Mister Death spun to see Harden standing behind him, having sneaked in from the back of the house through the same opened door the mob goons had used. There was no more time to reason it out. Harden moved in a flash. As soon as Mr. Death pulled his gun out of Kerri’s mouth, which Harden seemed to know he would do, Harden smashed him in the face with the butt of his own handgun, a silencer already affixed to the barrel.
Kerri ducked out of the way, as Mr. Death fell to the floor at Harden’s feet still clutching his own handgun, and Harden stomped on his wrist, cracking the bones and sending the gun sliding out of his grip.
By this time, Harden had leveled his own gun at Mr. Kill, who was drawing his own from the back of his pants. He managed to get the gun in hand before Harden’s silenced gunshots muffled through the house. Thp, thp, thp! -Three holes burst open in Mr. Kill’s chest as he toppled back against the front door.
Kerri looked up, slowly raising herself to her full posture. “Take his gun, cover him.-” Harden ordered as she scrambled to pick up the black automatic handgun just out of Mr. Death’s reach, his wrist still pinned under Harden’s foot.
It was then that Kerri noticed the smartphone in Harden’s other hand. Still holding his own gun with the other hand, he used his fingertips to swipe the screen a few times. He turned the screen down so Mr. Death could see it.
A familiar diatribe came leaking out of the phone’s little speakers, matching video of Mr. Death menacing Kerri on the screen.
“Lucky for us, your boyfriend’s courier never turns up at Don Paulie’s office with the money. ‘-Course, it wasn’t really luck, was it? -Now we got an extra two hundred grand, and we’re sitting pretty when Don Paulie comes back to us, nice and apologetic. ‘You boys was right,’ he says, ‘y’got big things ahead of you’s.’” Mister Death chuckled, mean and shrill, shaking his head. “So he gives us another fifty G’-s each just to bring him your head.” Kerri gasped, spine still rigid, palms pressing flat against the wall behind her. “Yours and Richie Rich’s, of course. Don Paulie don’t like to be made a fool of. You didn’t know that, and the tuxedo didn’t know it. But we did. And knowledge is power, right? Right?”
Mister Death looked up from the floor. “Please, don’t … don’t!”
Harden smiled menacingly before swiping the screen again, tapping a few buttons and swiping again. “Just let me go, Dude. You won’t have to pay me a thing … I’ll even get you your two honey back, I swear it!” -No answer came back, and Kerri’s attention was riveted to their contest. “I’ll get you an extra twenty. You gotta get paid for your bag man, right? -His family’s gotta be taken care of, I get that … me more than most!”
Mister Death begged Harden, “Please, I … I’ll do anything, anything you want! -You need somebody taken care of, you got it. I’ll push a button on anyone you want, man! -They’re gone! And you know I’ll be loyal, ‘cause you’ll always have that video, right?” -Harden pushed a few more buttons, swiping the screen again. “Hey, we can work together and take out Don Paulie, I can be your man inside. I’ll have you runnin’ North Jersey in less than a year, man!” Harden merely pushed a few more buttons on the screen. Mister Death screeched out, “You can put that away, Boss, I’m with you now!”
Harden swiped the screen again, his eyes cold and judgmental, looking down on Mr. Death from on high.
Mister Death turned to Kerri. “You, I’m sorry, okay ? I didn’t mean it, I wasn’t gonna do anything bad to you, I swear. I was just, y’know, acting like a big shot. But I wasn’t gonna rape you, I swear it ! Tell him to stop, tell him to put the phone away!”
But Kerri said nothing, both hands on the gun that was pointed straight at Mr. Death’s heart, in so much as he had one.
Harden swiped his screen again, and Mr. Death’s voice took on a tearful desperation. “C’mon, man, I got a wife and kid ! Don’t do this !” Harden just stared down at him, grim-faced, unmoved. Kerri’s hands started to sweat, the gun slick in her palms as her stomach began to turn.
Mister Death was panting with greater desperation. “Okay, okay, you fucking asshole, why don’t you just kill me right now, leave Don Paulie out of it ?” Harden glared at him, stepping down a bit harder on his broken wrist, causing Mr. Death to writhe in pain, eyes clamping shut before refocusing on Harden above him. “What’s the matter, you pussy ? Don’t you have the guts to do it yourself ? Prove to your little girlfriend that you’re a real man and do what a real man has to do ! Why don’t you take control for once in your life?”
Harden swiped the phone screen again.
Mister Death’s head sagged, lolling on the hard floor. He looked at Kerri. “Then you do it.”
Harden said quietly, “Don’t, Kerri.”
“You shut up,” Mr. Death hollered at Harden, returning his attention to Kerri. “You cow, you ugly whore ! You worthless cum bucket!—” Kerri’s arms began to twitch, fingers at the ready. But she knew what his ploy was, and that this was a test of her self-control. She was not about to succumb to his trickery. “I’m gonna get out of this,” Mr. Death rasped at her, “Then I’m gonna come back for you! -And I’m gonna take you apart piece by fucking piece, you hear me? -And I’ll enjoy that!”
Harden pressed down harder on Mr. Death’s wrist, the man groaning in pain and looking back up at Harden. “Stop it, Jesus, it fucking hurts!”
And as he looked up at Harden, Harden swiped the phone one last time and then slipped his smartphone back into his pocket.
Mister Death asked him, “What’d you do ? What did you do?”
Harden looked down at Mr. Death, a little half smile on his chiseled features. He asked calmly, “Aren’t you gonna answer your phone?”-
Chapter Twelve
Mister Death’s head fell back to the floor. “Oh no,” was all he could muster, and that even before the digital recording of the familiar Godfather theme leaked out of his pocket. It repeated twice.
Harden suggested, “You really should answer it.”
“Fuck you,” was all Mr. Death could say, his body already slack and defeated. The phone stopped ringing and there was a protracted silence. “Don’t forget your wife and kid,” Harden said as the phone started ringing again. Mister Death reached into his pocket with his free hand and raised the phone to his ear. “Yeah, Boss?”
Harden shifted off Mr. Death’s wrist and stepped back, allowing the young man to stagger to his feet, wincing in pain, the phone to his cheek.
“No, Boss, I didn’t … that was all Mr. Kill, Boss, I swear it. I only found out about it afterward. I killed him soon as I learnt. And den I was gonna come right to you, but … no, I know, he was wrong, a hundred percent, but I tried to … ”
Kerri lowered the gun and ran to Harden. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, his free hand holding his gun on Mr. Death, who was armed only with the smartphone, the instrument of his own defeat.
“Boss, I’d never betray you …- ” His voice was quivering with fear, tears starting to push out of his eyes. “Okay, Boss … No, Boss, please not that. I’ll get you the money back, and I’ve learned a lot, I got info. And you know how valuable that can … But I … No, Boss, please, anything but that … But … No, Don Paulie, not them, please not them, my boy’s only three years old!”
Kerri gripped Harden, both arms wrapped around his chest.
“Okay, Boss, awright … No, I wasn’t gonna hurt ‘em anyway, I swear … I won’t, Don Paulie, you don’t have to mention them again … I won’t! … Awright, Don Paulie, awright. But could you just…— ? Don Paulie?” -After a mean silence, Mr. Death repeated in a holler, “Don Paulie!”
No answer came back.
The three stood in the silent living room, before Mr. Death hung his head and started crying. It began as a low groan but rose quickly to a tearful sob and then to a high-pitched pitiful scream. He hurled the phone down, smashing it against the floor, the electronic rectangle shattering into shards of glass and plastic.
He wouldn’t be needing it a
nymore, and all of them knew it. Mister Death looked up slowly at Harden. “I … I don’t have a gun,” he managed to say, voice cracking.
Harden took Mr. Death’s own handgun, which he’d retrieved from Kerri, and handed it to him. Kerri said, “Harden, what are you doing?”
“It’s okay, Kerri,” Harden said calmly as Mr. Death took the gun. The mob foot soldier wrestled with his lesser instincts, lips pulled tight over his teeth.
He sneered at Kerri, then at Harden, and turned slowly. “Don Paulie said to do it outside, so I don’t get more blood all over your floor. And he told me … to apologize. So … I’m sorry, okay—?” He let out a blood-curdling scream, “I’m sorry, okaaaaaayyyy?”
Harden and Kerri just stood in their embrace while Mr. Death turned and shuffled slowly toward the foyer. His sobs only grew the closer he got to the front door, crying and moaning with greater panic and even greater resolve. He wrenched the door open, looking down at his dead partner’s body, Mr. Kill, as it tumbled to the side, lifeless. The shape of things to come for Mr. Death himself, he let out a heartfelt wail that was all the louder for him being outside, and on the cusp of eternity.
The wail got louder still, a gut-wrenching scream that rang through Kerri’s body, recalling her own. She knew the terror he felt, she knew the sense of hopelessness, of defeat. His scream only got louder as he poured every last ounce of strength into it.
His miserable cry finally trailed off into a stream of low clicks, throat bubbling up with saliva and mucus. It clung to his throat, acidic and disgusting. In that last moment of silence, he flashed on his beloved Mila and little Pete.
Goodbye, my family, Mr. Death silently spoke. I hope you’ll never know what I had to do to keep you both alive.
God, I don’t wanna die!
Kerri and Harden watched from the foyer as Mr. Death stood, slouched just outside the front door. He turned, one eye glaring at them from over his shoulder. His voice rose again, raspy and torn, one final battle cry. He took a deep breath, fixed his stare on Kerri and Harden, and let out a gravelly, hate-filled, “Fuck … yyyyoooooouuuuuuuuuu!” Spittle shot out of his lips until his last words rang to their end.
Mister Death raised the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger in one swift motion. The blast shocked Kerri, her whole body tensing with horror, fingers over her lips. Mister Death’s body fell straight to the walkway. This time there was no silencer, and Harden set his handgun down on the floor and led Kerri toward the front doors to greet the police empty-handed.
Kerri clung to him, stepping over the dead bodies as police sirens got louder in the distance. Kerri wasn’t sure what would happen next, but she knew that everything would be all right as long as Harden was in control.
And as far as Kerri was concerned, he always would be.
“How terrible.”
“He got what he deserved,” Harden said. “It’s still terrible though, yes. This is what happens when little minds are turned to bent purposes, chasing around a helpless widow.”
“Well, I’m not exactly helpless,” Kerri said, but he knew that despite her best efforts, she’d been in dire need of rescue. And she was lucky, and blessed, that Harden was there for her at precisely the right moment. Thought that did raise some questions in the back of Kerri’s grateful, if slightly skeptical, mind.
“How did you know they’d be here?”
“I didn’t.”
Kerri considered in silent confusion before asking. “Then why are you here, Harden ? And with a gun?”
“I have friends in law enforcement; I’ve got a permit to carry.”
“And you just happened to have a gun, with a silencer, in your car?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Why?”
Harden smiled. “I think considering the circumstances, the better question is, why don’t you?”
Kerri gave it some thought and she couldn’t disagree. So she finally had to ask, “What about Sandra?”
“That’s why I’m here. I had to explain it to you the way I was explaining it to her.”
“What, your swinging multi-lover lifestyle?”
“Just the opposite, Kerri. I was breaking up with Sandra when you showed up. I was telling her about you, about the connection between us. I was telling her what I told the others, that nobody could take your place, that you deserved all of my heart, my soul, my life. Then you just turned up, and obviously what you saw didn’t tell you the entire story.”
Guilt welled up in Kerri’s gut like a hot well. “Oh, Harden, I’m so sorry I doubted you. I shouldn’t have stormed off like that.”
“I don’t blame you. But I couldn’t let you walk out of my life without explaining, so I followed you here.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“I was about five minutes behind you. I just assumed this was where you were going.”
Kerri let a nervous moment pass before asking, “You were breaking up with her … and the others?”
“With all of them.”
“All of them,” Kerri repeated. “How many of them were there?”
“Not that many, but it doesn’t matter. You're the woman I want, you’re the only woman I want ! I love you, Kerri Abernathy, and I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“Oh, Harden.—” They exchanged a deep, tender kiss, an unspoken promise of a love that would last, of a future they would spend together, if destiny would allow it. But whatever their futures, Kerri knew their present would be spent together, and that they would live for those moments for as long as they could. Their lips parted as the police and an ambulance rolled up the driveway. Kerri and Harden parted to show their empty hands as the officers and paramedics spilled out of their vehicles, police with their guns drawn.
“Take it easy, officers,” Harden said with a calm, authoritative voice. “We’re glad you’re here, we’re unarmed, this woman is the home owner. Those two men are dead and there’s nobody else in the house.”
Once officer asked, “You sure about that.”
Harden turned to Kerri, their eyes locking. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.—”
Chapter Thirteen
The week following the shootings was chaotic. News crews arrived, Kerri was interviewed by every major cable channel. Kerri was able to shrug it off as the business of her late husband, and that was all she really knew about it. According to her report, as Harden instructed, she claimed that it was a murder / suicide, a fight between the two men as they were trying to carry out her assassination.
Harden’s participation was overlooked, by Kerri and by the police. That was the extent of his reach, his power, not only with the mafia but with the legal community as well. Once the police corroborated her story, the investigation was closed and everything returned to normal.
Almost.
Kerri began rehearsals on the new Bertram Quinn movie, and she was finding dramatic skills she’d only suspected she had. Every day brought new confidence, deeper renderings, more emotion, and her performances were creating a new buzz in Hollywood.
Kerri Abernathy was back.
She kept seeing Harden, going back and forth between her own house and his Malibu mansion. They enjoyed the finest foods at the fanciest restaurants and days off on his sailboat or his yacht, the sun kissing their skin, orca ever ready to leap out for a friendly greeting. They had cocktail parties with Yvonne and her husband Harvey, hosting Benjamin Stallmaster, Paul Hume, and a growing list of Hollywood elite.
Kerri had never felt better in her life, and everything was lining up for a perfect future. It had only been a few months since surviving that last fateful visit from Don Paulie’s mafia foot soldiers. They had been a truly miraculous few months, promising years of security and bliss.
One morning Kerri stepped out to take in the crisp autumn breeze. Leaves had fallen; the summertime smog receded to reveal a crisp blue to the air, clouds fluffy and white. A Lincoln’s sparrow fluttered by overhead with a little coo.
Lovely, Kerri thought as she walked out to the mailbox at the gate. She collected the few envelopes and turned back toward the house. But something caught her eye and Kerri turned back toward the street. A familiar silver Audi was parked across the street, and it tore off as soon as Kerri took notice of it, and of the brassy red hair of the woman behind the wheel. But the car sped away before Kerri could make a positive identification, and she was left to wonder. Kerri’s worst suspicions crept into the back of her mind as she made the obvious assumption.
Sandra Blake ? What does she want?
Kerri thought about mentioning it to Harden, but changed her mind. No, I don’t have to run to Harden with every little thing. Did Sandra even drive an Audi, or was it a Tesla ? That could just as easily have been some local realtor. Anyway, I’m not some helpless damsel in distress. If there’s something going on, I can handle it on my own.
I’m in control now.
Turning, Kerri brought her mail back into her house. She’d pay the bills herself, balance her checkbook, and then meet Yvonne to run lines. The spa would have to wait; Kerri Abernathy had a life to live.
THE END
WANT MORE MOUTH WATERING ROMANCE?
STEELE BOOK 2 IS SET TO DELIVER !!
Here’s an Exclusive sneak peak of what’s to come in Book 2 in the Steele Series
Kerri Abernathy and Harden Steele have been together for months, and he finally proposes. She accepts, and it begins one of the most exciting and dangerous times of her life. After shooting a new film by an edgy new director, Kerri is producing a film of her own. But the set is plagued by accidents and deaths, some bizarrely sexual. Kerri has her own suspects, including Harden’s ex-girlfriend Sandra, and Harden himself. Has Kerri stumbled into a long-term con that will lead to a terrible fate, prison for life or even a bloody and premature death?
SOLD: Auctioned to the Billionaire (Steele Series Book 1) Page 8