5. Florida Man Plots Revenge, Kidnapping
Chapter 5
Florida Man Plots Revenge, Kidnapping
R ainy spent the next three days in a truly foul mood.
Over the weekend, he had to divert some of his attention to helping Novikov, one of the Rattrap’s other in-house contractors, bleach down a warehouse where a hit had gone particularly poorly. There were no more half-baked attempts at tailing Adler. Rainy had accepted that the best course of action for now was to wait for Malia to finish working her magic.
And, of course, to stew.
Every time he saw his car, a hot red monster of rage gnawed its way deeper into his belly. And every time he read the note Adler had left on his windshield, which he’d crumpled up in his pocket, he wanted to drive his fist through the nearest wall.
It didn’t help that the one number he didn’t want to deal with at the moment kept blowing up his phone. He considered blocking it after it kept vibrating his jeans pocket for minutes at a time when he was wearing heavy rubber gloves coated in industrial chemicals and couldn’t reach around to turn it off.
“You should answer,” his friend Julian told him when they were out for drinks on Saturday night, watching Novikov trying to blunder his way into a bachelorette partygoer’s pants.
“Do I look like I have time for that?” Rainy asked, cold. He wanted to shut the line of conversation down as efficiently as possible.
Marco, who Rainy had seen gut a man with a hunting knife with the disturbing glee of a little girl on Christmas morning, tipped his beer. “You are one stone-cold son of a bitch, Rainy.” Then he cupped a hand around his mouth and shouted at Novikov’s back, “You got this, Ilya!” Novikov turned red and scampered away from the bridesmaid like his cover had just been blown.
“Aw, come on, Marco,” Malia scolded, nursing her own drink. “It’s going to take the guy another thirty years to work up the nerve to talk to a girl again.”
Novikov, despite being just about the right size to crush a man’s skull in his fist like a pigeon egg, hid a shy and soft heart behind his mountain of prison-tattooed muscle.
Their booth at the club, forcibly cleared by a bouncer whenever Marco swaggered in, had started out the night crammed with Espinosa acquaintances—Rainy’s old friends from coming up through the ranks and the young pups Marco hung around. Now, most had scattered to amorous pursuits or wandered off in some misguided drunken quest or other. Julian, a distant Espinosa cousin who’d been the one to show Rainy the ropes when he’d first joined up nine years ago, had already had to be restrained twice from chasing upstart frat bros out into the alley to “teach them a lesson.” Tall but sort of rangy and unable to pack on muscle the way Rainy always had, Julian was always looking for a way to punch and stab out his insecurities. He was currently eyeing another loud group of twenty-somethings at the bar. Rainy stole his beer to distract him.
Malia never brought any friends around. In fact, Rainy knew next to nothing about the fine details of her life beyond the Rattrap. Once, Marco had spotted her on the street with a college friend and gone to say hello, and Malia had beaten him around the ears with a stapler at work the next day.
Don’t so much as look at one of my real people again, do you hear me? she’d snapped, and that had made it clear enough.
That buried line of tension, though, was easy enough to ignore when they were all drunk and laughing at Marco as he diverted yet another giggling girl in a floral-print bustier off his lap.
“I’m sorry,” he kept saying in what was apparently his approximation of a gentlemanly affectation. “I only have eyes for one woman.”
Malia scrunched her nose at Rainy from across the table. “Ah, to be young and in love with the enemy.”
“We’re like, fucking… Romeo and Juliet,” Marco supplied with drunken eloquence.
“What’s your excuse, Rainy?” Malia smirked. “Can’t keep up with the young bucks anymore?”
“Fuck you; I’m twenty-seven.”
This was what he got for spending most of his time with two coworkers who were still college-aged. He turned to Julian for backup, only to find that he’d stolen away to find a fight while Rainy was distracted. Ah, well. He was in Lina’s capable homicide-attorney hands now.
Just to prove Malia wrong, Rainy poached one of Marco’s admirers and managed to spirit her as far as the nearest bathroom. He got a sloppy handjob and a damp, vodka-flavored makeout session for his trouble. His muscles stayed clenched the entire time with the effort of not letting his mind drift to the much more purposeful motion of Adler’s wrist, the condescension in his eyes, and the way his mouth looked when he spoke Korean.
Professional frustrations, he told himself. Letting work collide with pleasure. Maybe Malia had the right of it.
The next morning, he woke alone in his own bed, the worst kind of waking. Rainy stared at the blank walls of his bedroom until he couldn’t take it anymore and went to entertain himself by attempting the gun-kick move Adler had pulled in the hotel. He definitely hadn’t been practicing. And certainly not every day.
On about the seven hundredth try, he managed to punt his Colt high enough to catch and crowed, “Take that, ” before he remembered that there was nobody around to hear.
He tried unsuccessfully to summon Patoso to the window before fleeing to the couch, the only piece of furniture in his main room, to watch the news on his phone. Reporting on the mysterious death of Dean Holister. Authorities were starting to suspect foul play and were looking for tips. At this point in the game, Rainy was as good as free and clear.
The news feed was interrupted by a call—the same old number. Rainy swiped it away before it had a chance to ring.
Please pick up, mijo, his mother texted. You know how your father gets about Thanksgiving plans.
Rainy ignored it and walked into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and stared at the brand-new, unopened carton of milk that sat alone on the shelf.
His parents lived in a moderately priced two-story in east Coconut Grove that he’d bought for them with the money from his first big contracts. His father still worked the occasional construction job, even though Rainy told him there was no need. His mother was as stay-at-home as she’d always been, though with her younger son moved out for a decade and her elder son dead just as long, she was bouncing off the walls with boredom.
Rafa works in entertainment management, she told her friends with the single-minded fervor of someone desperate to believe it. You know the crazy hours they keep in that industry!
He picked up his phone and fired off a message, barely glancing at the screen.
Busy with work right now. I’ll call when I get the chance.
He threw the milk in the garbage can and left.
Halfway to the Rattrap, the touch display in his dash lit up with a text from Malia.
Merry Christmas, it said. Rainy grinned.
When he swanned into the office, she was perched smugly in her chair like a spider at the center of her web.
“Tell me you love me,” she ordered.
“I love you, you goddess amongst lowly mortals.”
Graciously, she swept a stack of paper off the printer and handed it over. Rainy fished a lollipop out of the jar. He always thought better when he had something to occupy his mouth.
“I thought it would be a little harder, at least,” she began. “Seems like he didn’t even try to cover his tracks. Adler’s his real last name, as far as I can tell. Birth certificate and everything. I found an Adler off the Purple Heart roster who matched our guy straightaway. Army Special Forces, enlisted straight out of high school in rural Alabama. At first, I thought it was a dead end, though, because that Purple Heart? Posthumous. The Green Berets reported him KIA seven years ago after an IED detonation in Syria.”
Rainy frowned. “But?”
“ But, check this out: three months later, Hyun-woo Seong paid a visit to one of his IS-tied investors near Aleppo. Now, I won’t speculate on what this all means, but let me lay out some facts for you. One week into the trip, Seong wires a neat little sum to a Syrian associate without explanation. He extends his trip by two weeks. Then, his favorite contact at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs buys himself a new Rolex, and a week later, Seong returns to Busan with a new friend sporting a mysteriously-appearing South Korean passport. American-born, twenty-two years old, occupation listed as business attaché. ” Malia tapped the packet with a violet-painted fingernail.
Rainy traced the name and birthday stamped in bold, black ink. It felt as stark and weirdly intimate as it always did, seeing a life laid out so easily in a few sentences.
“So, what, he faked his own death? Doesn’t seem likely.”
“No,” Malia agreed. “I’m no expert, but the report the army filed on the incident seemed pretty sketchy. There were a lot of holes in the story, starting with the fact that the locations didn’t really line up. My best guess is that they were up to a pretty big no-no, and when things went to shit, it was easier to write him off as dead than own up to it.”
Rainy felt slightly queasy, until he remembered his slashed tires.
“So they left him to ISIS and then Seong, what, bought him? Doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing to inspire undying loyalty.”
“It might if you’ve been stuck in a Syrian prison for three months.” Malia leaned over the desk and flipped open the packet to the second page, where there was a thumb-sized photograph. “That’s our guy, right?”
It was an old army photo, dated from early in the year he’d been reported dead. Adler was twenty-two and despite his pristine uniform, he looked hopelessly young. Baby fat softened his jaw, and both his cheeks were smooth and downy as a puppy’s ear. Rainy swallowed around the weird feeling in his throat.
“Yeah, that’s him. Do you have an address?”
“Oh, Rainy. Rainy, Rainy, Rainy.”
“Yeah, yeah, just fork it over.”
And fork it over she did.
On Monday, Rainy got the bill from the tow company. It cemented his resolve that despite the fact that Adler had once been a very cute and wide-eyed cadet, he deserved to die a very nasty death.
Luckily, Rainy had a plan.
There were three important things that he’d taken away from the failed recon mission: one, Adler knew Rainy was after him. Two, he was very confident in his ability to outmatch Rainy. And three, everything about him, from the creases of his suit to his rifle etiquette, was regulation. That was the kind of thing that stuck in a man’s mind. That was the kind of thing Rainy could exploit.
But his run-in with Adler’s rifle on the roof had been a wake-up call, and despite the first impression he usually gave, Rainy wasn’t dumb. Once he had Adler’s schedule staked down, he cut Marco and Novikov in. It meant splitting the money, but this was a three-man job.
“I wouldn’t normally let you anywhere near this, but I need the backup,” he told Marco.
“Relax,” Marco replied, puffing a cloud of raspberry-flavored vape in his face. “I’m a professional.”
“You do everything I say. And don’t lose your cool. He’s… trying.”
Marco smirked. “Sounded like you had a pretty good time with him. If I didn’t have Tessa, maybe I’d let him get on his knees for me too.”
Rainy felt an unexpected urge to slam Marco’s face against the wall. It was irrational, obviously, but the image of Adler looking up through his lashes at Marco the way he’d looked up at Rainy made him want to throttle Marco almost as badly as he wanted to throttle Adler.
And, boy, had he fantasized about throttling Adler. Wrapping his hands around that long, elegant neck—so delicate, compared to the rest of him—and squeezing and squeezing until the skin turned black-and-blue and something snapped under his hands. Watching the spite go out of Adler’s narrow, dark eyes.
“I don’t know why I even told you about the blowjob thing,” he said instead.
That was how he found himself crouching in the bushes at eleven at night, waiting.
Adler’s apartment was set back from the street, with a walkway that cut to it through twin lines of shrubbery. Nice place. Tactically, weak. The only light on this portion of sidewalk was from the front exterior lights of the building, so there were plenty of shadows pooling among the foliage. Rainy arranged himself in one, still and poised for violence. His hand was clenched around a fistful of pebbles, so tight they dug indents into the flesh of his palm.
The clip of Italian leather shoes on the pavement had him stiffening. Adler opted for a sturdier dress boot rather than traditional Oxfords, and his step was distinctive. Rainy checked his watch. Punctual as ever.
Adler appeared at the end of the sidewalk, recognizable by the neatly tailored lines of his silhouette. Three paces closer. Rainy breathed deep to steady himself. He loosened his grip and let some of the pebbles clatter onto the pavement.
Adler had a gun in his hand before he’d even stiffened at the noise, but Rainy was already moving. Through sheer momentum, he knocked Adler’s Beretta off into the brush, and then they were grappling, arms locked.
With strength alone, Adler shouldn’t have stood a chance against Rainy, who must have had thirty pounds on him. But he was so damned fast. He diverted Rainy with an elbow while his left hand flashed back for his concealed shoulder holster. He might have blown Rainy’s head off if Rainy hadn’t caught him and wrestled his arm behind his back, twisting the elbow. Adler grunted in pain. Rainy felt flush with the victory for a split second, until Adler’s knee came around and slammed into his groin.
He doubled over, pain and nausea a hot spike up into his abdomen. He narrowly dodged a second knee to the nose before Adler kicked him and sent him sprawling on the cement.
Rainy went easily, let himself be laid out flat. He scrambled backward on his elbows, keeping himself in a vulnerable position. Adler took the bait. He strode forward and planted his knee in Rainy’s stomach to hold him in place.
“I told you not to fuck with me,” he said. Smug, assured. “You know I’ll get back around to killing you. Just wait your turn.”
His hand came down to wrap around Rainy’s throat. Just holding.
“Couldn’t keep away,” Rainy told him, trying not to wheeze against the lingering ache in his balls. “I just needed you to know that I’m the one.”
Adler snorted. He slid his knee down so it was pressed against Rainy’s dick and leaned his weight on it until Rainy winced. His hand moved up Rainy’s throat until he gripped his jaw, fingertips digging into the skin. He held Rainy’s face still while he examined it, eyes impassive and black in the low light.
Rainy didn’t have to fake whatever it was that he saw there, because Adler’s cool expression combined with the places he was putting pressure were taking him there. Fear, resentment, arousal. Adler read it there and smiled.
“You’re the one who’s what, Mister Rainy?”
Rainy smiled back. “I’m the one who’s going to get the drop on you twice.”
Adler’s expression pinched then, uncertainty flashing in his eyes. That was exactly the moment that Marco pulled the bag down over his head.
Adler flew into frenzied motion instantly, releasing Rainy to scrabble at the opaque fabric over his face. Unfortunately for him, Marco had cinched it closed at his neck. The seconds Adler wasted trying to get it off allowed Marco to wrap himself around Adler’s back like a baby sloth.
It would have been best to try to get away first, and Adler would have known that. But he still went for the bag.
Interesting.
His distraction didn’t last long. Even as Rainy went to help grapple him, Adler shoved off his chest with both hands and dropped straight back toward the pavement, going to crush Marco beneath him. Marco let go, alarmed, and Adler hit the sidewalk. He took the rib-crushing impact like a champ and rolled to his feet to take off.
He was foiled when Novikov grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides in a bear hug. Adler struggled, still blinded by the bag. His fingers dipped into his left sleeve, where Rainy saw the flash of a strap but didn’t have time to call out a warning before Adler had a knife in his hand and was sinking it into Novikov’s thigh.
Novikov bellowed in pain but kept hold of him. Rainy seized Adler’s legs, and was wholly unprepared for the violence of the resistance he was met with. He had to wrap himself entirely around them just to keep from getting kicked off. Novikov seemed to be having a similar issue with his torso; Adler was bucking and kicking like a prize-winning rodeo horse.
Marco had zip ties in his hand now and twisted Adler’s wrists behind his back so he had no leverage to fight as he bound them together. Adler spat at them from under his hood.
“Come on,” Rainy said, still holding his legs. “Let’s go.”
They bundled him through the bushes to the side street where they’d parked the van. Marco jumped behind the wheel while Rainy and Novikov shoved Adler into the back.
“Fuck, Rainy, you said he was crazy, but you didn’t tell us he was a fucking monster,” Marco chattered.
“He stabbed me,” Novikov agreed, giving Rainy a reproachful look.
“Only a little,” Rainy placated, grabbing the handle of the knife and giving it a little tug. Fresh blood sloughed down Novikov’s leg. “Uh, actually, you might want to leave that in.”
Now that his heaving breaths were echoing in the enclosed space, Rainy was feeling the adrenaline surge, the throbbing pain in his groin and his back where he’d fallen on the cement. There was the familiar bite under his skin, the urge to grab and shake and shake and shake until whoever hurt him got their comeuppance. It was like a high.
Rainy looked at Adler on the floor of the van. Smug, sure Adler. Nobody gets the drop on me twice. Well, well, look where we are now. He was struggling against his restraints, trying to work his wrists out. Rainy leaned down and tugged the bag off of his head. Adler blinked for a moment in the light before Rainy’s Colt was pressed to his forehead.
“Hold still,” he ordered.
Adler fell still and looked up at them, eyes cold. As always, he was wearing a trim mid-weight suit. This one was scuffed and stained in places with Novikov’s blood. This was the first time Rainy had seen him up close since the night of the Holister job, and he was just as infuriating as the first time. With his tie untucked and his hair mussed out of its gel, he looked feral. Rainy’s attention snagged on his bottom lip, the way it was a little chapped and chewed in a way he hadn’t noticed before.
“Miss me?” he asked, tracing the muzzle of his gun along it.
Adler’s jaw clenched so tight, Rainy swore he heard a tooth crack. “You need your friends to help you? Can’t face me like a man?”
“Like a soldier, you mean,” Rainy corrected. “You’re in Miami now, sweetheart. You’ve got to learn to play dirty. Not that you’ll get the chance, now.”
“So you got two plays to get your dates home,” Adler drawled, undaunted. “Kidnapping as well as drugging.”
Rainy couldn’t restrain a grin, the high gamboling and doubling back on itself. “I already told you—it was a self-defense roofie. Besides, I was a perfect gentleman. I put you up in a fancy room, watched you the whole time you were sleeping, paid for room service. That’s better aftercare than most could dream of.”
In the front seat, Marco snorted. “That’s adorable.”
Rainy felt himself flush. He hadn’t meant to let that part slip, actually—the intimacy of it felt like a secret meant to be held close to his chest. I watched over you while you were sleeping.
It might have been the new, dim light of the van, or just the new information, but Adler’s scar looked different tonight. More severe. Rainy was now noticing the way the skin was stretched too tight over the right side of his jaw, how the muscles twitched the corner of his mouth up into a facsimile of a smile whenever he squinted. The scar tissue was so thick and stiff; the wound must have been deep. Too deep. It was jagged and curving, nothing of the clean, straight cut of a blade in it, and the edges were marbled with the evidence of old infection.
I watched over you while you were sleeping.
“Did you like the eggs?” Rainy asked.
“Fuck off.”
“Oh, you so did.”
Adler ignored him, sizing up the others. “Novikov and the little Espinosa, I presume.”
Marco saluted from the driver’s seat. “Nice try, asere. Short king and proud.”
“And let me guess, Mister Rainy: by the end of tonight, you think I’ll be dead.”
“Oh, sweetheart, you’ll be more than dead.” Basking in the glow of the hatred that sparked in Adler’s eyes, Rainy pulled out his phone and opened the file that Malia had emailed him, the name and birthday, printed in stark black. “But you fucked with my car. So first, Nathaniel, we’re going to have a little fun.”