A Wanted Woman Part 24

"Mature men. Just not as ripe as you."

"It's your call, Reaper."

"Good night."

"Ridgeview Estates, if you change your mind."

He climbed on the Jet Ski and took to the sea, cut across waves, vanished in the darkness. I tingled. Aroused. Wet. Was tempted to kiss him for real, kiss him and jack him off, make him come for kicks. I was good at that, masturbating men, making them feel so good they came so fast, a way to avoid f.u.c.king them. It was a necessary skill in my line of work. I wouldn't have fake-f.u.c.ked him.

Tonight I would've gone for the real thing. Tonight I needed the real thing.

I strolled across the congested car park to my Ducati.

My cellular rang. Felt it vibrating in my jacket pocket.

I answered, "MX-401."

"Where are you?"

"Why are you calling at this hour? Miss me? Hemorrhoids flaring up?"

"It's not because you're in our good graces."

"You're not in mine. Got my pa.s.sport and money by any chance?"

"We only call for one reason."

"Don't do this to me. Please." I took a hard breath. "I can't go back out on another job."

"You are needed, MX-401. When you are needed, you will go to work."

"Anywhere but here. Job after f.u.c.kin' job. I need to be in motion. Get me off of this island."

"You don't get to choose where you work. You go where you are a.s.signed to go."

"I am willing to work, but I will not work here. Never again."

"Are you running RCSI? Are you a CEO?"

"I have earned an M and an X. Not many men have done that."

"So the f.u.c.k what?" Are you a five-star general of the Barbarians?"

"Get me to high ground. I heard the LKs have a group a.s.signed to finding me."

"How would you hear that?"

"They find me, then they find the Barbarians."

"Are you threatening the organization?"

"Get me off of this island. North Pole. South Pole. Get me out of LK range."

"Are you not still employed by the Barbarians?"

"I quit."

"You really want to do that? Say it again and I will make it happen."

I paused.

He said, "Say it. I will walk to the double red doors and repeat, then it will be official."

His tone was dark, it was brutal, a promise, a threat to cut my throat, maybe pull the plug and leave me in Barbados on my own, maybe direct the LKs toward me if I remained disobedient.

He barked, "Say it, MX-401."

I felt the veins trying to explode in my neck. I imagined my blade easing into his rib cage.

He said, "Say it for the record. Say you want out. Quit. This call is being recorded."

He dared me. In the tone of an unreachable bully, he dared me to jump. Eyes wide, anger so hard, so monstrous that not being able to set it free left me unable to blink, and not blinking had my eyes tearing, I looked out at the dark waters, then scowled toward Trinidad.

Breathing heavily, talking through my teeth I said, "Let's do this."

"Are we okay?"

"Send the f.u.c.king package. You want me to kill everyone in Barbados, fine."

"Yes or no. This call is being recorded for your convenience."

"Yes."

"Repeat response for verification."

"Send the f.u.c.kin' next a.s.signment."

"It's on the gallery at the safe house. It's been there for five hours."

"Who encroached on my s.p.a.ce without notification?"

"If you had been there, if you had followed your instructions, then you would know."

"If I had been there, they would have ended up dead. Be glad that I wasn't."

"Where are you?"

"None of your f.u.c.kin' business."

"Who are you with?"

"I'm alone. It's hot. I went for a drive to cool off."

"A five-hour drive?"

"I got lost."

"How big is that island again?"

"I was bored and hot. I rode up the highway to a place called Casa Grande. Went bowling, played video games, shot basketball, rode the b.u.mper cars, then drove mini race cars on the track."

"That wasn't authorized. You are not there to interact with anyone. Understand that."

I looked at my helmet, frowned at the hole from the bullet, from my almost-death.

He said, "From now on, don't vanish any longer than it takes you to take a s.h.i.t."

"I get constipated, so that takes a very long time."

"Know when to shut the f.u.c.k up, Reaper. Know when to shut it down."

"The drug bust. The cricketer. Now another one. Why are there so many missions here?"

"Just do what you are told when you are told and how you are instructed."

"If someone from the group left a package, then I'm not in Barbados alone."

"Do not leave the island."

"Why would someone else from RCSI be here in Barbados?"

"From now until the end, stay at the safe house as ordered."

"Is someone watching me? I will f.u.c.kin' shoot first and ask questions later."

I was talking to myself.

The Barbarians had yanked my chain, riled me, then killed the call while I ranted.

TWENTY-SIX.

Stilettos clicking across concrete, Diamond Dust dropped a stack of photos, images of the Kiwi, let them fall. Then she looked at everything that had been taken from the Kiwi's safe house, information on all of them. Someone on the inside had given the Kiwi much information. Diamond Dust felt that this confirmed her worst fear. She stormed out of the room, left the warehouse, jaw tight, eyes watering, angered. His voice echoed when her brother called her name. He called her name as loud as he could.

She had told him good-bye. With a soft kiss to his swollen face, she had told her twin brother good-bye. She had wiped blood from his brow and said that she would see him on the other side.

Until then she would remember him as a little boy, as Neziah De Lewis.

Neziah hadn't had any sleep for days.

Appaloosa and a crew of guntas had dragged him out of his bed at three in the morning, had raped his wife as he watched, and then had put a bullet in his wife's head, made him watch her die, then beat him unconscious, put a black bag over his head, threw him in a van, left their newborn baby crying in an adjacent room, then transported him shackled and naked to the NIPDEC Warehousing Complex.

They were at First Avenue and Western Main Road, Chaguaramas, an area situated on 2.7 hectares. That was 6.7 acres of land. From there, screaming was futile.

War Machine had given the order.

King Killer was kept naked, bound, and hung upside down, Saint Peter without the cross.

He had been used as a two-hundred-pound boxing bag, had been kicked and beaten beyond recognition, had p.i.s.sed and shat on himself until he couldn't p.i.s.s and s.h.i.t anymore.

Appaloosa told him that they had his baby in the next room.

Unless he told the truth, they would kill the baby in front of him.

He was a dead man.

It was just a matter of how much he loved his seed.

Most of his teeth now gone, one eye swollen shut, the other gouged out, and he cried in a barely audible voice, a tone of extreme exhaustion, cried and told them once again that he didn't know anything, that he had met her, that she was a Kiwi, a businesswoman from New Zealand, a married woman in Trinidad on a short business trip, that he had met Samantha Greymouth at Rituals that morning and later that evening he had picked her up from the Hilton and taken her to the gathering.

He said, "She told me to call her Sam, as all of her friends did."

Enraged guntas screamed in his face, said the New Zealand company that she had used as a front employed a woman named Samantha Greymouth, but she had never left New Zealand, and the b.i.t.c.h was in her thirties, fat like a cow, and nine months' pregnant. Without alerting the rest of the men, Diamond Dust had sent someone to New Zealand only to find out it wasn't the right woman.

War Machine said, "Cousin, it pains me to do this."

"Let me talk to . . . to Diamond Dust one more time."

"The Kiwi sandbagged us and you were the one to bring her into the fold. Because of you, because of your incompetence, she was able to conceal, to misrepresent her true position, mask her potential, shadow her intent, and take advantage of us and make us look like fools. Because of you, she was able to hide the truth about herself and gain an advantage over our organization."

"Please . . . cousin . . . Jeren . . . please."

"Don't call me by that name. Jeren stopped existing when I became War Machine."

"Please. I beg you."

War Machine looked down at the blood beneath his battered cousin, then raised his head and looked at his cousin's unrecognizable face and said, "We do to you as you have stood by my side and done to others. If I had been weak, you would have stood next to the guntas and done the same to me."

Guntas took out the swords, large daggers like those used by ancient Illyrians, Thracians, and Dacians. Thirty inches long and made of hardened steel. They rested their sica arena swords on open flames. One by one they laid the burning blade on his flesh. On his shriveled c.o.c.k. On his shriveled b.a.l.l.s.

For the thousandth time, War Machine's cousin choked on his blood and saliva.

War Machine said, "She killed two brothers. Someone has to pay. It starts with you."