“This is America,” spat Viktoria. She struggled to rise to her feet. “And Gregory is my son. Nikolai Mateev cannot hope to raise my son as well as his own mother can. Take me to him!”
“Your son will be treated as a prince and will grow up wanting for nothing. You should have taken the money. But, you are a proud American and now your stubbornness will kill you.” He pushed her toward the floor. “Kneel.”
“No,” said Viktoria. She braced her feet and tried to pull away. The man held her wrist even tighter. Despite the pain searing through her shoulder, she twisted her body to try to break the man’s grip.
“Always the fighter,” said the man. “I admire your bravery, but you lost this battle before it even began.”
Something cold and hard pressed into her skull. Viktoria had never held a real gun, but it was not hard to imagine the barrel of a pistol shoved into the back of her head.
She saw only the wooden floor and the man’s shoes behind her own socks. Feet? Was this to be the last thing she saw in the world? She lifted her gaze and saw the Christmas tree sitting in the corner. At its very top stood the angel, her wings outstretched. It gave her a measure of solace and courage. Certain she was about to die, Viktoria closed her eyes and fixed her mind on her son.
* * *
Cody pressed his back into the worn wood of the cabin’s outside wall. He slipped the Glock 22 from the holster on his hip. One round in the chamber, thirteen in the magazine. It was the same sidearm he’d carried when he worked with the DEA. The weight and balance of the gun felt right, like shaking the hand of an old friend.
Crouching low, he cast a quick glance around the corner. The front door of the cabin still stood open. He had originally seen three men storm the cabin. One had left in the other SUV with a fourth guy holding Gregory Mateev. That meant two remained. A man now sat in the driver’s seat of the waiting SUV. Where was the other man? And more importantly, where was Viktoria Mateev?
He recognized an older-model sedan parked under a nearby canopy as the one Viktoria had been driving when caught by the traffic camera. The stench of gasoline rolled off the car and burned Cody’s eyes. Fuel trickled down from the rear bumper, where its gas line had been severed. Cody could see that the two rear tires had been slit. He imagined that the front ones had been cut, as well.
What had begun as an ordinary custody case had spiraled quickly out of control. These men were true specialists, sent on a professional hit. No matter what Viktoria Mateev might have done, Cody was duty bound to make sure that she wasn’t murdered.
Staying low and quiet, Cody raced to the other side of the cabin, coming up behind the SUV. As Cody crawled forward on his stomach, auto exhaust rolled over him in a putrid gray cloud. Looking up into the side mirror, he could clearly see the man in the driver’s seat keeping his eyes trained on the cabin’s front door.
The cabin remained dark and silent. Cody didn’t want to catalogue everything that might be happening inside. Before he could deal with that, he had to get past the driver.
With a whir, the driver’s side window lowered and acrid cigarette smoke cut through the stench of the exhaust. Reholstering his Glock, Cody marshaled the strength in his legs as he launched himself from the ground. Midstride, he redirected his body’s energy to his fist, which he aimed at six inches behind the man’s jaw.
The punch connected and the man’s head snapped back. For a moment, only the whites of his eyes were visible, then he fell sideways, his seat belt holding him upright. The cigarette dropped to the ground and Cody crushed it underfoot. After turning off the SUV’s ignition, he pocketed the keys. Reaching for his sidearm again, Cody turned to the cabin.
In the hours that Cody had spent watching Viktoria Mateev and her son, he had learned the cabin’s layout. The first floor contained one open living area with a sofa, chair and table against the far wall. The kitchen table stood in front of a fireplace that bisected an exterior wall. A small bathroom sat under stairs that ascended to a loft. All of it was accessed via a single door at the end of the kitchen counter.
The cabin’s interior was even darker than the outside and it took a minute for his eyes to adjust. When they did, what he saw was horrifying. A man, clad completely in black, had Viktoria’s arm pinned behind her back and a gun pressed to the back of her head. She struggled against the assailant, but had nowhere to go.
“Do you pray?” the man asked her. “Because now’s the time for it.”
“Gregory,” Viktoria whispered. Cody could barely hear that she had spoken.
“He is safe.” With a soft click, the man released the safety on his weapon. “You, however, will see him in the next life.”
Viktoria tensed. Like the hammer of God had fallen, a gun’s report boomed in the small cabin. The noise pressed in on her chest, squeezing her heart and lungs. The stench of burning sulfur wafted over her. She waited for the agony, the heat, the nothingness.
The man’s hold on her arm lessened, then released altogether. Free of his grip, Viktoria fell hard to her knees. She flipped over, ready to fight again. The assailant stared at her blankly and then tumbled to the side. In the meager moonlight seeping through the windows, she saw the shadow of another man. A tendril of smoke rose from the barrel of the pistol he still pointed toward her.
Scuttling on hands and feet, Viktoria pressed her back into the wall. A branch from the Christmas tree scraped her face but she paid it no mind. Her attention was trained on the man with the gun.
Dressed in black from head to foot, he was nothing more than a shadowy figure, his features lost in the darkness. Yet, she saw his eyes. They were light blue—the same crystalline blue of the sky over the Rocky Mountains on a crisp winter’s day.
He approached the man on the floor and placed two fingers under his chin. With a sigh and a shake of the head, he stood. Even without someone checking for a pulse, she knew her assailant was dead. A pool—black as tar—surrounded him and grew. The coppery scent of blood filled the cabin. It mingled with the tang of the pine tree and sweet scent of the cookies. She pressed a hand to her mouth and fought the urge to retch.
The man with the gun approached, trapping her against the wall and at the same time allowing her to see his features. He wore a black fleece cap. It was pulled down low, but not so low that it covered his face. The fringes of his dark brown hair were also visible. A dark sprinkling of stubble covered his cheeks and chin. At another time, in another life, she would have seen him as handsome. But now, he still held his gun. He was dangerous, deadly, and Viktoria was wholly at his mercy.
Panic and adrenaline made Viktoria’s breathing short and ragged. Her tongue was leaden, her mouth dry. Somehow, she managed to ask the only question that mattered. “Gregory? What have you done with Gregory?”
The man shook his head and took another step toward Viktoria. She shrank back, as if the cabin’s wall could absorb her.
“I don’t have your son,” he said. “I’m here to help.”
“Who are you?” Her voice was nothing more than a whisper.
“I’m Cody Samuels,” he said. He slid his gun into a holster on his hip. “If you want to live, come with me.”
Viktoria pressed her hand to her mouth, unsure whether she should laugh or cry. Cody Samuels’s line sounded like something out of a bad movie. Yet this was real life, not a B-rated thriller. Her son was gone. Gregory was the only reason she had strength to get out of bed in the morning. How would she ever get him back?
More than the grief—that awful, sickening hollowness in her chest—was the despair at knowing she had been made powerless. Her only hope now was a stranger with a gun. Much like the man who had tried to kill Viktoria, Cody Samuels had materialized from the