appearance.
“I don"t want your money and I sure as hell don"t ever want
to work for you again” Kim sneered, “I have plenty of money of
my own now. My husband is very wealthy and I don"t care for what
you do” and she showed him her rings. He looked at them mesmerized as if he was trying to figure
out how much they were worth.
“Then what do you want?” Jake asked still staring at her
jewelry.
“I want Ally, my sister. I want your goon to cut her loose
before she gets sucked in like me” Kim said.
Jake looked up from the jewelry and into Kim"s eyes.
“My goon? Oh, my brother Max. Sorry, I can"t do that. We
have invested in her and she is not like you. She is not as
stubborn as you. Sure, she will never be the high grade you were
but she will be with us forever. That"s a lot of money and I
can"t just let that go” he said smugly.
“I"ll pay you” Kim said as she pulled fifty thousand
dollars from her large purse and threw it on the table.
Jake gave her a look then said “Sorry, she is not for sale.
She can easily bring me a hundred grand a year for four, maybe
five, years then she is still good for another fifteen years at
least for about fifty thousand a year. She"s not like you; she
doesn"t ask questions and demand answers. She is a lifer and a
cash cow. She"ll easily make me twenty times that” he said with
a cool look in his eyes waiting for Kim"s reaction. Kim kept
cool and paused a moment. “That"s not the offer” she said, “That"s an advance to let
you know I am serious. I am planning to offer a lot more.”
“And where did you get that kind of money?” he asked.
“I told you I married rich and I don"t care about the
money. I have plenty. However I only have one sister and I want
to keep her safe” Kim responded.
“What stops me from taking your money, still taking Ally
and holding you hostage until your rich hubby pays up? And until
he pays up you and I can have some fun” he said in a threatening
tone again awaiting Kim"s reaction.
To his surprise this didn"t seem to move Kim one bit.
She just sat there very composed and said “You could do
that, but I wouldn"t advise that course of action. You see when
I was busted out of prison I was chained to the daughter of the
leader of a powerful and ruthless cartel. Her daddy was in
between wives and he fancied me. I"ve been helping him grow his
business and together we are very successful. So he married me.
We run the business together and when I mentioned my sister"s
predicament he just suggested to have you and Max killed and the
problem would be solved. I actually considered that option but
figured it would be too traumatic for Ally and the last thing
she needs is a dead boyfriend. So I opted to buy you out”. Then she paused a few seconds and continued with a sly
smile “But if my plan proves ineffective we can always revert to
Fernando"s plan”.
“You are bluffing”, Jake yelled.
“Am I?” Kim asked, “Look outside. All I have to do is push
this button and those two will be over you like flies on shit”
and she held up a garage door opener she had borrowed from
Annie.
Jake got up and looked out the window through the blinds.
There he saw the large Hummer limo and the driver along with two
very muscular gentlemen well dressed in suits. He swallowed and
returned to his seat.
“What"s it worth to you?” he asked.
“Five million dollars and you can keep the fifty thousand.
Consider it a tip” Kim said without flinching.
Jake"s eyes grew twice their size. He tried to compose
himself but failed miserably.
“I can do that” he said as cool as he could muster which
came out more like a kid that had just been offered a trip to
Disneyland. “How does this work?” he asked hesitantly, “Is there a
contract or something?”
Kim laughed “No, it"s all verbal. The deal is simple. I
give you five million and Max dumps Ally tomorrow. Have him be
gentle about it, please. After that neither he nor any of your
crew will ever contact her again. If anyone of your crew does, I
will have them killed and you too. It"s that simple.”
Jake swallowed hard then said “When do I get the money?”
“Right now, if you want. Do you have WIFI?” Kim said and
pulled the laptop out of her purse. She opened it up and turned
it on.
“Yes, the password is „Jake"” he said.
She gave him a smile as if to say “You arrogant bastard”
and then connected to the WIFI. Then she ran Matt"s program. It
took a few seconds and then a screen popped up. The screen
showed a five million transfer setup to a yet to be entered
account number. She put the laptop on the table and turned the
screen toward Jake.
He looked at it with large eye and Kim said “You need to
enter your bank account number and it will be deposited in five
minutes.” Eagerly he entered the account number. She moved the laptop
back to her and clicked the submit button. The transaction
completed and almost simultaneously a dozen windows opened that
started making hundreds of transactions each in various small
amounts except for the ones that were going into the fake
accounts of the rapists and Jake that Matt had setup. The flurry
of transactions lasted about five minutes. During these five
minutes they just sat in silence and Kim hoped that Jake
wouldn"t get impatient and look at what was going on with the
laptop.
He didn"t though; he was too preoccupied spending his new
found wealth in his head. The flurry of transactions stopped and
the laptop starting deleting all the files that Matt had created
automatically then it created new ones which were deleted again
and it kept doing this for about thirty seconds. The screen came
back to the windows screen and all evidence of the transactions
was gone.
She looked up and said “The money is there. You are a
wealthy man now.”
Jake pulled out his smart phone and began checking his
account online. A large smile grew on his face when he saw his
new account balance. “I trust by tomorrow Ally and Max are history? I hate
having to arrange follow-up visits” Kim said as she got up and
started for the door.
“Oh and don"t ever contact me or my family again” she added
sternly.
Jake nodded then said “Wait, you forgot your laptop.”
“I don"t need it anymore. You keep it or trash it,
whatever” she said as she walked out the door.
Outside with her back towards Jake she finally let a smile
come to her face as she walked back to the limo. She couldn"t
believe she had pulled it off. She had gotten her revenge and saved her sister at the same time.
Chapter 38:
The bodybuilders helped her into the limo and she resisted
the urge to look back. There was nothing there for her. The past
had been a nightmare a
nd it was finally over. When the men got
into the limo with her and the door was closed she looked at the
house as they drove away. Jake wasn"t even looking. He was still
too busy thinking what to do with his newfound wealth. This was
the man she had done everything for and in return he had
arranged to have her raped, trick her into prostitution and
finally sold her to a drug crime family as a decoy or bride for
the officials. She had been a commodity to him and he had
planned the same for her sister and god knows how many others.
She felt a little bad about what she had done but that soon
passed. There was no way she could let this go on and now Ally
was safe.
One of the men asked “How did it go?” She looked at him
dazed and confused still lost in thoughts.
“The prank, did he go for it?” he explained. Kim snapped out of it and nodded “Hook, line and sinker”
she said.
The man thought about asking more about the „prank" but Kim
was already off in her own little world again and he left it at
that. They got to the gym and said their goodbyes. She thanked
them and told the driver to take her back where he had picked
her up. Then she raised the divider again and got changed back
into her normal clothes and shoved the clothes, purse and
jewelry into the backpack. Then the pulled the money out of the
backpack. There were three stacks left, sixty thousand dollars.
She couldn"t believe she had spent that much in such a short
time, but it had been worth it. She shoved the money in the
pocket of her hooded sweatshirt and sat back waiting for the
driver to drop her off lost in thoughts. They arrived at the
corner and the driver let her out. She gave him a hundred dollar
tip and he left her there.
She didn"t want to go back to the hotel. She needed
someone. She walked to her old apartment and on the way dropped
the backpack with the clothes and jewelry into a trash can. She
found the Honda and sat down in it. Not twenty minutes later the
white BMW pulled up and Kim looked intently. Max got out and
seemed in a great mood. This didn"t seem like someone about to
break up with his girlfriend that was hopelessly in love with him. He ran the bell to the apartment and was buzzed in. Not two
minutes later he walked out with Ally behind him. Kim watched as
they talked for about five minutes and halfway through the
conversation Ally started to cry. Max made no effort to console
her and finished his spiel after which he got into his car and
sped off. She felt bad for Ally but after seeing this unfold she
knew it had been the right thing.
Like Jake had felt nothing for her, Max had felt nothing
for Ally and was just going to use her for his benefit. He
didn"t even wait for the next day. She considered going out
there to console Ally for a minute but the door opened and her
mom came out and wrapped her arms around Ally. Kim wished so
much to be part of that embrace but she couldn"t. There was
unfinished business and Kim had to figure out what next. Ally
and her mom went back inside and Kim got out of the car.
She opened the mailbox slot of their old apartment and
dropped one of the stacks of bills in it. Then she went back to
the Honda and got in. She started it and for a moment wondered
what to do now and for a moment she considered just turning
herself in and serving her sentence. But she still had forty
thousand dollars so she might as well enjoy that before she had
to go back. That was what she was going to do she decided. She was going to live carefree for a while and see what happens. She
pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and called Annie.
Annie answered “Hello?”
“Hi, Annie. It"s done. It worked” she said.
“That"s great!” Annie said, “Come over and we will
celebrate.”
“I can"t. I have to move on. I am a fugitive and the longer
I stick around the more danger the people around me are in. I
just called to say thank you for everything, for all your help
but most of all for being my friend. I am leaving now” she said.
“Where are you going?” Annie asked.
“I don"t know yet. I have a little bit of money left over
and will see where I can get with that before they catch me”.
“I understand, take care of yourself” Annie said.
“You too” Kim said holding back the tears, “Say thanks to
Matt from me.”
“I will” Annie sniffed.
“I love you” Kim said and hung up.
As the line dropped dead the tears flowed freely. She
whipped her face and started the car and put it in gear. She was about to drive off when the phone buzzed. There was a text
message from Annie. She opened it and read the message:
“Dear Gabriella, don’t forget to check your glove box
compartment before you leave. I love you too!”
Puzzled Kim opened the glove box compartment and in it she
found Gabriella"s passport and a USB memory stick. Kim looked at
passport and understood. Then she looked at the USB stick and
wondered what that was for. She turned it over and on the other
side was a sticker that said: “Switzerland – Gabriella Garza”.
Kim drove to the nearest BestBuy and plugged the USB stick into
a display computer. There was a file on it showing a balance of
$96,529,586.56 USD in a Swiss bank account in the name of
Gabriella Garza. She pulled out the USB stick and left the store then got into the car and headed west.
Chapter 39:
It took her three days to make it to Los Angeles. There she
left the car and found a plastic surgeon. The surgery was
fifteen thousand dollars and when the bandages came off a week
later her nose looked exactly like it did in Gabriella"s
passport. She was taking Gabriella"s identity. Gabriella was a
United States citizen and had been buried somewhere in the
Mexican mountain ridge.
She had hesitated for a little while wondering if it was
the right thing to do but this way at least Gabriella"s death
would not be for nothing she figured. With the final twenty five
thousand dollars she got a hotel room on the beach and spent as
much time as possible in a tanning center. The skin tone was the
only thing that was off but after a few weeks of working on that
it was pretty close and she felt comfortable with it. She
considered having the tattoo removed but it had become a part of
her life and it had formed her in a way. Getting rid of it would
not undo the damage and she decided to keep it as a reminder of
how fragile happiness could be. Next she opened a bank account in Gabriella"s name and got
an ATM card. She transferred some money into her new account
from the Swiss account and obtained a transcript of Gabriella"s
high school records. Next she went to UCLA and submitted two
applications. She was informed that it would be tough to still
get in with only a month until the semester started. Kim
mentioned that she was planning to donate two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars to the
school she was attending to update their
legal library as she would be using that quite a bit. This
promise made it so there was almost instantly place for the two
late enrollments.
She left the campus with the acceptance letters and found
an apartment on the beach in Santa Monica. It wasn"t cheap but
it had to be just right and this one was. It came fully
furnished. She sat down in her new apartment and finally felt
she was almost there. She had started over and made it but there
was still one thing missing. She found the yellow pages and
found herself a lawyer and instructed him to send a letter to
Alison Brown in Milwaukee. The letter was supposed to offer a
full scholarship to UCLA including room and board. There should
be no mention of her in the letter and included should be two
tickets to come check out the campus next week. Also he should
contact Alison and her mom and convince them to come. A week later Ally and her mom were on their way. They were
met at the airport by the lawyer and again they asked who had
arranged this but the lawyer told them he had been sworn to
secrecy. He drove them to the new apartment on the beach. Kim
was lying in the sun on the beach about one hundred yards from
the apartment. She was lying on a beach towel reading the
newspaper and next to her was a list of all the books she needed
for her first year of law school. On the front page of the paper
was an article about a drug related murder in Milwaukee
Wisconsin. The victim was Jake Juliano and it reported that the
rumor was that he had stolen a large amount of money from a
dangerous Mexican drug cartel and they had found him by tracing
the transaction. It had been the last in a string of six murders
that were all related to the Mexican cartel. They would never
hurt anyone again she thought.
She startled as the cell phone next to her buzzed, a new
text message.
It was from the lawyer and read: “Your guests have
arrived.”
“Let them in, I’ll be right there” she responded quickly.
She looked over and saw the lawyer, Ally and her mom get
out of a black Cadillac. They walked around the apartment and were clearly impressed and surprised. After they went around the
building the lawyer herded them inside and Kim got up. She
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