by B. B. Hamel
“That will be enough.”
“Good. Get it done.”
She nodded and left the room.
I sighed, sipping my coffee. It wasn’t easy running a damn mafia on your own.
I got up after I finished my coffee, went back into my room, and got changed. I put on my black jeans and my black t-shirt, and then headed back into the elevator, riding it down. I got off at the third floor and walked down the hall.
Brooks was sitting alone in the kitchen, reading a newspaper.
“How are the girls?” I asked him.
He shrugged. He had been on duty the night before, watching over the new girls.
“Fine,” he said.
“The dying girl?”
“Better, actually.”
“What’s her name again?”
“Katy.”
I leaned up against the doorframe. “I need something from you.”
He looked at me. “What’s that?”
“Wyatt Carter’s assistant, Ethan. I need you to find out about him.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know yet. Find out everything you can. Follow him if you have to.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t get caught.”
“I never do.” He grinned at me.
I smiled back and then headed back down the hall. I paused outside of one door before softly opening it.
Inside, the girl was wrapped in the sheets, her IV still stuck in her arm. Her eyes fluttered open, piercing and blue. I sat down in the chair next to her bed as she sat up.
“I’m Louisa,” I said to her.
“I know.”
“How are you feeling?”
“A lot better.”
“Good.”
“Thank you. For all this.”
“I’m just glad you’re feeling better.”
“I would have died in there.”
“Yes, you would have.”
“They didn’t care about us. We were just cattle to them. We fucked and they got paid. And then when we weren’t useful anymore, they killed us and threw away our bodies like trash.”
I put my hand on her leg, smiling softly. “You’re safe here.”
“I know. But I hate them.”
“We all hate them here. I want to bring them down.”
“I want to help.”
That was what I wanted to hear.
“Tell Kasia that the next time you see her. She’ll help you.”
“Thank you.”
I stood up. “Stay or go, it doesn’t matter. But whatever you do, don’t waste this second chance.”
“I won’t.”
I smiled and then left her room, heading back to the elevator.
Katy was pretty, just like all the girls we saved. The mafia didn’t waste time buying and selling ugly girls.
But she was right about one thing: they didn’t care about her. The girls were just cattle to them.
I was going to change all that.
15
Wyatt
I could still feel her tight body against mine all the next morning as I worked in my hotel room. Ethan hadn’t come back yet, but that wasn’t surprising. He likely was still awake, disposing of the body.
I ate breakfast, drank coffee, and sent emails. That was basically the majority of my job anymore: I wrote emails and made decisions. I didn’t write briefs anymore or get involved in particular cases unless there was something incredibly high profile. That was unusual. Mostly I shook hands and looked busy.
Louisa might change all that. Once we got started, we were going to take this thing all the way. My first move, though, was to meet with Chief Frank Herbert to pretend like I was discussing the Spiders.
Around midday, the apartment door opened. Ethan came in, looking tired. His shoes were muddy.
“You look like shit,” I said.
He sighed. “Dumping a body isn’t fun.”
“I take it he’s gone?”
“He’s gone.”
“Do I want details?”
He shrugged. I watched him walk into the kitchen and pour himself a coffee.
“Not going to sleep?” I asked.
“I have work to do.”
“Take the day off.”
“No rest for the wicked.” He grinned.
“At least shower.”
“I can do that.”
“I have the meeting with Herbert in an hour.”
“I can come with you if you want.”
“That’s okay. Do whatever you need to do.”
He nodded and disappeared back into his bedroom. For the hundredth time I mused about how strange Ethan was, but the man could get a job done.
Myers was gone, and I had killed him. Well, I killed him by proxy. Ethan actually did the killing, though I had no clue how. Probably shot the guy. I didn’t really want the gory details, but I was a little morbidly curious.
A half hour later, I got up from my desk and made my way downstairs. My car was waiting for me, and I climbed in back.
The Chicago PD’s main offices were in a large building in the middle of downtown. You would never have guessed that it was the Police Department unless you were looking for them.
Herbert was expecting me, and I didn’t have to wait long. He let me into his office with a smile and a firm handshake.
He was an older man, in his fifties, with a big bushy mustache, probably a throwback to the days when all cops had a mustache. He looked like a cop, which made me wonder why all cops seemed to look exactly alike. Was there something in the water they drank that made them all have that look? Maybe it was just the way they carried themselves.
I never trusted the police when I was young. Nothing good ever came of calling the cops back then, I was a fucking hoodlum, and never really imagined that I’d get involved with being on the side of the law myself.
Lawyer and cops had a loose alliance. We weren’t exactly working for each other, or not really. We were both serving the truth, though in our own ways. Cops felt like they had the moral superiority because they were out walking the streets every day. Lawyers thought cops were glorified jocks and that they were the real keepers of law and order. Neither was fully right.
“Wyatt,” Frank Herbert said.
“Frank.” We walked into his office and I sat across from him.
“I was surprised when my secretary said you requested this meeting.”
“I’m in the city, so I thought I’d drop in.”
“Well, I’m happy to have you. What did you want to talk about?”
“A few things.” I looked around the office, mentally cataloguing anything useful. “Mainly, though, I wanted to talk about the Spiders.”
His face fell. “I don’t know much about them.”
“Well, I’m sure that’s partially true.”
“What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything, Frank. I just want to know what’s going on with them.”
He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “It’s a group of vigilantes. They’ve been attacking some whorehouse spots, liberating the girls, that sort of thing. For the most part, they’re harmless, unless you’re in the sex trade.”
“Have you made any arrests?”
“No. They’re hard to get ahold of.”
“I see.”
“Are you coming here to ask me to go after them?”
“No, I’m not. I’m just curious about them.”
“I wish I had more to tell you. We don’t even know who their leader is. We’ve never actually picked one up.”
“You’d think you’d know more about a group with their resources.”
“You’d be shocked at how secretive they are, Wyatt.”
“I believe you.” Good old Louisa, confounding the police.
Could it really be that the cops weren’t going after the Spiders because they were incompetent? I’d been assuming that it was because they were paid off somehow, or maybe because someone wa
s a believer like Louisa suggested.
Maybe it’s because they really can’t find them. Or maybe it’s a combination of all three.
“There’s another thing,” I said. “You know about the south side drug gangs?”
“Sure do. We’ve been bringing those assholes in for years and they always manage to get off somehow.”
“Crack down,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “I’d love to. But the charges don’t stick.”
“They’ll stick. I’m promising you that. Crack down.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay, Wyatt. I don’t want to know any more than that.”
“Good. That’s all you need to know.” I stood and we shook hands again. “Thanks for your time, Frank.”
“Sure.”
I turned and left his office.
As soon as I was outside of the building, I called Louisa’s number. She didn’t answer again, forcing me to leave another voicemail. “Come to my hotel tonight at eight. I had a nice chat with the chief just now.” I hung up the phone.
It was time to make moves against Arturo. I didn’t know whose side the cops were on, but it seemed like they were going to stay out of the war no matter what Arturo wanted.
I dialed another number. A young woman answered the phone. “Arturo Barone’s office.”
“This is Wyatt Carter. Is Arturo available?”
“Not right now. He’s in a meeting.”
“Tell him I phoned. Tell him I spoke with the chief, and to call me back.”
“Okay, sweetie.”
I hung up and slipped my phone into my pocket.
Moves within moves. I was setting us up for something, and I hoped that Louisa was going to be able to handle her side of things.
It was too early to doubt, though. We’d make it work.
We had no other choice.
16
Louisa
I showed up at his hotel wearing a short dark dress that showed my body off. I wasn’t sure what I was trying to accomplish with it, but I wanted him to look at me. The other men in the lobby seemed to be, at least.
In the back of my mind, I knew that Kasia and her girls were getting in position and preparing to attack that mafia stronghold. They wouldn’t actually go ahead for a few more hours, but they were preparing themselves, moving their pieces into striking distance.
And here I was, sitting in a hotel lobby bar, sipping a vodka martini.
I had to admit, I didn’t like that I was never in any real physical danger. The things I participated in had their own risks, but rarely was it my life on the line. I understood that I couldn’t risk myself, because without me the whole thing fell apart. Kasia could probably step up and keep it going for a while, but she didn’t have the vision or the contacts or the skills that I had.
In the end, my game was completely different. I could still remember the last time I was in the field.
It was a meeting with my father. Actually, it was the first meeting with my father, the day I actually revealed myself to him. He was livid, so angry, and I loved that look on his face, that shock and anger. He didn’t believe me, treated me like his stupid daughter, and that was his downfall.
My people set off smokes and began to slaughter every single mafia person around. It was pure terror and chaos. The abandoned warehouse where we met became a slaughterhouse. Men screamed as bullets flew through the air. Kasia pulled me out of there before we could become targets, but I wanted to stay. I wanted to help. I wanted to hurt the man that had hurt my city so badly.
In the end, we didn’t get anyone too important that night. All the high level guys were protected and hustled out of there immediately while their soldiers fought back. We lost a few girls, but the mafia took some serious damage that night. Their confidence was shaken, at the very least.
I could still feel that excitement inside of me. It was like a small steaming hot rock dropped in a lake. Water evaporated all around it, bubbling and boiling and roiling, while it never cooled down, only got hotter.
I caught sight of Wyatt as he made his way toward me. In that moment, I realized how I loved being with him so much: the feeling I got when he took my body was incredibly similar to the feeling I got that night in the field. It was intense and powerful and rooted in something primal deep inside of me.
“What’s with the smile?” he asked as he approached.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just remembering something.”
He sat down next to me. “What are you drinking?”
“Vodka martini.”
He caught the bartender’s eye and ordered two before looking back at me. “You look good.”
“I always do.”
He grinned. “I like that about you.”
“That I look good?”
“No. That you know it.”
I shrugged, finishing my drink as my second arrived. “Women notice when men stare.”
“I don’t stare.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“I don’t need to. Women stare at me.”
I laughed, shaking my head. He was so damn cocky, but somehow it worked on him. He had that edge about him that somehow backed up what he was saying.
“Did you call me here just to brag?”
“Not exactly.” He sipped his drink. “Bragging is just part of it.”
“I’m sure. You can’t help yourself.”
“It’s almost as if you’re pretending like you don’t love it.”
“I’m not pretending.”
He smirked and put his hand on my knee, squeezed, and released me. “I wanted to talk to you about a meeting I had earlier.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”
“Not here. Let’s go upstairs.”
I nodded. He stood and I followed him. He carried his drink, but I left mine behind, not wanting to get too drunk. We rode the elevator up together, and I had to actively keep myself from trying to push him against the mirrored wall and kissing him.
I wanted to run my hands through his thick hair and squeeze it between my fingers. I wanted to hear that grunt he made as I took his cock down my throat, suppressing a gag and looking up at him.
We got off at the top and walked down the short hall to his room. I followed him inside.
“Drink?” he asked.
“No, thanks.” I sat down in a chair, crossing my legs. “It’s almost like you’re trying to get me drunk.”
“I don’t need to get you drunk to take what I want from you.” He stood behind me, tipping my chin back.
“Don’t be so sure about that.”
He bent forward and kissed me passionately. I reached my hands up to cup his face as we kissed. That same thrill ran down my spine, excitement building in my core.
“That dress is driving me fucking insane,” he said. “I want to hike it up to your hips and make you ride my cock until I fill you with my cum.”
“Then it’s having the desired effect.” I smiled at him.
He kissed me once more, harder, and then walked over to the couch. He sat, crossing his legs, ankle over knee.
“Your meeting?” I prompted.
“With Police Chief Idiot.”
“Herbert,” I corrected, smiling.
“Right, Herbert. Frank Herbert, the dumb fucking idiot that keeps us safe at night.” He sighed and sipped his drink.
“What did you two discuss?”
“You, actually. Well, your organization.”
“What did he have to say?”
“Surprisingly little. He made it seem pretty clear that he had no interest in pursuing your people so long as your main target remained the mafia.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I do too. I pressed, but he didn’t say much more.”
“Aren’t you his boss?”
“No. We’re on different sides of the same team, though, more or less.”
“So you have influence?”
“Only influence. Your father is going to b
e so disappointed when he finds out that I couldn’t get more from him.”
“I’m sure he’ll survive. Or not. I don’t care either way.”
“Speaking of your father. I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“He’s our enemy now.”
“That’s right.” He nodded seriously. “He’s my enemy now, too. I think we should hit him hard, take him down before he even realizes what’s happening.”
“I won’t argue with that.”
“I can hurt his business connections, and I can push to prosecute as many of his guys as possible. At the very least, I can tie them up in court.”
“I’m actually hitting one of his places today.”
He looked surprised. “Really?”
“We’re still at war, you know.”
“Of course.”
“A group of my girls identified a cache of weapons and money at a strip club he runs. We’re going to attack it, take the cash and guns, and kill every mafia guy there.”
“Brutal.” He smiled. “I like it.”
“He still outnumbers me,” I went on, “but I’m growing. An influx of cash and guns will go a long way toward helping me.”
“Where are you recruiting from?”
“Mostly the girls we safe.”
He frowned. “That’s slow.”
“How?”
“They’re untrained and there’s a limited supply. Have you thought about hiring men?”
“I have. I’m not sure that will go over well.”
“You might not be able to win without doing it.”
“My group likes to feel like a bunch of freedom fighters. That’s why we fight so well together, and why they’re so intense. If I start hiring guys, it might start to feel like a normal mafia, and morale could plummet.”
“I see,” he said. “I guess there’s a lot that goes into running something like the Spiders.”
“Nothing is ever easy.”
“Of course not.”
He finished his drink and stood up.
“But we’re doing well against them, despite the numbers. His group is fractured on the inside. I know there’s talk of rebellion. We just need to widen that crack and give it a tip, and the whole thing will topple over.”
“How can you be sure?”