Hit Me (The Bailey Boys #2)

by P. J. Adams

  I should just let Jack get what was coming to him and then see where things stood.

  It was a pragmatic thing, though. Jack the Knife was more use to me damaged and angry than dead.

  Markov had a place in the hills near Benahavís. An old smallholding, what the Spanish called a finca, set in a few acres of land. Lots of these places had been converted into holiday homes, but this one had remained neglected, a tumbledown place, not much more than a few stone walls topped with a wooden roof and a few wooden outhouses.

  The track to get there from the nearest paved road was maybe half a mile long, rubble-strewn and crossing the snaking bed of a dried out river a couple of times. It was just as well Markov’s boys used an SUV to get to the finca, although that probably didn’t make much difference to Jack McGill as he was bounced about in the trunk.

  I gave them until morning before following, and then just to be sure I called ahead from Benahavís.

  “Mr Markov? It’s me, Lee Bailey. Okay if I come on up? I don’t like to leave things half-done, you know what I mean? Me and Jack, we go way back: maybe I can be of use?”

  There was a danger he’d think I was somehow in with Jack and his gang – we were all Brits, after all. But it made sense: maybe I could get the kid to talk where other methods failed.

  “Sure, sure,” said Markov, after a second or two. “How soon you get here? I don’t know he has much longer.” He laughed at that, and I wondered just what I was going to find.

  §

  As I approached the finca in my battered old Corolla, grounding occasionally on the rocky track, I spotted them gathered outside in the sun.

  At first I thought they must be taking a break, but then I saw Jack. They had him tied to an old door, naked in the harsh sun. The foot end of the door was raised on bricks, and his head was covered with a thin towel, soaked wet so that it clung to the lines of his face.

  His pale body was bloody and bruised, his breathing rapid, his skin red from the sun.

  Markov hadn’t been wrong about him not having much time.

  I stopped the car and climbed out.

  What kind of person did it make me that I could see a sight like this and not react?

  Had I become some kind of monster? Had I always been one?

  Or had I become so deeply embedded in the logic that we all understood the risks that this actually was some kind of normal, just not as you might understand it?

  Maybe I had been out of the game too long, and now was over-thinking things.

  As I watched, one of the guys took a bucket and poured it over Jack’s face – not much, just a slow trickle, enough to saturate the towel again and set Jack retching and choking.

  I might not feel anything for Jack, but Markov didn’t need to know that. As he came to greet me I let my jaw sag and I said, “Is that really necessary, boss? Waterboarding the poor fucker?”

  Markov shrugged, hard to read with those big aviator shades pulled down. “It make him talk. I now know a lot more about him and his friends than I did before. I think that is good, yes?”

  “So what next?”

  “I think we’re done with him,” said Markov. “Time to tidy up, I think.”

  Jack started struggling against his bonds, setting off another fit of choking coughs.

  “Bastard took a knife to me,” I said. “And then he had me shot.”

  “What you want? You want to do it? You want to finish him off?”

  I shook my head. “I want to beat the shit out of him and let him go. Let him live with the knowledge that I’ve always beaten him and one day I’ll be there, waiting around a corner or coming up behind him, ready to finish the job.”

  I remembered what Imelda had once said about Markov, the reputatsiya thing, and added, “I want him to go back to his mates utterly humiliated and broken. His reputation ruined.”

  Markov was grinning, nodding. “Maybe I give you a present, yes? Maybe this piece of shit is more use to us alive than dead.”

  With that, he leaned over and whipped the soaked towel off Jack’s face. “You hear that, Englishman?” he hissed. “Would you rather be dead, or hating being alive?”

  And so I found myself a short time later, standing facing Jack.

  The kid was naked, the fear and pain shriveling his genitals back into themselves until there was almost nothing there.

  He could barely stand – no strength in his legs, his breathing ragged, his head rocking from side to side as if dizzy.

  And he was shaking. His entire body visibly juddering.

  I took a step towards him and he met my look, and I could tell he knew. He knew I’d saved his pathetic life.

  Knew as I bunched a fist, took a short swing and then drove it forward into his skinny gut, that for him this was by far the best outcome.

  He folded over in two, coughing and retching again, spitting clear liquid that must have come up from his lungs.

  An uppercut crumpled his nose, straightened him for a sharp hook to the jaw that finally sent him sprawling in the dirt.

  Just for good measure, I kicked him in the ribs, and felt something crunch under the impact.

  I turned away.

  The bastard knew I’d saved him, and he’d be sore and furious, and one thing I knew for certain: an erratic little dick like Jack McGill was never going to let that lie.

  Which is exactly what I wanted.

  19

  Finally, Imelda Sanchez truly understood.

  Reputatsiya.

  Reputation. Face. Honor. Status. A blend of all these things and more.

  It was what mattered so much to Hristo, what drove him more than anything.

  Maybe it was something to do with the path he’d taken from abandoned kid on the streets of Sofia, hauling himself up by any means that came to hand until he was here, a big man among other utterly terrifying big men.

  She knew what it was like to grow up in those conditions, to drag yourself up and out.

  She knew that even when you had no food in your belly, no water or shelter, sometimes it was what was in your heart that mattered the most.

  And she had thought that was it until that evening at the Colombians’ place in Sotogrande.

  The evening when she was forced, once again, to mold herself to that man’s will, to be his adornment, to be a part of the story he had built up around himself.

  And to do so in the presence of the one man who had opened her eyes to the possibilities of what a man could really be.

  The man she had fallen for.

  Totally fallen for.

  And she could not even meet Lee’s look. Could not talk with him, or smile or laugh. Could not ask how his wounded arm was.

  Could do none of that because it was all about how others saw you, how others saw him, the Bulgarian, the man who owned her and controlled her.

  And it made her feel sick to the pit of her belly.

  She could not do this.

  She would surely break. Or do something foolish. Reckless.

  Like lead Lee Bailey out through the gardens to a privacy that must surely be illusory, a blink away from exposure, discovery, and all that might follow.

  She had never known anything so intense. The silence as he stood behind her. His touch. His mouth on her and the physical reactions it prompted.

  The way he held her afterwards and told her she must go, even though all she wanted was to drag him to the ground and do for him what he had done for her.

  To take his hand and start to walk, to run. Down to the beach, the path that trailed back into the heart of the marina.

  Keep going.

  Forever, keep going.

  And she could do none of that because she belonged to Hristo Markov, was part of who he was.

  Part of his reputatsiya.

  §

  Lee called her.

  Several days later.

  The phone buzzed, making her jump. Because always that damned phone brought only bad news – a summons, her presence required. />
  But this time...

  “Can we talk?”

  “Not like this.” Paranoid, perhaps, but how could she not be? Hristo had given her the phone – if he wanted it tapped, such a thing was not beyond him. Even taking a call from Lee was risky, she knew.

  “Where? How?”

  §

  She went to Lee’s apartment on the outskirts of Puerto Libre.

  She didn’t know this part of town so well, a mix of residential and tourist hotels, a place for people to sleep and go to the beach. Until now there had been little reason for her to come here.

  It was late, close to midnight, and she used all the tricks she knew to check if she was being followed, to throw off any tails, to take indirect routes that must lead anywhere but here.

  He had a place on the top floor of an older building, a few blocks back from the seafront. A nondescript place, as if when he had chosen it one of his requirements had been that he should be able to blend into the background.

  He came down to the communal entrance to let her in, turned almost immediately without words or any other form of greeting, and led the way up two flights of narrow steps.

  On the inside, the place was far more modern than she’d expected. Tiled floors, clean lines, lots of glass and leather. An open plan living area and kitchen, with a doorway onto the bedroom, another to the bathroom.

  When she’d finished surveying her surroundings, her eyes came back to Lee.

  He was watching her.

  She raised eyebrows, unable to read his expression.

  “It’s arranged,” he said, finally.

  Businesslike. That was his expression, the way he was trying to handle this.

  Cool and remote, when everything about the way he held his taut body shouted sexual tension.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said, surprising herself.

  Now it was Lee’s turn to raise eyebrows, wait for her to go on.

  “The risk is too great. I don’t want you hurt.”

  “I can look after myself.”

  “He will go mad. He will do anything to uncover my killer and take his revenge.”

  “That’s what I’m banking on. Right now there’s a rival gang – a rival gangster – who’s furious, and all out for revenge on Markov. We have to strike now, so Markov will blame that rival.”

  “It will be open warfare.”

  Lee nodded.

  But she had to go on. “You don’t understand, my love. I... I’ve been using you. All along, I’ve been using you. I want things to explode. I want Hristo to suffer.”

  He was still nodding, and Imelda paused.

  “I’ve understood all along,” he said. “This is more than escape: it’s honor. Respect.”

  “Reputatsiya. That’s what he calls it. It’s everything to him.”

  “And you want to rub his nose in it. Have everything blow up in his face.”

  “And so I found you. Used you.”

  “And now you love me, and that changes everything.”

  She swallowed. “And you love me.”

  “Which makes things complicated. Because...”

  Because he kissed her then. Closed that small space between them with three strides, dropped his hands to her waist and drew her hard against him, pressed his mouth to hers – hard like the grip at her waist and then... a pause, a slight drawing away, eyes locked on hers... and now softer, tender, lips and gently probing tongue.

  She reached for his waistband, found a button and popped it open, her fingers sliding down inside, finding that mat of short, wiry hair.

  Pulled her mouth away from his, and dragged soft lips down the line of his neck to the top of his t-shirt.

  Popped another button.

  Another.

  Now she could reach inside, find hardness and wrap her fingers around it, move it to the side and then upright, the flat of her hand pressing it against his hard belly.

  Eye contact. Her thing. Locking him into her gaze as she rolled her hand from side to side. Licking her lips, enjoying the tease.

  Dropping to her knees, eyes still fixed on his.

  Pulling his jeans down across his thighs. His shorts.

  Now his dick stood proud, long and broad.

  She took it in both hands, started to pull and twist, sliding the skin around the shaft’s hard core. Letting one thumb come to press on the underside, that sensitive ridge of folded skin between shaft and head.

  Brushing him across her soft lips, her cheeks.

  Parting her mouth so that now her tongue slid across the slick head of his dick, sweeping side to side.

  His legs were trembling – an involuntary echo of that night at Sotogrande when roles had been reversed and she had been the standing one, the one whose legs had shaken so hard she feared she was going to collapse, black out even, the whole thing had been so damned intense!

  Strong hands moved to cup her head now, one on the crown and the other at the back, fingers buried deep in her hair.

  She opened her mouth, felt his length sliding deep, coming up against the back of her throat.

  She swallowed, felt that bulbous head in her throat. Started to choke and drew back against the pressure of his hands. Swallowed again, as he started to thrust, long, deep swings of the pelvis, drawing back and almost clear before thrusting deep once more.

  With one hand she clung tight to the base of his shaft, and with the other she cupped his balls.

  He wasn’t going to last long like this.

  She could tell from the urgency of his movements, from the tension in his body, from the way his balls drew upward, everything tightening.

  And then, with the hand around the base of his shaft she squeezed. Hard. Stilling him. Catching him just as climax had been about to take over.

  Eye contact again. A slight shake of the head.

  Not now, that look said. Not yet.

  When she finally allowed him to climax he was going to have earned it, and she had barely even started on him yet.

  20

  And in the morning she was gone.

  I rolled onto my side, the sheet bunched up around my waist.

  I listened for sounds of movement from elsewhere in the apartment, but there were none.

  She really had gone.

  I’d tried to make it easier for her. Tried to stick to the basics. A business transaction. Logistics. Push everything else aside.

  But when she came to my apartment it was late, and when a woman like Imelda Sanchez turns up at your door at close to midnight, when she meets your look with those dark, seductive eyes...

  There had been unfinished business between us after that party at Sotogrande, that encounter in the gardens. We couldn’t leave things as they were.

  But even so, we’d stood, awkward, distant. Trying to keep things businesslike, detached.

  Trying, and failing.

  ...you love me, and that changes everything.

  And you love me.

  What a strange way to say those three words. Strange, yet deeply intimate: the shift from I to you.

  And now she was gone, and all that remained was for me to make the arrangements that would remove her from my life forever.

  §

  I made some calls. First to Fearless, because he knew everyone on the Costa: the bent coppers, the hospital staff open to bribes, the small-time hoods who thought they were much bigger than they really were.

  “You going to watch your back, kid?” he asked me, in a way that made it perfectly clear he wasn’t going to believe any answer I gave him.

  “It’s all good, Fearless,” I told him. “I’m being careful.”

  “Sounds like it, doesn’t it?”

  I followed up on a couple of contacts he’d given me, then climbed into the Corolla and headed down the coast to San Pedro.

  I loitered outside the New Duchess for ages before going in. Couldn’t quite work out what I was going to say, why I was even there. Suddenly this made everything seem very final.r />
  Dean took one look at me, grabbed a couple of bottles of Estrella, and came out from behind the bar and led me out onto the terrace.

  “What’s up, bro’?”

  I shrugged, wouldn’t meet his look. “No big deal,” I told him. “Just a spot of bother. I’m dealing with it.”

  “Anything to do with that Bulgarian bird you were shagging?”

  I did a double take. “She’s not Bulgarian,” I said. But he’d clearly made connections. And if Dean had worked that much out then who else might have seen or heard something? Had we been less discreet than we’d believed? Had we got carried away and taken too many risks?

  There were good reasons I didn’t do spontaneous. Good, life-preserving reasons.

  “I’m taking care of it.”

  Dean didn’t believe me. Him, Fearless... why did nobody believe me today?

  “So why you here?”

  “Just making sure everything’s okay. No more trouble from those East Europeans?”

  Dean shook his head. “Not a peep,” he said. “I hope you haven’t had too much grief for getting them to take the heat off?”

  I shrugged. “Whatever,” I said. “I dealt with it.”

  “And we’re grateful, kid. You know that, don’t you?”

  I nodded. He’d have done the same for me. That’s how we were, me and him.

  “So why come out here now? Not that you’re not welcome.”

  “We don’t do this often enough, do we? Crack a beer. Talk about life and shit.”

  “We don’t. So what have you been up to, over in Puerto Libre? You keeping Fearless in line?”

  I told him some of it. That I was doing a bit of security work. That I’d done a few jobs for the gangster who’d had his eye on the Duchess just to keep him sweet – that Markov had assured me that had all been a misunderstanding and the Duchess was off-limits now. I told him about the Colombians’ place in Sotogrande, and that Jack the Knife was making a name for himself out here on the Costa.

  “Who’d have thought?” Dean said to that. “He always was a wily bastard, but I’d never have credited him with what it takes to make it out here.”

  At one point we paused, took long sips of our beer, and then Dean glanced at me and said, “You know what this reminds me of, times when you used to get like this? Before you went into the cage.”