by Ace Gray
“Simone couldn’t watch that. He preyed on young girls, thirteen to twenty-something. He’d parade in his new crop and do any number of things to them. Then they were doped up, at the mercy of him and Siobhan’s twisted desires. And that was the easiest part to stomach. If they lived, they were sold to any number of places for God only knows what reason. Based on the things I saw, I like to think it was an improvement.”
The night I’d walked in to find two young girls attached to Siobhan’s tits flashed in my mind. They hadn’t been given the sick choice like the rest of us and that automatically made the scene all the more gruesome. I had to choke back the thick disgust.
“Simone stole the transit ledger. It has the details of where they were picked up, where they were sent, how… Apparently, it has the financials to go along with it.”
“Apparently?”
“It disappeared before I saw. The day Simone was killed for taking it.”
The room was thick with a pain and grief bigger than the death of Simone Laroux and the sick and twisted moves of Mickey Maloney. All four of us were hardened men but Vinny had been right, this was a deeper form of wrong. It didn’t sit well. It flew in the face of monsters, hunting monsters.
“How are you all involved?” I asked as I looked from Vinny to Nonno and back.
“We heard the rumblings so we edged in but you know as well as we do what sticking your nose across the boundary lines will get you.”
“Yeah, your head cut off.” I looked down at my fingers and started picking at my nails.
“But then my sister went missing,” Vinny snarled and I looked up. The fury in his eyes was a reflection of the torment inside me and I was glad to see him human rather than Italian. “A Giancomo doesn’t go missing. If she couldn’t fight her way out, she would have left a trail. No one in this family just disappears.”
I knew exactly what he meant. They were just too high profile for things to slip through the cracks. Especially the dirty filthy cracks of the floorboards where things like murder and kidnapping laid thick.
“We started digging. Of course, it led to Mickey but we also found Simone. She had a plan to the tune of half a million to retrieve most of the girls that she’d been able to find. She had a journal entry, number 523476 that seemed like Giovanna.”
“But then they killed her and the book disappeared.” The odd puzzle was finally making sense. Jimmy nodded, his frown growing deeper as his brow furrowed.
“They want Elle because they assume she has the ledger.” His voice was muffled in his hands but it was still a knife straight to my heart. The scenarios I’d been imagining were just based on Mickey’s simple repayment plan.
“We want the ledger to get Giovanna back,” Vinny added. “Are you gonna help us or help him?”
My head fell into my palms and I tried to catch my breath. I would do anything for Elle, that wasn’t a question, but the weight of what that anything actually was, was daunting. I rubbed my face for a moment before I thought of a way to split the heavy silence.
“She doesn’t have the ledger.” I took a mental inventory of everything Elle had strewn about my apartment. The things that Siobhan had likely rooted through at this point. Nothing could be mistaken for a handwritten folio.
“Maybe she’s hiding it from you?” Nonno asked. I had to keep from screaming at him.
“Not the way we work,” I still snarled. “If she had it, I’d know.”
“Then there are only two questions, Cole.” Vinny took a deep breath. “Where is it and are you going to help us find it?”
31.
Elle
Loneliness hit me like a sucker punch to the stomach when I woke up. Cole wasn’t next to me, the soft indent of his body hadn’t even lingered. Without even his scent hanging on the sheets, the events of the evening fell way too hard on me.
Sometimes this was still too much. The world had turned upside down and I didn’t know how to right it. Ever since that damned funeral…
Just the thought made me realize. The world hadn’t turned upside down, it had finally fallen back into the spot it was always meant to be, with me mixed up in the shit storm of the Maloney family.
“Goddamnit, Simone,” I cursed my mother as I pounded my fists onto the mattress at my hips.
Conrad would understand this new wave of anger and commiserate with me until Cole reappeared and chased the demons away.
I wrapped the sheet around my body and left the bedroom in search of Horse and Conrad in the small living room. A t-shirt flew past my face almost smacking me when I stepped toward the couch.
“He kissed you. While you were inside of me,” Conrad shrieked.
“You grabbed his dick while he was inside of me too,” Horse countered.
“That was different.” Conrad whipped on his shirt.
“How so?” Horse buttoned his jeans.
“The way he…” Conrad’s cheeks were flushed even in the pale light. “I mean with a voice like that…”
I couldn’t hold back my smile at the reference to Cole or what had happened hours ago.
“You wanted it. You wanted in with us. You wanted it exactly the way Cole said,” Horse spat as he crossed his arms over his barrel chest.
“So what if I did? Apparently fucking anything that walks, together, is kind of a thing around here.”
I pursed my lips at Conrad even though I doubted he’d noticed I’d appeared.
“How is that different than Cole kissing me on the way out the door.”
“You used me!” Conrad threw his hands up. “You want to fuck him. You want to be dominating him. But he won’t let you so I’m just a cum dumpster.”
With a flick of imaginary long hair and a dramatic twirl, Conrad spun out of the room, the door slamming hard behind him.
“Fuck!” Horse roared.
“Well don’t just stand there, go get him,” I urged.
“I don’t know where my shirt or my shoes are,” he whined.
“So hurry.” I shot him a wide-eyed look and pointed toward the door.
He hesitated a second then bolted, flipping the lock bar so the door crashed loudly into it without shutting.
I laughed a little at the reunion I pictured in my head, Horse riding in as a knight in shining armor, well, glowing tanned skin, to force Conrad back to the room. Conrad would probably swoon in his arms. I went to grab water in the bathroom so that I could have a front row seat for the Officer and a Gentleman-style carry.
The metal scraped against metal as I rounded back into the living room and I looked up expectantly.
“No,” I murmured when an evil smile glinted in the moonlight rather than either of the big beaming ones I was expecting.
“My reputation precedes me?” Siobhan’s voice was like the hiss of a snake. Probably exactly like the one that tempted Eve into original sin. “Yes?” she asked again when I stayed frozen. “Good, yours does too.”
She walked in with swishy hips as she placed one sharply pointed toe directly in front of the other. Her long pointed nail dragged down the wallpaper as she slithered toward me. I automatically took a step back.
“Matter of fact, I’m quite interested in what the fuss is all about. I mean you’ve got a queen and an animal all worked up down the hall.” She nodded her head toward the elevator. “And thank goodness for those two or I may never have found you.” She took another few steps toward me and I thudded into the wall behind me.
“And then there’s Cole,” she pressed herself up again me. “Beautiful, tragic, savage monster that he is.” She brought her lips together and hummed like she was eating a delicious dessert.
“Don’t you dare talk about him,” I growled through gritted teeth.
“You’re not in a position to make requests.” She drug her nail down my cheek and my hands flew to bat her away.
The sheet dropped from my body and her eyes glinted.
“Well, that’s certainly got something to do with it.” She reached out to cup my b
reasts.
“Don’t touch me.” I squirmed and shoved against her.
“Oh honey. I think I’m going to touch every inch before I take you to Mickey.”
I turned to run but she shoved her hand out, clotheslining me and forcing me to stumble back. Before I even had a chance to steady myself one of those terrible heels crashed down on the back of my knee. I cried out and crumpled to the floor.
“I like it when you scream.” Her voice was laced with lust as she fisted my hair and started pulling.
I screamed. I couldn’t stop as she yanked me toward the bedroom, me scrambling both to keep up and get her off me.
“Yes!” she cried out. “That gets me so wet.”
“You’re disgusting,” I shouted as I dug my fingers into hers and wildly kicked at her legs.
“Yes,” she whispered as she leaned down and curled her nails into my head. My scream pierced the air the way she was piercing my skin. “I’m the spawn of Satan himself and you’d do well to remember it.” Her tongue shot out and licked up my cheek. “MMMmmm, you taste like cherries.”
She threw my body to the floor and almost instantly had her legs straddling my shoulders. I writhed and kicked and screamed beneath her but it didn’t do me any good. Her satanic strength was so encompassing, she was able to wrangle my arms underneath her shins.
“Buck my little buttercup, buck.” Her voice was a mix of encouragement and lust.
Siobhan’s cat-like fingernails scraped down my cheeks before she brought them to her lips.
“Even cherry tears,” she purred. “No wonder everyone’s making idiotic decisions.”
I hadn’t even realized I was crying but I wasn’t ashamed I was. She was unrelenting and the way her wicked smile hung on her lips or pure evil danced in her eyes, was bone-chilling.
Or so I thought until the cool barrel of a gun pressed to my forehead. That’s when my insides turned to ice.
“Don’t think I won’t. With you out of the way, everything becomes so much easier. No one to chase around, no one to hide the ledger.” She rolled her eyes as she spoke. “I imagine your corpse will put up less of a fight when Mickey fucks you too.”
“No,” I screamed an awful, blood-curdling scream. How no one had heard us I didn’t know.
“No to death or no to Mickey?” She bent down. “Because both are inevitable for you, buttercup.”
“Stop calling me buttercup!” My words were as violent as the way I fought against her.
She cocked the pistol. “I’ll call you my bitch up until the moment I call you Mick’d. Do you understand?” She shoved the metal deeper into my skin.
The tears started to pour faster as she started to ruck up her skirt. Once the pencil skirt was up around her hips, her pussy was on display, every bit as wet as she’d claimed it to be. She shuffled against me, notching herself onto my face. I tried to twist away, side to side, anywhere.
“That feels nice but I want you to lick it.”
I screamed but this time it was muffled by her thighs.
“Lick it!” she bellowed and shoved her hips down onto my mouth. “Tell me what I taste like.”
“No,” I cried out again and this time she shifted so that her clit brushed my lips.
“There you go, buttercup. Come on.” She writhed her hips all the more wildly on me.
We’d found some sick and fucking twisted rhythm as I went insane beneath her and she humped my face. My cheeks were wet from the never-ending tears and her salty slickness.
She pitched forward, her legs still firmly trapping my arms as she lowered on her forearms to the floor above my head. Mercifully the gun wasn’t against my skin anymore.
“You’re going to tongue me until I come or I’m dragging your corpse out of here.” She made eye contact with me as she spewed her venom.
Then she twisted so she could place the barrel at my temple and all but shoved her clit between my lips.
“Lick it,” she commanded. “I said lick it you little bitch.” She shoved both the gun and herself harder against me. “LICK IT!”
The tears kept pouring down my face, the panic welling in my throat was making it hard to breathe. Deep in my bones, I felt my death coming. Conrad had been right. This wasn’t a fairytale where Cole charged in. This was a moment in time where I was forced to fuck a monster and then bleed out on the soft gray carpet.
I was operating on pure self-preservation as my tongue made a point and moved up toward Siobhan’s skin. First I tentatively tapped her clit trying to get away with a barely there touch.
“Lick. Make me come or die.” She made sure I could see her arched eyebrow and evil smirk. “I may come when I kill you anyway. If you lick it we may not find out.”
This time she just shoved the barrel roughly into my head.
I surrendered and flattened my tongue to her. She let out a long low moan. The tears poured harder and harder down my cheeks but I didn’t stop. She kept pushing the gun harder and harder into me like that was a natural response to an impending orgasm.
“Tell me how I taste. Do I taste like cherries?” She lifted her hips just the tiniest bit from me.
“You taste like fucking fish!” I screamed and jerked beneath her.
“For that, you’re gonna tongue my ass or die trying.” She swatted her claws across my face and I felt the warmth of blood trickle down my cheek the same way I had when she’d clawed into the back of my head. Tears mixed with the blood as she adjusted her hips so that her backside rested just above my lips.
“Tongue…” her screamed command was cut short by the wispy crinkle of a plastic trash bag.
She jerked above me and the gun slid from my temple. A moment later she bucked back up on top of me but this time it was her struggling on top of me rather than anything pleasure fueled. She screamed but it was cut off by the same crinkle of a bag.
A second later, she was almost levitating off of me. The moment I was free, I shot backward, desperate to get away from her. Her face was distorted behind a thin sheet of plastic and a big familiar hand covered her nose and mouth. She tried to scream again but the plastic was shrinking down and suctioning to her face. It was as tight to her neck as the belt had been on mine earlier.
My mouth fell open as I watched her struggle. Slowly but surely she moved from wildly twisting to desperate flop. When she went limp, the hands around her neck simply shifted to press into her flesh and check her pulse. The second he was satisfied, Horse tossed her to the floor and barreled at me.
“Fucktart? Elle? Are you okay?” He gathered me up and cradled me to his chest.
I was gasping for air, but I was fixated on her body. She’d had so much fight, so much spunk, but now she was nothing. She was just as inanimate as the coffee table.
The tears started all over again and I buried myself into Horse’s warm beating heart.
“What just happened?” Conrad’s voice was trembling behind us.
Horse reached back and squeezed his hand. I lifted up just desperate to see his face, leaving blood and glistening tears smeared across Horse’s chest. The three of us shared a look that wasn’t just heavy, it was terror. A very real, very life altering fear.
“Conrad, we just killed someone.”
32.
Cole
“Fairmont Millennium Park, right?” The cabby cleared his throat from the front seat, finally drawing me from my thoughts.
“Yeah. Sorry.” I shook my head, trying to shake Elmwood Park from my brain.
The Giancomos could have blown my brains out and my thoughts would have been less scrambled. I mean, Jimmy was a good guy? The Giancomos wanted my help? Obviously this tornado had landed my house in fucking Oz.
I threw cash at the driver and stepped out into the silent late night. Even the city at four a.m. was quiet. Quiet enough that the buzz of my cell startled the valet dozing at the stand. I pulled it out to silence it as I smiled a thin smile in apology. The notifications caught my eye.
Fourteen missed c
alls. And all from Horse.
There was no real reason for Horse to call unless… Unless something had gone really fucking sideways.
I shoved on the revolving door and bolted down the hallway, whoever was around and whatever they thought be damned. I skidded on the freshly polished marble in front of the elevator getting stupidly annoyed at the floor guy the same way I had at the cabbie. My gaze pinched in his direction and I vividly pictured throttling him out of pure panic.
Instead I took my aggression out on the elevator up button, desperate to get back to them. To her. Because deep down I knew Elle was the only reason he’d call fourteen times.
When the elevator took forever, I turned and slammed into the stairwell door and started running. Flight after flight after flight. They seemed to be stretching out like that sketch study on perspective where you couldn’t figure out where the stairs began or where they ended because it was just a fucked up loop.
I screamed when I reached yet another landing and the feral sound ping-ponged off the concrete of the stairwell.
I’d crawl across worse.
My words from earlier tonight came back to me and singlehandedly started shoving me up the stairs. Mercifully the door finally appeared to our floor and I busted out, barely breaking stride as I barreled toward her.
Well, the room. Automatically I tried the door and it was locked just as it should be but I shook it wildly anyway. When it didn’t give my fists flew to the door and punched, bellowing again.
“Shut the fuck up and calm the fuck down,” Horse growled as he whipped open the door.
“What happened, why did you call me a thousand times?” My shoulders were heaving up toward my ears with deep, heavy breaths.
“I said calm down.” He grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me into the room.
When the door shut behind me, my eyes had to adjust to the dim lighting. Only the city beneath us cast shadows across the space. That didn’t stop me from finding my Ladyface where she was cuddled on Conrad’s lap. My heartbeat stopped and a searing pain shot through my side.
