WARNING: Darkness leaps from these pages because there’s always someone out there wanting to right a wrong …
Ho-hum. Fresh from killing his older brother and orchestrating his mother’s suicide, eleven-year-old Michael Romanov hungers for excitement. He and his foster brother, Dimitri, while away their summer evenings picking pockets in Copenhagen’s famous Tivoli Gardens.
Not for the money. For fun. For the adrenaline hit.
They take pride in targeting marks—always searching for one who will present a challenge. On the night that changes everything, they go for an obvious American. Surprise. The American and another thug snatch the boys off the main Tivoli arcade and shove them into a waiting limo.
The kidnappers want justice.
Not for the murder. For the suicide of Michael’s ice-princess mother.
When he protests his innocence, his captors retaliate brutally. For some reason Michael can’t grasp, they have placed her on a pedestal. The woman—biologically his mother—neglected him from birth. Yet these men speak of her with near reverence. Michael quickly learns survival depends on saying nothing about his reasons for hating his entire family.
Abandoned in a godforsaken Finnish forest, definitely worse for wear from slaps and kicks and lack of food and sleep, the boys search for shelter under the Midnight Sun’s unrelenting heat. When they stumble on a beautiful, well-stocked cabin, they celebrate prematurely.
There’s no can opener for all the tinned meats, fruits, and vegetables. Nor is there a paddle for the canoe at the lake’s edge. No maps mean no path back to civilization.
Then the scariest kidnapper shows up with a gun.
What kind of game are these predators playing?
Is there any hope Michael’s millionaire father will pay a ransom?
What if … he’s behind the abduction?
Fast-paced with twists and surprises, this story proves psychopaths think of revenge as justice.
PROLOGUE
He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took him in.
Edwin Markham
Requiem to a Dead Mother
Unloving mother. Cold. Rejecting. Dead.
Unfeeling mother. Hard. Self-Seeking. Dead.
Unforgiving mother. Distant. Heartless. Dead.
The worms creep in. The worms creep out.
Rest in hell, you faithless layabout.
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Michael Romanov
Chapter 1
Finding Fun in the Midnight Sun
Tivoli Gardens—Saturday, June 19, 1976, 9:35 P.M.
Whipped cream, chocolate meringue, and the traditional dollop of Danish raspberry jam topped four scoops of vanilla ice cream in my waffle cone.
Ahhh, a moment sinful enough to distract me and my best friend Dimitri. Despite our Einstein-IQs, we closed our eyes like normal eleven-year-old boys and savored the explosion of flavors on our tongues. When we opened our eyes, we surveyed the crowds eddying around us. We nudged each other at the same instant and grinned. Our next mark.
Picking pockets in Tivoli had become a sport we’d perfected all spring.
Not for the money.
For the excitement.
Thanks to my absent father, we never lacked for spending money. What we craved was the tingle on our scalps from choosing prey, watching him for five or ten minutes, then closing in.
Perfection evolved from daring. We often discussed when we would hit on one of the policemen mingling with the hordes of tourists and Copenhageners as the midsummer sun hovered above the horizon.
Tonight, though, we zeroed in on a tall, husky American. His booming voice announced his citizenship. The baseball cap he wore backward amounted to an orange neon sign. A wallet bulged in the rear pocket of his walking shorts, extending an invitation for us to transfer it to our possession.
The American’s challenge quotient was low, our boredom quotient was high.
Finished with our cones, I gave our secret signal. Dimitri and I fanned out in opposite directions. My heart beat faster. God, I loved—
A small, blond boy rammed into my thigh. Damn kid. I stifled the impulse to kick the brat and managed to keep my balance. He ran around me without apologizing. Rude little bastard.
Our mark was strolling toward the puppet show.
No sign of Dimitri.
Trusting he’d follow our proven routine, I took one step forward.
Something hard punched me in the kidney.
COLLAPSE