Distilled Duplicity

by Louise Furley

  Naithon shouted, “What the fuck? Who? A field hand-”

  “Geez, Boss, let me spit it out.”

  “Go,” Naithon ordered impatiently.

  “Not a field hand, Boss, it was Piero Delducci.”

  Dead silence. Was this a joke? “Repeat that?”

  Kenav huffed. “Yeah, imagine our shock at finding the body. Cops were there. He was burnt to a crisp, Boss, nasty sight, terrible God-awful smell burning flesh-”

  “Ken, what the hell happened? Why was Delducci even there in my fucking sugarcane fields?” He could picture Kenav shrug as he replied, “Dunno why he was there, no clue. He was baked, but a cop checked him out, said he found a bullet hole in his head. 9mm.”

  Cripe, great. “Anything else?”

  “No, sir. Forensic people all over the place, we were moved off, told to stay away. Chief Ivchenko said after he spoke with the Delduccis, and his men questioned the field hands here, he’ll call you.”

  Smoothing a palm over his hair, Naithon said, “Keep me abreast if you hear or know anything.” He hung up without waiting for the foreman’s reply.

  Wait until Kiri finds out that her brother Piero’s body had been found torched in one of Naithon’s fields. What the hell had he been thinking bringing her here? She was undoubtedly in dire danger.

  “Ha,” he snorted, he knew why she was there. Kiri was a stubborn little thing, if she said she would never speak to him again, or touch him, or let him touch her without a fight, she meant it. He was way too far gone for her to let that happen. He wasn’t about to tell her about Piero now though, she had enough on her mind to worry about.

  Sighing frustrated, ja, he was pussy whipped, and he hadn’t even had her pussy yet. Only Dio knows what will be left of his infatuated brain when he finally gets her in bed. And not to sleep. Shaking off his lust for Kiri, Naithon stomped from the Lincoln as his men spilled out of their cars, and he started barking orders.

  “Vlad,” he told his friend, “you take squad A and go straight up to the 4th floor where Delducci is. Check out exits, hallways, storage closest, the works.” Without a word, Vlad strode over to his group of men and told them their job.

  Naithon did the same with Teodor. “Teo, you’re squad B, you put your men on every floor, I want soldiers on the roof. Check every stairwell and elevator.” Teodor took off to do as instructed.

  “Yash,” he called his friend over. “Spread your squad C all over the first floor, I want a man at every door, and I want the garage and basements searched.” A sharp nod and Yash hurried to do as Naithon bid.

  Last, he called Blok to his side. “Your soldiers cover the outside exits. I want men posted on the perimeter grounds and parking lots and driveways. Check the cars, the trees and surrounding buildings for snipers.”

  “You got it, Nait.” Blok jogged to his waiting men. Naithon watched his men spread out, some surrounding the building and grounds, the others went inside the hospital. He tapped the earpiece and said, “Capos, check in when you are at your posts.”

  Moving to a van they’d set up for surveillance, Naithon poked his head in.

  “Cosmin,” he jutted his chin at a man with deep coffee-colored skin and dreads in a ponytail. All of the team wore black pants and button down long sleeved shirts to at least try to blend in with the hospital population.

  “Sir,” Cosmin acknowledged him.

  “Everything, everyone, eyes on everything.”

  “Yes, sir.” Cosmin nodded sharply. His eyes were already glued to a computer screen. The rest of the men in the van were equally absorbed with identical equipment.

  Naithon glanced around the inside of the van, checking that all the apparatus was up and running, the men were intently engrossed with their tasks. “Okay, anything, any little thing, Cosmin, even if it seems innocuous but draws your attention, you tell me. Got it?”

  Another sharp nod, his eyes on the screen, he replied, “Yes, sir.”

  Naithon left the van and joined Mazonn’s crew that was waiting for him. He didn’t look towards the Lincoln, Kiri would be beside herself having to sit there helplessly and wait while he organized everything. She gives him any shit and he’ll take her straight back home, threat of withholding her body from him or not.

  He had a bad feeling and in his years on the street he had learned to pay attention to the chill that ran up his spine. He needed to get this the hell over and get her home. He wouldn’t breathe easy again until she was back locked in his suite.

  It took about twenty-five minutes before every squad captain called in that they were in position, and confirmed the hospital was as secure as they could get it.

  “As soon as we’re rolling, Maz, your men stay with Kiri and me. I want a fucking steel wall around her, got it? I want eyes on you too, watching your own back. We all can be targets.”

  “Of course, Nait,” Maz assured him. “Tony is getting that small vest for her to wear. Should have a hat there too for her head.” Mazonn’s words stabbed porcupine quills in his gut, Naithon picturing Kiri on the ground with a bullet hole in her head. Fuck, he never should have brought her.

  He glanced at the Lincoln. Her pale face was pressed to the glass watching him. Ignacio was a rotten bastard that allowed her to be abused and then tried to sell his own daughter, but that doesn’t make his child dread his demise any less. He was still her father.

  Gruffing a long exhale, Naithon trod to the car and took the small vest from Tony the driver. Unlocking the door, he pushed her down the seat and climbed in the car next to her.

  “Naithon, aren’t we going-”

  “In a minute. Lift your arms.” He waited while although puzzled, she did as he said. He slipped the vest around her and started taping the Velcro across the front.

  “What’s this?” she asked as he pressed the tape closing the vest.

  “It’s a bullet proof vest, Kevlar.” Taping the last binding, he tugged it down her hips.

  “Oh, Naithon, I don’t need-”

  He suddenly gripped her jaw. His agitation and concern made him hold her more roughly than he ever had. “You wear it, you do exactly as I tell you. You will not leave my side, you will not go into the ladies room. Any protests or divergence from my orders and we’re out of here. You understand me?” He gave her jaw a commanding shake. At her blink and wince, he realized he was hurting her and loosened his grip.

  “Answer me, Kiri.”

  Lips bunched, she mumbled, “Yes, Boss.”

  “You get smart with me-”

  “I know, we go straight home,” she mimicked his threat that he had expounded again and again the entire ride to the hospital.

  A tug at the corner of his lip, a miniscule leer lifted the lip and clouded his eyes, “I’m thinking when we get home that someone needs a little refresher course in proper behavior.”

  She tried to pull from his grip, back away, but he held her with steel fingers and the leering grin. “Naithon, please…”

  Lifting her chin up, he lowered his head and kissed her quickly. “Okay, let’s go.”

  He opened the door. Tony stood with a helmet much like a hard hat but smaller and covered with black material. Naithon took the hat and plopped it on her head. At her protest, he tugged the strap under her chin and buckled it. She gave up protesting his safeguarding procedures, and let him buckle the strap without further comment.

  He got out of the car first, then held out his hand for her to take. She slipped a small cold hand into his and he drew her out of the Lincoln. As soon as she was out, a dozen men encircled them. They stood so close, it was suffocating.

  “Naithon, really, all of this isn’t necessary, there has to be fifty men here.” It was embarrassing to be hustled down the walk like she was a princess or a celebrity or something.

  More like a hundred men. His arm tight around her shoulders, he tucked her against his side, pulled her head to his chest, “Hush,” he growled.

  When they reached one of the smaller entrances, Naithon’s men
were standing guard outside the door and inside it. Naithon didn’t draw a deep breath until she was safely inside. They’d have to do it all over again when they left. This was it, he was never letting her out of the mansion again, he won’t have a nerve left by time they get home.

  With a crowd of men around them, they were propelled down a hall and to the elevators. Teo had already cleared them with hospital security. The elevator doors pinged open and a man came hurrying over to get on. Mazonn blocked him. “Take the next car,” he told him in a cold voice.

  “Hey,” the man blurted, “you can’t commandeer the goddamned elevator!” He tried to push through. Two of Mazonn’s team flanked him and moved him twenty feet away. The man sputtered and cursed and struggled, threatened to call the cops, to no avail.

  Naithon hurried Kiri into the elevator, as many men that could fit joined them, the others would take the next car. There were guards posted at the stairwells and elevators on every floor.

  Squashed against the back of the elevator, Kiri could hardly breathe with all the testosterone in the car. Especially from the one roiling in it, aggressive waves rolled off the man in front of her. Naithon’s back pressed against her, smashing her to the wall, she couldn’t see a thing around his massive body.

  The door hit the 4th floor, the top floor, and the men fanned out first, then Naithon. When he was satisfied it was clear, he held his hand to Kiri. Seeing the helmet in her hand and the vest undone, he gave her a ferocious frown of displeasure. “Goddammit, Kiri-”

  Kiri stepped from the elevator. “We’re inside, Naithon, there are no snipers lurking from the ceilings.” She started walking.

  Looking to the heavens for help in dealing with his tiny intractable dynamo, Naithon rushed after her.

  Throwing his arm around her, he growled in her ear. “That’s one, Kiri, one disregarding my orders, another one and-”

  “I know, I know,” she sighed, “we go home.”

  He halted and brought her abruptly in front of him, his hands gripping her upper arms. Face a mask of fury, he said in a quiet shout, “Kiri, your brother Duce is dead, your father is seriously ill,” he had to bite his tongue when he started to say, “and your brother Piero is dead.”

  Rotating his shoulders to ease the strain, he said more calmly, “Your family, my people, are all in danger. If you don’t do as I say, you will never step out of my house again. I mean it.”

  She blinked in anger and distress at him and saw that he was as serious as a heart attack. He would keep her locked in her ivory tower for…however long it took him to tire of her, she supposed. “Okay.” She huffed silently.

  He glared at her for a second, aware his men were likely grinning at their lethal mobster boss being jerked around by a tiny female. He was notoriously misogynistic; treated women purely as sex objects, the mobs were reputably sexist, and here he had an army to surround and protect one petite girl.

  Dragging a hand through his hair, he raked his fingers in ire. Nothing he could do about it. He’d fallen like a rocket ship from the sky slamming into the earth for this female, he was wrapped around her finger and he knew it. “All right, let’s go.”

  The group moved towards the large, semi-circle counter of the nurses’ station.

  Their shoes stomped on blue and white flooring to the curved counter tiled in beige, the wall behind it pale blue. Some of the nurses wore blue smocks, others green. The counter was about four feet high, closing off the station behind it.

  Naithon had prepped Maz to do the talking. He didn’t want to get distracted from the environment surrounding them. Mazonn’s men blended with Vlad’s men that were already there.

  Maz approached the desk, spoke for a minute, then returned to where Naithon waited. Maz pointed to an open, wide doorway. “She says that’s the waiting area. I told her we’d be waiting out here. She said a nurse had been out there earlier stating he was waiting for Kiri Delducci, and said he would be back in a second to bring her in when she arrives.”

  Naithon nodded. His arm around Kiri, he hugged her against him, his eyes never stopped moving around the area. He studied every door, every nurse, everyone in their vicinity.

  Only a minute went by and a male nurse appeared from an automatic door, it whooshed open and then closed behind him. He came right to them. Dark brown eyes widened when they set on Kiri, he smiled broadly with his hand out. “Miss Delducci, I am Haziq Jaleel. I will take you in to see your father. You will be happy to know he has the best of care.”

  In his late twenties, Haziq had taupe skin, thick black hair that waved around his head, dark eyes that never left Kiri, and full lips tipped up in a friendly smile. He was tall, not as tall as Naithon and his men, but over average height. He wore the blue smocks and carried a clipboard in one hand.

  Naithon moved his arm to block Kiri from shaking hands with the nurse. “I go with her,” he stated.

  Haziq finally looked to Naithon, his expression turned bland and polite. “I am sorry sir, hospital rules, only immediate family goes in the ICU.”

  “I am her brother,” Naithon snapped.

  Haziq’s gaze lit on the possessive arm Naithon had around Kiri. “Nice try. We have names and pictures of the family members, and you are not one of them, and I’m pretty sure none of them have that accent,” he said with a hint of insult.

  Naithon’s arm tightened around Kiri until she squirmed. “I go with her,” he stated obdurately.

  Haziq crossed his arms with the clipboard against his chest. His tone blithe, he said, “No. That door is to ICU and only an employee can open it. If you insist on being with her, then she can’t go in. You might as well go home.”

  Kiri swung around to face Naithon. “I am not leaving, I am going in there alone. He’s in the ICU, Naithon, nothing can happen to me in there.”

  Naithon’s face hardened into fierce rock. “Kiri-”

  “Naithon.” They were at a standoff, and every person in the area was watching them like they were in a movie.

  “Ahh,” his lungs emptied angrily, he scrubbed a hand down his face. Why couldn’t he have fallen for a compliant female instead of this stubborn chit? “You have ten minutes. Any longer and we come in, locked door or no.”

  Glaring at Haziq’s smug face, Naithon cupped Kiri’s chin, lifting it. Glowering at the beauty that had slivered under his skin from day one, he threatened harshly, “I mean it, Kiri. No fucking around. You’re not back in 10 and everyone’s safety in the place will be in jeopardy.” He bent and swiped their lips, and he let her go.

  Naithon glared at Haziq, his tethered fury was hanging on by a thread. “You fuck with her, you’re a dead man. Feel me?”

  The smug look gone, Haziq swallowed hard and nodded. His mouth suddenly too dry to speak. He went to take Kiri’s arm to guide her.

  “Don’t fucking touch her,” Naithon barked in a low, vicious voice. The bad feeling he had was digging into his gut. But like she said, ICU, what could happen in a locked area? Still…

  Kiri started walking with Haziq, Naithon called out, “Ten minutes, there better be a clock on the wall.” Kiri turned around with her sweet, shy smile and waved delicately at him as she disappeared through the whooshing doors.

  Naithon stood like an angry, immovable mountain staring at the door. Vlad came to his side with an iPad in his hand. “She’ll be okay, Nait, there’s no way in or out of there except by that door according to the schematics of this area.”

  Naithon didn’t respond. His itchy gut was never wrong. Right now it was swimming with snapping piranha.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Naithon paced furiously in front of the doors. All staff gave the tough looking blond man in a suit with shoulders that could span a football goalpost, a wide berth. His men hovered scattered around the area, alert and ceaselessly scanning the nurses’ station, elevators, hallways, doors, the staff, roaming patients.

  There was a clock on the wall behind the nurses’ station; Naithon’s head lifted every other second
to look up at it, then down to the watch on his wrist.

  She had gone in at 2:30, it was 2:41. A wave of fear suddenly blew like an icy wind through him. He started towards the door, one of his men tried to stop him.

  “Boss, it’s only been eleven minutes. You don’t want the cops here for a disturbance, give it a few more minutes.”

  His glare of wrath could have shriveled the man until he was dust, but he paused.

  Then a few more minutes passed, then a few more. His shoulders rigid as blocks of concrete, Naithon’s teeth were grinding to the bone. Then, something struck him so wrong, oh shit- “Vlad,” the capo looked to him with question.

  “There are none of Delducci’s family here, the sister, none of his soldiers, no one. How the fuck did the nurse know Kiri was coming? We didn’t call ahead.” He stomped quickly over to the station and barked, “Someone open that goddamn door.”

  Everyone froze, all eyes wide on him, no one moved. Naithon’s men drew their weapons. Face growing red with fear and impatience, accent rugged, Naithon shouted, “Open that goddamned door or bullets will start flying!”

  A nurse broke from the cowering herd and scurried over. Hands shaking, she swiped her ID card over the pad and the doors whooshed open.

  Naithon stalked to the door, stood in the threshold so it couldn’t close, he commanded, “Vlad, Georges, Frankie, you’re with me. Tomas, Angelo, you keep this door open. The rest of you make sure no one leaves, or moves.”

  He paused again, turned and pointed to the nurse with red hair that had opened the door and demanded, “You, take me to ICU.”

  Mid-thirties, a parade of freckles popped across her pasty face, lashes flapped anxiously over hazel eyes, she placed a hand over her heart, and gulped. Taking a deep breath, she strode past him, spine erect and said firmly, “Come with me, sir.”

  They traipsed down a tan and gold tiled hallway with white walls, then down another, she reached a second nurses’ station. People stopped what they were doing and gawked at the nurse with four huge bruisers at her heels.