by Loki Renard
“Alright, get up against that wall and look sexy for me,” Gary said, picking up his phone and turning it to the camera function.
“How?”
“Shit, I don’t know. Work those pecs or something, stick your ass out. Imagine you wanna get paid for it.”
3
“Shouldn’t I have more backup?”
Mark’s nerves had been getting the better of him until he medicated them away. It was a lot easier to think about walking into a room full of mobsters when it was chemically impossible to be afraid. He was still concerned, though. They’d taken his gun from him, left him defenseless, and there wouldn’t be any other agents around. He was on his own.
“We have men a block away, but this is a cold op. No weapons. No danger. You just need to float around looking pretty and hope that one of the Vitali men takes an interest in you. If they don’t today, we’ll try again later on. Might take them some time to warm up to you. Just go have fun, darling,” Gary said, putting on an extravagant gay voice which was borderline offensive.
Mark creaked. He was wearing leather pants which were far too tight and a mesh shirt that made him feel like an extra out of an 80’s Goth kid movie. Apparently that was what all the hot gigolos were wearing these days. Mark had his doubts about that, but Gary and the others had been insistent and he was worried about pissing them off, so he went along with it.
“Now get in there, hot stuff.” Gary slapped his ass and sent him out of the van and in through the back door of the hotel. Mark was greeted near reception by a smiling woman who conducted him to a room that was probably usually used for conferences and MLM meetings, but at that moment was filled with the best and brightest of the underworld.
All eyes turned to Mark as he entered the room. Fuck. Gary had gotten it completely wrong. Mark was the only one dressed like he was looking for Neo in the Matrix. Everyone else was wearing business casual. There were a few dozen men, mostly of the balding and paunchy type, milling about with Prosecco and Chianti. If there were other escorts present, they were doing a much better job of blending in than he was. The younger men didn’t look like the ‘in search of sugar daddy’ types for sure, unlike Mark, who was dressed like a walking daddy issue. Fuck. Had he been set up?
“Well hello there, darling.” A man Mark didn’t recognize took him by the arm almost immediately. “Aren’t you a treat?”
Mark scanned the room, ignoring the guy. He didn’t see either of the Vitali men. Fuck. Were they even here? Was this some kind of shitty hazing prank from Gary and the guys?
A hand cupped Mark’s ass. He turned around to see yet another man smiling at him. Shit. Hell. God. He put on his best professional smile and moved through the room, wondering what it was escorts did when they felt awkward and out of place.
“Benito has outdone himself this time,” someone murmured nearby. “Look at that beef.”
There wasn’t any food. Mark was the beef.
Goddamit. This couldn’t possibly get any worse. He thought about just leaving, but if he left before his assignment was over, he’d probably get in deep shit. Angelo Vitali was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Bobby. Maybe they were in one of the rooms marked ‘private’? Mark sauntered his way across the room past grabby hand after grabby hand to get a better look.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
The world exploded. Glass shattered and loud bangs jolted his nervous system as screams filled the air. Someone was shooting. He didn’t know who and he didn’t know where. Everyone was running back and forth, diving and shouting, trying to get to exits that just weren’t fucking there.
“Shots fired! I repeat! Shots fired!” Mark shouted the words out of military habit, but nobody was listening. He wasn’t even wearing any communication equipment. He’d asked for a com unit, but Gary had insisted someone as smart as Angelo would spot it right away and he’d be sprung before he got anywhere. Maybe Gary was right, but in that moment Mark could really have used some way to communicate the fact that death was raining through the crowd.
He started to run, head down, reaching reflexively for a gun that wasn’t there. The room was in utter chaos. Several people were down already. He paused to try to help one of them, but as he bent down a bullet came whizzing through the air and planted itself in his left arm, the momentum spinning him around. He ended up face down on the floor, groaning to himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot, but the impact of hot lead on flesh never got any easier to take.
The shots seemed to have stopped. Mark wasn’t sure why. Had the shooters got who they wanted? Or had they been run off? He heard sirens in the distance. Perhaps that had scared the attackers away. The entire incident had lasted all of maybe thirty seconds, but that was all it took to destroy lives.
Mark checked his status without moving. Best to stay down for the moment. His arm was aching, but not bleeding that much comparatively speaking. Bullet must have lodged in his muscle. Probably a ricochet. He would have been panicking more if not for the benzos. They made getting shot a whole lot easier.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
The shooting started again. Fuck. They hadn’t stopped. They’d just been reloading. This was goddamn massacre. He could feel something warm and wet soaking under his stomach. It was blood. Not his, someone else’s seeping through the old green carpet.
“Get up.”
Accented but stern tones came from somewhere above Mark’s head. He didn’t know who it was. He just knew someone strong had him by the back of his pants and was yanking him to his feet.
“Move!”
He started moving, following orders instinctively. After a brief moment of confusion, he realized he was probably being saved. If this was one of the shooters, he’d have a bullet in his skull right now. Either way, his time in the military had made him susceptible to following orders barked at him in that particular way. Under fire, his brain reverted to a grunt mode of survival submission.
He was half-helped, half-shoved out of the room, down the hall, out the exit door and into a waiting blacked out SUV. He hit the seat hard and was tossed around when the car took off a second later with a fuckload of tire squeal and smoke.
“Get some pressure on that,” the voice insisted, a hand holding out a thick wad of white material to use as a bandage.
“Thank y…” Mark turned toward the hand and looked into his rescuer’s face.
It was Angelo Vitali.
Up close, Angelo was even more impressive and handsome. His deep brown eyes were like two pools of pure darkness. His features were perfectly sculpted, Romanesque and menacing in every line and curve. Seeing him close up, it was apparent to Mark that this man had been designed by nature to be a predator. It was like looking into the visage of a lion. This was a man to whom life meant nothing - and yet, Angelo had just saved him. He was life and he was death. He was all things. Mark was utterly frozen in awe, his stressed brain flooded with cortisol as he had a nearly religious experience looking into the eyes of his savior.
“Everything alright back there?” A young man broke the spell, shouting from the front as he skidded through an intersection.
Mark recognized the voice and the profile. Robert Vitali was driving.
Jack. Fucking. Pot.
4
“We’re fine, Bobby,” Angelo said. “Just get us to a safe spot. This one’s wounded.”
“Hospital?”
“Home.”
Bobby didn’t question the order, just made the turn to get them out of the city. He was a good boy and a better driver. They’d be alright now.
Stupid brutish acts of violence like the one that had just unfolded out of nowhere didn’t necessarily surprise Angelo, but they did piss him off. New York was a big city, but there were far too many smaller players fighting one another these days. The old families and names had broken down and in their place were a thousand little upstarts trying to make names for themselves. It had been one thing when they took shots at one another, but when the Vitali name was no lon
ger respected, things had gone too far.
Angelo glanced at the man next to him. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d grabbed him on the way out. It was an impulse and he’d gone with it. His instincts rarely, if ever, led him wrong, especially in high stress situations.
Their wounded guest was built broad and tough, and the not at all stylish close cropped haircut which was shorter at the back and sides than on top made Angelo fairly certain he was military. Given he was wearing a shredded mesh top and the most gauche leather pants possible, probably ex-military. A dishonorable discharge perhaps. He had that good boy scorned air about him, a certain sulkiness that didn’t quite make it all the way to true brutality.
“What’s your name?”
“Uhm…”
“Uhm?” Angelo raised a brow. “You don’t know your name?”
“Mark.” The word dropped from the man’s lips reluctantly.
“How’s the pain in your arm?”
“Sore.”
“I’m going to take you to my place, and we’ll have a doctor look at you.”
“I’ve got a bullet in my arm.”
“Yes, I know,” Angelo replied.
Was the guy in shock, or was he simple? He inspected Mark’s features, searching for clues as to his temperament. He had a handsome face. In spite of the fact his nose had obviously been broken a couple times before, it was still a decent specimen. Very Anglo-Saxon though. Angelo didn’t detect even a drop of Mediterranean blood in this one. He had nice blue eyes ringed with dark lashes, and very dirty brown blond hair. There was something innocent about him, a hint of a Mid-Western accent too. A country boy. Yes, almost certainly ex-military.
“How long were you in the service?”
“Oh, uhm, I, er…” Mark stumbled over his words. With one hand on Mark’s wrist, Angelo could feel the man’s pulse quicken. He was panicking at the simple question - which meant he had something to hide. Interesting.
“You were in the military?” Angelo prompted again.
“No.”
Now that was absolutely a lie. Even if his pulse hadn’t started hammering in his veins, the tell tale flush on his cheeks and the avoidance of Angelo’s gaze would have told him everything he needed to know. Suddenly, Angelo wasn’t so certain that it had been a random act of mercy that made him grab this man from the ground. His instinct must have picked up on something he wasn’t quite aware of as yet. He’d get to the bottom of it though. That was what he did.
“What’s your last name, Mark?”
“Lo… Long.”
Another lie.
Angelo cocked his head to the side and watched Mark react. He had guilt written plainly across his handsome face. But what was he guilty of, exactly?
“How old are you?”
“Twenty eight.”
This time his pulse stayed steady. Okay, so that was the truth. Twenty eight made him quite a number of years Angelo’s junior. He liked younger men. They were brash and often fun to break. He’d gone through a string of them before Bobby. Since then, there hadn’t been anyone to really compare. Bobby was, in some ways, still unbroken. The challenge kept Angelo interested, and nobody else had truly caught his eye.
But perhaps that had just changed with the wounded military man sitting there lying about himself. Hm. Angelo felt himself thickening inside his pants. This wasn’t the sort of thing he tolerated. This boy would have to learn to tell the truth.
“Bobby!” Angelo called out. “Get the doctor on the line and have him meet us at the house. Make sure he has his surgical equipment.”
“You’re not hit are you?”
“No, boy, it’s for Mark.”
“Who the fuck is Mark?”
Angelo smiled at the pale faced younger man next to him. “Mark’s going to be our guest for a while.”
5
This was undercover like nobody could have hoped for. Angelo Vitali wasn’t just bringing him into his circle, he was taking him to his home! Mark’s mind whirled at all the possibilities for intelligence gathering that presented. He could infiltrate everything. He could hand the FBI the win they’d been looking for. His career would be launched into the stratosphere. This was perfect. All he had to do was keep playing it cool. Angelo seemed to believe him so far, so that was good.
They were heading out of town. He wasn’t sure, but he was pretty sure the agency would be tailing them. At least, he hoped so. Angelo had grabbed him out of the chaos so they might not find him right away, but that was alright. The FBI wasn’t in the habit of losing men.
He winced and shifted in the seat as the road got bumpy.
“Sorry,” Angelo said in that gorgeous Sicilian purr. “The road is not so well sealed here. I like to stay off the beaten track. It’s the only thing I don’t like beaten.”
Mark gave a little half-smile, not knowing how to take that exactly. Was it a threat? A come-on? It was hard to tell with Angelo. Maybe it was both. There were rumors about Mr Vitali’s predilections, though little in the way of evidence for them.
Eventually they drew to a halt outside what could only be described as a country estate in the middle of dense forest. There were guards at very tall gates, at least twelve feet high, and fences that carried electrical bold signs on them.
“I like my privacy,” Angelo explained when he saw Mark looking at them.
Mark nodded and swallowed. Jesus. This wasn’t a house. This was a fortified compound. There was no way the agency was going to be able to get a presence close to this without Angelo knowing. Even worse, this wasn’t on any of their reference materials. He’d seen all the files the agency held on Angelo Vitali. He owned a bunch of properties up and down the state, but this one wasn’t on the list.
Okay, so maybe the FBI wouldn’t find him quickly. In that case, Mark was going to have to just play along until he could get some information and get out. Angelo wouldn’t want to keep him around forever, he was sure.
“Thanks for saving me.” He suddenly realized he should have said that earlier. Would have, if he hadn’t been so distracted by being inches away from Angelo fucking Vitali. “I owe you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Angelo smiled wolfishly. “I’ll find some way for you to make it up to me.”
The house was gorgeous on the inside, very well decorated with works of art, sculptures and paintings that must have been worth millions. Mark was led through the grand foyer and into a room which looked a bit like a bathroom, but without any of the bath stuff. It was covered in tile and had a plug in the middle of the floor. A mud room, maybe. One with a leather surfaced medical bed sitting in the middle of it.
It was weird. Like something out of a movie. What was this even for? Did Angelo perform impromptu surgery here? Mark shuddered at the thought.
“I like to have a place where I can be treated privately,” Angelo said. “Hospitals are so unpleasant. Here, lie down. The doctor will not be far away. He lives locally.”
Mark did as he was told, easing himself onto the padded bed. He was surprised when Angelo crouched beneath the table and lifted straps Mark hadn’t noticed at first, draping them over his body lightly to begin with, then walking around to secure them more tightly. In a matter of seconds, Mark found himself hopelessly bound and at the complete mercy of Angelo Vitali.
“What are you…”
“Hush,” Angelo said as he strapped Mark to the bed, restraining him as effectively as any asylum patient. “We don’t want you wriggling for the doctor.”
“I wasn’t going to wriggle.”
“Mr Vitali?”
Mark’s objections were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor.
“Ah, doctor, please do come in. I’m afraid we have a wounded young man who needs your attention.”
The doctor was a dour looking older man with white hair and the kind of eyes that had seen some shit. He didn’t say much of anything, he just walked up, donned rubber gloves, cut Mark’s shirt away from the wound, and squirted saline solution around it
. Mark let out a scream just in time for Angelo to push a piece of leather between his teeth.
“Shhh,” Angelo said, leaning over him. “I know it hurts, but it won’t hurt for long.” There was a strange quality to his voice that was both calming and utterly terrifying.
“Painkiller,” Mark mumbled through the leather.
“Soon,” Angelo said as the doctor probed around a bit, ignoring the other goings on. “I’ve got a few questions first.”
Fuck.
“Okay,” Mark squeaked around the leather.
Angelo smirked and pulled it back out of his mouth. “Tell me, boy. What is your name?”
“Mark.”
“Mark what?”
Mark panicked. He couldn’t remember what the hell his cover name was supposed to be. Laing? Something L. Something like his real name, but not quite his real name.
“Mark Lark.”
Angelo laughed. “Boy, you can’t keep your lie straight. You were Mark Long in the car. Do you want that bullet out of you? Or do you want another one in you? Somewhere a little more significant?”
As Mark stammered in the effort of trying to come up with some kind of plausible excuse, Angelo pulled a gun from his belt and snapped the slide back, ensuring a bullet was in the chamber. The expression on Angelo’s face didn’t change, but Mark began to pant with fright and pain as Angelo ran the muzzle over his leg, up his thigh, then pushed it down, snugging the end of the barrel against Mark’s balls. The hard shaft imparted the sensation of steel even through the thick leather
It was then that Mark realized Angelo wasn’t just dangerous. He was insane. Not in a gibbering straitjackets and tranquilizers way, but in some magnificent manner that made every cell in Mark’s body want to scream. Angelo was enjoying this. Mark could see it in his eyes. He couldn’t stop looking at Angelo’s face. It was the most terrifying, beautiful thing he’d ever seen. This was a man unfettered by convention or expectation. This was a man who did not care what he, or anyone else thought. Angelo was dark, and devilish and entirely free. Free to save him and then blow his balls off in the same afternoon.