Death Before Dishonor Read online

  “First children?” the woman asked.

  “Yes—well, no. Terry is actually my first child.” Francesca rubbed his head with her hand. “My husband and I adopted him when he was only six months. But this is the first time I’ve been pregnant. We’ve had some complications.”

  “Have name?”

  “Oh, no. Not yet.”

  “You beautiful woman. Like flower. You have beautiful children.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Francesca said, her eyes filling with tears. “Thank you so much, ma’am.”

  The woman pointed at Francesca’s belly. “You name Yuri. Yuri mean flower, like you. Beautiful.”

  “Yuri?”

  The lady’s eyes opened up with excitement. “Yes. Yuri. Beautiful like you.”

  “Yuri,” Francesca said to herself thoughtfully. Pregnancy was the most amazingly intimate thing that Pat and she had ever done together. In a literal fashion, their lives were blossoming in a very new and incredible way.

  “Are you a Yuri?” Francesca asked as she rubbed her stomach.

  The baby kicked.

  Chapter Two: A Prom to Die For

  The Shinobi are creatures of shadow. A Shinobi must remain concealed, and if exposed, a Shinobi must remove all traces of his presence or be dishonored.

  The First Mandate, translated from Ninpo.

  Greenwich, Connecticut. Today.

  Terry and Yuri were in a busy suburb of Connecticut under the employ of a powerful Colombian figurehead based out of Newark, New Jersey, to eliminate an associate to his operation for undisclosed reasons.

  Far from naïve to the nature of organized crime, Terry and Yuri assumed that the hit was a result of a failure in black market deals on the side of the associate and, for one reason or another, the employer could not eliminate the associate by more conventional means. So, the employer called in the big guns: a team of assassins that specialized in hitting deeply entrenched targets. The employer needed the associate, Constantine Levarity, to meet a silent end that would send a message to other associates but would not cause a huge commotion.

  The silent treatment, as it was, Terry and Yuri could oblige: enter Levarity’s house, corner him, and complete the task without anyone knowing they were there.

  In spite of the layers of insulation usually attributed to powerful drug lords, the brothers hardly considered such men to be “deeply entrenched” and merely had to work around the paranoia that made them adept at spotting attempts on their lives. In planning the job, Terry and Yuri assessed the patterns, strengths, and weaknesses of the Levarity Cartel’s security and then decided what approach to use.

  The surveillance of Levarity’s residence ended up being a tedious three-week process that included noting the security measures utilized, the guards on the payroll, and data harvesting of electronic correspondence. On the positive side of things, Terry and Yuri made three new female friends that Terry tended to spend extensive periods of time in the hot-tub with—for ease of surveillance, of course. Eventually, the decision of how to execute the job needed to be determined.

  After careful risk analysis, they concluded that sniping would be ineffective because either the windows presented poor angles or obstructions. Car bombing was obnoxiously loud. Poison was a potentially viable option but was thrown out because its administration required a margin of error they could ill afford. Finally, they decided on an up-close-and-personal approach to the execution of the job. The only problem was how to manage the hit without instigating a Wild-West shootout with the Levarity’s employees.

  Fortune smiled on the brothers, however, when an option emerged: Levarity’s daughter’s prom was on the horizon and inside the completion window of the job. Terry intercepted correspondence between one of Levarity’s lieutenants and a limousine company.

  Then he and Yuri went to open a contract with the company.

  ***

  “Why the hell are you speeding?” Yuri boomed in Terry’s Bluetooth through the thrum of engines and the gurgle of exhaust in the background. “You trying to kill me?”

  Terry yanked the vehicle hard around a turn. “We’re a bit behind schedule. Calm down.” He was driving uncomfortably fast for Yuri, but Terry couldn’t allow the job to go sour because they couldn’t manage their time well. Granted, traffic wasn’t their fault, but missing their mark because they didn’t plan accordingly definitely was. Ninpo had no time for traffic nor poor planning. If Ninpo had no time for either, Terry had no time for either. Yuri, angry or not, had to suck it up while Terry decompressed the timeline.

  “Are you hearing me?”

  “Everyone hears you, Yuri. You’re screaming.”

  “You’re gonna fucking kill me!”

  “I’m not going to kill you. Calm down.”

  “You’re not the one who’s about to have your face plastered all over the fucking highway!”

  “I’m not going to kill you. Trust me. Now, stop screaming.”

  “Don’t tell me to stop screaming!”

  Terry jerked the wheel right, then left, then back to center, getting around traffic.

  “What the fuck, Terry?”

  “I can’t concentrate on driving with you screaming at me. Stop it.”

  Yuri unloaded every explicative in his multilingual repertoire. Terry smirked but otherwise ignored his brother’s vulgar dissertation. If not to keep them on schedule, this at least repaid Yuri in full for his smartass mouth. Brotherly payback—Terry wasn’t better than that.

  Yuri’s hot temper made him an easy target when Terry wanted to irritate him. Irritation was the best way to fight Yuri. Sure, Terry could haul off and slap his little brother, but what would that prove? What did a thirty-year-old look like slapping his twenty-five-year-old brother? Not much like a thirty-year-old, that’s what. Besides, slapping his brother was a useless gesture, Terry concluded. Yuri was too stupid to feel pain anyway. Mental abuse was way more effective.

  “Terry, for God’s sake!”

  Terry listened this time and depressed the brake, slowing the vehicle to match the speed limit of the residential boulevard that led to Levarity’s residence. Admittedly, he didn’t like the way the limo handled at higher speeds. Driving slow was preferable, but sacrifices had to be made to keep a professional schedule. Yuri was mad now, but he’d be over it soon enough when he realized the time that Terry had bought them. For that, Terry could deal with his brother’s volcanic mood.

  Several minutes and several intersections later, Yuri’s voice interrupted Terry’s thoughts. “Time?” Yuri asked.

  Terry glanced at his watch and then returned his attention to the road and to the sedan making a right turn ahead of him. “Five minutes. How you holding up?”

  “Aside from the fact that—”

  “Never mind, I decided that I don’t care,” Terry deadpanned as Yuri began to rant. Not that it stopped him. In fact, it had the opposite effect. Yuri opened his levies and began to pour anger through the Bluetooth. Terry let him vent until they reached Levarity’s street and then informed Yuri to stow it so that he didn’t blow their cover. Yuri did begrudgingly.

  Terry eased the vehicle off the street and up to the gate, easing the brake on until the vehicle came to a halt. Terry scanned in an arc, noting a guard house posted by two of Levarity’s security to the left of the gate and a security camera and lamp attached to the right. The guards approached the limo, and Terry rolled the window down, obliging the guards with a porcelain smile.

  During the planning phase, Yuri had spent countless hours recording and reviewing video of gate security. He claimed that there were usually two goons standing guard at any one time, and they were relieved every few hours. Tonight was no different; two bruisers dressed in blazers, jeans, work boots, and fitted ball caps approached the vehicle.

  Terry subtly sized them up. Each was carrying a handgun; the nearest had a weapon tucked into his belt and did a very poor job of hiding it, while the furthest had his holstered underneath his jacket.


  “And you are?” the nearest guard asked, resting his forearm on the car’s window.

  “The…” Terry swished his answer around in his mouth and shot the guard a puzzled look, “limo driver?” It was a question and an answer all at the same time.

  “You got jokes?” the second guard, clearly more bright than the first, retorted defensively.

  “No, no jokes out of me.” Terry put on the most non-confrontational voice he could muster and left both hands on the steering wheel. “I was just a bit confused about what you were asking. You know, whether you wanted my actual name or a description of my business here.”

  “Yeah, well, this ain’t no comedy,” the first guard said. “I’d hate to have to hurt a clown.”

  “Stab the sonuvabitch, Terry,” Yuri said into the Bluetooth. “And I don’t mean that as a euphemism.”

  Terry nodded vaguely and answered the guard and Yuri at the same time: “I don’t want any trouble, sir.”

  The second guard asked to see the contract. Terry opened the glove compartment, pulled out a clipboard with the contract attached, and passed it through the window. The first guard reached for it, but Terry pulled it away and pushed it past him to the second, brighter guard.

  The first goon, still leaning into the window, frowned. “Do you really want to push me?”

  “Absolutely not,” Terry replied sharply, placing a hand against his face to smooth rogue hairs from his goatee. “I wouldn’t dream of pushing a man your size.”

  The second guard pointed at Terry with the clipboard. “You got one more tonight, chump.”

  Terry raised his hands agreeably.

  Both guards circled the vehicle, opening the doors, the trunk, and the hood, lifting up the seats, checking the compartments, and inspecting the massive wheel wells. Then they asked Terry to exit the vehicle so they could inspect him for weapons. Once they were satisfied, the second guard drew his radio and told someone in the house that the limousine had arrived.

  Alright,” he said, returning the clipboard to Terry, “pull through. The driveway snakes up to the rotary. The party will meet you there.”

  Terry nodded and pulled ahead, easing up the driveway to the house.

  The initial portion of the driveway that led from the road to the house was relatively short, measuring perhaps thirty yards, and the backyard and pool with contemporary design were visible from it through the breaks in the shrubbery that bordered either side. The French chateau-style house had hints of Greco architecture and was composed entirely of brick. The house sported a splendid arrangement of colonnades along its portico and a massive fountain at the base of its granite staircase. Large patches of ivy climbed the front of the house to the second story, and several large, coniferous trees grew in front of and around most of the large windows. An awning attached to the northern wing stretched across the end of the driveway to connect a patio to the four-door garage. The driveway bowed around the front of the house in a circular shape to that turned back on itself at the southern wing, where a cylindrical breakfast room jutted from the southwestern corner.

  Terry stopped the Hummer just past the edge of the bushes so that only the front end was visible to the prom entourage congregating in front of the patio to take pictures and carry on obnoxiously. Terry drew a cigar from his jacket and lit it. Then he pulled a rag from the glove compartment, slid out of the driver seat, and began wiping the brake dust from the driver’s side rims—and started a silent sixty-count.

  Terry rose and walked around the hood to the other side, scanning the small crowd: ten family-friendly goons, seven unknown females, an uncle, the mother, sixteen wired adolescents, and—bingo—the target. Otherwise, the immediate area was clear.

  …fifty-eight…fifty-nine…sixty.

  He took one last pull from the cigar and then regarded the ember. He didn’t smoke often, but today was one of those exceptions. He gave a dignified exhale, let the cigar fall from his fingers, walked back to the driver’s seat, climbed in, and situated himself before pulling forward.

  Yuri watched his brother snake up the driveway to a stop, exit the vehicle, move to the front to reconnoiter, and give the execute signal. The signal was a cigar with a burning ember; if Terry had extinguished the ember, Yuri would have maintained his position.

  Yuri tensed his muscles, pulling himself closer to the undercarriage of the vehicle to relieve the pressure on the retaining straps that attached his load-bearing harness to the vehicle’s body and hit the quick-release buckles until he was free. With the faintest rustle, Yuri dropped from the limo, rolled clear, climbed to his hands and feet, and scuttled into the bushes. “I’m clear,” he said just a hair above a whisper into the microphone that pressed into his larynx.

  “Happy hunting,” Terry bubbled as he pulled away.

  Yuri gave his gear a quick check. He hooked his thumbs into the harness to reposition it over his torso armor after both had moved roughshod while had been Yuri suspended beneath the Hummer for the better part of an hour. His matte-black sneaking suit, composed of lightweight shoes, sweatsuit-material cargo pants, and a fleece vest over a form-fitting, long-sleeve insulation shirt that hooked around the thumbs, was in place and situated. His balaclava was in place over the black camouflage paint surrounding his eyes. And his reinforced gloves, elbow and knee pads, and shin guards were sufficiently snug.

  Yuri checked the security of his ninjatō—a shorter, straight-bladed version of the katana whose diminutive size facilitated stealth even when drawn and used in close quarters—attached to the webbing of his harness and holstered in a quick-release sheath; he aimed the handle down to ease its drawing. Strapped to his left forearm was his tanto—a ceremonial katana-shaped knife—encased in a matte-black sheath. He had a silenced handgun securely fastened in a holster against his right thigh and had two extra magazines holstered against the left.

  All was in place.

  “The target’s on the west side of the house with ten bystanders,” Terry said into his Bluetooth. “Others are in and out of the house at random intervals. Lights out in the breakfast room and foyer.”

  Yuri scanned the yard and pool area for activity and then glanced at his watch. He had forty-five minutes to complete the operation: thirty minutes to infiltrate, make the kill, and exfiltrate. Fifteen minutes to cover the two miles in between the house and the rendezvous point. Now he had only forty-four minutes.

  “Hey,” Yuri whispered into the throat mic, “Prince called and said he wants his goatee back.” Terry didn’t reply. Yuri supposed that Terry was currently in the company of others and couldn’t blow his cover to return fire. Terry would just have to marinate; that satisfied Yuri.

  Yuri hugged the shadows and the side of the house as he crept through the yard, sprinting through lighted areas and inching through the darkness. Levarity had two overweight Rottweilers that ruled the backyard, and Yuri needed to be mindful not to alert them.

  The dogs were visible, sleeping in a drooling heap on the far side of the pool deck nearest the northeast corner of the house. Yuri looked for signs of wind direction and noted that he was downwind, so they wouldn’t pick up his scent. He just needed to make sure that he didn’t make any sounds that would draw their attention. At one point, he saw an ear perk up, but it settled shortly after.

  He crawled under a bay window, noting that the lights were off in the living room. Ascending to eye level, he peered into the room, scanning it for occupants: it was empty. Entering through the back door was a good option, although he didn’t have time to pick the lock if the door was locked; a drug lord’s paranoia didn’t often leave doors unlocked. Yuri had a glass cutter in one of his pouches. However, he didn’t want to leave evidence of forced entry, and he was concerned that the glasscutters would emit a sound that could alert the dogs.

  He looked for alternatives.

  Luck was on his side. There was a doggy door on the door proper for an animal much smaller than the Rottweilers.

  Yuri slithered up to the d
oor and double-checked that the room was still clear. He checked the handle, noting that it was locked. He drew his ninjatō and pushed it through the doggy door, reaching up to compel the deadbolt open. With a muffled click, the catch disengaged. Yuri drew his arm back and froze; he had heard the dogs’ collars rattle. The dogs lifted their heads and scanned the backyard but showed no sign of alarm. Unconvinced, the dogs licked each other affectionately and laid their heads back down.

  Yuri recognized a drumming in his ears—the adrenaline. He delayed for a thirty-count to calm his nerves. There was also the bonus of ensuring the dogs were asleep again. At thirty, he hopped to his feet, opened the door, and entered the house, ensuring that he closed the door and locked it behind him. The alarm system let out a short chime, signaling that a door in the house had opened. No one paid it any attention—everyone was preoccupied with the procession.

  Returning his ninjatō to the sheath in a choreographed motion, Yuri crept through a dark, theater-style living room into an equally dark kitchen. The refrigerator and the majority of the appliances sat on Yuri’s right, an enormous table on the left, and a huge island situated in between. He slinked through the archway, simultaneously checking the corners for ambush and hiding spots. Then he heard movement coming towards the kitchen.

  Repetitive rises and falls.

  Footsteps.

  Louder and louder.

  Yuri dove for cover behind the island and pressed his body into it. He couldn’t risk looking at the intruder. If Yuri did, he could alert the intruder to his presence. The human eye had mediocre night vision, but it had an incredible ability to detect motion; periscoping his head to look would draw the intruder’s attention. Instead, Yuri engaged other senses he had been trained to use in darkness. He concentrated on sounds and smells: the footfalls were light and sounded like the patter of bare feet; there was an aroma of fruit, perfume, and shampoo. He concluded that the intruder was female.