by Jaden Wilkes
“This lady,” Dimitri said through gritted teeth, “is a fourteen year old girl. Pal.”
“Then she’s old enough to make her own decisions,” he said to Dimitri, defiance surging up in his eyes.
“Eden, go find your sister,” Dimitri said without taking his eyes off the man. He was enraged, even in the worst part of his life; he wouldn’t fuck around with little girls. Even when Sergei had forced him to care for his sex trafficking ring in Bucharest, he refused to deal with anyone this young. The thought of this greasy fuck laying his hands all over Columbia’s precious little sister was enough for him to see red.
“But it was my choice,” Eden whined and pulled her skirt down, “I wanted Marco to show me around.”
“Marco is an adult, you are not,” Dimitri replied, making his voice low and threatening. Marco didn’t budge, he had big balls, Dimitri would give him that. He was also going to have a fist in his face in about a minute and Dimitri didn’t want Eden to witness this.
“Let the girl stay,” Marco said, “she promised me a blowjob.”
That was enough; Dimitri had reached his boiling point. He pulled his hand back and hauled off to hit Marco in the nose.
He connected with a satisfying crack and Marco backed up, blood pouring through his fingers.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked and glared at Dimitri. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and bundled it up to his nose.
“How could you? Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed!” Eden screamed and started hitting Dimitri with her little fists.
Dimitri grabbed her hands and, with his softest voice, said, “This man is a career player, Eden. He was going to seduce you, possibly rob you and definitely disrespect you. And all for what? Another notch on his bedpost? You are worth more than that, you deserve more.”
“He said I was beautiful, we were going to meet later,” she wailed. Tears slid down her cheeks and her nose began to run. She sniffled and snorted and looked more like a little kid than anything else at the moment.
“Go to your sister,” he told her, “tell her I’ll be right there.”
Eden sniffled again and nodded, looked at Marco and said, “I’ll never forget you.”
Marco’s nose had stopped bleeding and he replied, “Me neither, babe, remember Trajan’s column.”
Eden finally left and Dimitri descended on Marco, lifted the smaller man by his shirt collars and brought him to his face. “Listen, pal,” he said, “you stay the fuck away from kids. If you need to get your dick wet, stick to women, leave the little girls alone. If I find you prowling around again, I’ll fucking twist your neck like a chicken, you got that?”
Marco showed no sign of being afraid. He was an odd man to read, he was clearly in the wrong and clearly the smaller, more vulnerable of the two, but he didn’t. Dimitri did not like this one bit.
“You don’t know who you’re fucking with,” Marco said in Russian, “I’ve got people watching my back, so you’d better step away and forget we ever met.”
“Dimi!” Columbia called to him from the main level. “Where are you?”
Dimitri looked back, saw her coming and dropped Marco. “Just stay the fuck away from little girls, or I will hunt you down like a fucking dog,” he said and turned away.
Columbia was almost hysterical when he got to her, “What happened? Eden is so angry she just left, she stomped her way back to the car. She said you were fucking up some guy in here? Why?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” he said, “let’s just get out of here.” He turned back and Marco was staring at him, then at Columbia. Dimitri didn’t like the look on his face, that of a predator sizing up his prey. It was one thing for the smaller man to try and bluster his way around Dimitri, he knew he could handle Marco with one hand behind his back. But to see him eyeing up his woman, that made his skin crawl.
He forced himself to walk away, to leave the tourist trap and leave Marco unharmed. He fought the urge to rush back, grab Marco by the neck and tear him in two.
He resisted violence because he was determined to make the rest of their vacation as normal as possible.
Little did he realize, their version of normal was almost always bloody and savage.
CHAPTER SEVEN
COLUMBIA
“You were doing what?” Columbia asked Eden, shocked and appalled at her little sister’s loose behaviour. She hadn’t been a virgin at fourteen, but that had never been a choice. She wanted Eden to have that choice, to not go through the horror that Columbia had. To remain pure as long as possible.
“I was having fun, I don’t see what the big fucking deal is,” Eden said, sulking on the low sofa in their hotel suite.
Their rooms encompassed the entire fifth and sixth floors of Rome’s finest hotel. They had a large, open living room overlooking the city, two wide bedrooms, stained glass windows and patios that were double the size of their old house in East Vancouver. The luxury was lost on Columbia as she yelled at her sister.
“Fun is not almost being raped by some old pervert,” she said, “fun is enjoying the sights with your family, shopping, eating and buying tacky souvenir tee shirts. That’s fun.”
“Your idea of fun fucking sucks,” Eden said and stood up, arms crossed over her chest as if to protect herself from Columbia’s onslaught. This made Columbia angrier. She was only concerned, Eden didn’t need to protect herself god damn it.
“Well, I guess it does fucking suck, but you’re not going to run off with some loser on my watch. I can tell you that!”
“What the fuck ever,” Eden replied and stomped off to her room. She slammed the door, a large hand-carved Italian walnut piece of art that lacked that satisfying thud of a cheaper door being slammed. Columbia wondered if Eden sometimes missed their old place too, now those cheap, hollow pressboard doors really made a point.
“She’s being a fucking cunt,” Columbia said, she was almost vibrating with anger.
“I took care of him,” Dimitri said and came up behind her. He nuzzled her neck, nipped it and wrapped his arms around her. Columbia felt her anger melt away as he hit her sweet spot, on the nape of her neck under her thick hair.
“Thank you,” she replied, “it makes me sick to think about the shit she’s getting up to back home though. Do you think my mother has any control? How about Elspeth?”
They had hired a tutor for Eden, Elspeth, who was also a highly paid, well-trained bodyguard. She’d spent every waking moment with Eden, overseeing her and offering guidance where their mother would have failed. Columbia wasn’t quite ready to have Eden living with them full time, their safety was still compromised and she was still an internationally wanted criminal.
“I’m sure she does her best, but she’s fourteen, almost fifteen, right?” Columbia nodded and Dimitri continued, “It’s normal for her to be curious, of course it’s not normal for some pig to be taking advantage of that, but I think Eden’s within the realm of every other kid her age. Not that I know much about kids her age.”
Columbia turned in his arms and laid her head on his chest. She needed him in her life, he was her anchor and her stability and, even if he knew fuck all about fourteen year old girls, he did calm her down. She no longer had the overwhelming urge to follow Eden and kick her snotty ass into next week.
“Can we go to bed?” she asked, “and forget about all of this? I want to let her brood it off for the night and start fresh in the morning.”
“I can’t promise I’ll let you get any sleep,” he said and lifted her into his arms. He strode to their bedroom, across the expansive living room, and nudged the door open with his foot.
He set her down next to the bed and had her stripped in the blink of an eye. Columbia’s head was reeling from the speed in which he attacked her cunt, but once she caught up to his pace, she joined him in their mutual savagery.
*****
Something woke Columbia up. Even though it had almost been two years since she’d killed her stepfather, she still woke often d
uring the night. She’d always had trouble sleeping, knowing he’d come in whenever he wanted and have his way with her.
She tried to relax; to get back to sleep, but an almost indiscernible bump brought her to the surface again. She listened closely, but heard nothing else.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and she’d learned long ago to trust her gut.
She moved away from Dimitri, extracting herself from his strong limbs, not wanting to wake him. He’d worked so hard until after midnight, determined to get inside her as many times as he could. Even now, in his sleep, he reached for her and she saw his cock twitch and swell to hardness.
It flooded her with a sense of power, he wanted her even deep in his dreams, she was present in all parts of him.
She loved him for it.
She would have rolled back into his arms and slid herself along that cock until he woke up inside of her, but she heard one more almost inaudible noise. Just something that didn’t quite belong in the depths of their darkened hotel room.
Slipping her feet into cushy slippers, she walked slowly to their closed door. She pressed her ear against it, listening for any evidence of the noises that had awoken and alarmed her.
Nothing.
She opened the door carefully, there were a couple of low table lamps illuminating the vast space, but she saw nothing amiss. She thought about diving back into bed and grabbing Dimitri’s cock, but something tugged at her, led her into the living room.
There was nothing out of the ordinary.
She decided to check on Eden before she went back to bed, hoping to catch her sister awake so they could talk.
She rapped softly on her door, but got no reply. Eden must be asleep, but Columbia needed to check on her. She used to sneak into Eden’s room when she was a little girl and look at her; fascinated with the peaceful life Eden had lived.
She opened the door and crept towards the bed. A shape rose up on the mattress, but Columbia couldn’t make out head nor tail of it. She pulled the blankets down, just to see Eden’s face, and realized it was a pile of pillows.
Eden wasn’t in her bed.
Alarmed, she called the girl’s name but got no response. She checked the bathroom but it was empty.
Eden was gone.
Columbia rushed into the living room, calling Eden’s name, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. She ran down the stairs, checked the patios, and still saw no sign of her little sister.
She half expected and half prayed each corner she turned or door she opened, Eden would be sitting there with her ear buds in and a snotty look on her face.
She wasn’t.
Finally Columbia went to the front foyer and realized Eden’s favourite twenty-eight eyelet John Fluevog Angel boots were missing.
The little bitch really had taken off. Columbia was terrified and enraged; it was a horrible feeling to be so scared and angry at the same time.
“Dimi,” she cried out in their bedroom, “she’s gone! She left!”
Dimitri sprung up and said, “Who? What’s going on?” He was still half asleep and looked so utterly delicious that part of Columbia resented Eden for the simple fact that she wasn’t getting back into bed and sliding herself all over her man.
“Eden, she took off. She’s not here,” Columbia said, feeling tears creeping into her voice.
“Where did she go? Did she text you? Leave a note?”
“Nothing, I saw nothing and she didn’t let me know anything.”
“That fucking bastard,” Dimitri said, fully awake now. Rage fired up behind his eyes and Columbia caught on immediately.
“That guy from the Colosseum? Where would they go? It’s one in the morning!”
“He said something about Trajan’s Column today, when I was sending her away. They must be meeting up there, but I don’t know where it is.”
“I do. It’s over by the Forum, not far from the Colosseum,” Columbia had read all the guidebooks during the flight over here. “I can’t believe this! That guy’s a fucking pig. We have to go get her Dimi, what if he takes her away?”
“We’ll get her. Get dressed, I’ll call for the car.”
The driver was waiting for them in the front of the hotel when they exited. They slipped in the back seat and told him where to go. Luckily he knew exactly the place, and they didn’t have to focus on the winding streets of Rome.
“I’ll kill her. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill them both,” Columbia said and her hand moved to the knife strapped to her midsection. It was almost a subconscious gesture now, she was so used to feeling it when she needed comfort.
“It probably won’t get to that,” he said and put his hand on her thigh. “As far as we know, he’s just a garden variety scum bag. He just wants to seduce dumb young impressionable tourists, that’s all.”
“Why is it so busy this time of night?” Columbia said, looking at the hundreds of cars ahead of them.
“Rome never sleeps,” Dimitri replied and rubbed her thigh again. She was comforted by his touch, but didn’t want to feel comfort. She needed to be on her toes, keep her edges sharp and ready for anything. She had a bad feeling about this.
“We’re here,” the driver announced a few minutes later.
“Thank you,” Dimitri said and opened the door for Columbia. “Wait for us, please, we won’t be long.”
They went out searching for that familiar neon orange hair, hoping she hadn’t covered it with a hat. Columbia spotted her first and tugged on Dimitri’s arm. “There,” she said and pointed.
They were a few hundred meters away, but she knew her sister anywhere. She stood out in a crowd, not just for her hair; but also for her body language, her movements and gestures.
They ran up behind them and were just in range when Marco stopped and pushed Eden to the ground. Eden looked up surprised and yelled at him with a string of swearwords that put Columbia’s vocabulary to shame.
A van pulled up to the curb, screeching to a halt and the side door opened. It was a non-descript white delivery van, nothing out of the ordinary except for the two men who leapt out.
“Eden!” Columbia screamed and ran faster. Dimitri covered the ground in a few short bounds, his long legs carrying him with almost impossible speed.
Eden struggled to get up but Marco was holding her down, waiting for his partners to drag her into the van. He wasn’t a big man, but he was slightly taller than Eden and outweighed her by quite a bit.
Columbia got there as Dimitri started to pummel the two men from the van. He held one by the collar and hit him around the head while alternating blows on the other man who was trying to free his friend.
She turned on Marco and surprised him with a sharp blow to his exposed throat. It left him coughing and choking, but he didn’t let go of Eden’s arm.
“Fucking bitch, what was that for?” he said in his thickly accented English. She didn’t think he’d picked those words up hanging around with ESL teachers.
“Leave her alone,” Columbia yelled and pulled Eden to her feet. She couldn’t get her away from him, his hand was wrapped around Eden’s forearm.
“She’s mine now, cunt,” Marco said and tightened his grip on Eden’s arm. He tried to move her towards the van, not realizing that his partners were getting their asses kicked by Dimitri.
“I’m not yours, asshole,” Eden said, “I wanted you to take me for a drink, we’re not dating, stalker.”
“I don’t mean date,” Marco replied, “I mean I own you. I owe these fine gentlemen a debt, and you will cover it nicely.
It took Columbia a moment to realize what he was saying; Eden took even longer to process, not having been exposed to the criminal life as Columbia had been.
“She’s my sister and you aren’t taking her anywhere,” Columbia said. She glanced at Dimitri who had one man splayed out on the sidewalk and was currently rearranging the other man’s face with his powerful blows. He would be done shortly, but Marco seemed to be getting more and more agitated.
“Just get in the van, in fact I think I’ll take both of you,” he said and pulled out a handgun, it looked like a nine millimeter to her…very lethal.
She didn’t want to distract Dimitri, so she decided to handle this on her own and let him finish up with the others. The man on the sidewalk was trying to get up, so his attention was already divided.
“Holy fucking shit cunt,” Eden said, “he’s got a fucking gun!”
“Eden, language,” Columbia said, “and yes, I see it too.”
“Get in the van,” Marco said, “I will fucking shoot both you bitches. I can still sell you if you’re breathing. In fact, some men like ‘em half dead.” He leered at them, Columbia shuddered imagining what would have happened had they not made it in time. She ran her hand across her knife sheath under her shirt and undid the clasp at the top. Marco didn’t seem to notice.
“Drop your weapon and I won’t have to kill you,” Columbia said. Her voice was calm, low and smooth. She even surprised herself with how confident she sounded.
“He’s got a gun,” Eden repeated, apparently near hysterics.
“Just get in the van,” Marco said, “don’t make me repeat myself or I’ll shoot.”
“I don’t think you’ll make it,” she said and in one swift movement, she removed her knife and slashed upwards. She connected with Marco’s neck, blood began to spray from the open wound and his eyes grew wide with shock.
As she passed his neck, she took her other hand and knocked the gun from his grip, taking advantage of the shock he would feel when the knife made contact. It felt like slow motion to her, but she knew it all happened very fast.
“Columbia!” Eden screamed as Marco fell away, clutching his neck as his life’s blood spurted out with each heartbeat. “Not again…what did you do?”
“Let’s go,” Columbia said and took her hand, leading her away from the scene. Dimitri had managed to smash both men down and they lay in crumpled heaps on either side of him. He looked for her, saw Marco and saw them leaving. He caught up with them and took Eden’s other arm. They made it back to the car, got in and commanded the driver take them back to the hotel.
