Killer With Three Heads Excerpt
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Killer With Three Heads
Head Of The Family
Chapter 1 – Time To Kill
The sign over the door of the two story brick building on the corner read, Sons of Italy Social Club. Or at least that’s what it
said years ago before five of the letters fell off. But it had been there long enough that the missing letters, the O’s and I’s, left their
mark on the brick façade. The blacken glass windows looked out to the east and north while double steel doors angled between
them faced the busy intersection. They swung open letting in the bright morning sun, they weren’t locked. The Sons of Italy Social
Club never closes. The blinding daylight drew everyone’s attention to the thigh high black leather boots, red micro-mini skirt, and
rabbit fur jacket that barely clothed a raven hair ebony Queen. Five men and a barmaid had to squint to focus on her until the doors
shut and the light gave way to a more normal view.
“Marone!” said the old guy sitting at the card table facing the woman. The other two middle aged men nearly snapped their
necks doing a double take. “You got the wrong place honey,” he said slicking back his gray and black dyed hair. “This is a private
club. You want the bus depot down the block.”
“I think I’m in the right place,” she cooed as she sauntered deeper into the room. “I’m here for Benny, it’s his birthday and I’m
here to make him a man.”
A skinny pimpled face boy standing at the pool table voice cracked with uneasy arousal, “I’m Benny, but my birthday ain’t until
next week.”
His pool partner, a slightly older boy, slapped him in the back of his head. The woman stopped at a table two feet from the
boys. She put her foot on the seat of the chair, so they could see right up the skirt revealing everything she had to offer. She kicked
the chair and it slid across the floor to the pool table. Benny’s friend hustled him to the chair and pushed him down in it. The three
card playing men positioned their chairs for a better view and one of them called out, “Red, put on some music.”
The barmaid flipped a switch and the club filled with Disco sounds, loud and pulsating. The woman started swaying her hips and
shaking her tits which were now out of the rabbit fur and protruding from her red halter top. She swung her leg high over Benny’s
head giving all the men a preview of what was to come, spinning around and thrusting her naked butt in his face. She slowly rubbed
her bare bottom down his chest and onto his lap. Benny already had a hard-on sticking up through his jeans and she was sure the
other men had them too. Hands on her knees she gyrated and bounced on his lap, rotating her cunt so close to his face he could
smell her tangy juices and feel the heat that produced them.
The men were spellbound when she leaped up, spun around in the air, and landed on his lap again wrapping her legs around
him. Her ankles locked around the back legs of the chair. His face was buried in her ample cleavage; he could feel his pants filling
with scum. Ashamed, he tried to stop but his body was out of control, he was trapped by her overpowering essence. Everything
was happening so fast.
The woman ran her hands through her long silky black hair taking the other men eyes with them. She reached down into the
back of the rabbit fur jacket. The men were glued to her every movement. They watched intently as she pulled two .22 revolvers
from her back. They didn’t even blink when she fired point blank into the pool player’s face. Then with the gun in her right hand, she
swept across the card table, placing a slug in each man’s forehead.
“Sorry Benny, this is as close as you get to being a man,” she whispers in his ear before putting a bullet in it. She pushes him to
the floor and quickly goes to the backroom door. The black thigh high boot kicks in the door. With disco music blaring behind her
and two .22s outstretched before her, she freezes in the doorway of the inner office.
“Vicky. I knew it was you I heard getting the boys all worked up,” said Nicky Nails with an easy smile. “I haven’t seen you in
ages. Did you leave any of my guys alive?”
“I told her to kill them all!”
“Goddamn Mojo! This is a day for surprise.” Nicky eyes are beaming at the man who has joined Vicky in the back office.
Vicky took another two steps into the room and Morris Johnson had slid in to the right.
“I go by the name John Morrison now. Morris Johnson has been dead for ten years.”
“Worst alias I’ve ever heard,” Nicky laughs still seated behind his desk.
“And I told you before,” Vicky snarled, “call me Clarita Sanchez. Why don’t you let me kill this guinea prick and we can get on
with our business.”
“Because,” I sigh heavily as I explain it to her one more time, “this guinea prick is my friend. And he has the drop on us. You
see he has his hands positioned on the edge of his big metal desk.”
“Yeah... So?”
“He probably has a hand grenade between his knees and is prepared to drop it and flip the desk over for cover.”
“That’s correct,” replies Nicky. “This nigger taught me always keeps a hand grenade handy. And I guess you have one in your
pocket too. Can we put the pins in now and get down to business?”
“Sure… and Honey can come out of the closet over there,” I show Nicky my grenade and thumb the pin back into the handle.
He reaches under the desk and does the same to his. Honey opens a secret panel in the wall behind him and comes out toting a
sawed off shotgun. The three of us exchange embraces as Vicky reloads and holsters her guns, still angry that she didn’t get to kill
Nicky.
Rozalina brings in a large bottle of Absolute and Nicky pours five shots of vodka, we clink glasses and down the shots. She
whispers in his ear and I say, “Come on Cherry Bomb, we are all friends here.”
“That’s Mrs. Cherry Bomb Rocci to you,” Nicky corrects me.
“What? You’re kidding right.”
Rozalina holds up her hand to show off the huge sparkling diamond ring as proof. “Immigration was trying to deport her,”
explains Nicky, “I couldn’t let my favorite girl go.”
“Some guys are out there,” Rozalina tells him, “cleaning up the mess.”
“Your friends from Chicago had something to do with my daughter’s kidnapping,” I let fly the heated accusation. “I intend to
find out what. And…”
“Hold on Mojo,” Nicky is pouring another round, “I don’t think Chicago is behind Maria’s kidnapping. They have nothing to
gain, it not the way we operate.”
I accept the drink sitting on the edge of his desk. Vicky is looking at us very nervously. Honey had put the sawed-off back in
the hidden closet and looked at the two of us not knowing what to expect next. I had disappeared for four years and returned to
light up the club with Vicky. “As I understand it, you are about to replace your father as head of the New York Mob. Maybe they
want to draw me out and discredit your loyalty to the family. After all, you are where you are today because you supposedly had
me killed.”
“Yeah, but that’s ancient history now.” Nicky downed his drink and continues, “That all died the day Angelo did. Beside,
anybody who could stand in my way of taking over from my father is already at the bottom of the East River. Those guys are
here… well were here… because your boys are moving in on their territory back in Chicago. I have been telling your boys to pull
back before we end up in a shooting war.”
“I have them keeping a close eye up north because you have been asleep at the wheel,” I tell him and down my next shot.
“Those guys have been muscling in on our drug trade and infiltrating your operations.”
“Bullshit!”
“Oh Yeah! How about that little motherfucker, Benny?”
“Benny!” Nicky half laughs, “I had him running for me since he was in the third grade. I was fucking his mother for years,”
Nicky quickly shot an apologetic look over to Rozalina. “Before I married you honey.”
“That might be so. But his uncle is Peter Brunello, you know, the Chicago godfather. They have been setting up a power play
for years and I think they are going to use Maria as their pawn.”
“Look, Maria is my goddaughter,” Nicky says, the smile gone from his face. He looks me in the eyes with a dead cold stare. “I
have her bodyguards down in the basement, they been telling me exactly what happened yesterday, I know they are telling the truth.
No one from the north is involved. If I thought for a second they were, bullets would be flying and the streets of Chicago would be
flowing with blood.”
“You sure about this.”
“Yes, and as soon as those two studnods come to, I’ll finish getting the information out of them.” I noticed the bruises on his
hands. His knuckles were skinned and scraped. Nicky Nails had put on thirty or so pounds since I last seen him, all muscle. Now
he did looked like he could chew nails and spit bullets. “For now, you stay out of sight; I’ll handle Chicago and find out where
Maria is. Man, I hate to have to tell Benny’s mother he’s dead. She is gonna be pissed. And if she is connected to Chicago things
are going to get ugly.”
“Don’t worry about them, call her up and tell her you sent him on a job. My boys will handle the rest. I also got them working
the streets, we will find Maria.”
“Yeah we will,” he looked down and then back at me with his boyish grin, “you haven’t seen Elizabeth yet, have you?”
“No.” I said flatly. “I wanted to have some good news to tell her.”
“Well just seeing you’re alive will be good news,” he tells me. “She is sure that you died in Columbia when you didn’t return
from that last mission. Four years is a long time Mojo, what the hell happened? Oh and by the way, I wouldn’t just go walking in the
front door, the feds are there.”
“What?”
“Well it is a kidnapping case,” Nicky said angrily, “it kinda their thing. And you know they never stopped paying her a little
attention. Anyway, you know the guy; he came out of retirement or something to work this case.”
A young black man in red jumpsuit knocks on the door that is hanging half off the hinges. “All done John,” he says. Nicky looks
him over from his paper hair net to his paper booties. He looks like he just stepped out of an operating room. “They are in the van,”
he continues, “Do you want us to dispose of them in the usual manner?”
“No,” I reply as I come to my feet. “We are gonna have to store those guys for a while. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Real professional,” remarks Nicky. He refills my glass and gives it a tap. “Girls give us a minute.”
The three women return to the bar. Rozalina is amazed at the sight, not a drop of blood anywhere, not a chair over turned, the place
is spotless. When she left there were rivers of blood on the floor and flowing from the card table. As precise as Vicky was, shooting
five people in the head left a mess, and now you couldn’t tell a harsh word had been spoken in the place. The cleanup crew, five
husky black guys in red one piece jumpsuits had transformed the place. It looked better than it ever had.
“I’m leaving Vicky here to help you with security,” I inform Nicky. He gives me a frown and then resigns himself to the inevitable.
“Until we get to the bottom of this, you need someone you can trust watching your back.”
“Watching my back,” Nicky downs another shot, “she’s likely to put a knife in it. You know she thinks I left you hanging in
Columbia. I didn’t you know. I had our people all over the place trying to find you. What the fuck happened down there?”
“I know you did. It like I told you that night, the government was about to pull a double cross. You saved both of our lives. You
didn’t tell her did you?”
Nicky shook his head, “Not a word, although I don’t know why you wanted to keep it from her. Anyway, how many times I have
to tell you, never work with the government. They’ll fuck you every time.”
I ran my hand across my chest and up to my left shoulder; it was automatic reaction to the fathom pain that flares up when I think
about Columbia. “Well she knows now. I told her two days ago. She wasn’t very happy.”
Vicky was sitting at the bar staring into a half full glass of vodka. Rozalina and Izolda gave her plenty of space; they could tell she
wanted to be alone. She had slipped on underwear and jeans and just sat there barefoot, her mind no where near the bar. She was
in the Grand Caymans, it was 2 a.m. and the only person who could get the drop on her was kneeling by her bedside with his hand
on her mouth.
Her eyes sprang open; her fist flew wildly and in midflight changed to an embrace. Her arm wrapped around Mojo neck as he spun
and whipped her out of bed without disturbing her sleeping husband, Derrick. His hand went from her mouth to clutching her bare
ass and he carried her into the living room.
“My God! You’re alive,” she whispered. She pulled my shirt open and down my arms, she placed her right hand softly on my chest
over the three bullet-hole scars, just to make sure I wasn’t a ghost. Then she fell against my chest and I could feel the tears rolling
down my body. “I knew you were alive. I told Derrick. I told Nicky. I told them all, it would take more than three bullets to kill
you,” she said defiantly. “We got to wake up Derrick; he has to know you are back.”
“Not just yet,” I tell her. I notice her eyes are tracing the whip lashes that crisscross my body. I take her by the hand and lead her
out into the night. I hold her tight against my body searching for the words that I must tell her. Her body is melting into mine, her
fingers running along the marks on my back. Finally I place my hands firmly on her shoulders and hold her at arm’s length, “it was
Derrick. He set you up. Those bullets were meant for you.”
“No. No you’re wrong. The Columbians, they fought back.” Tears were welling up in her eyes. Pain and anger was colliding with
confusion and reason in her mind. Her face contorted as thoughts rehashed events four years buried but never forgotten. “No,” she
cried. “No. He loves me. He’s my husband now; we’ve been married two years…”
“I know,” I said emotionlessly, “I had to be sure. I told you he was CIA, not to trust him. He set up the mission; the raid was
designed to get you killed. I wasn’t supposed to be there, that’s why I waited to the last minute to show up.”
“Half the team got killed that day in the jungle,” her voice was hard.
“Yeah, so?”
Vicky turned and walked back into the house. Her slender body stiff, her nightgown fluttered in the gentle island breeze, but she was
oblivious to everything. She had switched into killer mode, from that moment on she felt nothing, she focused on the job before her,
she moved with precision. Quiet, like I taught her, she re-entered the bedroom, she slid between the sheets, and Derrick inhaled
deeply as if he was asleep. Vicky reached an arm across his stomach and waited. The minutes passed slowly, they both laid there
waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Vicky was on her side facing him and her arm went limp across his body. Derrick was lying
on his back and thought this was the chance he needed. He flipped over on top of her, clamped his huge hands on her throat, he
was about to use his full body weight to break her neck when flames erupted in his abdomen. It coursed through his stomach and
exploded into his chest, ripping it way out of his shoulder. Before the first shock wave of pain could be fully realized and reacted to,
another fireball cooked his intestines, followed by another, and another.
Within seconds, Derrick’s massive weight came down on Vicky’s petit frame, wet and bloodied. Vicky laid there with the gun her
left hand and her husband’s head cradled to her in her right. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to. She stared into the dark night
oblivious to everything around her.
***
Her face in the mirror behind the bar is stone cold and her eyes are empty. I run my hand down the back of her neck pulling her
back from the abyss of self doubt. I trained her to trust no one but herself. To believe everyone lies all the time. It was the world we
lived in, it was the only way to survive the jungle, and she was stone wrapped in a façade of humanity. Everyone was a killer, and
everyone was expendable. Trust, faith, love were weapons more deadly the knives, guns, or bombs. I taught Vicky to use each with
precision and without a conscious. I taught Vicky to be a weapon.
“I’m heading out to the island,” I said to her, not really sure if she was fully back yet. “Keep your eyes open, if anything jumps off…
Well, you know what to do. You know how to reach me.”
“I still think your friend knows more than he telling,” she hisses as she watches Nicky in the mirror behind the bar.
“Of course he does,” I whisper in her ear, “but all that will come out in due time. I need you here and on point if he is wrong about
Chicago. And if he’s not, and I believe he’s not, then we are in for a nasty fight. Worst than Columbia, and I need you razor sharp
and ready to kill.”
As I leave the club I take a quick look back and lock eyes with Nicky, he nods and I go. I’m reassured that he’ll keep Vicky out of
danger. And I hope to hell she doesn’t kill him. I hop in the back of a blacked out Lincoln and tell my three guys there has been a
change of plan. We are going to Long Island but not to the mansion as planned. Not with the FBI working on Elizabeth, we are
going to take an indirect approach. And after what Nicky told me in his office, the indirect approach will work on several levels. I’ll
be able to get Elizabeth to a safe place, and then I’ll find out how much the FBI knows about the kidnapping. Yeah, the plan has
changed, getting Maria back wasn’t going to be as easy as putting a bullet in some asshole’s ear.
Head Of The Family
Chapter 1 – Time To Kill
The sign over the door of the two story brick building on the corner read, Sons of Italy Social Club. Or at least that’s what it
said years ago before five of the letters fell off. But it had been there long enough that the missing letters, the O’s and I’s, left their
mark on the brick façade. The blacken glass windows looked out to the east and north while double steel doors angled between
them faced the busy intersection. They swung open letting in the bright morning sun, they weren’t locked. The Sons of Italy Social
Club never closes. The blinding daylight drew everyone’s attention to the thigh high black leather boots, red micro-mini skirt, and
rabbit fur jacket that barely clothed a raven hair ebony Queen. Five men and a barmaid had to squint to focus on her until the doors
shut and the light gave way to a more normal view.
“Marone!” said the old guy sitting at the card table facing the woman. The other two middle aged men nearly snapped their
necks doing a double take. “You got the wrong place honey,” he said slicking back his gray and black dyed hair. “This is a private
club. You want the bus depot down the block.”
“I think I’m in the right place,” she cooed as she sauntered deeper into the room. “I’m here for Benny, it’s his birthday and I’m
here to make him a man.”
A skinny pimpled face boy standing at the pool table voice cracked with uneasy arousal, “I’m Benny, but my birthday ain’t until
next week.”
His pool partner, a slightly older boy, slapped him in the back of his head. The woman stopped at a table two feet from the
boys. She put her foot on the seat of the chair, so they could see right up the skirt revealing everything she had to offer. She kicked
the chair and it slid across the floor to the pool table. Benny’s friend hustled him to the chair and pushed him down in it. The three
card playing men positioned their chairs for a better view and one of them called out, “Red, put on some music.”
The barmaid flipped a switch and the club filled with Disco sounds, loud and pulsating. The woman started swaying her hips and
shaking her tits which were now out of the rabbit fur and protruding from her red halter top. She swung her leg high over Benny’s
head giving all the men a preview of what was to come, spinning around and thrusting her naked butt in his face. She slowly rubbed
her bare bottom down his chest and onto his lap. Benny already had a hard-on sticking up through his jeans and she was sure the
other men had them too. Hands on her knees she gyrated and bounced on his lap, rotating her cunt so close to his face he could
smell her tangy juices and feel the heat that produced them.
The men were spellbound when she leaped up, spun around in the air, and landed on his lap again wrapping her legs around
him. Her ankles locked around the back legs of the chair. His face was buried in her ample cleavage; he could feel his pants filling
with scum. Ashamed, he tried to stop but his body was out of control, he was trapped by her overpowering essence. Everything
was happening so fast.
The woman ran her hands through her long silky black hair taking the other men eyes with them. She reached down into the
back of the rabbit fur jacket. The men were glued to her every movement. They watched intently as she pulled two .22 revolvers
from her back. They didn’t even blink when she fired point blank into the pool player’s face. Then with the gun in her right hand, she
swept across the card table, placing a slug in each man’s forehead.
“Sorry Benny, this is as close as you get to being a man,” she whispers in his ear before putting a bullet in it. She pushes him to
the floor and quickly goes to the backroom door. The black thigh high boot kicks in the door. With disco music blaring behind her
and two .22s outstretched before her, she freezes in the doorway of the inner office.
“Vicky. I knew it was you I heard getting the boys all worked up,” said Nicky Nails with an easy smile. “I haven’t seen you in
ages. Did you leave any of my guys alive?”
“I told her to kill them all!”
“Goddamn Mojo! This is a day for surprise.” Nicky eyes are beaming at the man who has joined Vicky in the back office.
Vicky took another two steps into the room and Morris Johnson had slid in to the right.
“I go by the name John Morrison now. Morris Johnson has been dead for ten years.”
“Worst alias I’ve ever heard,” Nicky laughs still seated behind his desk.
“And I told you before,” Vicky snarled, “call me Clarita Sanchez. Why don’t you let me kill this guinea prick and we can get on
with our business.”
“Because,” I sigh heavily as I explain it to her one more time, “this guinea prick is my friend. And he has the drop on us. You
see he has his hands positioned on the edge of his big metal desk.”
“Yeah... So?”
“He probably has a hand grenade between his knees and is prepared to drop it and flip the desk over for cover.”
“That’s correct,” replies Nicky. “This nigger taught me always keeps a hand grenade handy. And I guess you have one in your
pocket too. Can we put the pins in now and get down to business?”
“Sure… and Honey can come out of the closet over there,” I show Nicky my grenade and thumb the pin back into the handle.
He reaches under the desk and does the same to his. Honey opens a secret panel in the wall behind him and comes out toting a
sawed off shotgun. The three of us exchange embraces as Vicky reloads and holsters her guns, still angry that she didn’t get to kill
Nicky.
Rozalina brings in a large bottle of Absolute and Nicky pours five shots of vodka, we clink glasses and down the shots. She
whispers in his ear and I say, “Come on Cherry Bomb, we are all friends here.”
“That’s Mrs. Cherry Bomb Rocci to you,” Nicky corrects me.
“What? You’re kidding right.”
Rozalina holds up her hand to show off the huge sparkling diamond ring as proof. “Immigration was trying to deport her,”
explains Nicky, “I couldn’t let my favorite girl go.”
“Some guys are out there,” Rozalina tells him, “cleaning up the mess.”
“Your friends from Chicago had something to do with my daughter’s kidnapping,” I let fly the heated accusation. “I intend to
find out what. And…”
“Hold on Mojo,” Nicky is pouring another round, “I don’t think Chicago is behind Maria’s kidnapping. They have nothing to
gain, it not the way we operate.”
I accept the drink sitting on the edge of his desk. Vicky is looking at us very nervously. Honey had put the sawed-off back in
the hidden closet and looked at the two of us not knowing what to expect next. I had disappeared for four years and returned to
light up the club with Vicky. “As I understand it, you are about to replace your father as head of the New York Mob. Maybe they
want to draw me out and discredit your loyalty to the family. After all, you are where you are today because you supposedly had
me killed.”
“Yeah, but that’s ancient history now.” Nicky downed his drink and continues, “That all died the day Angelo did. Beside,
anybody who could stand in my way of taking over from my father is already at the bottom of the East River. Those guys are
here… well were here… because your boys are moving in on their territory back in Chicago. I have been telling your boys to pull
back before we end up in a shooting war.”
“I have them keeping a close eye up north because you have been asleep at the wheel,” I tell him and down my next shot.
“Those guys have been muscling in on our drug trade and infiltrating your operations.”
“Bullshit!”
“Oh Yeah! How about that little motherfucker, Benny?”
“Benny!” Nicky half laughs, “I had him running for me since he was in the third grade. I was fucking his mother for years,”
Nicky quickly shot an apologetic look over to Rozalina. “Before I married you honey.”
“That might be so. But his uncle is Peter Brunello, you know, the Chicago godfather. They have been setting up a power play
for years and I think they are going to use Maria as their pawn.”
“Look, Maria is my goddaughter,” Nicky says, the smile gone from his face. He looks me in the eyes with a dead cold stare. “I
have her bodyguards down in the basement, they been telling me exactly what happened yesterday, I know they are telling the truth.
No one from the north is involved. If I thought for a second they were, bullets would be flying and the streets of Chicago would be
flowing with blood.”
“You sure about this.”
“Yes, and as soon as those two studnods come to, I’ll finish getting the information out of them.” I noticed the bruises on his
hands. His knuckles were skinned and scraped. Nicky Nails had put on thirty or so pounds since I last seen him, all muscle. Now
he did looked like he could chew nails and spit bullets. “For now, you stay out of sight; I’ll handle Chicago and find out where
Maria is. Man, I hate to have to tell Benny’s mother he’s dead. She is gonna be pissed. And if she is connected to Chicago things
are going to get ugly.”
“Don’t worry about them, call her up and tell her you sent him on a job. My boys will handle the rest. I also got them working
the streets, we will find Maria.”
“Yeah we will,” he looked down and then back at me with his boyish grin, “you haven’t seen Elizabeth yet, have you?”
“No.” I said flatly. “I wanted to have some good news to tell her.”
“Well just seeing you’re alive will be good news,” he tells me. “She is sure that you died in Columbia when you didn’t return
from that last mission. Four years is a long time Mojo, what the hell happened? Oh and by the way, I wouldn’t just go walking in the
front door, the feds are there.”
“What?”
“Well it is a kidnapping case,” Nicky said angrily, “it kinda their thing. And you know they never stopped paying her a little
attention. Anyway, you know the guy; he came out of retirement or something to work this case.”
A young black man in red jumpsuit knocks on the door that is hanging half off the hinges. “All done John,” he says. Nicky looks
him over from his paper hair net to his paper booties. He looks like he just stepped out of an operating room. “They are in the van,”
he continues, “Do you want us to dispose of them in the usual manner?”
“No,” I reply as I come to my feet. “We are gonna have to store those guys for a while. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Real professional,” remarks Nicky. He refills my glass and gives it a tap. “Girls give us a minute.”
The three women return to the bar. Rozalina is amazed at the sight, not a drop of blood anywhere, not a chair over turned, the place
is spotless. When she left there were rivers of blood on the floor and flowing from the card table. As precise as Vicky was, shooting
five people in the head left a mess, and now you couldn’t tell a harsh word had been spoken in the place. The cleanup crew, five
husky black guys in red one piece jumpsuits had transformed the place. It looked better than it ever had.
“I’m leaving Vicky here to help you with security,” I inform Nicky. He gives me a frown and then resigns himself to the inevitable.
“Until we get to the bottom of this, you need someone you can trust watching your back.”
“Watching my back,” Nicky downs another shot, “she’s likely to put a knife in it. You know she thinks I left you hanging in
Columbia. I didn’t you know. I had our people all over the place trying to find you. What the fuck happened down there?”
“I know you did. It like I told you that night, the government was about to pull a double cross. You saved both of our lives. You
didn’t tell her did you?”
Nicky shook his head, “Not a word, although I don’t know why you wanted to keep it from her. Anyway, how many times I have
to tell you, never work with the government. They’ll fuck you every time.”
I ran my hand across my chest and up to my left shoulder; it was automatic reaction to the fathom pain that flares up when I think
about Columbia. “Well she knows now. I told her two days ago. She wasn’t very happy.”
Vicky was sitting at the bar staring into a half full glass of vodka. Rozalina and Izolda gave her plenty of space; they could tell she
wanted to be alone. She had slipped on underwear and jeans and just sat there barefoot, her mind no where near the bar. She was
in the Grand Caymans, it was 2 a.m. and the only person who could get the drop on her was kneeling by her bedside with his hand
on her mouth.
Her eyes sprang open; her fist flew wildly and in midflight changed to an embrace. Her arm wrapped around Mojo neck as he spun
and whipped her out of bed without disturbing her sleeping husband, Derrick. His hand went from her mouth to clutching her bare
ass and he carried her into the living room.
“My God! You’re alive,” she whispered. She pulled my shirt open and down my arms, she placed her right hand softly on my chest
over the three bullet-hole scars, just to make sure I wasn’t a ghost. Then she fell against my chest and I could feel the tears rolling
down my body. “I knew you were alive. I told Derrick. I told Nicky. I told them all, it would take more than three bullets to kill
you,” she said defiantly. “We got to wake up Derrick; he has to know you are back.”
“Not just yet,” I tell her. I notice her eyes are tracing the whip lashes that crisscross my body. I take her by the hand and lead her
out into the night. I hold her tight against my body searching for the words that I must tell her. Her body is melting into mine, her
fingers running along the marks on my back. Finally I place my hands firmly on her shoulders and hold her at arm’s length, “it was
Derrick. He set you up. Those bullets were meant for you.”
“No. No you’re wrong. The Columbians, they fought back.” Tears were welling up in her eyes. Pain and anger was colliding with
confusion and reason in her mind. Her face contorted as thoughts rehashed events four years buried but never forgotten. “No,” she
cried. “No. He loves me. He’s my husband now; we’ve been married two years…”
“I know,” I said emotionlessly, “I had to be sure. I told you he was CIA, not to trust him. He set up the mission; the raid was
designed to get you killed. I wasn’t supposed to be there, that’s why I waited to the last minute to show up.”
“Half the team got killed that day in the jungle,” her voice was hard.
“Yeah, so?”
Vicky turned and walked back into the house. Her slender body stiff, her nightgown fluttered in the gentle island breeze, but she was
oblivious to everything. She had switched into killer mode, from that moment on she felt nothing, she focused on the job before her,
she moved with precision. Quiet, like I taught her, she re-entered the bedroom, she slid between the sheets, and Derrick inhaled
deeply as if he was asleep. Vicky reached an arm across his stomach and waited. The minutes passed slowly, they both laid there
waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Vicky was on her side facing him and her arm went limp across his body. Derrick was lying
on his back and thought this was the chance he needed. He flipped over on top of her, clamped his huge hands on her throat, he
was about to use his full body weight to break her neck when flames erupted in his abdomen. It coursed through his stomach and
exploded into his chest, ripping it way out of his shoulder. Before the first shock wave of pain could be fully realized and reacted to,
another fireball cooked his intestines, followed by another, and another.
Within seconds, Derrick’s massive weight came down on Vicky’s petit frame, wet and bloodied. Vicky laid there with the gun her
left hand and her husband’s head cradled to her in her right. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to. She stared into the dark night
oblivious to everything around her.
***
Her face in the mirror behind the bar is stone cold and her eyes are empty. I run my hand down the back of her neck pulling her
back from the abyss of self doubt. I trained her to trust no one but herself. To believe everyone lies all the time. It was the world we
lived in, it was the only way to survive the jungle, and she was stone wrapped in a façade of humanity. Everyone was a killer, and
everyone was expendable. Trust, faith, love were weapons more deadly the knives, guns, or bombs. I taught Vicky to use each with
precision and without a conscious. I taught Vicky to be a weapon.
“I’m heading out to the island,” I said to her, not really sure if she was fully back yet. “Keep your eyes open, if anything jumps off…
Well, you know what to do. You know how to reach me.”
“I still think your friend knows more than he telling,” she hisses as she watches Nicky in the mirror behind the bar.
“Of course he does,” I whisper in her ear, “but all that will come out in due time. I need you here and on point if he is wrong about
Chicago. And if he’s not, and I believe he’s not, then we are in for a nasty fight. Worst than Columbia, and I need you razor sharp
and ready to kill.”
As I leave the club I take a quick look back and lock eyes with Nicky, he nods and I go. I’m reassured that he’ll keep Vicky out of
danger. And I hope to hell she doesn’t kill him. I hop in the back of a blacked out Lincoln and tell my three guys there has been a
change of plan. We are going to Long Island but not to the mansion as planned. Not with the FBI working on Elizabeth, we are
going to take an indirect approach. And after what Nicky told me in his office, the indirect approach will work on several levels. I’ll
be able to get Elizabeth to a safe place, and then I’ll find out how much the FBI knows about the kidnapping. Yeah, the plan has
changed, getting Maria back wasn’t going to be as easy as putting a bullet in some asshole’s ear.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENTS OF SEX AND
VIOLENCE AND IS INTENDED FOR AN ADULT AUDIENCE ONLY! 18+ PLEASE
VIOLENCE AND IS INTENDED FOR AN ADULT AUDIENCE ONLY! 18+ PLEASE