Deadly Games Read Online Free Page A

eyes, the shame. Poor ballless wonder.
    “Leave me, I have work to finish here,” he said, shoving back from the computer.

     
    * * * *
     
    She went by Raven, though her passport said something different. Her hotel room was one of the nicer ones in Prague. She had arrived yesterday and had been reacquainting herself with the old European cultural city. She only went for the best when she was on vacation. Work, unless her cover demanded it, didn’t need to be top of the line. Then again, she wasn’t staying in a backpacker’s hovel either. Her digital camera sat beside her laptop, the memory card already downloaded the photo of the possible target. He was in three-quarter profile, looking out over the busy street as he climbed into a sleek, black BMW sedan with dark windows.
    Dimitri Petrolov. Right hand man of one Viktor Hellinski, brothel owner, minor crime boss, and God only knew what else. She pulled up a photo of Hellinski in another window. Wanting to know everything about these two. Some marks were easy. People rarely went for revenge anymore. She frowned and rubbed the back of her neck. These days few knew how to successfully operate under true vengeance. People not of Hellinki’s ilk. Hellinski was the type who had contacts, and he was, she realized as she read further, rather high up in the whole criminal ring ladder. Which meant his best mate was right beside him. If she took out Mr. Petrolov, she’d have to make bloody certain no one could connect her. The backlash itself would more than likely be her head on a platter handed to Hellinski himself.
    She studied Dimitri’s picture again, wondered if that were his real name. He didn’t look like a Dimitri. He was too … something. His dark hair was a little too long, as if he didn’t have time to cut it, his hairline receding to ‘M’ across his forehead. Dark eyes--blue? Black? Brown? They didn’t appear green. Man probably hit six foot, not too muscular, but not lanky. Lithe, like the snap of a whip--lethal And since the streets had dubbed him The Reaper, she supposed lethal fit.
    Fine, he was a murderer, but then, technically so was she.
    Cheekbones and jaw line were harsh and unrelieved, his lips neither too full, nor thin. His could have been the face of a fallen angel. A dark shadow, well past fiveo’clock, but not quiet a beard and mustache lined his jaw and upper lip. Something was arresting about that face, yet if she saw him in a crowd, she wondered if she would have looked at him again.
    Her? Probably, but then she wasn’t exactly normal, now was she?
    She picked up her pen and jotted notes down on a legal pad. One she would destroy as she always did. There was no way anything would be traced back to her.
    Though in this day and age, that was iffy, and depended on luck--whether hers or the ones 17
    investigating were a matter of perception.
    Petrolov worked for Hellinski, but she was finding out that Hellinski wasn’t easily reached or found and owned several pieces of legitimate real estate. Must keep an excuse to explain the income, yes? Then there was the restaurant and several nightclubs here in Prague. Brothels in the hell-town of Cheb. And there was a woman.
    Raven cropped and enlarged the photo of the blond woman standing between Hellinksi and Dimitri. She was without question beautiful and had the same shape of eyes as Hellinksi…. Ah. Sister. Miss Elianya Hellinski.
    Did she know what her brother did?
    Raven studied those eyes staring out from the photo--bloody right the woman knew. Something in those cold eyes calculated.
    Digging deeper in her search, she was surprised to find Dimitri Petrolov had only worked with the Hellinski for a few years. About five. Moved up those ranks quickly did he?
    So where had the man been before then? Men who went by the name Reaper didn’t just drop onto the organized crime circuit. Where did he come from?
    She looked for another hour. Frowning, she read the flat report of one Dimitri Petrolov,