by D B Steward
“If I had a gun right now, I would shoot you in the ass so you could see how it feels!”
Sonny directed Kelly to a townhouse and pointed her to the small garage where she could park the motorcycle. The two women stumbled toward the front door and from a distance, it would appear that they had just come home from a wild night on the town. Seconds later, the drugged assassin and the wounded ex-FBI agent stumbled inside the darkened safe house. Kelly looked around the townhouse as she kept pressure on her bullet hole with her hand.
“This is your safehouse?” she said in amazement. “This is better than my apartment.” The walls were bare but had a clean beige color. The hardwood floors were clean and free from clutter. There was a double bed in the living room and a television and a DVD player with a stack of movies by it sitting on the floor in a corner. Kelly could see that all the windows were covered with blinds that obstructed any view from the outside. It was a place to sleep and that was it; sterile and cold.
Sonny stumbled forward and waved her arm sleepily, indicating for Kelly to follow her. “In the bathroom.” Sonny was mumbling and Kelly was finding it hard to understand her. “I can take it out in the bathroom.” Kelly limped behind her, hissing in pain from each step.
“I think I’m getting blood on your nice hardwood floors,” Kelly said as she leaned on the bathroom doorway.
Sonny shrugged as she pulled out a large first-aid kit. “You’ll clean it up.” Sonny passed her a metal flask. “Drink it all. It’ll help.” Kelly opened it and sniffed.
“Bourbon?” Kelly smiled. “I like you more and more all the time, Sonny Moretti.” She tipped the flask and felt the burning liquid slide down her throat. The sensation in her throat momentarily distracted her nervous system from the pain in her hindquarters.
“Is that why you roofied me?” Sonny asked, smirking as she readied her medical supplies on the bathroom sink.
Kelly chuckled as she took another big gulp of the whiskey. “Hey, it got me to your place, didn’t it?”
Sonny snorted, feeling silly about doing it but not caring about how she appeared just then. “Take your dress off.”
“See? You’re getting me naked already. I’d call this a successful date.” As she pulled the dress over her head she groaned in pain. Kelly shut her eyes, fearing what was coming. Then she felt Sonny’s fingers touching her bottom softly and Kelly could not help the small grin that pulled at her lips.
“You’ve got a pretty nice ass, Miss King.” Sonny was speaking like she was in a dream, and Kelly figured that it was the drug in her system that had Sonny complimenting her backside. Still, the words spoken by the attractive assassin felt pretty good.
“If you like it now, then you should see it without a bullet in there,” Kelly joked and then yelped in pain. The metal tweezers entered the wound and it shot a lightning bolt of pain through her entire body. “Fuck me sideways! That fucking hurts!” Her shout echoed off the bathroom walls.
“Oh yeah. I forgot to warn you. This is going to hurt.” Sonny chuckled as the tweezers ventured around inside her and Kelly gripped the bathroom sink so hard she thought she would break it off the wall.
“Shit! Shit! Leave it in! This hurts way more!”
“Oh, I’m almost done, you big baby.” Kelly felt the tweezer stop and begin to pull out. Even with the alcohol working in her bloodstream, she felt as though she would pass out from the pain. Then, as she was nearing the limit of her pain tolerance, she felt the tweezers come out and the burning pain was replaced by a throbbing ache.
She heard a metallic clink on the porcelain sink and finally opened her eyes to see the bloody hunk of metal lying in the basin. The blood bloomed like red flower petals as it mixed with the water in the sink. “Thank God that’s over,” Kelly breathed out and felt the sweat on her brow for the first time.
“It was super…super…what’s that word?” Sonny was fading and Kelly observed that her eyelids were nearly closed. She unwrapped a roll of gauze and bandaged the cheek and hips of the ex-FBI agent securely.
“Superficial?” Kelly offered an answer and Sonny snapped her fingers and laughed loudly.
“That’s it! Superficial. You got lucky, no muscle damage. Come with me.” Swaying and listing, Sonny staggered to her feet. She grabbed Kelly by the wrist and dragged her out of the bathroom. The ex-federal agent limped slowly behind the unsteady woman and laughed again.
“We must look pretty funny! Stumbling around like two college roommates at Spring Break.” Sonny glanced behind her and frowned at her with nearly closed eyes.
“You’re weird.” She stopped their dizzy march in the kitchen and opened a cabinet. She pulled a small bottle of Jack Daniels out and pushed it into Kelly’s hand. “Drink it. It’ll help.”
Kelly opened the bottle and took a long pull. The bourbon went down smoother than before and warmed her from the inside out. Sonny had shuffled out of the kitchen to the bed in the living room and Kelly limped along behind her. When she entered the darkened room, she found Sonny laying face down on the bed breathing evenly.
For a moment, she took in the sight of the tall beauty in the tight dress and her long, shapely legs. Kelly smiled and limped over to the bed, taking another swig from the bottle. She gingerly tried to sit down on the bed and hissed in pain. The alcohol was taking effect on her but the pain was still present and insistent. She climbed onto the bed instead and was on all fours looking over at Sonny’s sleeping face. Kelly took one last drink and then placed the bottle on the bare nightstand. She lowered herself onto her stomach and faced the other woman.
Sonny’s mouth was open a little and she was drooling onto her pillow. Kelly thought it was pretty hilarious seeing the sophisticated-looking woman in such a compromised state. She marveled how even passed out, Sonny looked like a supermodel.
“Sonny Moretti, you are going to be the death of me,” Kelly said softly as her eyes began to flutter closed. In moments, her battered body forced her into a deep sleep.
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Ivan and his two bodyguards returned to his club hours later. Once they lost the two women on the motorcycle, Ivan had ordered his driver to take him to the private doctor that the family used for its emergencies that required discretion. The wound on his palm required several stitches and the doctor told him that it would leave a nasty scar. He was in a foul mood when they returned to the now empty club. He marched quickly to his private office in the back, passing a few workers who busied themselves cleaning up rather than face their scowling boss.
He opened the door and nodded tersely to his men, signaling them to wait outside. Inside the small office, he found Sergei Abramanov speaking quietly on his cellphone. Ivan opened his mouth to speak and Sergei raised one finger. “Da. Da. Spasibo.” Having ended the call, Sergei faced his employer and friend. “As I feared, that was indeed the Moretti woman who nearly killed you tonight.”
“How did she get in here?” Ivan was nearly steaming with anger. “How did she get past my security?” Spittle flew from his mouth as the words flew out like bullets. “What do I pay you for, Sergei?”
Sergei took a deep breath. His friend was hot-tempered and could never be reasoned with when he was in such a mood. However, he did not have the luxury to wait for Ivan to calm himself down. “She’s the best at what she does.” He offered the statement in what he hoped was a diplomatic way. “We were warned of her abilities, Ivan.”
“I know that!” Ivan pounded his fist against the wall and immediately regretted it. The pain of his wound burned through his body and he knew he had torn some of his stitches. “I know that,” he said calmly, the agony of his injury having sobered him just now. “What have you found out?”
Sergei had contacts everywhere and was the eyes and ears for Ivan’s small crew. “The woman she was with is named Kelly King. She works for Salvador as a bounty hunter.”
Ivan’s brows
shot up in confusion. “The Don was behind this? He tried to kill me!”
Sergei raised his hands, attempting to defuse Ivan’s temper. “We do not know that. We should be careful before we make any accusations.”
“She helped her escape! What more do we need to know, Sergei? Salvador knows we are going to kill the girl and he is trying to stop us by killing me first!”
“Perhaps.”
“What perhaps? She nearly killed me!” Ivan could not believe how his friend could not see that Salvador had lied to his father. The Don had made an attempt on his life by setting his pet assassin on him. After he had promised to not interfere with the Popovs, he was declaring war on them.
“Ivan, why would the King woman be with Moretti? It could be that Salvador was telling the truth and the woman was there to capture the assassin.” The last thing Sergei wanted was to see Ivan make a hasty decision that could end in disaster. He had counseled his friend against hiring the woman in the first place. Sergei had told him to use one of his own men to find and kill Arnold Jefferson. He had conceded that it would take some time to find him but it was far better to keep the problem in-house rather than use an outsider. But Ivan wanted to make a statement that he was a big player and was a man to be feared; he wanted to send a message to the other organizations that Ivan Petrov was not to be trifled with. Now the problem had escalated to a catastrophic level, and Ivan was on the brink of starting a very costly and bloody war.
Ivan was not interested in even entertaining Sergei’s idea. “No, the other woman was obviously there to provide backup for Moretti. I want you to find this Kelly King, then we will make her give us the assassin. If Salvador tries anything, we will kill him too.”
The younger Popov’s mind was made up and Sergei knew there was no way to talk him down from his decision. This was going to be bloody and end very badly, he told himself, but he chose not to voice his opinion at that time. Maybe after they had the King woman, she could explain that the Don was not trying to kill him. Hopefully, that was the case because Sergei knew that if Ivan moved against Salvador, then his father would have no choice but to enter the fray as well. He sighed and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I will make some calls.”
Chapter Eight
Sunlight fell on Kelly’s closed eyelids and drew her from her rest. She felt the dull throbbing in her behind. Somehow during the night, she had rolled onto her back and the pressure was causing her wound to ache. Still, despite the rising pain, she tried to stretch her arms above her head and noticed that her hands would not come apart. “The fuck?” Her voice croaked with sleep and bewilderment. She felt the restraints on her wrists and looked up to see that she had been zip-tied to the bed frame. “Son of a bitch!” She was wide awake now and struggled against the restraint, and as she did, she noticed that her ankles were also tied together. “Damn it!”
“I see you’re awake, Miss King.” Kelly looked down from her bound wrists at the sound of the silky voice emanating from the living room entryway to the kitchen. Kelly was astounded that even without makeup, Sonny was still incredibly stunning. Her cheekbones and jawline were chiseled by a Renaissance master, angular and sharp yet absolutely feminine. Her dark eyes and dark hair added to the mysterious glamour of the statuesque and athletic woman. Sonny Moretti was without a doubt the most beautiful woman that Kelly had ever laid her eyes on. She watched as Sonny came into the room and she was struck by the way the taller woman moved. Sonny moved with the grace of a dancer as she walked closer and Kelly could imagine her gliding across a stage like a ballet dancer. Compared to her own movements, which her friend Reggie had once likened to a Clydesdale stomping around, Sonny practically floated on air. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to choose from for breakfast. How do you like your eggs?”
“Um, scrambled with a side of untie me?” Kelly wriggled her body in a futile attempt to escape. Sonny smirked at the comment, her lips curling up slowly on one side. In spite of the predicament she was in, Kelly found it a little erotic being tied to Sonny’s bed as the other woman stood over her.
“Scrambled it is. I’m afraid, however, that untying you is not on the menu.” Sonny crossed her arms casually, asserting that she held the upper hand now. She was wearing an oversized white T-shirt that hung below her hips while the sleeves billowed around her slim but toned biceps. She had on tight grey leggings that hugged her thighs like a second skin and showed the sharp muscles of her calves before her legs disappeared into a pair of fluffy pink socks, the color seeming out of place on such a deadly woman.
“It was worth a shot.” Kelly shrugged her shoulders. “Do you have any coffee?” She felt that Sonny had noticed her checking her out and began to feel overdressed because she was still wearing the short dress she had on at the club last night.
“Yes, how do you take it?”
“I take my coffee like I take my women, hot, dark, and strong.” Kelly could not resist moving her eyebrows up and down suggestively at her own innuendo, which earned a surprised chuckle from Sonny followed by an eye roll.
“Sweet or bitter?” Sonny’s voice dropped an octave lower and if Kelly was not mistaken, the assassin was flirting back. The thought made her wiggle her toes, but she allowed in her head that Sonny could just be playing a game of cat and mouse and there was no real feeling behind the comment.
“I’m bitter enough, so you can give me some sugar.” Kelly winked before continuing. “Then you can put some in my coffee.”
Sonny’s head shook in mild astonishment at the bound woman lying on her bed. “So do you have an off switch? Or are you constantly like this?” Her voice was filled with genuine wonder at having never met someone quite like Kelly King.
“Like what? Charming? Delightful? Alluring?” She winked slyly.
“More like annoying,” Sonny deadpanned but her eyes continued to sparkle, enjoying the repartee between them.
“You like it.” Kelly laughed as she made the claim. Sonny had to admit to herself that she found that conversing with the other woman was refreshing; the back and forth beat the boredom of solitude that shadowed her every hour.
“I have eggs to make, Miss King.” Sonny turned, spinning around slowly on her soft socks like a figure skater. Kelly pouted because the long T-shirt was blocking the view of Sonny’s behind. She sighed to herself as the woman went out of her view and into the kitchen.
“Are we going to address the elephant in the room here?” Kelly raised her voice to be heard over the sound of eggs being prepared in the kitchen.
“What elephant would that be, Miss King?” Sonny’s voice carried into the living room.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kelly began, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Like what you plan on doing with me?” There was silence from the kitchen and Kelly began to wonder what the assassin was thinking. Then Sonny appeared in the doorway carrying a plate and a mug of something steamy. The heady aroma of the coffee reached Kelly’s nose and she almost moaned in anticipation. Sonny placed both on the bare nightstand beside Kelly and then turned and left the living room once again. Kelly was about to ask if she was supposed to feed herself when the other woman returned carrying a folding chair. She opened it and set it down very close to Kelly and then sat, lifting the plate and setting it on her lap, never once taking her eyes off her. She began to feel like a gazelle having found itself trapped by a lioness, able only to watch as the killer examined its prey.
“I haven’t decided yet.” Her voice had turned soft, surprising Kelly. Sonny picked up the plate and poked at the eggs, spearing a mouth full with the fork. Raising the fork, she was stopped short by the raised eyebrow of her prisoner. “What? What’s wrong?”
Kelly snorted with a smirk. “Are you seriously feeding me?” Sonny frowned as the fork remained hovering between them, steam slowly rising from the eggs.
“Well, I’m not untying you, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said, irritation evident in her tone. “If you want to eat, then this is the way it has to b
e.” She raised her nose slightly so that she could look down on Kelly.
“So you don’t plan on killing me then,” Kelly stated with a certainty that took Sonny off guard.
“And why do you believe I won’t, Miss King?”
Kelly grinned playfully, causing Sonny to become even more irritated. “Well, you wouldn’t go through the trouble off feeding me if you planned on killing me. Also, if you were going to kill me, I would never have woken up.” She looked at her like a child who had outsmarted a parent and found the hidden Christmas presents. “Am I right, Miss Moretti? Or am I right?”
Sonny narrowed her eyes and frowned. After a moment, she raised the fork to Kelly’s lips. “Open,” she said with a hostile tone to which Kelly obliged happily and chewed behind a satisfied grin.
“How are you planning on working that coffee? Because I could use a swig.” Kelly shot her eyes over to the steaming mug sitting on the nightstand and then back to Sonny, challenging the woman. A smug grin spread over Sonny’s face and with a flourish, she produced a straw and dropped it daintily into the mug of coffee. She lifted it as if she was a spokesmodel showing off a new car at an auto show. “You’ve thought of everything,” Kelly said, deflated. She had been enjoying the fact that she was ahead in their little battle of wits. Her lips closed onto the straw as she winked slowly and seductively while she moaned in appreciation. Sonny let her drink her fill and then placed the mug back. Turning her gaze back to Kelly, she cocked her head and examined the woman.
“Are you really gay or are you just trying to get a rise out of me?” Placing the plate of the half-eaten eggs down on the nightstand, she leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. Her eyes scrutinized the woman, trying to look inside them and make some sense of the irritating and puzzling Kelly King.
Leaning back and smiling, she appeared relaxed and satisfied. “Why?”
“Why what?” Sonny’s head shook tightly in confusion.
“Why do you want to know? I mean, what difference does it make?” Her shoulders shrugged and that grin remained right where it was and it was driving Sonny crazy. “You know what I think? I think you want to know because you want me to be gay.”