Close Encounters 8: From Russia With Love
Be Advised: This first chapter contains adult themes - strong language, sexual situations, and extreme violence.
Just, you know, lie back and think of England.
Kate Beckett - now known as Sasha to her sighing amusement (and to his, if he were here) - slid the clove cigarette from the pack and tapped the end against the cafe table. Her new friend, Vadim, gave her another of his cold, calculating looks - his face had the cruel set to his mouth that made her wish she had back up.
But she didn't.
He had strong fingers, and they even now curled over her wrist and gripped too hard as she held the cigarette; Vadim brought her hand up between them, the stained clove stick like a flag of surrender.
Because she was Sasha, and not Beckett, she whimpered and pressed her thigh to his, let her eyes turn soft and pleading.
His Russian was so colloquial, and mixed liberally with Ukranian, that she always had to listen intently to him when he spoke - and he liked that, he liked it a lot - which gave her the chance to lean in close. Vadim brought the lighter up and struck it with a flare of similar heat in his eyes, only his was animal and base and spoke of whips and scars.
Sasha opened her mouth and let him place the cigarette between her lips, but Kate took a shallow, feigned drag from the unfiltered end and tried not to let the smoke crawl back down her throat.
He saw through her in a moment, and his grip around her wrist tightened.
"You're not smoking, baby doll."
Baby doll wasn't quite the right translation for the name he was using. Not bitch either - bitch held too much rancor in the English language. What he called her was something along the lines of 'rich whore' but with an entirely mellow connotation. Almost like a gift. He'd heard the privileged schooling of her accent, and nothing could dissuade him from thinking she had a millionaire daddy in Moscow.
Vadim was enjoying despoiling daddy's little girl.
"It tastes bad," she said finally, letting Sasha come through with the downturned lips, like a pout, and the fringe of her lashes hiding the very Kate roll of her eyes.
"Clove is good." His fingers gripped tighter. "You smoke it, Sasha. I paid money for that."
She wasn't about to. Beckett stubbed it out against the inside of his wrist with a streak of stupidity, but he only growled like the hardened beast he was and smiled at her.
And then he released her wrist and calmly backhanded her across the face.
Sasha fell off the narrow metal cafe chair and to the cold concrete, a hand up to her cheek. It pulsed hot and she felt the broken skin, the slick of blood, but it soon stopped, dammed by the freezing Russian air. "You big brute."
"You liked it," he drawled and righted her chair. "Just as you enjoyed putting that out on my skin, you bitch. Now come up here with me."
And because it was her damn mission, she got to her knees on the crumbling cafe pavement, leaned forward so that her arms were braced on her empty chair and her fingertips trailing along his knee.
"Up there with you?" she teased. "Looks to me like you'd rather me stay down here." Sasha lifted her lashes and curled her lips prettily and let her fingers run up the inside of his thigh.
He grabbed her hand and his eyes were hard and glittering. "Can't do that out here, baby doll."
"Where can we?" she breathed out. This was it. Four days of getting close to this foul-smelling factory foreman and he might finally take her somewhere private. Like his office inside that factory.
"Your place?" he suggested.
She shook her head and pouted. "No, I told you, Vadim. The landlord - she is super religious. I'll get kicked out. What about your place?"
"My fucking brother." He got that same disgruntled look on his face. "Get up here, you slut."
Sasha rose to her feet with another pout, but fuck, her face was pounding. Harder than last time, and where it could be seen as well.
At least Castle wasn't here. She'd gone on ahead of him to this small Russian industrial town to get the inside information they needed about the plant Vadim managed, and she wasn't sure when Castle would join her, but she just wanted to be able to do this one job. One fucking job.
If Vadim ever got the balls to invite her to his office.
Sasha was freezing cold, her thigh muscles quivering with it as she waited in the shadow of a doorway. The town of Mayak was an industrial complex dedicated to one thing: the nuclear power plant at the outskirts. It was situated on a lake, and the government had long covered up the terrible disasters that had happened here, but it wasn't the power plant she was after.
It was Vadim and his work at the nuclear reprocessing plant.
He was in league with terrorists (they were almost certain of it) and all she needed was to get in his office, get the information, and get out. She'd been here six days already, and she had the bruises and bitterness to prove it.
Hell, if Castle walked in right now, she'd probably be pissed at him too. Start a fight just for the hell of it.
She seethed with a feminine rage for all the other women Vadim had terrorized, and even though this was her own damn choice, even though she was always in control, the feeling of being sadistically tortured, demeaned, and brutalized was sharp enough that sometimes. . .
Beckett shook her head and shivered in the darkness. Sasha. She was Sasha and when the job was over, she'd never be Sasha again.
It was just a job.
And at that moment, out of the darkness came his voice calling her, the Russian already slurred with vodka but no less sharply horrifying. Fuck, that tone of sly cruelty made her insides twist.
"Saaaaa-sha," he called out. "Baby doll, don't hide from me."
She sank back farther in the doorway as she waited. She was supposed to be playing the submissive, but she kept snapping back in retaliation, like that night at the cafe when she'd burned him with a cigarette. Once it'd been the heel of her stiletto in his groin, hard enough to send him to the hospital.
But he liked it. Made her skin crawl.
She couldn't seem to help it though. Something fierce in her rebelled whenever Vadim's boot hit the place between her shoulder blades and pushed her to the floor on her hands and knees.
Metaphorically, of course. She hadn't let the fucker get that close to touching her. Not yet anyway. He seemed to grow ever more horny and rutting whenever she denied him though. She was still playing the Moscovite socialite-runaway, so she could preserve some of her integrity.
And her marriage vows. Fuck.
"I'll find you, you little whore. Can't hide from me."
She sucked in a breath and licked her lips, heard him just beginning to approach the long alley.
And then she darted forward, straight into his trap just like dumb, self-destructive Sasha would, and he growled and clamped his arms around her too tightly, laughing in her ear.
"You little fool. I've got you now."
At least she'd gotten him so blind drunk earlier in the night that he wouldn't be able to get it up. At least there was that.
Damn it. How long could the bastard hold out on her?
She'd reported back to Mitchell that it was still a big fat zero and she knew that time was of the essence. She remembered how Castle had called this organization worse than Foley's because Vadim had access to nuclear materials that he turned around and sold to the black market.
Which was how she found herself in a damn strip club, sitting on his lap with him just a little too happy to see her.
Vadim's hands were at her waist and flirting with the slinky edge of her top, fingers at her belly, trying to get under the waistband of her skirt. She wriggled on his lap to distract him and he surged against her, grunting, that pleased noise that made her heart freeze and shrivel in her chest.
When his fingers snaked to her skirt and skimmed her inside thigh, she twisted rapidly on his lap, a little too fast, probably hurting him, and she reached out and circled her hand at his neck. Squeezed.
"Strip club policy says no touching the merchandise," she said sweetly, but she knew her smile was cold.
He grinned back, flashing her that twisted and cruel smile. "Baby doll, you're not merchandise."
"I can be," she whispered back, rocked her knee too hard into his lap. He yelped and gripped her neck, jerked her back so that her head rattled.
"Go get me a drink, you bitch." He shoved her off his lap and she laughed, heard the tinkling sound of it in her voice like broken glass.
"Vad, I don't wanna stay here all night. I want you alone," she said over her shoulder, swaying her hips as she walked away. She said it because she knew that two more rounds of vodka shots would leave him impotent.
She'd already felt him losing it.
"We'll see," he said noncommitedly. "Drinks, Sasha. Before I grow tired of your smart mouth."
She sauntered to the bar.
Suddenly he bellowed out from the table. "When you get back, Sasha, you're fucking dancing for me. You can't get out of it tonight."
Like hell she was.
Beckett pressed her head back against the wooden door but she felt far from safe.
Her hands were shaking.
She shut her mouth tighter and sank down to the floor, her heart thudding like a rabbit with a sensation she despised: fear.
Vadim scared the ever-loving shit out of her.
Sasha. Not Beckett. It was Sasha that had just had a near-escape, Sasha whose mouth was bleeding and swollen, Sasha whose tight pants were now ripped at the zipper and ruined.
She made a noise in the back of her throat and shoved herself off the floor, pacing the little room that had been Sasha's home for the last nine days. She ran a hand through her hair, scraped it back and held it on top of her head as she stared unseeingly at the night outside her window.
She still felt his hand at her zipper, felt him pressed too close.
Beckett growled at herself and started stripping out of her clothes, standing in front of the window with the moonlight across her body. She didn't fucking care. Let him see what she damn well wasn't ever going to give him.
Bastard.
She gritted her teeth and ripped the shirt off over her head, fingers catching in the ripped seam at the side. She flung it in the corner of the room and shoved her hands into her panties and yanked them down. The cotton caught at her feet and she shivered, stepped out of them as she moved to the bathroom.
She flipped on the shower but it would never get as hot as she needed it; she'd taken a cold shower every morning so far, giving up on waiting for it to heat.
She stood in the darkness of the bathroom, blinking back a rush of burning need in her eyes, and for the first time, she wished Castle were here.
She had to finish the job. Get inside that factory and get the information.
And then get herself home.
It was a different bar this time. Still, she didn't let it throw her; she was single-minded tonight. She wasn't going to take no for an answer.
"Vad-" she started, but he cut her off with a hand tightening at the back of her neck and a jerk of her body into his. She'd been thinking about that damn factory, and he'd caught her unaware - she nearly fell off the chair again.
"I said enough," he growled. "You complain more than you kiss, baby doll."
"Your breath tastes bad," she muttered back, elbowing him away. They were at the cafe again tonight and her skirt was rucked up a little higher than she liked. Vadim kept dipping his eyes down and fingering her knee as she sat beside him.
"You like what my tongue can do, and you know it," he laughed at her. But his eyes were now on the road facing the cafe, and his hand drifted away from her knee even though the fingers tightened at her neck.
"I really want to see where you work, Vad. You know how all that power turns me on, that big wide desk. . .laid out over it-"
Suddenly Vadim turned and backhanded her in the face, reopening the wound at her cheek and making her eyes sting with it. "Hush your pretty face. Or well, not so pretty now. Here comes that guy I was telling you about."
It was full dark now, of course, and the bar's interior lights didn't make it out this far. She licked the blood that was at her lip, touched her cheek gingerly since Vadim wasn't looking at her now. He was studying the man coming down the cobbled street like a jackal scenting roadkill. The man was hunched into the cold air, merely a smudged shadow against the rough outline of warehouses and bars and concrete.
"What man?" she asked. Vadim she could handle. Vadim and a sadistic friend, she was less confident about.
"You said you'd be into it, baby doll."
Be into-
Fuck, no. He'd been fumbling at her breasts and she'd made filthy promises just to get off his fucking lap.
"Oh, yeah?" she murmured, her neck pinched fiercely in his grip. "Who is he?"
"Lev. Been hanging around for a few weeks at the bar. Wants a job - well, I'll give him a job. We'll both of us take you. At the factory, baby doll, I have my very own office, a door and private space - you keep asking for it. Now you'll get it." He laughed at the look on her face and then turned to the man who had just now come into the light of the outdoor cafe. "Isn't that right, Lev?"
Sasha lifted her eyes to the new man and her blood ran cold.
Fuck.
It was Castle.
He had to hand it to her; she didn't bat an eye.
Maybe that was because of the nasty looking bruise swelling up under her cheek, but either way, it was Castle himself who almost ruined her cover.
But instead he turned the incredulous shock of his gaze into a lecherous rake of his eyes over the scantily clad body, and then he eased back on his heels like he wanted nothing more than to have some of that - as Vadim had promised.
Vadim smacked the outside table and stood up, dragging Beckett up with him, and Castle met her eyes behind Vadim's back, saw the steel flashing at him.
All right. He had no idea why she was here - or when - but evidently they had the same mission. Get inside Vadim's office.
"Come on, Lev. I'll take you both to my kingdom, eh?" Vadim had his hand at Beckett's neck, dragging her after him like an errant farm animal. Castle had to consciously loosen his fists and hurry to catch up, put himself at pace with the man rather than his wife who played the part of chattel entirely too well.
"Your kingdom. Finally. Beginning to think you were all talk. Fancy office, run of the place. Sure, sure." Castle gruffly joked with him and made out like he was eyeballing the woman.
"She's tasty, yes?" Vadim purred like a fucking jungle cat, and the scars along his knuckles proved he was more of a battering ram than a lover. "Sasha. You'll enjoy her. I know this."
"You bring one for yourself?" he asked slyly, elbowing Vadim rather viciously and enjoying it. Vadim better not know anything, if the fucking bastard wanted to live after today. Sasha. Hell. And. Fucking. Damnation.
"Haha," Vadim chortled. "I'll let you go first. Here, lover boy. Pant after her."
He flung Beckett at Castle by the neck and while he wanted to cradle his wife and put her on his other side, away from Vadim, the Lev in him merely tangled his fist in her hair and scraped his teeth at her neck.
Despite that, he felt Kate's fingers at the waistband of his pants, a caress that made his breath catch and his eyes closed for just a bare, life-altering moment.
And then he opened his eyes as Lev.
Get in, get the information, get out. Let no one know. Those were the parameters; Beckett being in place with him, cozied up to Vadim, meant only that the CIA weren't sure who'd have a better chance and the information was valuable enough to need them both.
He knew it was - he'd helped design the mission. So had she, in fact, back in New York. But when had the Director sent her here instead of sticking with the original plan? and fuck this couldn't end well.
"You like?" Vadim said smugly. "I even let you go first. Have what you want, leave some skin unmarked for me. We're almost there."
Sasha curled at his side and began playing with the button of his pants, fingers tripping up and down his belly, sly and clever. "Hey, baby, you get to go first."
Fuck, he could not let her get to him.
She hummed and rose to kiss his jaw, teeth flashing.
Vadim was eyeing them narrowly as they walked the dark streets up towards the factory nestled at the top of the town. "Ah, look at that. She likes you. Be careful, Lev; she bites. Hard."
"Love that mouth," he growled back, eyes darting from her to Vadim, trying to walk the line. "You plan on watching us?"
"You'll see." But Vadim wasn't the type to sit back and enjoy the show, not with his own goods, and this whole time Castle had been the subservient one in this forced friendship. He couldn't imagine Vadim actually being hospitable.
Something else going on here.
"Baby," he gasped, stumbling as her hand found him, rough and hard. "Fuck, Sasha. Give me a chance to get you alone."
She tittered, evidently Sasha was pleased with herself, and Castle tightened his grip on her hair and brought her mouth to his. She blocked Vadim from sight and he gentled his kiss until he was barely tracing her lips with his tongue, breathing love into the gesture. She was smiling at him with Kate in her eyes when he pulled her back, but he gripped her chin and pushed her face away.
"Fucking bitch. She bit me." He pushed his tongue around his bottom lip and Sasha cackled.
"I warned you," Vadim boomed out. The darkness was broken into pieces by his pleased laughter - evidently he was looking to 'sic' Sasha on Lev, repay him with a brutal beast of a whore.
Oh yeah.
Castle was looking forward to this.
Beckett had to play the part equally, even though she'd much rather put on a show with her own damn husband rather than with Vadim's clawing, harsh, onion-scented hands on her. But if she didn't, if she looked more interested in Castle than Vadim, he'd try to beat her again and Castle would absolutely lose it.
Or he wouldn't. Hard to say with Castle; he was a professional, and he knew she could handle herself, but-
Well. Vadim would be dead, most likely. And they needed in that office, needed that information gotten out without anyone noticing.
So she sucked on Vadim's tongue and growled as his hands traveled, and then they were at the factory's employee entrance and Castle was grunting something about, let's get on with it.
She lifted her eyes to him and he narrowed his, reached out and grabbed her even as Vadim pulled keys out of his pocket and moved to unlock the door. Kate hummed and pressed her mouth to his neck, licked his adam's apple as he reclaimed all the skin that Vadim had bruised and pinched.
"You'll have to let him - some," he murmured at her ear. "Give me five minutes in that office, and then we're done."
"I can handle him," she reassured Castle, curling her fingers in his hair and nudging his nose with her lips. "We do what we gotta do."
"You got this, love," he sighed. His fingers cupped her cheek, his thumb light across the swelling. She closed her eyes.
She gasped when Vadim yanked her away, but she gave Castle a look, quelling him, and let Vadim tuck her in close.
"Come on, baby doll. You're not supposed to be getting sweet on the little fucker." He snarled and pressed a bruising kiss to her mouth, more teeth than anything. "This way."
When she pulled back, narrowing her eyes at him - Vadim liked her rebellious streak, liked for her to stand up for herself only so he could bash her back down - he had that cruel smile on his face, the one that made her think he saw too much, knew and understood more than she gave him credit for.
His hand gripped her by the neck, dragging her after him. She let him, of course; she could've broken his elbow and flipped him to the ground, but they had to get in that office and get out without Vadim knowing what this whole thing was about. His suppliers, his dealers, his contacts - the CIA needed something to go on, some actionable information, and they couldn't let on that they were wise to it.
But whatever game Vadim thought he was playing with her tonight, she saw that it was really about fucking over Castle.
And that had her worried.
Vadim led them through a twisting maze of factory machinery, their bulking shadows like monsters in the darkness. Vadim's voice boomed as he boasted to Castle that his factory was the most strict, the tightest run, and had the best time for product turnout. A few fingers shaved here and there, what is that to me?
Because they were supposed to, they laughed with him, but she pulled away from Vadim and edged closer to Castle, brushing her fingers in his. She wished they had a second to talk about this, work it out a little more than give me five minutes.
Vadim grabbed her by the neck again and shook her a little. "Aren't you cozy with him? I think, instead, mine first, baby doll."
She gave him a slick smile and a snarl, then she stepped in close and brought her knee up for his groin. He deflected - he knew that move and was on guard against it after last time - but he laughed heartily and seemed to enjoy her defiance.
Castle pushed ahead of them and gave Vadim a wicked twist of his lips, raised his hands for the keys. "Toss 'em here. She's ready for it. So am I."
His Russian was good - better than Kate remembered - and Vadim was chuckling something about the Russian dogs in heat (she wanted to break his balls; she wanted to make him a fucking eunuch), and then Vadim chucked the keys to Castle with a snarl.
She had the feeling that Vadim hated Castle, and she couldn't figure out what the hell they were doing here tonight. It had to be something.
All those machines. The fingers shaved off here and there. . .and Beckett - Sasha - to keep him distracted?
"Around the corner. Second door on the left." Vadim gripped her by the arm and darted in to bite her neck, his breath foul and his tongue sloppy. "Come on, you bitch."
She fucking hated him.
She hoped she was up close and personal when the CIA raided his fucking warehouse; she wanted him to know it was her.
But that probably wouldn't happen. It never happened like that.
Castle opened the door and Vadim's fingers were around her neck, choking, driving her back against the metal file cabinets in a heartbeat.
Shit. Castle had to get in those cabinets.
Beckett arched and reached for Vadim's privates, dragged him to the desk and slammed him on top. He let out a grunt and groaned, flipped her on her back, a stapler, a phone, hard points of contact at her spine. She writhed under him to get a leg up, saw Castle over Vadim's shoulder.
At the file cabinets. With the keys still in his hand. Doing his job.
Good. Because, fuck, Vadim was a mean bastard and she wasn't looking forward to what came next.