by Robyn Nyx
“Please, God, no. Not my mom.”
Therese pulled the gag out of the kneeling woman’s mouth.
“What are you doing with my daughter?”
Therese smirked at the obvious terror in the woman’s voice and cuffed her across the head. “Shut it. Explain to your mom why you’re here, Gillian.” Therese chose to ignore the fury and hatred in her eyes, although she always enjoyed that part too. “You owe it to her. She deserves to know why she’s going to die tonight.” The kneeling mother whimpered, and Therese hit her again. “Tell your mom how you’ve afforded to buy her a nice house with a pool.”
Gillian looked from Therese to her mother, then focused solely on her mother. “I work for a criminal organization—”
“Worked,” Therese corrected her and clenched her jaw in barely controlled anger. “Explain to your mom how you’ve betrayed me. How you’ve decided that, despite the fact I’ve paid you handsomely for the past decade, you’ve sold out on me. Explain exactly why you’re both going to die here tonight, in a disused parking lot in a dirty part of town, far from where you’ve been living on my dollar.”
“Please, Therese, you don’t need to do this. Not her.”
Therese scoffed. “Don’t I? I should let you both go?” She felt her rage building. She’d built an empire from nothing, established a nationwide business that had made whelps like Gillian into something special. And yet, here she was again, reprimanding an errant employee for an unforgivable act of betrayal that jeopardized her whole operation. “Do I look like a fool? If I don’t kill you, if I don’t slaughter what’s left of your family, what message does that send to everyone else on my payroll?” She kicked out at the trembling woman at her feet and felt no sympathy. She only felt wronged. Unnecessarily wronged, and Gillian had to pay for that, along with her mom. And then she had to pay a visit to her right-hand woman, Natasha.
Usually, they’d share moments like this. Therese had discovered long ago that ending someone’s life was both addictive and highly sexually charged. Killing someone never failed to make her horny. She and Nat always fucked each other senseless after they’d killed someone. Therese had been told it probably had to do with her childhood, the way she’d been used and abused by her adoptive parents. She smiled, remembering that was the last pearl of wisdom that particular therapist ever delivered.
“You don’t have to kill my mom. She doesn’t know anything. She can’t harm you. I’m begging you, Therese, please let her go.”
Therese watched Gillian dispassionately as she began to sob. She shook her head. Crying was weakness, a failure to control emotions. She thought Gillian was better than that. “Tell your mom what you’ve done, Gillian, or I’ll make you watch while I peel the skin away from her body.” Therese withdrew a caping knife from its sheath on her belt. She grabbed a handful of the woman’s hair, yanked her head back, and pressed the blade to her exposed neck.
“No! Please. I sold her out, Mom. I tried to tell the Feds about her operation.”
“Tell your mom what operation. Tell her what you’ve done to afford her house.” Therese pressed the blade harder, and her thin skin sliced enough to release blood.
“We deal—”
“You dealt, past tense.”
“I dealt in human organs. We sell—”
“Sold. You don’t do it anymore. Your choice.”
“We sold them to the highest bidder.”
Therese looked down at the woman and could see horror on her face. She always enjoyed that moment of realization when loved ones inevitably disappointed each other. Even as they stared death in the face, familial frustrations were still ridiculously important.
“Don’t worry, Mom. She finally had an attack of conscience. After ten years of reaping the rewards from the death of ‘innocents,’ she decided to try to put a stop to it. Isn’t that right, Gillian?”
“I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
“Why don’t you tell your mom how you’d sometimes personally source those organs just for fun? How you’d find a guy in a bar…and be honest, Gillian. Your mom should know what her daughter really is before you die.” Therese enjoyed this. Dismantling someone piece by piece, and watching them squirm. Gillian deserved it, and so did her mom.
“I’d go to bars sometimes and pick a guy up. I’d bring him back to my hotel, and my crew would take him down.”
“See, Mom, your loving daughter liked nothing more than to exercise her power over men by sealing their fate. She’s a closet misandrist disguised as a perfect little straight girl. What do you think of your faultless daughter now, Mom? Now that you know everything she’s bought for you over the past ten years was bought with blood money—literally, blood money.”
“I don’t want to believe it. Please, Gillian, please tell me it’s not true.”
Gillian hung her head, and Therese could practically see the shame dripping from her forehead along with the sweat from the merciless L.A. heat.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”
Therese slowly nodded, satisfied she’d fully destroyed the illusion of the ideal mom-daughter relationship Gillian had always bragged about. There was no perfect family relationship. They were all shams. People went to their graves in wretched ignorance, thinking their loved ones were faultless. Therese hadn’t suffered that particular artifice since she was five, when her real parents decided she was old enough to sell into sexual slavery.
“Say good-bye to your mom.”
“NO! PLEASE DON’T—”
But before she’d finished her plea, Therese had drawn the deadly blade across the kneeling woman’s throat, and she held her there while her life flooded from her neck. She flicked her attention from the fast-disintegrating Gillian to the beautiful deluge of thick red fluid pumping from the laceration she’d created. She watched it saturate the pretty pink blouse the woman was wearing, enjoyed the patterns it made as it ebbed ever downward.
“Élan vital. Taken away so easily.”
Cate dragged the dead woman to the car and carelessly slung her in the backseat like a sack of groceries. Gillian thrashed in her seat, trying to free herself. Therese’s assistants doused the car in gasoline and trailed a path to her feet. Cate handed her a matchbook.
Therese looked at it and saw it was from her favorite restaurant. She recalled the halloumi and hummus burger she’d had last time she was there with Nat. Maybe they’d go there tonight after they’d worked up an appetite from fucking.
“I hope your brief moment of piety was worth it.” She lit the match and dropped it casually to the ground. It ignited the gasoline and coursed toward the car in a blue-green sublime swagger intent on slaughter. Therese stepped back from the intense heat but watched in fascination as it engulfed the vehicle and its two occupants in flames that danced maniacally. Gillian’s screams were mildly pleasing. She’d murdered enough people with fire to know that it was a particularly painful death. It was up there in the top five of her homicidal repertoire, along with skinning and acid. But you can’t beat a knife.
Therese turned away as Cate handed her a lit cigarette and her phone. She was dialing Nat as the gas tank on Gillian’s car exploded. She rolled her eyes at her crew whooping and hollering like it was the Fourth of July.
“Meet me at my place in half an hour. I’ve just finished dealing with Gillian.” Smiling at Nat’s retort, she took a long draw on her cigarette. “You should think yourself lucky.”
Chapter Four
“I love the script. It’s brilliant. It’s so dark and intense. You want to hate her, but it turns out you really shouldn’t. I read the book after the script to get a real feel for the character. I’m impressed you want to stick to the writers’ original ending, given that the heroine dies. That’s not your typical Hollywood movie fare.” Elodie allowed her enthusiasm free rein. She hadn’t been this excited about a project for a while.
“Ah, is that a problem? You don’t want to die at the end of the movie?”
&nb
sp; Elodie smiled as the project’s director, Al Fox, tugged on the edge of his mustache. He was a man with a build for whom tall and fat stores were invented. “I’ve got no problem with the ending at all. It’s refreshing.”
“When I read the book, I found myself rooting for Elya too. Sure, she’s done some bad things, but she’s been driven to those for a very powerful reason. Once our audience knows that, they’ll know she shouldn’t be punished for a love that self-sacrificing.” Al slapped the table for emphasis. “But it did make me wish for a happy ending. For our heroines, Elya and Kim, to survive so they can raise Elya’s little girl together. But you just know that Elya has to die for all the bad things she’s done. It’s the ultimate self-sacrifice for her little girl—making sure she can lead a life Elya never had the chance to.”
Elodie was nodding as Al spoke. “That’s exactly right. I’m glad you didn’t turn it into a schmaltzy happy-ever-after ending. If you can convey that feeling of redemption throughout the whole film, I think you’re on to something.”
“That’s where you come in. That’s your job.”
She laughed. “That simple eh, Al?”
“Hey, you made audiences love a cop killer. This’ll be a piece of cake!”
“So how come I don’t have to test for this?” She addressed her question to “the money,” Jules French, seated at the end of the table. Though he’d introduced himself at the beginning of the meeting, he had yet to participate in it. Elodie thought this strange, given that it was his company and his very first movie. She liked to earn a part. She loved to test against other actors because the competition made her performances even better.
“The project wouldn’t have proceeded without you on board, Ms. Fontaine. You simply had to be Elya Charinov. You were the only actor I had in mind while reading the screenplay, and I couldn’t get past that. I realize that’s not the way you’re used to Hollywood working, but it’s the way it will work here.”
Jules had become more animated as he spoke, and Elodie found his passion infectious.
“So I did get it right. You weren’t drawn to playing Kim?”
“Not for a second. Elya is the challenge, hands down. Kim is an all-American girl, fighting the good fight. Elya is more tragic. She’s dark, lost, drowning in the immorality of what she’s doing. She’ll be a tough sell. The tragic antiheroine.” Elodie was in deep. The character excited her. “Who do you have in mind for Kim and the three male parts?”
“Lela Darvis or Kiana McIntyre for Kim, choices one and two.” Now it was Al’s turn to show his excitement. “Todd Capron or Twist Wayans for the Russian, Rory Meliz or Rock Docherty for the Chinese, and it has to be Brad Carlton for the Italian.”
“That’ll be a great cast if you can get all your first choices.” Lela was a real babe. She and Elodie had enjoyed some fun times when they’d filmed together before. “I can’t wait to get started.”
“Can I assume our proposed remuneration plus royalties is sufficient, Elodie?”
She smiled as Jules slid a copy of the contract across the table toward her. “It’s more than sufficient.” Elodie signed in all the tabbed places, since her lawyer had already approved it.
“You would have done it for less?”
“Of course, but my agent would kill me. She’s on percentage work.”
Jules laughed. “Then I hope this will be the first of many.”
Elodie was no fool. She’d wait to put pen to paper with FlatLine again until the project was finished and she was satisfied with the final result. Three-picture deals had never been her style, and the days when she took a project to put clothes on her back regardless of the movie’s quality were long gone. She hadn’t done a movie she wasn’t proud of for over ten years, box-office hit or no. The same couldn’t be said of some of her contemporaries, many of whom only cared for the paycheck. “One at a time, Jules, one at a time.”
Chapter Five
“I still can’t quite believe we’ve been deported from Russia.” Madison was indignant as she sat in the economy class seat on Flight BA 236 from Moscow to Heathrow. They’d been accompanied by the politsiya on their transfer from St. Petersburg to Moscow to ensure they boarded their international flight. They needn’t have wasted their time. Madison didn’t want to spend another minute on Russian soil.
“You said we were taking a risk with this one. And I doubt Aleksandra will be happy with your finished article. We need to hope she stays in her own country and doesn’t come searching you out.”
Geva often had a relaxed take on any situation, and Madison wished she knew how she did it. “I know, but I was hoping I might be wrong. Something inside me hoped that we’d be the ones educating her.”
Geva laughed gently. “You know better than anyone that minds like Aleksandra’s can’t be changed. You can’t reason or argue with them.”
Madison smiled. Geva was right even though she had no idea why. Madison had very personal experience that some people never change. No matter how many times they promise they will. “I just don’t get how a second world country can be traveling backward at such an alarming rate. They’ve got Babin distracting the Russian people with rafts of antigay and transsexual legislation when it’s the Russian regime that’s responsible for their misfortune and disquiet. They’ve got a faltering economy, a failing healthcare system, and an educational establishment forsaking their younger generation. They’re focusing their anger on the wrong people.”
“You don’t have to convince me. Have you considered a change of career? Perhaps you should be moving into politics?”
Madison sighed at Geva’s mild teasing. “Like I could do anything else.”
“What we do isn’t forever. Over seventy of us were killed and nearly forty jailed in the last year alone. No one would blame you for moving on.”
“Moving on?” Madison almost shouted. “How did we get from the Russian government being a complete cluster fuck to me giving up on the job I love? I got into this kind of journalism to make a difference. A near-death experience in Afghanistan didn’t stop me, so I’m not about to let a jumped-up police captain end my career. He doesn’t get to win even though he thinks he has. Sometimes the pen isn’t as mighty as the sword, but history’s written, not stabbed into books.”
“Are you okay, madam?”
Madison looked toward the whispering flight attendant and forced a smile. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Can I get you both a drink?”
Madison’s smile became genuine, though she felt skeptical rather than pleasant. The woman’s words made her think of her father. He also believed any problem could be solved with drink. It was never just one drink, though. “A bottle of water would be great, thanks.”
“I’ll have the same.”
“Certainly.” She was carrying an armful of magazines and offered one to Madison. “Perhaps you’d like to take a look at this? I love People magazine, but the Sexiest Woman issue is always my favorite.”
Madison nodded and smiled politely, glad of the distraction. She knew her passion for the job could get a little too intense at times. Madison accepted the proffered magazine and the attendant gave another copy to Geva. On its cover, Elodie Fontaine’s features were flawless and her intense, deep green eyes stared up at her. Precisely sculptured and fashionably short brunette locks contrasted against her tanned skin and framed her face. She had an enviously sleek physique that Madison knew was the result of years of free-climbing in Utah, where she’d grown up.
“I’m going to read for a while. Take some time to calm down.”
Geva nodded. “I’ll be skipping to the photo section, purely for professional purposes, obviously.” She winked.
“Obviously. It has nothing to do with the subject of the photo shoot at all.”
Geva shook her head. “Of course not!”
Madison smiled and began to flick through the pages, heading straight for the same section. I wonder what it takes to be the World’s Sexiest Woman. For Madison, an
d thousands of other women around the world, the appeal was clear. She seemed confident and cocky in a sexy way. She exuded the kind of aggressive, self-assured energy that was usually the preserve of men. And it was undeniably attractive. She was physically flawless, and her genealogy had been particularly blessed with a seemingly ageless complexion.
Madison had first seen her in Night Deeds when Elodie was just twenty-five. Her portrayal of a single mom and her battle against neighborhood drug dealers was an intelligent, courageous performance. It involved some heavy makeup and a fat suit, and Madison thought her choice of role hinted at a lack of vanity and a depth usually bereft in Hollywood’s stars. Subsequent interviews she’d read with Elodie left the question open as to who she really was. Was the Elodie the public knew the real thing, or simply a cleverly designed construct to keep her fans happy?
She inspected the magazine’s contents and felt something akin to guilty pleasure as she flicked through to the eight-page spread on this year’s sexiest woman, this being Elodie’s ninth year with the dubious title. Madison couldn’t deny, however, that Elodie should be applauded for this near decade of dominance, despite her sexuality. She’d managed to engineer a meteoric rise to become the darling of Hollywood and the world, notwithstanding the fact she was gay. And she’d not done it quietly.
She’d not stayed in the closet while she established herself and proved her mettle as an actor, rather than a one-hit wonder. She’d not played it safe and confirmed her celebrity status with a die-hard fan base before she’d come out. She’d been completely open right from the get-go, and in doing so, she’d given new meaning to the phrase “out and proud.” It seemed her absolute disregard for the establishment sealed her status. Women flocked to her. Men wanted to emulate her success in the bedroom. Producers and directors wanted her in their films. Actors were desperate to work with her. Elodie Fontaine had been bestowed with far more than her fair share of the it that people talk about, the X factor sought in new talent. She was magnetic and rumored to be absolute dynamite between the sheets. She’d seen plenty of tabloid gutter press articles featuring kiss and tell stories by so many women to prove it.