Chapter 8 of Loki’s Trojan

One Bad Death Deserves Another

The corporate jet they boarded at Kiev’s airport was big enough to have carried every pimp, prostitute and thug in Sergey’s operation. Along with Lyra were only the head mobster, his girlfriend, and two of the Anaconda’s elite thugs. On this flight, the aircraft’s crew outnumbered the passengers.

After her tally of fellow travelers, Lyra’s eyes lingered on her friend. Oksana hadn’t spoken yet today and now she could see why. Though the weather was overcast, the blond wore dark sunglasses but seen from closer, the lenses couldn’t hide her facial damage. A purple bruise, like a puddle of spilled plum jam, had poured to the bottom of her cheekbone. Her lower lip was swollen plump as if collagen injected and ruby red lipstick was smeared on fresh scabs where the tender skin had split on her teeth.

“~Are you okay?” Lyra slipped from her seat to join the slender junky: she held the girl’s hand in her lap. She is shaking like hummingbird wings.

“~I—uh.” In her current state, Oksana couldn’t frame a reply.

“~I have some but it might not be strong enough to do much.” Lyra whispered and covertly slipped her needle kit into the girl’s pocket. “~Just the action might be of some help.” The daughter had seen her mother take shots of almost nothing just to stave off withdrawal, even marginally.

Lyra watched her friend stumble to the lavatory, then looked at the trio of thugs: they had clustered around the bar to chug vodka. That swine is beneath loathing. He beat his girlfriend over a situation she had no part in, and withheld her drugs, presumably because she winced whilst being hit.

“~Were you trying to overdose me out of my misery?” Oksana joked as she returned to her seat, looking quite stoned and cheerful. “~After you told me it was weak, I was tempted to use more than usual.”

“~Didn’t you?”

“~No and it’s a good thing because yours is fine.”

“~You’ll treat your new master with the respect he deserves.” Shortly before landing, Sergey took a seat next to Lyra. “~If you displease him, you will be punished. Do you clearly understand that?”

The girl nodded. My jailer will receive the deference that he merits.

“~I have methods to make what happened to Max seem as a picnic in the park.” He leaned his face menacingly near and his whispered breath was foul from tobacco. “~You had best remember that too.”

“~I don’t know how to pass through American immigration.” Lyra tried to sound suitably frightened and changed the subject. “~I don’t have a visa and the Anaconda—uh,” she feigned a stutter and dropped her eyes to her lap on mentioning him, “~had my passport.”

“~That’s all been handled.” The mafia don grinned at her naiveté and with his imagining of the torment she had endured—Oksana he supposed, got the milder treatment. “~We’re flying directly to SeaTac Airport in Washington State. Another jet took off from Montana. We’ll perform a deception as we taxi in. The decoy will pass immigration while we appear as a flight which took off and landed within the continental United States.”

“~That’s very clever.” It must be extremely expensive too. It showed how easily the right amount of money could transcend any laws.