Six Deadly Steps

by Sonya Jesus

  Well, okay then.

  He lowers his voice. “You’ll be in the factory for two days. You have to eat. Did you think about that?”

  No. “I didn’t suspect the escape to happen this early. I thought Wednesday night to Thursday morning. It’s okay, though. I got a granola bar and downloaded some books to read on the new burner phone. Maybe I’ll even get inspired to write my own story. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not asking.” There’s a finality to his tone. “I’ll meet you there tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. I have someone I trust coming into the city tomorrow.”

  “Someone you trust?”

  “Someone we need.”

  After discussing his friend and his apparent business venture, he says he’s going to nap before heading out to the factory to drop the million in one of the bins on the first floor.

  He hangs up first, and I take the next half hour to finish bathing and cleaning off the ashes from the tree. The tiny hairs in my nostrils must be singed, because all I can smell is smoke. There are some blotches of red skin on my legs and the parts of me that were visible, but I had been far enough away not to cause serious damage.

  I blow-dry my hair and leave it loose around my shoulders before I put on a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt. Something comfortable to escape in.

  I grab the burner phone from the bottom drawer and stuff it between my breasts—not the first place people look when they search someone—and open the door to find Vinnie, sitting at my desk with a cup of coffee in his hand.

  “Vinnie?” I head back inside and grab my normal phone, leaving the door open so he can see me.

  “Tony called. He needs to talk to you.”

  “Right now?” I ask, as I head to my nightstand and put the necklace on. My eyes veer toward the closet before I pluck my phone out. “I’ll call when I get in bed.”

  Vinnie nods and looks out the window. “They’re all gone and everything is quiet.”

  “That’s good. Does Beppe know I set it on fire?”

  “No, we haven’t been able to get a hold of him.”

  “He’s probably at Unita.”

  “He isn’t. Tony got the confirmation an hour ago.”

  “Is that what he wants to talk to me about? He mentioned thinking Beppe had something to do with it.”

  “He does think that.” Vinnie stands up and checks the window before turning around to face me. “What do you think?”

  “Dolls don’t think, Vinnie.” I sit on the edge of my bed, closest to my closet.

  “No, but they pretend, right?”

  Only now do I notice he doesn’t have his earpiece in and there’s a roll of duct tape on my dresser. “I’m getting really sleepy. How long will Tony be?”

  “Long enough for me to figure out what you are up to, Isabella.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He lurks toward me and stretches his hand toward me. “Your phone.”

  “What?”

  “You have a message from Steele on your phone.” He shakes his head before I can rebut. “You’re smarter than to deny it. I saw it, but what was he answering?”

  “I invited him to the wedding.”

  Vinnie, who never smirks, cracks a smile. “An RSVP from a random crime lord, who just so happens to be a rival. Do you see why it’s hard to believe you?”

  “Isn’t your job not to believe me?”

  “My job is to protect you, and I think you’re about to do something really stupid.”

  “Which is?”

  “Mess up Tony’s plan.”

  “The one where he steals money from my father, buys out the properties, and kicks him out of his own town?”

  Vinnie’s eyes scrunch in confusion.

  I tap on my forehead. “Contrary to what you all think, I’m smart enough to put pieces together. Tony and my father are at war.”

  “Did Tony tell you that?”

  “No, but why is he chasing down leads on the drugs? Since when is six million something worth chasing after?”

  “The shipment is worth over half a billion dollars.”

  My eyes bulge out. “Don’t you get weekly shipments?”

  “Tony has a big plan, and he invested in a better product with the Cartel. Your father wanted five million to test on the streets, but we’ve been testing it for three years.”

  “When your father decided to come with us, he wasn’t happy with Tony’s initiative but money is money, and half a billion of pure product has lots of possibilities.”

  “Beppe wasn’t pissed?”

  “Not as pissed as when Tony finds out you did all of this to cause a distraction. What time is your rescue getting here?”

  It’s my turn to scrunch me eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

  “An old friend called me. Said you hired a ghost to help you escape the Mafia.”

  “Your friend is wrong.”

  “Steele is wrong too? Was he your first choice?”

  “First choice for what, Vinnie? What are you accusing me of?”

  “For bailing on Tony after all he’s done for you.”

  I’m tired of holding back, of pretending to be grateful. “You mean kill, cheat, lie?” I spit out sarcastically. “You’re right… It takes a whole lot of man to do all that.”

  “So, I’m guessing your escape plan is almost here.”

  I sit back and watch as he pulls a zip tie from his back pocket. “Are Tony’s fetishes rubbing off on you, Vinnie?”

  “You really don’t realize Tony will kill this person, do you? He’ll torture them, just like he finished doing to one of the guys you sent to intercept the drug deal.”

  My lips part. “Yeah, but if it makes you feel better, he only gave you up after a few hours of teeth pulling and a little fillet of thief.”

  Gino. Anthony Shard. Now this guy. The death toll is climbing, and the war hasn’t even started.

  “Sit up!”

  “You are not tying me up.”

  “You are not the boss.” Vinnie grabs my cell phone and dials Tony, putting it on speakerphone while he ties my hands behind my back and secures them with a zip tie.

  “Isabella,” he answers.

  “It’s Vin.” Vinnie grabs the duct tape off the night stand and rips a piece.

  “Everything situated? Cameras off?”

  He slaps it over my mouth, obstructing my breathing. I’m forced to inhale through the singed nostrils. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  “Good.”

  As soon as the call ends, Vinnie jams another piece of tape, from cheek to cheek, over the other and grabs my phone. “It’s time to reveal all your secrets.”

  A noise comes from the closet, and I try to cover it with more mumbles. But Vinnie moves closer toward it. From the bed, there’s a direct view of the closet, so hopefully Robert will see me or hear me and not come in. Vinnie will notice him opening the door though.

  Shit.

  I mumble and shout through Vinnie’s comments, but it’s no use.

  Robert announces his presence, and Vinnie takes his gun out of his holster, aiming it at the door. I thrash around, trying to help give him a sign, but my words come out like mumbles and only serve to distract Robert.

  Shit. I don’t want to watch Robert die twice.

  Lucky for Robert, he brought backup. Backup Vinnie recognizes before he gets punched in the face and injected with something. After Robert frees me, I bend down to grab my phone, like Luca asked me to.

  Hopefully, Vinnie will be out cold for a long time, or I’m going to regret not shooting him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Argento Killer

  Luca Cabrali

  “Seriously, you really need to be better at covering your tracks.”

  My hand is on my gun faster than I can think. When I flip around to face the woman’s voice, Kelsie’s leaning against the beat-up wall of Isabella’s not-so-secret hideaway. The battery-operated construction light floods her figure and c
reates an oversized shadow on the opposite wall.

  “How the fuck did you get here?” I ask, leaving the gun in its place and reaching down to grab the crowbar at my feet.

  She waves her wiggles her fingers in the light, making movements on the wall. “Well, I took a plane. Then, I drove.”

  “I mean, what are you doing here?” I twirl the metal bar like a baton, indicating the space we are currently occupying, shadow bunny puppets and all.

  “Waiting for you, obviously.” Her red leather Converse high-tops cover the cuffs of her skinny dark jeans. Her hair is up in a ponytail, and she’s watching me with a pleased smirk on her face.

  “How long have you been here?” I point to the wall she’s parked against. “I wouldn’t lean against that if I were you. That brownish-yellow color doesn’t come from age.” I tap the rusted metal tins with the crowbar. “Pretty sure it belongs to one of the people in here.”

  “Thanks for watching out,” she quips back sarcastically and abandons the shadow puppets, which she obviously sucks at. “But I’m not afraid of blood, remember?”

  “I remember.” I wedge the bi-forked end between the lid piece and the cylindrical bin body. Kelsie’s hard to forget. She’s taken out more men than guys twice her age. “I also recall you flying in on Thursday. I’m pretty sure today’s Wednesday.”

  “I needed a break for Breaker, and hunting someone helps relieve the tension.”

  “Not technically hunting,” I say as a pry open the lid. “You know where he will be.” My fingers curl over the ridges I had just lifted, something damp slides on my fingers. Gross, I think as I lift the lid.

  That’s rank. At the risk of getting made fun of by the hit woman, I cough and gag as the putrid stench infiltrates my airways.

  “Put that shit back on,” Kelsie howls, as she covers her mouth with the back of her hand and comes forward. “That’s toxic.” For some reason, she comes closer to check on the contents. “Is that skin floating around in there?”

  “Probably been here a while.” I roll my eyes and move on to the next barrel until I find one that’s empty of both fuel and body parts. Despite the pungent smell, Kelsie sticks around as I stick the one million for Robert in the bin. Due to the stench, though, we remain quiet. Talking lets the smell of shit and fuel and death into the mouth.

  Once outside and far enough away from the barrel room, I sit on the staircase and check the time. Five-thirty in the morning. “Kelsie, if everything went okay, Isabella is going to be here soon. I haven’t told her you’re my back-up plan.”

  “Wise choice.” She kicks the construction light we had brought with us.

  “Or not,” I counter as I fish through my pockets for small tube of disinfectant gel.

  Kelsie’s brow arches at the sight of the small plastic bottle.

  “What? I swiped it from the hotel this morning.” I flip the top and squirt half of it into the palm of my hand.

  “Are you going to disinfect your whole body with that? Or are you going to use that as monkey grease?” Her eyes flitter down to my crotch.

  “Screw you,” I growl out, as I massage it into my palms and between my fingers and into the nailbeds. “I don’t want to touch my girl with dead people juice on my fingers.”

  She winces, curling her lip in disgust. “I don’t want to know where your fingers are going, and if I were you, I wouldn’t tell her where they’ve been.”

  “God. Not like that. But thanks for fucking ruining that for me.”

  She scoffs, but I catch a smile on her lips before she turns away to look at the light set up. The place was dark and eerie. “This place has a lot of places to hide in the pitch black.” She turns to see me. “You can’t see the corners of the room. Or the wall.”

  She’s right. “It will be light soon.”

  “I assume she’s going to be on the top floor?”

  “How did you know that.”

  “Best view. Fire escape. Furthest from the main entrance.”

  “She chose well, I see.”

  “No. Not even a little bit.” She eyes me with a serious scowl on her face. “You probably don’t care for my opinions, but I’ve hidden out once or twice before. This place is to wide.”

  “There’s only one entrance.”

  “It’s easy to make a whole in a cement wall, Luca.” She glances over her shoulder at the run-down warehouse, a forgotten piece of real estate. “I don’t think being here is a good idea. I was here the whole time you were and you didn’t even know.”

  She has a point. I wipe the extra moisture from my hands on my pants and wait for her to continue.

  “All I had to do was get a list of Beppe’s properties and think like a girl.”

  “Was that hard?”

  “Fuck you.” She smiles wickedly and takes a seat next to me. “Seriously, they’ll find her here. This place is not too far from home, not too close to the airport. Somewhere in the middle with minimal witnesses.”

  “She chose this place.”

  “She’s not one of us, Luca, so you can’t expect her to think like one of us. Though, I got to admit. She’s got balls of steel.”

  “Don’t even get me started on steel balls and fake dicks.”

  “What?” She scrunches her nose and smooths out her hair. With a quick toss of her head, she holds her hand up, halting my response. “Don’t elaborate.”

  They’re probably not steel anyway. “What do you suggest? Being out in the open with her is worse. Tony and Beppe will think she got kidnapped. I was going to use her phone as a decoy, but she’s loyal to this Robert guy for some reason.”

  “Let me take it then?” She takes a seat next to me, extending her long legs out and massaging them.

  I look at Kelsie and realize they do kind of look alike. Kelsie’s not a size two either, but her extra pounds are more muscle mass than anything else. Her skin is similar to Isabella’s, and her hair is long and dark, a little less wavy. “If you wear big sun glasses you can pass as her.”

  “I don’t know how long it will work, but it’ll buy you time. Maybe you can move up the timeline?”

  “She won’t do that. I think Unita is out though. I wasn’t able to get inside.”

  “It’s fine. I looked up the church online and found my way in. Google Maps is great for surveillance.”

  “That’s disturbing.”

  “But true.” She smirks. “There’s an annex that leads to the school. I can sneak in through the back door, where the trash bins are.”

  I remember that. “There’s a small corridor or something leading to the back.”

  “I’ll hide in the confessional.”

  “And make him atone for his sins?” I wink at her, but she doesn’t find me funny. I find me funny. “Thank you for doing this.” She’s risking a lot just being here.

  “Don’t thank me, pay me.”

  “You’ll get your money, but if you get killed, Breaker will end my life.”

  That she finds funny. “Probably… But you do owe him a few favors that he’s going to need.”

  “Once Beppe is dead, Tony will be worrying about who took out their leader and trying to cope with that. By the time he realizes it, we’ll be gone. And I have a friend who will help.”

  “Look at you, having friends in high places.”

  I laugh and use my elbows to hoist my upper body on the step behind me. “He’s not a criminal here, just a rich guy with a security team.”

  She bumps me on the shoulder, the one that’s a lot more sensitive than I had thought, and gets up. “How are you feeling after the accident? I’m guessing you didn’t get yourself checked out?”

  “I didn’t have time. Once we get to Europe, I’ll get a scan done.” Guilt flushes the blood from my extremities. A whole family wiped from existence. “Is everything resolved with the incident?”

  She rubs at the back of her head. “Yeah… tragic story all over the news. Our guys, on the inside, lit the car on fire and stuck a body from the morgue
in there. You were never there—or your alias.”

  Noise comes from the outside and Kelsie snaps her neck toward the exit. “Go do your thing. I’ll come back for the phone.”

  “Where did you park?”

  “I didn’t. I hitchhiked.”

  For some reason, I find that funny. “Picking up a killer.”

  She ignores my comment and points to the cracked floor. “Dry concrete doesn’t leave footprints, but cars leave tire marks. But you know that, I saw you walk in.”

  I smile. “My buddy lent me a real shitty car. Left it in the field about a mile down the road.”

  “Can I borrow it?”

  “Sure.” I stand up to hand her the keys. After hoisting the bag on my shoulder and grabbing the light, I head upstairs to the top floor. After placing the light in the center of the vacant room, near an old chair, I cross over to the wall facing the courtyard of the factory. The lights of the car, entering through the opened gate, illuminate Kelsie’s shadow as she tucks into a small spot between the high wall and the building, hiding from the three newcomers.

  My eyes immediately fall on Isabella. I’ve seen her a whole lot on video, but being so close to her, to almost touching her, makes my soul burn. Heat rises to my throat and I gulp it down.

  She looks happy. Free. There’s no restriction anymore, at least not in her facial gestures or hand movements. There’s life in her again.

  Not even at Charlotte’s wedding did her smile stretch that wide. Hell, I only ever remember it stretching that wide once, on the night of the fire. The night I knew I’d never be truly happy without her. Since the moment I met her, I wanted to keep coming back. I had never never wanted to see someone, or hear someone, or touch someone, or be consumed by someone—the way I wanted with her.

  There was no exact point where I knew I loved her, just when I knew I would never love someone as much as her. I would have chased her down if not for everything with my sister and the lies my father told. When I found out she was going to be at Charlotte’s wedding, I had to see her. Our worlds couldn’t cross without having answers.

  I got more than answers. I got my girl, and I will never let her go again.

  Which is why the distance between her and the blast from her past irks my nerves. The reason why I left all those barrels open was so he can remember what this life is like and never want to come back.