Page 25 of Sinner's Sacrifice

It was two seconds before the voice said, “I can’t. She’s asleep and I can’t wake her up.”

“Are her cuts infected?”

Again, it was several seconds before the voice replied. “Yes, and she’s running a fever.”

Sam put her hand on the door. “Please, let me in. Before it’s too late to help her.”

No response. Then, the click of a lock and the door opened a crack.

“You’d better not be cops.” The door opened a little wider and the weathered face of an older woman came into view. She looked Sam and himself up and down but didn’t open the door any wider until Sam opened her bag and showed the woman her medical supplies.

As Sam slipped inside, Yvgeny gave the motel room a scan, but saw no one else besides the older woman at the door, and another woman on the bed.

She smelled bad, rotten even. Was she already dead? Then he saw the body on the bed take in a breath.

This woman was much sicker than Darlene, and she had been bad enough.

Approaching footsteps from outside made Yvgeny turn, and he sighed.

Wonderful. The leech was coming to visit, and he wasn’t coming alone.

The leech’s real name was Jerry or Gary or something, but no one used it. He was sir to his employees and anyone who didn’t want trouble with the man, or Leech to everyone else. Not too many called him that to his face, though.

He was a bottom feeding narcissist who enjoyed hurting anyone weaker than him, and he’d been looking for a way to mess with Yvgeny for a few years now.

Yvgeny could have killed him during their first aggravating encounter, but he was trying to avoid killing anyone he didn’t have to, so he left the jackass alone.

That might have been a mistake.

“I smell a Russian,” the Leech said to his three stooges. All three were tough-looking men who had the battered faces of old boxers. “What the hell is a Russian criminal doing on my property?” he asked them. “All alone?” He said that last bit with way too much glee.

“Getting his ass kicked, sir?” one of the stooges offered.

“Getting his ass killed,” the Leech said with a malicious grin. He pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Yvgeny. “I think I want you to beat him to death, and don’t be quick about it. I want the arrogant bastard to suffer.”

“Right out here in the open?” the same stooge asked.

The leech smacked his man on the side of his head. “No, not out here in the open. Inside the room. Kill the women, too, while you’re at it, but not the clean one. Her I want.”

The three men nodded and walked toward him, but Yvgeny wasn’t paying them much mind. He was staring a hole into the Leech’s head. “You should have brought more men,” he told the other man.

“You’re just a pretty boy in a pretty suit.” The Leech laughed. “I can’t believe you showed up here with only one bodyguard.”

Magnus took a step away from the car, but Yvgeny held up his hand. “Stay there and watch this piece of shit.” He pointed at the Leech. “Make sure he sticks around. I have a few things to say to him.” Which was code for, I’ll kill him myself.

Magnus nodded.

The three men had almost reached Yvgeny when he retreated into the motel room.

The men followed him inside.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked as the door closed behind the stooges.

“Wait your turn,” one of them said to Sam with a leer. Then he struck out at Yvgeny with a tire iron he pulled from the back of his pants. His swing was fast, but wild.

Yvgeny ducked and hammered a punch to the man’s kidneys. The other man spasmed in pain, and Yvgeny took his weapon from him.

“Get under the bed,” Yvgeny ordered as he bashed in his attacker’s head with his own tire iron.