Fire Bound (Sea Haven Sisters

by Christine Feehan

  “Now? You want me to get rid of her now? I suppose it’s dark enough. Yeah, I’ll take her out there now and I’ll be back in an hour or so. It won’t take long. Yeah. I’ll fucking weigh her body down so no one finds it. Don’t worry. This won’t be a problem.”

  Casimir backed out of the room and slipped back outside. There was going to be another accident at the cliff. Arturo was going to die there. He waited in his car until Luigi’s bodyguard came out of the building with the body – wrapped in a blanket – over his shoulder. He dumped it in the trunk of his car, went back and locked the building before driving away.

  Casimir didn’t have to follow directly behind. He already knew where Arturo was going. Every mile made the fire burning in his gut grow hotter. He had training. Discipline. Control. He had it all, but he let it go. Rolling down the window, he drew the night air as deep into his lungs as possible. Lissa was facing her nightmare of an uncle, he had to face his past. The sight of that broken body and hearing Arturo talking on his phone to Luigi, clearly uncaring that he’d killed a woman, brought every memory he’d buried flooding back.

  He was a trained killer. An assassin. He had taken out so many targets he’d lost track, yet he had more regard for life than Arturo, Luigi or any of his instructors ever had. He had found, over the years, that perhaps the law was in place for a reason, but some of the biggest monsters fell through the cracks. Men like him were necessary. Not good, but necessary.

  He chose an alternate route to get to Cosmos’s estate and parked his vehicle where he had before. Again, there were no cars on the street and no one was out walking their dog. It was always the unexpected that could sink a job faster than anything. That person that came home early or forgot something important and returned for it. He stayed in his car a few minutes, getting a feel for the neighborhood, learning the rhythm of it.

  Making certain the dome light wasn’t working, he stepped out of the car and moved with absolute confidence – as if he belonged – toward the back gardens where he’d entered the property before. He didn’t hesitate once he was in the cover the foliage provided. He jogged toward the cliff. Coming around the shrubs, he spotted Arturo heaving the widow’s body over the cliff.

  Arturo turned and, without a glance around, snagged the bloody blanket and walked back to the house. Casimir had expected him to leave immediately. Instead the man clearly had something important to do in the house. He followed at a distance. Arturo left the door open. Casimir took that as an invitation, but just in case, he was even more cautious.

  Arturo didn’t consider that anyone might be watching him. He went straight for the study and the computer. Pulling on gloves, he turned the machine on and, while it was booting up, poured himself a drink of whiskey. He downed it quickly and poured himself a second. The death of the widow had rattled him more than he let on – that or Luigi wasn’t happy she’d died.

  Arturo kept his gaze fixed on the screen. Once the computer was running, he sank into a chair and began to type. Looking over his shoulder, Casimir could see it was a suicide note. The widow just couldn’t live without her husband. Casimir moved in close like the phantom he was, coming out of the shadows to stand just behind the bodyguard.

  “Arturo. I think we need to talk. Don’t go for your gun. I’d have to shoot you, and right now, all I intend to do is talk. You make me pull the trigger and I’m aiming for your heart. In case you wonder, I don’t miss.”

  Arturo leapt up so fast he knocked the chair over. Casimir hit him on the side of his head with the butt of his gun. Hard, uncaring if the blow killed him. Arturo crumpled like a sack of potatoes. Casimir pushed the body aside with a none-too-gentle kick from his expensive shoes and leaned in to add a few lines to the suicide note. He shut down the computer and hoisted the body to his shoulder, strode from the house and dumped the body in the trunk of his rented car.

  He shouldn’t do this. He should dump the bastard in the sea and let that kill him, but he couldn’t stop himself. He used zip ties to bind Arturo’s hands and ankles and then slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth just in case he woke on their trip back to the building where Arturo and Luigi trained women for their prostitution ring.

  Casimir knew better. He was making this personal, and one didn’t make any job personal. Arturo represented every one of those instructors who had beaten him bloody, or beaten his partner in front of him. One always won and one always lost. Either the man had the discipline and control to withstand the sexual assault or the woman did. Either he could arouse the woman or she could arouse him. Whatever the demand, one of the partners was severely beaten or killed. More than one of his partners had been killed.

  He closed his eyes for a brief moment, feeling bile rise, hating those memories. Hating that he’d caused such pain to the young women forced to partner him. Hating that he’d caused their deaths. Men like Arturo felt nothing for the men and women they tortured, used and discarded. He shook his head and drove back to the “school.” Luigi had come to this place every evening. There was no doubt in Casimir’s mind that Luigi had used the widow often and aided Arturo in her “training.”

  He cursed under his breath and slammed his palm against the steering wheel. He’d come here several nights in a row and sat outside. Waiting. Watching. All the while, inside, they had tortured the young woman. These men planned on killing Lissa. Her uncle would never try to keep her alive in his prostitution ring. She knew too much and she was far too dangerous.

  Arturo was awake when Casimir raised the trunk lid. His eyes spat hatred and a promise of retaliation. Casimir smiled at him. “Hey. Don’t look so surprised. You had to know it was coming. You’re a loose end.” He dragged Arturo from the trunk, not being in the least gentle, deliberately dropping him twice on the ground as if his dead weight was too much to lift.

  Frown lines appeared in Arturo’s forehead. He made all sorts of noises, shaking his head in denial.

  “Seriously?” Casimir continued, shouldering the man. “You can’t be that stupid. He’s gotten rid of everyone else. That niece of his will do Aldo Porcelli, and he’ll do her. You’re the last thread leading back to him. With you dead, no one is going to know he murdered his own brother and the heads of the Porcelli family. He’s next in line. Once he’s accepted as the boss, Angeline disappears and he’s the golden boy. He has it all.”

  He opened the door of the training hall, went through and kicked the door closed behind him. “If you’re thinking, why wouldn’t he kill me too? I do you and disappear. I come in for the hard jobs, and I’ve worked with Luigi in the past. He can’t find me unless I want to be found. I like money, not women or boys or power. It’s that simple. You’ve always been a risk because you can’t resist hurting the women you get under your control. He told me all about you and after watching you with the little widow these past few days, I’d say he was right to get rid of you. You’re blackmail waiting to happen.”

  Casimir dumped Arturo in the middle of the sticky blood where the young woman had died. Arturo tried to scoot out of the puddle, but Casimir caught his arms and yanked them up, securing the cuffs that had bound the widow to the chains. With a flick of his knife, he cut away the zip ties and pocketed them.

  “It’s just business to me. That’s all. I get in and get out. Disappear.” He yanked the tape from Arturo’s mouth and replaced it with a ball gag before moving around him to the mechanism to lift the body from the floor and hang him by his wrists. “The clothes are going to have to go. You and your little friend were playing and she accidentally killed you before flinging herself off the cliffs. The cops will probably suspect her of murdering her husband, but she’ll have to bear that little burden. Luigi will most likely be able to supply evidence that you and the widow were seeing each other and you both liked kink.”

  Arturo shook his head savagely, his body writhing, legs trying to kick out, but they were tied together at the ankles. Casimir smirked. “You don’t think the cops will buy that? They will accept circumstantial
evidence. It’s been my experience that they accept what seems believable, and this scenario is close enough to the truth to make it look very believable.”

  He clamped his hands around Arturo’s legs and removed his shoes and stocks, stripped off his trousers, cutting them away with his knife, uncaring that every time Arturo fought to get free, the tip of the blade sliced open skin. “Whoa, looks like Carlotta liked knife play.”

  Arturo shook his head adamantly, making all kinds of noises around the ball gag. Saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth in a steady stream. Once he had cut the clothes away from Arturo, leaving him stark naked, Casimir locked the bodyguard’s ankles into the tethers and again, removed the zip ties and pocketed them. He tossed the remnants of Arturo’s clothes to one side.

  “The widow’s vehicle, the one you’ve been using, is at her home, but your prints are all over it. The suicide note tells how in love she was with you. How you loved to tie each other up and flog each other, but something went wrong and you died. She burned down the building and threw herself off the cliff where you both had thrown her husband over.” He made little clucking noises and shook his head. “You certainly have a lot to answer for. Luigi will be properly ashamed when all this comes to light.”

  Casimir casually pulled plastic overalls and a jacket from his bag and donned both items over his immaculate clothing. He picked up the whip and held it up for Arturo to see. “To make this scene believable, we’ll have to make it very authentic. Don’t worry, I learned at the hands of masters, although it’s been years since I practiced this particular art. I’m fairly certain I can do as much justice to this art form as you did on Carlotta.”

  A half an hour later, Casimir exited the building. If Arturo could have screamed around his ball gag, he would have. Flames were already licking at his feet and rushing up walls, responding to the direction of a true fire element.

  11

  Luigi rubbed his hands together, more than pleased with the evening’s event. His niece had done her job efficiently, the way she always did. He really regretted having to kill such a competent and resourceful tool, but he wasn’t going to take any chances, not now when he was so close to his goals. He sauntered out to his car. He couldn’t celebrate with the lovely widow. He didn’t like that he’d lost her, but maybe this worked out better. He would see that the men he paid such good money to every week would be assigned to her tragic case. No one would ever suspect Cosmos had been killed on Luigi’s order. No one. Not when the tragedy surrounding his widow would become the number one topic of gossip.

  He needed a woman. He’d tried to call Arturo several times but the man hadn’t picked up. Still, he’d left him a message to pick up one of the girls working for him. One that still wasn’t as trained as they’d like. The fact that Arturo hadn’t answered meant he had brought the girl to their little school and was working with her. By now, she would need his tender care. Arturo always commanded fear. When Luigi arrived, the girl would need gentle handling. Not gentle when it came to sex, but those little intimate gestures they misread into thinking he cared for them. Just a touch here and there, that was all it took after Arturo spent a little time with them.

  He laughed aloud as he slid behind the wheel. He so enjoyed watching Arturo work, almost as much as Arturo enjoyed working. Still, he was going to have to find out exactly what happened, how the widow had died. He hated losing that income. Arturo was good at what he did, but sometimes he was a little too enthusiastic.

  Luigi couldn’t get too angry with his oldest friend, not when there were times when he was a little too enthusiastic himself. It was easy to forget the women brought them in money when they were having such a good time. Sometimes clients forgot that as well, but that was okay, because then they paid for that mistake over and over. If Arturo or Luigi killed the golden goose, they got nothing but that moment’s pleasure from it.

  He spent the rest of the drive fantasizing about giving Angeline to a couple of the men who were regular customers, men who had killed twice. They liked to make their purchase together. Of course Luigi charged them double, and since they’d killed twice, he made certain to give them the girl who brought in the least amount of money – just in case. Arturo had to clean up quite a mess both times.

  It would be fun to film Angeline’s slow, torturous death. He couldn’t chance it, of course, but still, thinking about it was one of his favorite pastimes. Bringing anyone else in on Angeline’s death would be a risk he couldn’t afford to take. He planned the next best thing. He’d already discussed just how sweet Angeline would die with Arturo. His best friend had agreed to take her to the privacy of training school and spend a few hours with her before Luigi killed her.

  Angeline had always been far too arrogant and haughty to ever talk to Arturo. She didn’t like him in her house and made no bones about letting both Luigi and Arturo know. Arturo would love to get her to himself in that training school. The instruments he had weren’t toys. He knew how to cause a woman such pain she would beg for death. He was equally as good at humiliation. Arturo hated Angeline almost as much as Luigi did.

  She always treated their soldiers with a kind of disdain and frowned on Luigi being friends with someone who never rose above personal bodyguard in the organization. She harped on the fact that her father would never have tolerated Arturo’s familiarity with the boss. She was just the opposite of Lissa. Lissa threw her arms around Arturo, hugged him with genuine affection, joked with him, treated him like family and had, on more than one occasion, taken care of him when he was ill. If there was anyone Arturo cared anything for other than Luigi, it was Lissa. Still, like Luigi, Arturo knew Lissa had to die. It would be sad, but it was necessary.

  Luigi turned the vehicle onto the long winding drive to the back part of the property. He’d scored with the building, snatching it up the moment it was on the market. In town, yet secluded, no one would ever have a clue what went on there. He loved being there with the women, and his enemies, all at his mercy inside the soundproof building, surrounded by the rest of the town. No one ever suspected.

  As the car approached the last bend, nearly overgrown with foliage, he saw an orange-red glow. Frowning, he automatically accelerated and then slammed on the brakes as the building came into view. There were no flames on the outside, but windows were breaking, and through them he could see a vicious, hungry blaze leaping greedily at the walls and seeping under the doorway. The outside walls were black and blistered with the incredible heat.

  Arturo must not have returned yet. He caught up his phone as he backed down the drive fast. Punching in Arturo’s number, he swore as it went to voice mail. “The building’s on fire. Inside. I can see the flames. Call me. Now.”

  Heart pounding, he drove fast away from the fire. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the place when the fire department came. He had no idea how much of the inside of the building would be destroyed, but he knew the investigators often could read a lot in the ashes. He was going to have to spread money around to get the official report and either bury it, tweak it, or let it go at what they found. Thankfully, he knew Arturo had gotten the widow’s body out of there.

  What the hell happened? What had started the fire? Clearly it had started inside. Swearing again, he sent a text to Arturo. Call me now. An order. Where was the son of a bitch? What game was he playing? He should have disposed of the widow’s body, picked up a woman for the two of them to play with and already be in the building. There was no car there. Unless…

  Had he seen a vehicle? Parked down from the building under the trees? In the shadows? He rubbed at the frown lines in his forehead. Had there been a car? He slowed down and pulled over to park, trying to think. If he went back to look, would the fire department get there and catch him there? He didn’t want questions. Arturo never parked that far away from the building, but maybe he had.

  Swearing, he turned around and started back up the drive.

  Casimir stood outside the inferno, feeding the flames, wish
ing, for the first time in his life, he could hear the screams of his mark. Arturo deserved death a hundred times over. He despised men like Arturo, men who enjoyed the pain of others. Men born, not shaped, into monsters.

  What does that make you? The wind whispered the question in his ear. What did it make him? He wanted Arturo to suffer. He needed him to suffer. To do this terrible thing, allow it to be personal when his code was so rigid, unbending, when he swore to live by that code and yet he still didn’t move.

  The building was old and wooden with a flat roof. It had obviously been a small warehouse or storage building, but had been renovated more than once. The place had one bathroom, and the rest of the space, maybe a thousand square feet, had been divided into three rooms. The small reception area where Arturo and Luigi could watch television and take a respite from their work as well as a small bedroom where the women they brought there could sleep – when they were allowed sleep. The main room was the “classroom.”

  Casimir thought in those terms. He’d seen similar classrooms before. Dungeons that held every type of contraption for bondage as well as the necessities for inflicting pain. He remembered every one of those items.

  The skylight cracked and shattered as heat rose and there was nowhere for it to go. Instantly the oxygen pouring in fed the flames, so it wasn’t as necessary for him to exert himself to keep the fire going. Still, he wanted the blaze hot, burning everything to the ground, destroying Arturo and Luigi’s playground. Taking it all. Taking each room. The bedroom had fuel – the beds, mattresses and cheap dressers. Paper strewn around. Luigi and Arturo weren’t neat and they didn’t give the women much time to be neat and tidy either. Mostly though, it was the soundproofing they had padded the walls and ceiling with in order to keep the screams of the women from being heard that provided the best fuel. And that was pure irony.