28. La Falena
TWENTY-EIGHT
LA FALENA
SHARK
La Falena, or the Moth, manages one of the most prominent hotel chains on this side of Europe, which gives him the luxury of living in said hotels where the staff and customers constantly move in and out of his vicinity. This creates human traffic high enough that nobody really remembers anybody. It means that even if people had seen Troy, they wouldn’t have suspected a thing.
Since the hotels host many events for wealthy people who value their privacy above all else, the staff at the hotels prioritize privacy. If they violate it, they risk their jobs and sometimes even a chance at getting hired anywhere else in the industry.
This is because Venice, while a large city, is also a village where drama spreads quickly. With social media and artificial intelligence invading our privacy now more than ever, it’s easier for con artists and kidnappers to hide victims from sight in places where privacy is a priority. They can hide people in upscale hotels because most guests demand secrecy.
While I’m certain the hotel staff saw Troy when she stayed at the hotel, they are sworn to protect guest privacy. They probably thought she was the man’s girlfriend or, at the very least, a younger sister sharing an apartment with him.
Fearing for her life, Troy never said a word, kept her head down, kept being compliant, and that’s how she survived. The message of Nothing to see here was loud and clear.
During my ordeal earlier in my life, I survived much the same way as she has. The difference between her and me is that I knew from the start I was biding my time until God or the universe sent me a sign. Alessio arrived as my avenging angel. All I’m doing now is paying forward the favor that karma bestowed upon me when she sent Alessio.
But I’m no angel. Not even an avenging one. On the contrary, I’m aware of where I’m going after this life, which is precisely why I need to ensure those who wronged me and mine are already waiting for me down in hell.
La Falena will wait for me there.
I don’t have time for a thorough study of my target, nor do I have time for an elaborate stakeout so I can note the patterns of others around him. It would take me a day to find the best building across from the hotel and another day to secure a room. I also don’t plan to walk into the hotel as a guest or a plumber or some similar guise I’ve used in the past.
I’m going in as myself.
I couldn’t learn the details of his routine, if he has any, but while I prepared for the mission, Alessio gathered some data from whatever sources he could uncover on short notice.
La Falena arrives in the room from working all day at around six in the afternoon. Usually, he rests until about nine, at which point he starts to get restless, looking for his fix. It arrives in the form of a hired human, a woman or a man, sometimes both.
But he’s not always in the mood for sex.
Sometimes, he likes to drown his body in alcohol the same way a frat boy might during college rush week. The man ends up hugging the toilet by the end of the night.
On weekends, he snorts powder.
Gambles when he feels like it too.
Every night, this man indulges in pleasure. His vice changes, but the need for it stays the same. I couldn’t predict La Falena’s choice this evening. If I could, I would deliver it and walk in on him that way.
Sneaking inside such a busy place is difficult but Alessio tapped into the intelligence network. You guessed it, Alessio collects intelligence, but it wasn’t always this way. We started out with Alessio’s knack for finance and set up the money laundering business while I eliminated liabilities.
Quickly, we realized knowledge pays well, so we started to pay people for what they knew. Then we hired assets, like Tatiana, and like the security guard walking down the hallway of the last floor of the hotel, the same hallway La Falena will use to arrive at his room.
The guard (name’s Igor, if you must know) has two wives. One local and the other from my old country. I bumped into him in Sweden when he was looking for a job. He seemed desperate enough to accept my offer to work in Naples on the docks when some shipments came that I needed quietly unloaded.
During his stay in Naples, he met wife number two and got her pregnant, which means he stayed with her for the next few years, only visiting with the first one who, to this day, doesn’t know her husband lives a double life.
But he knows I know about his wives, and he’s happy to do me a favor for my silence, so when I asked him to reach for his wallet and “accidentally” drop an all-access room card on the floor, Igor didn’t hesitate.
Once Igor disappears into the elevator, I press a button on my electronics disruptor and wait a few seconds for the cameras to switch into still mode before I come out of the staircase wearing a ball cap and gloves.
I pick up the white all-access card from the carpet in front of the elevators and continue to the end of the hallway, toward the corner room.
It’s almost six o’clock, and right before the time the man should come home from work.
This mission came with many unknowns, but one unknown that could pose the biggest problem is that I have no idea if La Falena is holding another person in the room. If I find someone, he or she becomes a witness, and because of that, I roll the ski mask down over my face before I slip quietly inside the room. Pausing, once I close the door behind me, I listen for signs that anyone’s here.
Silence greets me.
But my ears aren’t dog ears, so I engage the thermal search and prowl through the large suite. It’s not the penthouse, because that’s reserved for high-end clientele, but La Falena secured a large one-bedroom corner suite. The bedroom door is closed.
Thermal reveals no signs of life beyond the door, but since Troy managed to evade the thermal scan, I only trust my eyes. Before entering the bedroom, I send a prayer to the Big Man, who may or may not be listening to me. Let it be empty.
I enter on silent feet. Unremarkable off-white hotel sheets lay bunched up on a king-sized bed surrounded by used condoms, trash, and empty bottles of alcohol. On the glass table by the window on the left, I swipe a gloved finger over some white powder and bring it to my nose, inhale. Yup, that’ll get a man high, all right. The object in the corner catches me off guard.
There’s a cage near the bed. Leaning against it is a guitar I recognize from Troy’s social media posts. Why does he carry this thing around? It’s a little difficult to understand a mentally deranged person, but that’s what Dr. Gruber is for. He profiled La Falena, and I’m unsure if the guitar plays a role in the kind of profile Dr. Gruber came up with.
Not that it matters. I’ve already planned exactly how I’ll spend my time with La Falena, but now that I’ve seen the setup he kept Troy in, with her guitar just out of reach, I think I’ll get more creative. I grab the guitar and pull out one of its strings, then place the instrument inside a black case covered in cute pink girly stickers.
Boy oh boy, I’m going to enjoy the last five hours of this man’s life. Is it six o’clock yet? I can hardly wait for him to arrive. I’m so excited to get started on him that I think I might pee my pants when I see him.
Which reminds me… Before he arrives, I need to close the curtains in the bedroom, take the guitar, and set it on the table so Troy’s brother doesn’t miss it when he gets here at eleven. He’ll want to have it. I’m certain of it.
The fact Denver agreed to a meeting in the hotel room instead of a public place speaks volumes of how clueless he is about blackmail and about criminal behavior or safety. I understand he’s desperate for any news about Troy, but one really shouldn’t meet a man who’s blackmailing you in a such a private space where he could take your money and end your life at the same time. But then again, sometimes, we don’t have choices.
Sometimes, bad people manipulate us.
And that’s not okay.
But Lucifer’s middle name is Karma, so they will all get what’s coming for them. Case in point: La Falena got me. I’ve arrived for him and he’ll get what’s in store for him in about ten minutes. But first, prep work.
I secure the suite, double-check all the electronics that might be monitoring, including my own phone. There’s no reception and the screen is glitching. Good. Next, I dump my duffel on the writing desk next to the guitar and open it, take out my worn black leather tool caddy, and roll it out on the table.
I marvel at the beauty of my sharp tools. Wait no. There’s one dull one. The hammer. I guess you could say I’m like any other handyman. Never showing up to work without my toolbox. Mainly, I carry surgical scalpels, a few knives of different sizes and styles, blades, wires, pliers (hoses aren’t sharp either; my bad.)
I rub my hands, getting a serious hard-on now.
I yearn to take off my mask and gloves and lay them beside my tools so mine is the last face he sees before his fall into the pits of hell, but I don’t because I’m risking not only my life, but the lives of my family by not sticking to the plan Alessio and I agreed on.
On my way to the kitchen, I walk by the TV in the living room and spot a single lollipop inside a decorative bowl. What the…?
I pick it up and remove the wrapper. Green. “Let this be a sign.” I pop it into my mouth to taste the sour apple. Unbelievable! If I told the story of finding my favorite lollipop flavor in a target’s apartment, nobody would believe me. They’d say I made this shit up. Fiction, they’d say.
And because of that, because I have no other witness to my Karma-tic (that’s not a word) lollipop-finding event, I part the curtains, even though it’s risky. I’m old enough to know someone could see me and interrupt my jolly old time with the man who hurt the woman I love.
The sky’s not dark yet, so I have a clear view of the moon and stars. “Lord, universe, Force, and everyone up there, thank you for the sour-apple-flavored lollipop. I’m taking it as a sign that I’m on the right path.” I close the curtain and, instead of pocketing the candy wrapper, toss it on the floor for the forensics team.
I make my way into the kitchen, where I open the fridge and look inside for something to drink. I grab bottled water that costs more than a magazine for my Walther, which, by the way, I didn’t bring. I came unarmed.
Well, I came without a firearm because I have no intention of being quick or clean. I’m going to make a mess that Alessio will have only one way of cleaning up.
Oh, hey, a jar of pickles.
Uh-oh. An idea pops into my head. It’s a good one. So good. Don’t, don’t, don’t say it.
“You’re a bloody genius.” There, I said it. Very bloody. More bloody than genius, but it is what it is.
I search the kitchen for a toothpick (only because I’ll have more fun using the toothpick than the fork) and stab a pickle, and taste it. Mmhm, fancy little pricks.
I don’t dump them in the trash like a wasteful snob. I’m considerate of any public servants who might want to snack on them when they come to clean up the scene, so I transfer the pickles into a clean container that I find in the cabinet and return them to the fridge. On the second shelf. The first shelf holds capsules and liquids.
I recognize a few of those items.
The door clicks, telling me someone’s unlocked it from the outside. I tuck the bottle of water into the front pocket of my black cargo pants and slip behind the door just as it opens, hiding me.
A man enters. He’s six foot two, about eighty kilos (about one hundred and seventy-five pounds) wearing a light charcoal suit and brown leather shoes, carrying a brown leather briefcase.
He drops the briefcase on the kitchen counter, spots the pickle jar, picks it up, and looks it over as if wondering if it will reveal something to him. For a man who’s profited off conning people for the past decade, he’s shockingly unaware of his surroundings.
Or maybe I’m just that good at my job. Hush, Pickle Daddy, don’t get yourself started on praise now. You can do that later.
Seeing as how the empty pickle jar offered no explanation, he opens the cupboard under the sink and tosses the jar in the trash. I could’ve done that. Recycle, you negligent craphole. Oh, you’re gonna get it now.
La Falena whistles as he opens the fridge. “Hm,” he mumbles, and comes away with the pickle container. He opens it and eats a pickle while nodding approvingly. See that? He wouldn’t have gotten a snack had I not opened the jar and transferred the pickles into the container. I didn’t make him go to his death hungry. I’m a very thoughtful assassin.
Resisting accolades is becoming harder and harder the longer I stay hidden in the room.
The man heads for the living area. I wait in the shadows of the hallway for the moment he sees the guitar on the desk along with my tools.
He’s still whistling.
He stops whistling.
I walk out and wrap the guitar string around my fist to get a good grip on it just as he says, “Dren? How did you get in here?”
There’s a name I file for later, to be sure.
Before he turns, I wrap the string around his neck and tighten it, whispering in his ear, “Troy Montgomery, the girl with the guitar, got herself a boyfriend. Guess who?” I release his throat so he can speak. When he coughs, trying to clear his airway, I tighten it again. “I said, guess the boyfriend.”
“You,” he wheezes.
“Good. Good. Now, guess what I do for a living.” I loosen my grip, but instead of answering me, he reaches for the weapon from his waistband. I let him palm it, but when he spins around, I disarm him and clear his weapon. He staggers back, trying to regain his balance.
I hold up the magazine and pop one bullet out, then pin the man against the curtains, my body pressed against his so he can feel how hard the prospect of his death makes me.
A slight widening of his brown eyes tells me he’s felt my erection, and now he understands he’s well and truly fucked. His darkness recognizes mine, and I smile. “What’s your best guess?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.” I grip the bottom of his jaw, pry it open, shove the bullet into his mouth, then close his jaw. “Swallow it like a vitamin.” I give him a second, but when he won’t swallow it, when I see defiance in his eyes, I jump up and down in joy. “Yippy-ki-yay, this will be more fun than I thought.” I whistle the same tune he whistled in the kitchen. “You’re a music fan, huh? That’s good. You will sing through two razor blades stuck between your teeth. Welcome to hell, motherfucker.”