Page 40 of Kinknapped

Well, that factsurprised me. "Okay, Casanova, how do we get footage of Jamie confessing?"

"Why don't you leave that to me?" A wicked gleam spread over her face. "You just focus on communication with Mr. Carnelli."

"I'll make a call." I grabbed the burner phone. Before pointing to the living room where Talon's sat on the coffee table. "Can you grab me Tal's phone from in there? I can’t move well, but I bet he has the number because he sends finished photos."

“OMG! When she said she broke your duck it wasn’t a euphemism!” She cackled but understood why I asked her to run to the other room.

She did, and I found the number. I made the call with a voice scrambler, asking him to give me a day to get proof he'd been betrayed. He'd only give me until six in the evening, so twenty-two hours to save my loved ones and pin the kidnapping on Valentino himself. It gave us a three-hour window after the money came to pin him with the crime once he learned who was at fault. That part he wouldn't see coming. He only agreed because I said I could save his son from going down for murder, so I had to do that, but I knew exactly what to do. I never dumped the cremated remains into the forest like Tal asked me, so we just had to plant them on the man we were currently running surveillance on.

Chapter 26

Talon

"Mm." I tried to rouse, but my body felt like I died and someone kept reviving me to feel my death again. I wanted to die to be free of this, but every time I drifted away, something pulled me back. And that something?

"He needs help, you shit heads!"Little Diva?Her voice kept finding me in my small bouts of consciousness. She became my tether, my reminder that I couldn't give up. No matter how much pain and numbness took over, I had to stay alive for her. If I died, they'd kill her without a second thought. And Kage... he'd been taken too.

"Mmmm," I tried speaking his name, but something covered my mouth. My dry tongue could barely lift to swipe the fabric tying through my mouth, but I knew I'd been gagged.

"Don't speak, Daddy. Reserve your energy. I'll deal with these incompetent fools until one of them listens to me." Little Diva's words reached my soul. I felt myself about to slip again, but she kept yelling loud enough to keep me alert. She kept me from the forever fade. "If someone doesn't come in here right now, I'm going to start screaming about all the female knowledge men hate to hear about! I'll start with periods and bodily fluids you don't want to have sex with! I'll ruin your ears to never touch a vagina again, and trust me, I'm being serious!"

"Do you ever shut up?" an accented voice replied. My eyes opened briefly to see Valentino's son, Contessa. He was the youngest and far from brightest son, so it made sense he'd been handed babysitting duty.

"Nope. A woman's mind is linked to her ovaries. Some believe the uterus, but the ovaries help with our hormones. My ovaries are fueling me with estrogen, and that estrogen is telling me to keep talking until you find someone to fix him, now!" There went more of her precious rambling, trying to sound smart, but she'd only confuse this man. He probably believeda woman's mind connected there after she said it.

"I'm not allowed to touch him. A slow death from bleeding out fits his crime."

"His crime?" she scoffed. "He's not the one out murdering people. You want to talk about crimes? How many has your family killed? You sick fucks!"

He growled, but before he could get to her, a door opened. "Contessa! Change of plans. Your father has decided to be kind and give them one day to see if they speak the truth about being framed. Our men are out trying to find the man who was in charge of watching the job finish. Get the doctor to patch him until we get word to kill him."

"But he's missing!" Contessa growled, impatient to get his way. He'd be just as lethal as his brother one day.

"Orders are orders! Doctor, now!"

Contessa didn't like being told what to do, but he knew his father would skin him alive if he didn't listen. He crouched in front of me, and I opened my eyes to see his outline. "Luck is on your side, tonight, Cleaner, but I don't think it'll last another day."

My mind tried to think about why Valentino changed his mind, but I couldn’t conjure reasoning. The sluggish pace my mind ran at only told me I'd been kissed by death. Contessa chose then to jam his finger into my bullet wound. The sudden onset of new pain had my world going black again.

Leopold

"Okay, I slipped a knife in your coat pocket if you need it," I murmured.

"I told you, I don't need you to babysit me. I have this in the bag." She strutted to the motel door, shaking out her nerves before knocking in her trench coat and hot pink bobbed wig. She overdid her makeup to sell being a call girl, but she nailed the look to get her in. Her hands unfastened the jacket, and I prayed there wasn't a mirror for me to avoid seeing anything. I knew better than to ask if she wore clothes under the long coat she wore because she mentioned heading to an orgy on the phone. I only had eyes for one girl.

Luce's hand raised, rapping against the dingy wood. She wore my camera as a glued stud near her eye, and it blended with her other ones perfectly. She spent thirty minutes perfecting her look, but I'd say it played an important role for this. Someone came to the door, opening to see who found him I could see the terror in his eyes when he thought it'd be Valentino, but he softened when it was a whore.

"Hey, there. You ordered me?" she cooed, stroking his arm.

"Excuse me?" His eyes followed her movements.

"You paid for the hour, right? Room 218?" Her eyes went to the number, giving him a choice to deny it or let her in to spend someone else's money. By his eyes, we knew he'd pick her.

"Hell yeah, I did!" He opened the door wider. What an idiot. Like his enemy wouldn't send in a decoy to get his guard down?

"Do you have a specific fantasy?" she purred when the man began undoing his belt.

"Um, I don't know. I've never role played. What do men usually ask for? Or what would you like?" His giddiness was jarring.

---