Читать онлайн Lily Rizk - Predator

Some historical film was playing on the television. A half-empty bottle of Coke sat gathering dust on the edge of the table.

Why the hell had he listened to Lance and come all the way out to this godforsaken place? Cross wondered idly. That prick was always getting himself into trouble. And here was the result: Cross was stuck in his room while his friend was off somewhere going wild. He lifted his head from the pillow and glanced at the window. Rain pattered against the glass, threatening to turn into a proper downpour.

“Then again, maybe it’s for the best…” he muttered, barely loud enough to hear himself.

He was reclining on a wide bed in a bathrobe. The small hotel was tucked away somewhere in the mountains, far from the bustle of the city and the endless deals. For a moment, he rather liked the thought of buying a little house here one day, keeping a few animals, and spending his old age in peace.

Then he snorted. What was he thinking? At thirty… six?

Turning the long remote over in his fingers, Cross began switching channels. There was nothing to watch. Nothing to do, either, but he had promised himself: no business over the weekend. He needed to switch off completely.

He kept glancing at his phone. No. He couldn’t turn it on. To hell with everything.

Yet five minutes later, his finger pressed the power button of its own accord. And, as always, it started.

Dozens of notifications. The office. Right, now John. Something about the competition: “urgent,” “immediately,” “important.”

It could wait until Monday. He didn’t care.

Then Lance got through. First a batch of messages, followed by a call.

Cross cursed foully, answered, and put him on speaker.

“Buddy…” he began. “I haven’t read your…”

But Lance wasn’t listening. His voice shook and faltered with genuine, animal fear.

“I don’t know if she’s breathing… Cross… bro… I’m scared to touch her…”

“Who? What did you do, Lance?” Cross’s voice hardened at once, cold as steel.

“A girl… She came and sat with me… I was fucking wasted… Shit, I don’t know!”

“Where are you?”

“I’m… here…”

“Where the fuck is ‘here’?!” Cross barked. “Send me your location. Now.”

“Okay… Man, I… I don’t know what to do…”

“Send me your location. I’m on my way.”

He drove fast, his mind fixed on the road. By then, the rain had become a solid wall. The country road wound through the trees in treacherous bends, and the wet asphalt reflected his headlights like a mirror. Ahead, behind the torrents of water, the forest stretched like a solid wall.

Afraid he wouldn’t get there in time, Cross pressed the accelerator to the floor. Suddenly, just beyond a bend, the shape of a truck appeared at the edge of the road. Too close. Cross slammed on the brakes. The car skidded. At that very moment, a man stepped out from behind the hood, straight into its path.

Cross jerked the wheel, reacting instantly, but it was too late. There was a dull, heavy thud.

The car lurched sharply and came to an abrupt stop. Cross jumped out. An elderly man lay on the wet asphalt, glistening with rain. His face was deathly pale, his eyes wide open but staring into nothing. He was barely breathing, his fingers clutching desperately at his chest.

“Hey… sir… are you all right? Can you hear me?!” Cross crouched beside him. His whole body was pounding with adrenaline. God, please let him be alive!

With an effort, the old man let out one last, deep breath… and went still.

Cross pressed his fingers to the man’s neck, searching for a pulse. Nothing. He lowered his hands and closed his eyes.

His phone rang in his pocket. Lance again.

Cross answered, but before he could say anything, Lance blurted out with a laugh.

“Cross, forget it! She came round. That… fucking bitch just passed out. From the sex, can you believe it?! And I thought she was dead!”

Cross hung up without a word. Then he dialed 911.

“Car accident. One person injured.” After a strained pause, he added hoarsely, “He’s… not breathing.”

The elderly man had suffered a heart attack, and the impact had been the final push, but not the cause of death. The attack had begun before the collision, and even if Cross hadn’t been driving along that road, the old man would have collapsed anyway.

Begovich’s lawyers handled all the formalities. They went about their work with a cold ruthlessness and no trace of emotion. He paid for everything: medical expenses, the funeral, compensation for the family. But he never appeared in person. He sent no flowers and made no calls.

He simply disappeared from the story. Put it out of his mind, and that was that.

His life was busy enough as it was. He had done everything he could. The relatives ought to be thanking him. After all, if he hadn’t been there in the last minutes of the old man’s life and played a part, however terrible, in his death, they would have had to fork out money, suffer losses, and deal with all the rest… Instead, he had taken care of everything.

Let’s be honest! He wasn’t the one who should be apologizing. They should be apologizing to him.

Adjusting his tie and pressing his lips together, Cross Begovich closed the folder containing the case documents… What was that poor fellow’s name? Oh, never mind…

Faced with a powerful law firm, the investigators wasted no time. They never even opened a case. It disappeared before it had a chance to exist. And life went on as usual. Business, struggles, victories, celebrations…

Six months passed.

“Congratulations. Great place!” one of his friends said, looking around the spacious office on Park Avenue.

“Thanks.” Cross nodded, shaking hands with his guests as they came in.

“Toby, how’s your little girl?”

“Great, thanks. Growing fast. She’ll be two months old soon! Your turn, brother!” Toby laughed, then pointed around the room. “And yours. Yours too!”

Everyone laughed.

“Oh, come on,” Lance said with a dismissive wave. “Getting married is like turning yourself in to the cops with two kilos of drugs in your pocket. No thanks. Count me out!”

“I’m thinking about it, actually,” Elliot said evenly, hiding a smile.

“Really? Who is she?” Cross clapped him on the shoulder.

Just then, his secretary appeared in the doorway. Cross glanced at her.

“Coffee for everyone, Kristin. Thank you.”

Then he turned straight back to the conversation.

“Come on, Ell. Spill.”

“There’s someone… Nothing serious yet.”

“Oh no. Don’t tell me it’s that girl from the birthday party… What was her name… Danny, help me out?”

“Katie,” Danny supplied.

“That’s it, Katie. Quite a piece of work,” Lance drawled, shaking his head.

Cross laughed, waved a hand, and went over to his chair. The others followed, settling onto the leather sofa and into the armchairs.

Later, over coffee, as they discussed a party to celebrate the move, Cross finally gave in.

“All right… Fine. We’ll have a party.”

“I can help organize it!” Lance winked, as much the life of the party as ever.

“I was just about to ask you,” Cross replied with a grin.

“He’ll bankrupt you,” Danny said, shaking his head.

“Stop it,” Lance protested. “I’m not like that!”

Laughter filled the office again, washing away the last traces of silence.

Before long, the guests left. Someone let the door slam; others lingered by the elevator, discussing what they would bring to the party.

The office felt spacious again. Too spacious.

Cross stood by the window. Rain was falling outside. The same fine, unpleasant rain as that day. It scratched softly at the glass, as though deliberately, persistently knocking at his memory. Lost in thought, Cross stared at nothing. At the moving lights below, at the blurred ribbons of headlights flowing through the evening city like blood through capillaries.

New York went about its life, unaware that for someone on the thirty-sixth floor, everything had stopped.

He remembered the silence after the impact, when all sound had dissolved. That rain and the hollow emptiness. He remembered touching the man’s neck and finding nothing. Then saying into the phone, “He’s… not breathing.”

Now he had a new office, new deals, new goals. And the same old, tormenting truth.

He took a sip of cold coffee. There was only bitterness, no sugar, no meaning. He set the cup on the windowsill.

No, he felt no remorse. He had nothing to feel remorse for. But… he remembered.

Cross Begovich was Bosnian, born in Visoko, a town where every other house bore the scars of war and every house held a memory. He had grown up in an educated but traditional family. His father was a lawyer, a man of firm principles and heavy silences, and his mother taught French. Their household rested on books, old rules, and a clear division of responsibilities. His father always had the final say; compassion belonged to his mother.

From the time they were children, their father took Cross and his older brother, Kenan, into the woods and taught them to shoot. It wasn’t about hunting. He wanted the boys to learn discipline and how to achieve a result. There were old plywood targets in their grandfather’s shed. They started with air guns and later moved on to a carbine. Their father’s brother, Uncle Ibrahim, was the one who dragged them along to boxing. He was a strong man with a temper like gunpowder, but brave and deeply responsible. He used to say a man had to know how to take a blow in any situation. Then Ibrahim was killed in the second year of the war. Ever since, Cross had seen fighting as more than a sport. It was his own way of honoring his uncle’s memory.

As a boy, he had wanted to be like his uncle, and when he grew older, people really did begin to see Ibrahim in him.

There were only two sons in the family. Kenan followed in his father’s footsteps and graduated from law school, but never practiced. Instead of offices and courtrooms, he chose what had always been closer to his heart: farming and the land. Their grandfather, Hasan Begovich, the father of Ismail and Ibrahim, had instilled that love in him years before. Kenan restored his grandfather’s winery, brought the old vineyards back into shape, and put even more land into production. Livestock, harvests, deliveries. Against all predictions, the business flourished. He never argued with his father, but he didn’t obey him either. He did things his own way, quietly, persistently, and successfully.

And Cross… In the years after the war, when the country was only beginning to recover, his father insisted that his younger son needed a serious profession too. Cross did as he was told. He entered university, where he initially studied law, just as Kenan had. But he soon realized it wasn’t his path. Formulas took the place of texts, calculations the place of interpretations. He switched to economics and immersed himself in the world of strategy. Financial analysis, banking systems, and the mechanics of risk absorbed him completely. He felt far more sure of himself there than among the abstractions of law. And people noticed him. First as a systems analyst at a bank involved in the reconstruction effort, then as someone who could spot a failure before it happened.

Cross moved to the United States at twenty-six. Late by the standards of ambitious young people, but not for him. He knew exactly where he was going and why. He enrolled in a master’s program at a university in New York and continued building his knowledge. He studied during the day and worked part-time at a bank in the evenings, first helping out in the back office, then moving into analysis. There, too, people soon valued his analytical mind, his coolness under pressure, and his unconventional approach to numbers. Where others saw static reports, he saw movement, logic, and weaknesses.