26. Talon
Chapter 26
Talon
" M m." I tried to rouse, but my body felt like I died and someone kept reviving me to feel my death again. I wanted to die to be free of this, but every time I drifted away, something pulled me back. And that something?
"He needs help, you shit heads!" Little Diva? Her voice kept finding me in my small bouts of consciousness. She became my tether, my reminder that I couldn't give up. No matter how much pain and numbness took over, I had to stay alive for her. If I died, they'd kill her without a second thought. And Kage... he'd been taken too.
"Mmmm," I tried speaking his name, but something covered my mouth. My dry tongue could barely lift to swipe the fabric t ying through my mouth, but I knew I'd been gagged.
"Don't speak, Daddy. Reserve your energy. I'll deal with these incompetent fools until one of them listens to me." Little Diva's words reached my soul. I felt myself about to slip again, but she kept yelling loud enough to keep me alert. She kept me from the forever fade. "If someone doesn't come in here right now, I'm going to start screaming about all the female knowledge men hate to hear about! I'll start with periods and bodily fluids you don't want to have sex with! I'll ruin your ears to never touch a vagina again, and trust me, I'm being serious!"
"Do you ever shut up?" an accented voice replied. My eyes opened briefly to see Valentino's son, Contessa. He was the youngest and far from brightest son, so it made sense he'd been handed babysitting duty.
"Nope. A woman's mind is linked to her ovaries. Some believe the uterus, but the ovaries help with our hormones. My ovaries are fueling me with estrogen, and that estrogen is telling me to keep talking until you find someone to fix him, now!" There went more of her precious rambling, trying to sound smart, but she'd only confuse this man. He probably believed a woman's mind connected there after she said it.
"I'm not allowed to touch him. A slow death from bleeding out fits his crime."
"His crime?" she scoffed. "He's not the one out murdering people. You want to talk about crimes? How many has your family killed? You sick fucks!"
He growled, but before he could get to her, a door opened. "Contessa! Change of plans. Your father has decided to be kind and give them one day to see if they speak the truth about being framed. Our men are out trying to find the man who was in charge of watching the job finish. Get the doctor to patch him until we get word to kill him."
"But he's missing!" Contessa growled, impatient to get his way. He'd be just as lethal as his brother one day.
"Orders are orders! Doctor, now!"
Contessa didn't like being told what to do, but he knew his father would skin him alive if he didn't listen. He crouched in front of me, and I opened my eyes to see his outline. "Luck is on your side, tonight, Cleaner, but I don't think it'll last another day."
My mind tried to think about why Valentino changed his mind, but I couldn’t conjure reasoning. The sluggish pace my mind ran a t only told me I'd been kissed by death. Contessa chose then to jam his finger into my bullet wound. The sudden onset of new pain had my world going black again.
Leopold
"Okay, I slipped a knife in your coat pocket if you need it," I murmured.
"I told you, I don't need you to babysit me. I have this in the bag." She strutted to the motel door, shaking out her nerves before knocking in her trench coat and hot pink bobbed wig. She overdid her makeup to sell being a call girl, but she nailed the look to get her in. Her hands unfastened the jacket, and I prayed there wasn't a mirror for me to avoid seeing anything. I knew better than to ask if she wore clothes under the long coat she wore because she mentioned heading to an orgy on the phone. I only had eyes for one girl .
Luce's hand raised, rapping against the dingy wood. She wore my camera as a glued stud near her eye, and it blended with her other ones perfectly. She spent thirty minutes perfecting her look, but I'd say it played an important role for this. Someone came to the door, opening to see who found him I could see the terror in his eyes when he thought it'd be Valentino, but he softened when it was a whore.
"Hey, there. You ordered me?" she cooed, stroking his arm.
"Excuse me?" His eyes followed her movements.
"You paid for the hour, right? Room 218?" Her eyes went to the number, giving him a choice to deny it or let her in to spend someone else's money. By his eyes, we knew he'd pick her.
"Hell yeah, I did!" He opened the door wider. What an idiot. Like his enemy wouldn't send in a decoy to get his guard down?
"Do you have a specific fantasy?" she purred when the man began undoing his belt.
"Um, I don't know. I've never role played. What do men usually ask for? Or what would you like?" His giddiness was jarring.
"Huh, I've neve r had someone ask..." she shifted from what I saw on the video. Her stance leaned to the right, still seeing him but from a different angle. It felt weird seeing this from her perspective because his interest made me feel like it was on me. The intent in his eyes was strong. Luce hummed. "Depends. How dark can you handle?"
"Oh, honey. If I told you the stuff I've seen, the things I've done, you'd probably run scared." He had no idea she goaded these exact reactions.
"Oh?" she walked to the wall before turning to lean her back against it. She then let out a moan, so I figured she did something to her own body that I couldn't see. Thank fuck. According to where his eyes traveled south, I didn't need to guess. "Tell me something recent. Something dark and twisted!"
"I got revenge on my brothers' killer." His eyes darkened, staring at how she touched herself. He moved his hand over the crotch of his pants to rub through the jean fabric.
"Mmm... How?" she panted like it turned her on. Jamie liked her reactions, loving someone wanted to hear him and his long game he'd been playing.
"They hired a cleaner to come in and sweep the scene. After he left, I planted the evidence that'd still tie the sonofabitch t o their disappearances. I knew Dante Carnelli was evil, so I took the blood of my brother and cousin and the knife to plant after. That stupid boy didn't see me setting him up from a mile away, but I did. I made sure he'd go down for their murders."
"Oh god! Yesss, but this time, pretend you committed the murders. Tell me how you were the one to kill them then pinned it on him. It's even hotter to know your hands got dirty." Jamie had to think about it, wondering if he would tell a hooker he killed his brother, but it only took the sick fuck a few seconds to decide her kink and pussy was more important than his dignity. Typical henchman.
"I killed them. I stabbed them until no life remained in their eyes."
"OH! OH! Say their names! Tell me who you killed, baby!" Luce began jerking a little like she was close to an orgasm.
"Alejandro Riviera, my own brother."
"Who else?" her breathing was heavy, and I wondered if she was actually turned on by this.
"Franco Diaz, my cousin, and the other three were the bodyguards moving them. I stabbed them in that warehouse, let them bleed out and then hired someone on the black market to cl ean up my mess. That's when I staged the scene for Dante Carnelli to take the fall. My murders went down on him."
"And who killed them?" she whimpered.
"Me, Jamie Riviera! I killed them and blamed Dante Carnelli for my crime!"
Luce pretended—I hoped she was pretending—to have an orgasm after the story, and the idiot chose then to whip out his dick. Oh good, I could edit this to never see it. My hand reached for mob phone, texting the fake prostitute, telling her I gave her the wrong room number. It was supposed to be 228 instead, and it's where I sat right now, waiting for her to finish. It'd help make her hooker appearance realistic for him to believe we didn't dupe him.
Her eyes heard her phone, heading toward it. She gasped at my text before moving and flashing the screen to Jamie. "You lied to me? You didn't order me!"
He shrugged, still jerking. "And I won't be paying you. You just gave me a free show."
Luce slapped him across the face. "How dare you!"
Then she stormed out and headed toward the right room. She knocked on my door for me to answer, turning her gaze to see he stood in his entry with his dick still in his hold to taunt her. That mother fucker would never know our revenge would be even sweeter, but we stayed in the motel for the night to make it look real as I edited the clip to only be that last part, leaving out Luce asking him to pretend he killed them, so it looked like he did.
"In the morning, we need to get him out of there long enough for me to hide the cremated remains in his luggage," I told her, pointing to the Ziploc baggies they were in.
"Easy peasy," she replied, impressing the hell out of me.