The Alex King Series A BATEMAN (summer reading list txt) 📖

the trans-continental road development, theoretically connecting Europe to America via Siberia and an ice road across the Bering Sea in winter.”

King had heard of the project, even thought it would be a fantastic thing to do when he finally left playing cowboys and Indians behind. “And nothing ever comes up of his past, working in the Bratva?”

“He has paid off, bribed or killed all those who would do him harm.”

“Except Helena.”

“I think he thought she was a woman who would never tell of her past. Married to one of the wealthiest men in the world, making Britain her home, a changed woman. A professional business woman with her own clothing line, a woman who courted the press and frequently went to openings and official engagements. She was hardly going to start talking about working as a whore in her homeland.”

King nodded. In a way, it made sense. Secrets relied upon staying that way only by two people’s silence. The Russian president obviously felt that there was a status quo between them, but what he wouldn’t have counted on was Helena’s fall from grace. She had resumed her affair with her former lover, used his exceptionally specialised military skills as a way of getting out of her relationship with her billionaire husband, and keep what assets she would have been entitled to. She had deceived, connived and conspired with others to make her husband’s death look like a murder, but as part of a terrorist organization’s bigger plan. But she had been caught, by chance, as King had investigated the Home Secretary, a silent partner in her husband’s company. Misappropriation of government funds, an undeclared conflict of interest had sparked King’s investigation, but had crossed paths along the way. Helena had been found out by dumb luck. Now, she was discredited, a wanted criminal and her assets had been seized. She would have known this at once, severed all links with her current life and looked at how to come out on top. She knew all about the Bratva, knew the world they lived in. And at the same time as she built an empire, she sought revenge for what they had done.

“Please, if it’s not too painful for you?” King ventured. “Tell me about that night.”

Anna scoffed. “It was nothing,” she said. “Or it was everything.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You are a man,” she sneered. She felt her breasts, squeezed them and lifted them upwards. “You see these?” She slid her hand lower, pulled the swim robe apart revealing herself fully. “That?” She stared at King as he did his best not to look either interested or too uncomfortable. “That is for me to give someone or to deny them. There is no in between. Some people don’t think it is possible to rape a whore. But let me tell you; it is. I could sleep with a dozen men in a day. But if someone did not stop when I wanted them to, then it is rape. As much as it would be if I were a nun.”

King nodded. “I get that.”

“Do you? Because few men do,” she sneered. “Those Bratva bastards, my husband included, they took what they wanted. That night was wild and crazy and changed my life. Pyotr decided he wanted me for himself, swore off the others. It was madness. Too much champagne and vodka, too many drugs. Line upon line of coke. They were snorting it out of the girl’s parts, off their boobs… madness. There was Viagra too. As if they needed it with all the cocaine and ecstasy. Helena had cost them a lot of time and money. She had whisked her sister out of there, took some money to do so. They were mad. Pretty soon I was just laying down on a sofa and they were just concentrating on Helena. There was nothing they didn’t put that woman through. Nothing.” She drank the remnants of coffee and looked thoughtfully past King and out across the meadowland. “I hooked up with Pyotr after that night. I did it for survival. I figured if I had to fuck, I would rather it was just one man. Whether I liked him or not. He was on the cusp of making it big, so I took my chance.”

King said nothing. He had shot the man in the head, a simple sorry wasn’t going to sit well with her. It was another world. He had seen most of the evil in it, but it never ceased to amaze him how life could be.

Anna looked back at King and smiled. “I suppose I should thank you,” she said. “It’s weird, you know? I feel numb to it. I will not see him again, but I don’t feel happy about that. I have money, plenty stashed away here and there. I need to be able to get to it. I went down to Bayonne and bought clothes yesterday. A prepaid phone. And you said I could keep the car, right?”

“Sure,” he said. “I mean, put some false plates on it when you can, but yeah, keep it.”

She nodded. “I can’t thank you enough for letting us use this place,” she said. She smiled, smoothed her hands over her breasts and stomach. “Or I could thank you in another way?”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“Perhaps I want to?”

King smiled. “Those days are behind you.”

“I still have needs,” she said sharply.

“Then find someone who loves you, love them back and forget the past.”

She laughed. “You are a kind man,” she said. She stood up, showing King everything he had passed up on. “I will get us some coffee,” she said.

King didn’t stop her. He didn’t drink coffee as a rule, but he doubted she had tea. He hadn’t come for breakfast anyway. He leaned back in the chair, watched the glow of the sunrise across the hills of grass and