Chapter 13 #2
“Now I know who you know, and you know who to watch out for here. What else can you tell me about this job?”
“It’s one of the best paying I’ve ever had. Twenty million just to off you. An extra five million if I get you alone and leave no trace. Ten apiece if I get anyone else in your family besides Enrique.”
You have to pay for quality.
I doubt she’d find me funny.
“Were you going to try for anyone else?”
“Only if that was the only way to get out alive. Taking you on was enough of a challenge.”
“How much did you get up front?”
I expect her to say fifty percent. Anything less, and I’ll be insulted on her behalf. She carries all the risk.
“Half wired to an account even Jorge and Elodie won’t find.”
Jorge’s our accountant for everything, and Elodie’s a former forensic accountant the underworld knew as the “Ball Buster.”
“They’ll expect it back.”
“I know. But they’ll have to find it first. I’m not turning shit over. I have a no refund policy regardless of whether they agree with me or not. What’s theirs is mine, and what’s mine is my own.”
“Are you an only child too?”
“Yes.”
The way she said that…
“You weren’t always one.”
“No, I wasn’t. I had an older and a younger brother. My older brother was stabbed through the neck when he was twenty-five, and my younger brother was shot through the heart when he was nineteen.”
“And your parents know what you do?”
“Of course.”
“And they’re fine with it?”
“When my first career blew up, there weren’t too many other jobs for my skill set.”
“What did you do before this? Were you a spook?”
I’m joking, but she doesn’t crack a smile. She stares at me.
“For which country?”
“Italy, of course.” Her chin jerks back, and her nostrils flare.
“I’m Colombian. Why anyone would be proud of being anything besides that is beyond me.” I give her a lazy shrug.
“Your dossier said you were born here in the States.”
“By accident. There was an early snowstorm that shut down the city for like four days. Mamá and Papá planned to go back to Colombia in time for her to deliver there. Instead, Tía Margherita braved a blizzard to get from northern New Jersey to Queens to deliver me when Mamá went into labor two weeks early.”
“Your aunt delivered you? At home?”
“She’s a midwife like Madeline.”
“Why try to leave in winter just to give birth in Colombia? You’d be Colombian through your parents, regardless.”
“For starters, it was summer down there which is always preferable to winter up here. We’re Latinos.
We’re not designed for that cold weather bullshit.
All of my family was born there. Even Pablo and Juan were despite Tía Margherita and Tío Luis already living in Jersey.
It’s just how it is. Or at least was. I don’t know whether my two cousins will want to fly to Colombia to have their babies. ”
“Huh? You only have male cousins.”
“We don’t talk about in-laws. Once you’re a Diaz, you’re family.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s by blood or by marriage.
So, my cousins’ wives are my cousins. Period.
Florencia, Pablo’s wife, is Colombian, so she’ll probably happily go down there since her mother still lives in Bogotá.
I doubt Madeline, who’s American, or Anneliese, who’s German, will want to deliver babies in a country where they don’t fluently speak the language.
It seems like an unnecessary complication when they’ll already be in pain. ”
I shrug again. I hadn’t really given it much consideration until now. Though, as I stare at Vita, my mind jumps ahead of what common sense says I should be thinking. Would an Italian woman married to a Colombian be willing to give birth there?
“Do you speak Spanish?”
“Yes.” She’s taken aback by my seemingly random question.
“Just wondering.”
“Are you worried I’ll understand whatever conversations you have with your family? They’ll inevitably either show up here or demand to see me somewhere else.”
“They won’t demand, but they will expect.”
“They won’t demand?”
“They know better.”
“What do you mean?”
I stare at her for a moment, my gaze intense as my jaw sets. Surprise registers on her face before her brow furrows.
“They know not to make demands on my woman.”
“Your woman?”
She scoffs until she realizes I’m serious.
Her expression sobers. I hold out my hand, which she peers at before finally standing.
She takes it and lets me pull her forward.
I guide her to straddle me. I untie her robe before doing the same to mine.
Her gaze darts down to my hard-on. She tilts her hips, and I feel how wet she already is.
I lift her and guide her onto my cock. She’s ready to move, but I hold her hips, keeping her still.
Confusion flashes across her face until she relaxes.
She practically flops forward as she leans into me.
I slide my arms beneath her robe and wrap them around her.
My right hand rests between her shoulder blades while the left glides down from her ribs to her ass then up again. I do it over and over, soothing her.
“Chica, we can’t avoid my tío. It’d be better if he heard these things from you rather than second hand from me. He has to see you to believe you’re no longer a threat.”
“You believe I’m not.”
“Yes. You could play me for a fool, but only if you’re willing to die alongside me. You know you won’t kill me before I can kill you too.”
“Mmm.” She sounds unconvinced by my assertion.
“Were you a spy for real?”
“Yes. I studied international political economy at the London School of Economics. Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna, or AISE, recruited me straight out of LSE. The External Intelligence and Security Agency is the Italian CIA.”
“Oh, I know.”
And I do. All too well actually. My entire family is basically on every international watchlist ever created.
“They recruited me because I already spoke Italian, Sicilian, and Spanish. I studied Russian at university.”
“I’m guessing they weren’t interested in you as an analyst.”
“No, they were not.”
“A honey trap.”
She grimaces. She doesn’t appreciate the term. At least I don’t have to interpret for her.
“Being attractive helped, but they knew my education and intelligence counted for more.”
Helped.
That’s putting it mildly.
She’s a fucking femme fatale.
“What did you mean by your career exploded?”
“My father pulled a lot of strings to keep my family connections from ruining my opportunity to get into international relations. They recruited me without realizing who I was. My father only agreed to let me go to LSE if he could wipe my student records of anything short of my real name and birthdate. He paid a shit ton of money for my anonymity and false background. It all came out during the recruitment process. My father ensured I got treated fairly, all things considered. I worked for the agency for six years, from being twenty-two to twenty-eight. I was great at my job. I was one of the better field agents because I didn’t complain about any jobs.
I did what I was told and had few reservations about how to complete the mission. ”
“What went wrong?”
“Everything. My older brother’s murder made headlines across the country and half of Europe.
Because he had many government contracts, Interpol and other countries’ law enforcement agencies investigated his legitimate businesses for corruption.
They found nothing. Our family is like yours.
It knows how to keep enough companies above board to disguise the ones that aren’t.
But the damage had been done. Someone leaked photos of my parents and me to the press.
I became too recognizable. The Agency claimed it compromised me too much to do fieldwork, which might’ve been true, but they didn’t even want me as an analyst. I was damn good at that too, but they really wanted to distance themselves from anything to do with the Mafia. I was out on my ass.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Two years.”
“So, from spook to mercenary?”
“Yes. My father arranged my first job. It was supposed to be a favor. I did too good a job. After that, Don Piero suggested I make it a career. My father lost his shit. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen him give Don Piero even a disagreeable look, let alone speak out against him.
The money’s amazing. It feeds the adrenaline junkie I guess I’ve become. And I get to keep traveling.”
“Don’t lie to me, Vita.”
“I’m not.”
“Omissions are still lies.”
“You’re one to talk. You’ll omit plenty of shit when we talk. You’ll lie to my face and behind my back.”
“To keep you safe. To keep my family safe. To keep the people who work for us safe. Do you think I want to keep things from you? That any of us hide things from our women for shits and giggles? It’s not like we’re fucking every pussy we see.
We’re not lying to cover up infidelity, being an addict, or being a gambler.
I will never lie about how I feel about you.
I will never jeopardize your safety by omitting details that can keep you alive.
But yeah, I will lie about the things I do as that monster I warned you about.
You know it’s not the same fucking thing. Why did you become a mercenary?”
“To fucking kill the piece of shit who killed my baby brother. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance, but I took the job when I heard about it.
Someone paid me to get the revenge I’d wanted for five years.
I did that for my mother and father. They deserved their son being avenged.
Six months later, I killed the man who stabbed my older brother and left him to bleed. That was a year-and-a-half ago.”
“Who were the men?”
She hesitates to tell me. I know she’s weighing her options.
“Radek Jankovi?, the Serbian oligarch, killed my younger brother, Beniamino.”
When she pauses, I feel like she’s trying to brace me for what’s coming next rather than finding the nerve to tell me. I already know I won’t like it.
“Filippo was murdered by Rafael De Santos Rúiz.”
She leans away and watches me.
“You murdered my cousin.”