls…”

  She feigned an annoyed look, which only added to her allure.

  Again, timing was everything. She ran her hands through her hair and then clasped them together and giggled. “I am joking. It was my fault. It is OK. Now, if you would allow me to get going, I must get to the beauticians.”

  “Tell me why a girl as pretty as you needs to go to a beautician? Over a drink at my bar. Tell me and I will pay for your drink, your meal and your beauty treatment. It is the least a gentleman can do.”

  She paused, her training was reaping rewards – for her abusive lover if not her country, but she saw it all as a chance to build her reputation – and she knew that success here would mould Alex even further.

  “OK. One drink and no meal. But I will let you give me the cash for my eyebrow treatment!”

  “You are so rude. But I love your attitude. Do you have any idea who I am?”

  She shook her head. “A man who picks up girls in a cheap Ferrari?”

  She had him eating from her palm, a tamed lion and one who ironically did not expect to sleep with her on their first, and last ever date.

  After the drink, a local version of Sangria, she posed Dalca a question.