Chapter 14
LEILANI
When the man walked straight to the counter and took her cellphone, she tried to stern the fear in her heart.
"What a-are y-you doing?" I tried to keep my voice hard but it came out shaky.
One of them walked closer to me and glared at me. He raised his hand to my cheek and I couldn't help shrinking away from him.
"Felaray is fucking queer or I wouldn't be surprised that he wants us to get you. You are one beautiful little thing. Too bad, you stepped on the bad man's toe." He growled.
"I d-d-don't know what you're talking about." I cried, "Please, leave my store I dont want a-any troubles."
The second one looked really impatient. He stared at the third one and gestured him forward.
The third one walked towards me and before I could do anything, he reached into his pocket, withdrew a white kerchief and pressed it to my nose.
My head whirled, my mind went blank before my eyes closed.
ZERO
It's the motherfucking worst days of all worst days.
I just came back from a mission in goddamn fucking Rome, I'm in no mode for shit. I just want to go straight home and sleep the whole damn day off.
Or better still, I just want to go and watch her. Leilani. The subject of my freaking fascination.
You'll think that away from her I'll be able to forget all about her and fucking concentrate on the damn mission, but I wasn't able to do that.
The downfall of a man, is this fucking obsession for her. This shitty fascination.
And so, I decided that I'm gonna fuck her. Once I get her within a close distance and a little private place, I'm going to fuck her hard and fast.
Need to fucking rid myself of this damn obsession. I'm not a man who liked being fucking distracted, it gets a man killed.
If I'm gonna die, I'll die in my own terms. Not because I was freaking distracted by a c•nt. Even though, hers is a pretty little c*nt, I conceded.
I was still in the cab going to the station where I have to get my ride home when my cellphone rang. I glared on the screen and saw it's Morris.
"You turned to a cocksucking monitoring spirit, is that it? I step foot in the country and---"
"You back in the country? Thank fuck. She's been taken."
My body froze. "Who's been taken?"
"Lani."
I hauled out some strings of curses, several hundred lots of them. "So, she was taken on your watch, you asshole?"
"I know you told me to keep an eye on her and I fucking did. But I got called in by the boss, when I came out, bastards were already loading her up in the damn truck."
"I need names." If I'm gonna kill people, I did their names. Need to know who the fuck messed with me.
"Ain't got no names that I know of, but I'm sure it's Felaray's asshole. Saw that rat bastard that's been giving me the beady eyes."
My muscles bunched and unbunched as I tried not to think that some assholes drugged up my woman and carried her to God-fucking-knows-where.
"Did you follow them?" I tried to keep my voice calm and not scare the little man driving the damn cab.
"What do you take me for? A fucking dumb woman? Of course, I followed them. Pulled up in a warehouse behind Charleston godforsaken town. But then, they suddenly disappeared."
"You lost them!?" I shouted.
"Not intentionally, asshole." He shot back.
I took deep breaths to calm down. "Keep searching, I'm on my way."
"Okay. Zero?"
The bastard only calls me by name when he's serious. "Yes?"
"You know we can't kill more of Felaray's men. The boss specifically announced for their protection. He will be very mad if he finds out that you murdered Scorpion, talk more of the others."
"They touched what is mine. They die." It's a very simple rule of mine.
"It'll mean war. She will be in more danger in this war, you have to fucking think with your brain right now, not your instincts! And I mean the upper goddamn brain, not the one in your pants!"
My lips twitched. "I've never really had much of an upper brain."
"Zero....!"
"Fine. I'll think of fucking extraction but they'd better not lay a hand of her whatsoever or they are all dead. Every last one of them including Felaray himself." I hung up and pocketed the phone.
My blood boiled as I walked through the damn road. Bastards touched what's mine, I'm gonna let them off with the worst beating of their damn life.
But if they lay a finger on her in anyway, all bets are off.
LEILANI
A sharp sting across my left cheek woke me. The dim room came into focus, as did the large man standing in front of me.
His balding pate shone in the light from a bare bulb hanging a few feet over his head. I couldn’t feel my hands.
They were tied behind me, and my legs were tied to the wooden chair I sat in.
"Valerie, she’s awake!" He grinned at me, his missing front teeth leaving a dark hole behind his upper lip.
A stabbing pain shot through my head and radiated down my spine. I groaned as footsteps echoed from across the room.
I didn’t know where I was, but it was cold. A bone deep sort of chill, one that made my teeth chatter. The smell of mold tainted each of my breaths.
“Cold?” Shiny black shoes came into view. One step, then the next. Dark gray pants appeared as the man approached the pool of light.
The bald man stepped to the side, making room for the newcomer. “Valerie” entered the light.
He looked to be in his mid-thirties with black hair, dark eyes, and a scar running along his jaw. His clothes were neat, the jacket perfectly fitted to his smaller frame.
"You're Lani, isn’t it? No wonder every goddamn man in town wants a piece of you. You're an exquisite looking creature." He snarled at me.
My teeth chattered even more violently. “L-let me go.”
He laughed and spread his hands wide. “Don’t like the hospitality?”
I flinched back from the sound of his voice. Something in it hinted at a darkness I’d seen before in Zero.
But unlike Zero, this one makes my skin crawl. The look in his eyes scares me a lot.
.
.
