Stud Muffin

by Lauren Landish

  After getting bored with just his still photographs, Vincent had turned to videotaping as well, a process he explained to me that involved wearing a small camera on his head while he did his deeds. “GoPro has been my friend, although I've found that there are better options,” he explained as he started the video. For hours now, I'd been terrified over and over as I was forced to watch.

  I was beyond caring anymore. My mind was too horrified by it all. Instead, I let loose the truth that had been boiling inside me, figuring I had nothing to lose. “You . . . you're a sick son of a bitch, Vincent. Not an artist, but a sadistic rapist psychopath.”

  “And Van Gogh cut off his own ear as a present,” Vincent retorted. He sighed deeply and paused the video. “I had such high hopes for you, Adriana. After seeing your work, I hoped that you could be the woman who would understand me, be my partner and join me in making such art that the world would always remember our names. I see you're just like all the others, though. Well, if you can't be a partner, you can at least be a fine set of materials to create my latest masterpiece.”

  I struggled, but the straps holding me to the table had absolutely no give to them, and Vincent knew exactly how to tie me down. He didn't even need to tie my arms—he was that confident. “There's no way you're going to get those free.”

  “Come close enough, and I won't need to,” I hissed. “I'm going to tear off your balls. Then I'll let my family do what they do best.”

  Vincent laughed, leaning his head back. “You mean your uncle, the Godfather of Seattle? Please. That pudgy old fuck couldn't save you even if he tried. I spent nearly two months right under his nose—hours a day—within rifle shot of you, and the best you could do was to have some dumb lunk of a bodyguard hang around with you.”

  I laughed, hilarity replacing my horror. “I'm going to enjoy watching Daniel give you the ending you deserve.”

  “Maybe from heaven,” Vincent said, finding the adjustment switches on the bed again. He flipped a switch, and the bed flattened out and lowered slightly. “Just the right height.”

  Vincent walked over to the DVD player, taking out his disc of horrors and putting in another. He hit play, and I winced as Genesis began playing at nearly deafening levels. “Greatest hits!” Vincent yelled, turning to me. “Ain't it great?”

  He pulled off his shirt, revealing his toaster rack chest and pot belly before shucking his pants. How a man so out of shape had the strength to do everything he'd done still surprised me. There must have been some truth to the idea of 'crazy strength.'

  Nude, Vincent knelt once again, picking up a bag that looked like a soft sided carpenter's tool kit. “Can't forget my tools.”

  I figured I was getting ready to die, and if I was, I wanted to do it on my terms. “That's your main tool? I've seen bigger on Michelangelo statues,” I said, looking between his legs.

  I wanted him angry. I wanted him pissed off. If I was going to check out of the world, then damn it, I was going to do it my way.

  He turned red, and I laughed harder.

  “Shut up!” Vincent screamed, reaching to his side and grabbing a pistol. “You can't laugh at me! You can't!”

  I opened my mouth to bray laughter into his face when the door to the room blasted open and a miracle burst into the room. Daniel had his weapon drawn, but he was pointed the wrong direction as he stumbled into the room. Vincent had a second to react, and he did, squeezing a shot off that clipped Daniel between his shoulder and his neck. Daniel dropped to the floor, out of my line of vision, and I screamed in fright and in hope. “Daniel!”

  Chapter 24

  Daniel

  I felt bad about knocking Margaret out, but as I tried to make my way quietly down the row of rooms in the motel, I put my regret aside. While she had guts and a lot of reasons to want to put a bullet into Vincent Drake, she also didn't have any training that I knew of. Since I'd known the woman for twenty years, that meant quite a lot.

  And Drake was trained, no doubt about it. I had seen the man's work, and while it seemed that he favored knives and other sorts of slicing weapons, he used guns too. I didn't need to worry about Margaret's life while trying to save Adriana.

  As I approached the room closest to the van parked near the end of the building, I heard music. While I wasn't quite sure, as I got closer, I heard the unmistakable sound of Phil Collins's singing and knew I had the right place. I checked the safety on the Beretta and got ready.

  I tried to look in the window of the unit, but it had been boarded up, probably to reduce the noise that leaked from the building. I knew for sure that inside, the sound of the music would be deafening, which I took as a measure in my favor. I quickly went over my mental checklist of how to bust down a door and sweep a room, and I took a deep breath.

  Now, normally, if you're going to kick down the door on a room with a known armed occupant, you want two people, one to check each direction, especially if the asshole inside knows that you're coming. I put my ear to the door, trying to hear something but the music was just too loud.

  “Shut up!” I heard Vincent scream, clearly on the edge of losing control. “You can't laugh at me! You can't!”

  I used the scream to time my kick, driving with as much force as my right leg could muster. Unfortunately for me, my thigh muscle was still more cramp and knotted tissue than actual effective muscle, so a kick that should have shattered the door barely broke the lock, and I had to lower my shoulder to charge the rest of the way through, stumbling as I did.

  This meant that when I went through the door, I had my gun down and I was looking to my left. I started to bring my gun up when I heard Adriana gasp, and I started to turn. I heard an explosion, and my neck was suddenly on fire and my right arm turned to lead. Instead of continuing the turn and staying in the line of fire, I rolled with my stumble, hoping to get the hell out of the way.

  I got to a knee and pointed my pistol back the other way, but some sort of table was in the way, and I couldn't see Drake at all. Instead, I could see a cascade of red hair draped over the side of the obstruction, and at least I knew where Adriana was.

  A sound to my left caught my attention as a door slammed, and I staggered to my feet. Adriana was strapped to the table, and I didn't see anyone else. “Where is he?”

  “He went toward that door,” Adriana said, her voice quavering. “Daniel . . .”

  “I'll live,” I said, even as I felt the blood start to soak my shirt and drip down my chest. I saw that Adriana was held to the table by some cargo straps, and I didn't have the time to try and work the catch, which was most likely on the underside of the table. Instead, I grabbed a knife out of the toolkit that Drake had left on the table and handed it to her. “Here. Can you cut yourself free?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “But Dan . . .”

  “It ends tonight,” I said, starting out the door Drake had gone through. I had to be careful. He knew this property much better than I did. Still, at least Adriana was now behind me and Drake in front of me. Much better than it had been.

  The blood was rushing through my ears as I stepped into the dark hallway, seeing the open door to the outside. I guessed that the door was a late addition, or perhaps the room wasn't a guest room but instead a manager's quarters back when the motel had been in operation. It didn't really matter, as I had my pistol in front of me. My right arm was heavy, the shock of being shot still blasting the nerves, so I used two hands, my left hand steadying my right as I worked my way down the hallway, not rushing but not being overly cautious. I knew that if he was going to try and ambush me again, he'd do it when I came out of the room.

  I saw him as soon as I came out, his nude body nearly glowing in the moonlight. “Drake! Vincent Drake!” I yelled, leveling my pistol at him. “Stop where you are!”

  I would have squeezed a shot off at him, but he was already just beyond the maximum range I'd trust for making an open shot with a pistol at night, and I was wounded and using an unfamiliar Beretta. I didn't want to give i
t away.

  He turned, his face sweaty and glistening in the pale white light, madness clear even at the distance he was. “Well, hero, you got me,” he said, laughing. “Whatcha gonna do about it?”

  He whipped his pistol up, faster than I thought a man his age could move, and I barely dove out of the way as he fired two shots that bounced off the concrete behind where'd I'd been just an instant earlier. I fired into the air, not caring if I actually hit him but just trying to give him a reason to give up his relatively stable position. Hitting the ground hard, I rolled as best I could to my belly, my arms up and looking for a firing angle.

  He was already on the move, charging at me with his pistol outstretched, his grin nearly stretching from ear to ear. “Yeah! Hooo-raaa!” he hollered as he ran, squeezing the trigger. His first shot hit the asphalt inches from my head, and I knew I had only one chance. “Die!”

  “You first,” I whispered, squeezing my trigger. The Beretta kicked in my hand, harder than I'd expected, and I realized that my arm was really losing sensation, the forty-five feeling like I was firing a shotgun pistol or something. Thankfully, my shot took him high in his chest, right below his collarbone area, and he stopped, dumbfounded.

  He coughed, then sank to his knees. The hollow point round had done a number on him. He realized he was dying, and he looked up at me. “Nice shot.”

  I squeezed the trigger again. I sagged as his body collapsed, the pain, shock and blood loss finally overcoming me, and darkness crept across my vision. At least Adriana was safe.

  I came to when I felt a pair of hands tugging at my shirt. “Come on, I can't get you up on my own.”

  I blinked, trying to figure out where that voice was coming from. It sounded like it was on a long distance line a million miles away, but it was familiar. “Adriana?”

  “Yeah, you big, stupid, brave, wonderful lunk,” she said, pulling on my left arm. “Come on, we've gotta get out of here.”

  “So tired . . .” I said, not knowing what was going on. “Just wanna sleep . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, you can sleep at home. In fact, you can sleep in my bed if you want, but we've gotta get out of here. Come on!”

  I staggered to my feet, still not sure what was going on, but tried to lean on Adriana as she started walking. Unfortunately, I was too heavy, and she was also staggering, bumping into the door frame and hissing in pain. “Dan, I need your help.”

  “I've got him,” another voice said, and I had to blink. I had two angels with me, it seemed, two Adrianas, who each took a side of me and helped me through the room and out the door. I was glad for the wonderful silence. The music had been splitting my head, it was so horrible. I was never going to listen to Genesis again, that was for sure.

  “Mom, when did you get here?” Adriana asked as the three of us made our way toward Margaret's car. The walking was clearing my head, or perhaps just that Margaret's pulling on my right side was jostling my bullet wound, and the pain was waking me up.

  “She drove,” I said, not walking much better but at least able to focus. “I kinda knocked her out before coming in to get you.”

  “You hit my mother?” Adriana asked. We reached the car, and Adriana pulled open the back door, sliding me into the seat. “Why?”

  “Didn't want to get her killed,” I whispered as Margaret closed the door and went around to the driver's seat. I was glad that the GT had a back seat. I'd have never been able to sit in the front seat with my bullet wound. “Sorry. Guess the whole mother-in-law, son-in-law thing is off to a bad start, huh?”

  “You told them?” Adriana asked, and Margaret chuckled.

  “Honey, it was what got your uncle to not shoot him in the head,” Margaret laughed. “Now hold on, we're getting out of here. This may not be the best part of Seattle, but still, the cops should be here soon enough. I'd prefer not to answer questions. Pietro will have men here in a minute to torch the place.”

  I nodded, suddenly tired again. “Okay.”

  “We'll get you to the hospital soon,” Adriana said, and I shook my head. “What?”

  “No hospital. Home,” I replied, drifting off. “I can get patched up there. Take . . . take me home.”

  Chapter 25

  Adriana

  Patched up wasn't the word to describe what we ended up having to do with Daniel. In the end, Uncle Carlo called in a doctor—one who made house calls, took cash, and kept his mouth shut—to seal the hole. “He took it in his trapezius muscle,” the doctor said as he washed his hands afterward in the kitchen. “It was a through-and-through. He's lucky though. Another inch or so toward the neck, and he'd have gotten his carotid or jugular cut. He'd never have gotten off the floor.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Carlo said, giving the man a thick envelope. “Your services are, as always, appreciated.”

  “No thanks necessary, Godfather,” the doctor replied. “It's an honor to be at your service. Now, make sure that wound stays bandaged, and leave the IV in for the rest of the night. Then, for the next five days, give him those antibiotic pills I gave you. He's going to need to sleep a lot. He's been through hell. And not just from the gunshot either.”

  “Yes, well, that's a family matter,” Carlo said. “Thank you. He'll get the best care we can provide.”

  The doctor left, leaving Carlo, Mom and me alone in Daniel's bedroom. He was lying on his bed, his neck and shoulder wrapped, his eyes closed. The doctor had given him a shot to let him sleep, to let his body recover. I sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at his bruised but peaceful face.

  “He fought with honor,” Carlo said, standing next to the bed. His voice was soft, almost in awe as he looked down at Daniel.

  “He's as Italian as you or me,” I said softly, tracing his eyebrows and feeling the tears coming to my eyes. “Maybe not by blood, but he's been part of our family since he was a baby. He's a good man.”

  Carlo hummed and turned his eyes to me. “I owe you an apology.”

  I turned my head and looked at him, nodding slightly. “You do. I owe you one as well, though.”

  It was the most compromise I was willing to offer. Sure, I had been wrong to ditch his bodyguard, but Carlo had been much further in the wrong having had Daniel beaten and turned into the walking bruise that I saw days later in Carmen's apartment. Still, families were brought together and relationships were mended by forgiveness, even if I wouldn't forget. I got off the bed. “Uncle, I'm sorry that I wasn't up front with my relationship with Daniel and that I ran away from home. Please forgive me.”

  Carlo gulped and looked to the sky, then back at me with tears in his eyes. “Oh, Bella, there is nothing I need to forgive. It is I who begs your forgiveness. I tried to run your life as if you were still a little girl, and not the beautiful, wonderful young woman you have become. I insulted you, I insulted the man you love, and in the process, I nearly lost the most important thing in my life. I am so sorry, and I promise that no matter what, I will support you and your decisions from now on.”

  I felt tears in my eyes too as I came around the bed and embraced my uncle, hugging him tightly.

  We stayed that way for a moment before releasing each other. I blinked and wiped at my eyes. “I forgive you. But there's someone else who must forgive you too—Daniel. He's going to be part of my life, and unless he's willing to accept your apology, we can't be part of this life anymore.”

  Carlo opened his mouth to protest, then nodded. “You are right, of course. When he wakes up, let me know. I will come and speak with him, man to man.”

  He turned and left the bedroom, leaving me and Mom. She'd been silent since the doctor finished his stitching, standing with her back against the wall, a growing bruise forming on the side of her neck. “You doing okay, Mom?”

  She stood there for a moment, then smiled, laughing until she was nearly crying. I understood and went to her, where we held each other for a long time, crying and laughing and holding each other. “Adriana, oh, my baby.”

  “I'm okay,
” I said, still crying and laughing. “How's your neck?”

  Mom let go of me and chuckled, rubbing her neck. “He knows exactly where to put someone down, that's for sure. Considering he's knocked me out and called Carlo an arrogant wop, I'd say he's got more guts than anyone else I've ever known.”

  “He called Uncle Carlo an arrogant wop?” I asked, amazed. “And he didn't get shot over it?”

  “He was about two seconds from it, according to what I heard,” Mom told me. “When he wakes up, maybe he can tell you the story.”

  “I'd like that,” I said, looking back at him. “If you don't mind, I think I'm going to sleep here tonight. Not with him—he needs his rest—but on the floor next to him. He protected me for so long. He beat back the demons that threatened me. I think it's my turn to protect him for a while.”

  “I agree, honey,” Mom said. “But first, let him sleep, and you and I will get some dinner. I think there are some leftovers in the fridge.”

  “As long as we eat here,” I said, indicating the space in front of Daniel's bed. “He even had a TV in here. What a wonderfully luxurious living situation.”

  Mom looked around the tiny broom closet-sized space and chuckled. “I think you might be marrying a monk.”

  “Yeah, of the Shaolin variety,” I joked back. “Come on, let's get some food. I bet there will be a report on the fire at the motel on the super early morning news, and I'd like to watch.”

  In fact, the news reports were already on the cable networks, as it had been a relatively slow news day otherwise. While I ate some leftover pizza and Mom ate some lasagna, we got to watch as the fire department struggled with two pumper trucks to get the blaze under control. “Wow,” I commented, munching on a piece of bell pepper, “Pietro really outdid himself with the pyrotechnics.”