by Leigh Tudor
Her teeth made heavy work of her bottom lip as she unbuttoned her jeans, wondering if he expected a little sexy dance to go along with it because that was never going to happen.
Note to self: learn how to sexy dance.
The sound of her zipper descending only made her think about what underwear she was wearing. Did they match? Had the wet spot dried from earlier today, or was she sporting a fresh one?
She stepped out of her jeans and took the time to fold them, making sure the creases were crisp and smoothing any rogue wrinkles.
As she straightened with the speed of a sloth at nap time, he ran his thumb over his bottom lip, his eyes half-lidded.
Was he staring at her panties? Unsure of their current condition, she clasped her hands in front of her.
He continued to stare and then waved his hand as if to indicate more.
She wore a short black cropped jacket that she pulled her arms out of with very little grace and a lot of contorting.
Finally free of the confines of her jacket, she heaved a sigh and again, slowly folded it as if she had ever cared about the evils of wrinkles.
“You make me crazy with desire,” he said, his eyes indicating she had a ways to go.
Grabbing the hem of her T-shirt, she pulled it up and over her head and stood before him in black bikini panties that should probably be tucked in her dirty laundry bag, and an old white stretchy B cup bra that barely fit her C sized breasts.
Fidgety and outside of her comfort zone, she pulled the hair tie from her dark hair. Using her fingers to capture any loose strands, she pulled them up into a high ponytail, giving herself an instant facelift.
Great. Now she found it difficult to blink.
And then he stood, walking toward her like a dark panther stalking its prey. She swallowed, wondering if he would hold it against her if she kneed him in the groin after getting that first kiss.
“You are what dreams are made of,” he said, his eyes roaming her body.
He grabbed her by the waist and yanked her against him, and then they both flinched at the cock of a pistol.
“You cheating pig of a horn dog.”
Mara had never found herself in such a vulnerable position. And that vulnerability had nothing to do with her standing in nothing but her underwear with her hands in the air.
No, her vulnerability was in knowing she had let her sister down in the most monumentally infantile and ignorant way possible.
Incessant planning and months of preparation were the hallmarks of success for jobs managed by Ava. They took enormous amounts of time and unrelenting attention to detail until the final plan was as rock-solid and foolproof as possible.
Unfortunately, for her genius sister, she hadn’t considered the possibility of Mara being the fool for whom she had failed to plan.
How could she face her?
Assuming she got out of this alive.
Ava’s expertise came at a high price because of the astronomical payoff to the client. Her ability to take each plan and assign probabilities for success or failure for every painstaking step, a key differentiator in the competitive world of organized crime. If one step harbored an area of concern or possessed unknown information, Ava researched it and addressed it with the rapacious tenacity of a heat-seeking missile.
And the reason for her maniacal planning was largely due to her need to do one thing.
Protect her sister.
Mara would tease Ava, saying her incessant calculating and hypothesizing reminded her of an actuary on steroids with a severe case of OCD.
But deep down, she was grateful for her sister’s ability to foresee each and every potential hiccup, assess their level of risk, and systematically eliminate them.
Mara made her way down the winding staircase. Paolo followed her, the scorned woman pointing a gun to his head, and Mara could think of only two things.
One, that she had let her sister down.
And two, she was going to die without ever being kissed.
The first taking priority, of course.
She stumbled on the front steps of the church to the view of four other armed men appearing out of place alongside their spiritually inspired surroundings.
The larger man with a distended stomach, most likely fighting a losing battle with insulin resistance, removed his cigar with one hand as he held an assault rifle with the other.
“Where is the painting, Clark?”
Clark? Mara looked around, searching for the americano.
To her surprise, Paolo answered, “It’s safe, Franco. What do you take me for?”
Mara eyes opened wide at the lack of Italian accent as one of the men pulled her arms behind her back and yanked on the zip tie until she sucked in with pain.
“What? You thought he was Italian?” The woman chuckled as she moved from behind Paolo, err, Clark and stood with the other men. She spoke very good English, better than the others, but with her dark hair and beautiful complexion, she was clearly that of indisputable Italian descent. She fired up a cigarette, looking sophisticated as only a gorgeous Italian woman would, despite sucking on a cancer stick.
“Clark is as Italian as his knock-off Gucci shoes.”
“Hold on,” Clark said with his hands in the air, desperately avoiding the zip tie. “This was all part of my plan. I would never betray you, Francesca.”
The woman snorted. “I saw him, Papa. I caught him seducing this woman.”
The fact that Mara was shivering in her underwear was yet another damning piece to the alleged seduction puzzle.
A fifth man emerged from the shadows with the canvas in his hands. “Found it, Franco. It was hidden in the dome.”
Franco waved his cigar in front of his rotund body. “So you steal from me now? First, you impregnate my daughter so I agree to marriage, and now you disrespect my family by fucking this puttana?”
Mara eyes widened. Did he just call her a whore?
And did he say they had children?
“No, Franco, you gotta believe me. It was all part of my plan,” he said, grabbing Mara’s shoulders as if on display and as a convenient shield. “This is the artist who painted the fake.” He looked around at the narrowed eyes, sweat beading on his lip. “Don’t you see? She’s far more valuable to us than any single painting. Think about it. Why not get rid of the middleman and make her work for us directly?”
“This is not south Detroit, Clark,” Francesca said with a sneer. “We honor our business contacts. We don’t double-cross them.”
“You’re from south Detroit?” Mara asked, stepping away from him.
He shook his head. “Closer to the Forest Park area.”
What had she been thinking?
This man wasn’t her Prince Charming driving an Alfa Romeo steed. He was some second-rate criminal, using fake accents and cheating on his wife and children.
He had children, for God’s sake!
And she had almost lost her virginity to this cheating grimy sleazebag!
Her blood heated, and her lip curled as Mara went sliding headfirst into self-preservation mode.
“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” she said with an eye roll. “I met him at a bar earlier, and he told me he could sell me a painting. I think he mistook me for a gorgeous black market art dealer. Her name is Katarina Boychesky. We could seriously be twins. Happens all the time.”
The men’s backs straightened along with the trajectory of their guns toward sleazebag Clark. Mara noticed they all shared certain facial characteristics. They must be related, Francesca being their sister or cousin.
Oh, this wasn’t good.
As if sensing the impending doom, Clark fell to his knees, clasping his hands in front of him in subjugation. “She’s lying. I’m telling you, she’s the artist. Francesca, you’ve got to believe me. It was all part of my plan to use her to paint fakes that would make us so much more money. I would never cheat on you. I swear to you.”
Francesca took a drag of her cigarette
, turned her back on him, and gave a nearly imperceptible nod toward her father.
Mara’s heart clogged in her chest, and her entire body jolted as Franco fired a shot that hit Clark in the thigh. Huge sprays of blood and pieces of tissue splattered onto Mara’s legs and torso. The close range pushed his body back, creating a huge gaping hole.
Clark’s screams filled the courtyard as he instantly fell forward.
Before she could react, the next man lifted his M4 and, despite Clark’s sobbing, screams and pleas to stop, clipped him on the shoulder. He writhed on the ground and tried to grab her leg for some type of assistance. She pulled away just as blood-soaked fingers pushed himself up in an attempt to flee until another shot crashed into his body and halted his efforts.
Mara could barely stand, turning her face with each trigger pull to avoid the spray of blood hitting her face. The shots coming in at such close range by the gas-operated assault rifles made his entire body jerk like a one-legged wind dancer flapping back and forth at a car dealership.
She inched away from him, her body shaking uncontrollably and trying her best to remain as still and as small as possible so as to avoid becoming collateral damage as a result of the ongoing execution.
One by one, they lifted their weapons and took turns until Mara realized they were literally playing with him, hitting him in areas that would create damage but fall just short of fatal.
Making him pay for disrespecting their family.
Torturing him.
And then, Franco took the kill shot, hitting him in his heart and finally silencing his screams.
The courtyard turned eerily quiet as the men lowered their weapons.
Mara’s body continued to shake, covered in blood and small unidentified pieces of Clark’s body. The force of her rattling torso and snot-infused sobs caused something resembling a piece of liver to drop from her hair and fall with a plop onto the centuries-old stone.
She couldn’t help but glance at the broken body no more than four feet from her, that just a short time ago she fully regarded with childish romanticism as her future husband.
Franco turned to his daughter, who seemed unperturbed by the violence against her husband and the father of her children, and motioned toward Mara with his cigar. “Francesca, lei muore?”
Does she die?
Before Francesco could call for her death, a voice piped up from up high and to Mara’s right. “Franco, I think I have something of yours.”
It was Ava.
All eyes swung to her petite sister wearing all black, including her distressed baseball cap, standing on one of the lower rooftops holding the Picasso in one hand and a cigarette lighter with the other.
“You had better hope there’s not a split hair on that woman’s head or the ten million dollars you wired into our account paid for nothing more than an exorbitantly priced piece of charred canvas.”
Franco pointed his cigar at her. “If you burn even a thread of that canvas, I will not only kill your friend, but my men will kill you as well.”
“Here’s the deal, Franco,” she said, flicking on the butane lighter. “I did an honest day’s work for you. Broke into someone’s home. Handed over this valuable piece of art. But then you betray me by kidnapping my partner. If you hurt her, I will see that everyone knows who you are, where you live, and everything I’ve stolen on your behalf.”
She raised the lighter closer to the bottom of the frame, and Franco and his familial posse gasped.
“And if I were a guessing woman, I’d assume you have a buyer for this lovely piece, along with a nice little deposit. And I don’t think they’d be very happy if you failed to deliver.”
Ava continued, “You might think you can take me out. But all I have to do is jump on the opposite side of this rooftop, and I’ll have exactly thirty seconds to destroy a large part of this canvas and get a head start in outrunning you and your boys.” She leaned over as if assessing them. “Looks like y’all have eaten a tad too much pasta in heavy cream sauce. Not sure I would take the odds of your boys catching up to me. But if you do, and they don’t, I will personally expose you and your entire family.
“So here’s how this is going to go down. You and your family members will allow my partner to walk to the other side of this building. As soon as I see her, safe and sound, I will drop the canvas. And just so you know, I hope y’all been practicing your American baseball ’cause she’ll be coming in hot.”
An hour later, they were back in their hotel suite. The humiliation of riding on the back of Ava’s Vespa wearing nothing more than her matronly, ill-fitted underwear and some of Clark’s remains was enough to warn Mara away from smooth-talking criminals for what she hoped was the rest of her life.
Ava refused to look at her as she plopped onto the fancy blue velvet divan.
“I’m . . . so sorry.” Mara choked, standing between the divan and the big-screen television.
“Go to bed, Mara.”
“I promise I will never do anything so stupid ever again.”
Ava sighed, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “You’re not stupid. You’re an impressionable young woman who should be filling out art school applications and going on dates with men who hide bottles of liquor in their clothes before going to the big football game as opposed to a concealed weapon. I’m not mad at you, Mara. I’m mad at myself for not being able to give you the life you deserve.”
“No, Ava . . .”
“Please,” Ava said, with downturned eyes. “Go to bed.”
Unbelievable. Mara had fucked up in a major way, and instead of lighting into her as she deserved, Ava harbored the blame, which managed to make her feel even worse.
Mara took a hot shower and slid between the cool sheets of her bed. She tossed and turned all night, swearing that one way or another she would make Ava proud. That she would stop being so impulsive and immature and follow instructions to the letter.
The next morning, they ate breakfast on the terrace as if nothing happened. Ava was nothing if not forgiving. Unless it had to do with forgiving herself. But she was also notably sad. As if the events of the previous night had extinguished her good humor and positive attitude.
All Mara wanted to do was re-illuminate her
Chapter Five
“The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.”
― Edgar Allan Poe
Alec opened his eyes and then grimaced at the onslaught of light coming through the hotel window.
Light?
He yanked back the covers and stumbled toward the door, catching his toe on the corner of the table in front of the window. “Motherfuck!” he ground out, hopping while holding his foot, and reached the doorknob. The full morning sun hit him square in the face as he stood in front of the open door in just his briefs.
“Why is it light outside?” asked Trevor, jumping up from the floor in confusion and striding toward Alec, looking over his shoulder. “And where the fuck is the SUV?”
Alec shook his head with disbelief and rage.
“She left.” Alec stepped back and slammed the door shut. “Just like her fucking twisted sister. That lying hellion she-devil double-crossed us and left us high and dry with no vehicle.”
Suddenly, Alec’s eyes widened, and he rushed to the bed, pulling his semiautomatic pistol from beneath his pillow with a sigh of relief. He picked up his phone. “She turned off my alarm.”
Trevor unearthed his pistol as well, which lay on the floor beside his pillow, and checked his phone. “Same,” he said, checking the time. “It’s 6:30 AM.” He dropped on the end of the bed where their betraying so-called conspirator lay hours ago, leaning his elbows on his knees and checking for any messages.
“No messages,” he said.
“What’d you think? That she’d send a group text letting us know she stepped out for a quick run and an espresso?” He kicked the
chair by the small wooden table in front of the window. “Fucking Ingalls women are going to be the fucking death of me.”
Trevor rubbed his face with his palm, digging his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets as Alec roughly grabbed his jeans that were draped over the other chair.
Alec violently yanked one leg through his jeans. “I used to be a patient man. Sensible. Tempered. Not anymore.” He shook his head with a dark laugh as he yanked the other leg on. “I swear to God that when I get my hands on Loren Ingalls, Ava Halstead, whoever the fuck she is, I’m going to shake some ever-loving sense into her.” He pulled up his zipper with three times the force necessary. “And then, I’m going to slap duct tape on her smart mouth, grab her by the hair, and drag her deceitful ass to the church . . .” He wrenched his Henley over his head and forced his arms through. “Bribe Pastor Roberts to marry us despite her, I’m sure, many objections, and spend the rest of my life making her and her sister’s lives a living hell.”
He dropped into the chair, catching his breath. “Who am I kidding?” Alec said, rubbing his forehead. “She’d have me flat on my back and incapacitated before I could lay a finger on her.” He then noticed his partner, who appeared more distressed than angry, bent over and holding his head in both hands.
Without moving, Trevor murmured in a deadpan voice, “Nothing’s really changed. She gave us the layout of the compound. We know where to go in and where best to exit. We just need a plan on how to get in without her.”
“And buy a vehicle,” Alec added. “That requires our fingerprints to open the doors and start the engine.”
Trevor remained unmoved.
Time was slipping away, and he seemed . . . inconsolable.
“Hey, man, you okay?”
Motionless. No response.
What seemed like minutes later, Trevor sat up and stared straight ahead.
“We can’t give up.” He shook his head and added with a hoarse voice. “I can’t give up.”
“Hell no,” Alec said, checking his phone for nearby auto dealers. “It’s gonna take more than two derelict evil-genius siblings to stop us.”