Page 16 of Capo

Six

Luciano

Chloe Becker stepped into my office. Pretty women rarely come to my house uninvited, so that was a pleasant surprise. Especially since that means I won’t have to go looking for her.

She’s not particularly pretty right now. Her long, blonde hair is an unwashed, tangled mess. Her face is blue and swollen, she can only open one eye properly, the other only opens a sliver. Her lip has a scab over a wound, and that laceration in her eyebrow is bound to leave a scar.

I saw her picture a few days ago, though, when the plan was to eliminate her, and she’s a real beauty. She’s hiding away behind a desk job, and not even in a workplace with colleagues, but in her own home. She also used to work at the daycare my son attended a couple of years back. I had Matteo dig a little and couldn’t find anything on her. It’s as if she came from nowhere and it intrigues me. People don’t just appear out of nothing. She’s decidedly American, and there’s got to be something, birth certificate, driver’s license, hospital bills, old addresses. Something.

Having her standing before me, broken, but not beaten suddenly makes me want to see what it will take to completely bring her down.

When she undresses, wincing with every move, uncovering a sexy, lacy bra holding a fantastic rack, and a bandage covering bruises I need to see, my cock reacts on its own accord. Her pain transfers to my groin, her humiliation and forced submission hits me like a freight train running through my chest.

I picture pushing her to her knees and am just about to act on that impulse when I realize it’s time for business. Other business.

I smirk as I push the intercom and tell Ivan to bring in the first. Chloe stiffens, her breath hitching, but doesn’t dare to move. I slapped her without holding back, and I know my palm hurt her ass cheek like a bitch. She’ll obey. She also thinks I’ll bring in a line of grimy men to fuck her until she bleeds and begs, and still she stands there. She’s incredibly dumb if she thinks I had a bunch of men standing by to come in here and do her, but whatever. This will be fun.

My almost-friend, and second in command, Eric has asked to see me and I’m curious as to what he has to say. He was out of the country for a couple of months, got back a week ago. We haven’t had a chance to talk yet. I don’t micromanage him, so I don’t know what he’s been up to.

I fall down on my chair and put my hands behind my head, studying the girl as I wait for my partner. She’s tall. Her thighs are muscular and end with a perfectly rounded ass. With that athletic body it looks as if she’s a runner, maybe she even lifts because the lean muscles playing on her back and arms are well defined. My legs tense as I’m about to get up and rip off that annoying bandage around her chest when the door opens, and Eric Reed enters. I relax again and take him in. He’s tanned, impeccably dressed in a dark gray three-piece suit, as he almost always is. His dirty-blond hair has grown and he looks a bit rough around the edges.

His eyes dart to the naked woman and then back to me as his eyebrows shoot up on his forehead. I wave dismissively. “Sit.”

Eric falls into the chair on his side of the desk. “New plaything? Seems it got a bit rough.”

I glance over at Miss Becker again. She has her back to us and looks an absolute mess. I bet she’d be unrecognizable healed. Sadly she won’t ever heal. She won’t live long enough.

“Ignore her.”

“Luci, I can’t talk shop with some stranger in the room.”

“She won’t be alive to tell. Now what have you been up to?”

The girl flinches and is about to turn.

“Don’t move one fucking inch,” I growl. “I won’t hesitate to add to those wounds. You’ll beg to have Christian have a go at you instead.”

She whimpers but stays in position, her obvious fear transfers straight to my cock. I smother the grin that wants to break through and clear my throat, looking back to Eric who straightens.

“Right,” he says, “I’ve spent some time in Moscow.”

It’s my turn to raise my eyebrows. “Go on.”

“The Russians have had an annoying habit of sneaking into our cities in the south, joining with rogue Mexican dealers and dumping the prices.”

“Coke?”

The girl flinches again. I frown.

“Weapons,” says Eric. “Kalashnikovs.”

“And who’s buying? What’s the distribution chain?”

“Local small-time gangsters. Mainly Latinos. It’s a war. It’s a mess. They have a short life span expectancy down there. Kids assemble the shit, a few pieces here and there, too few to get cop eyes on them.”

Chloe jerks again, as if she wants to chime in, making me glance over at her. I almost want her to disobey because, fuck me, I’d slap that sore ass before I circle my fingers around her throat and fuck her raw. Pulling myself back to the conversation, I turn back to Eric. “Who collects?”

“You’re fucking distracted, Luci. This a bad time?”

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