Page 58 of O'Mega's Revenge
The Surgeon made a fatal mistake then. He glanced at the woman at his side. The madam who had treated Missile and I with such contempt.
I shook my head. “Instead of focusing on the past so much, you should have paid more attention to your present.”
Her gasp of outrage was lost on me. I didn’t care. I focused my entire attention on the Surgeon. “I pity you. I know that’s not what you want from me, but it is all you’ll get. We’re taking Missile with us, and you can go fuck yourself.”
“Not so fast.” Nonno put an arm on mine. He didn’t hesitate before he addressed the Surgeon.
“You fucked up. Your, or your hench-woman’s, little stunt upstate got attention. They don’t trust you to stay dead now that they know you’re back. I called it in, and it was agreed that you’re a problem. This little show?” Nonno motioned at the room.
“It only proves you got in over your head. Which means if any of you and yours come sniffing around my business again, all of my business, it’s war. And I already got approval from above to carry it out.”
“Right-o mate.” Jackson affected a poor accent to voice his agreement. He stepped away from the buffet, arms swinging and guns drawn.
Fell came out of my shadow with her knife. She grabbed the madam as a shield pushing the edge against the delicate flesh of her throat. Unlike my ill-fated positioning, Fell’s blade pressed right over the pulsing arteries.
Missile stomped on one of her captor’s shoes with her stilettos and broke the hold on her. In a flash, she caught one in the groin, causing them to double over, and the other quickly followed him to the floor, clutching his junk in pain.
Jackson had two guns trained on the guy by the elevator, uncaring of the Mexican standoff that had set into motion with the remaining staff. Nonno begrudgingly pulled out his own gun and pointed it at the lackeys trained on Jackson.
But the lynch pin in this was the small gun Wolf had slipped me while we fucked. I held the tiny weapon on the Surgeon.
“My demands are simple. Forget I exist. Forget your plans and stay dead. Otherwise, I will finish what I started. Nonno isn’t the only one with an army. You made an enemy of the Devil’s Handmaidens. And there are more than just a handful of us. So, forget.”
The anger inside me made my voice hard. It strained my throat to finish.
His grin was macabre. “I see you remembereverythingI taught you.”
The echoes of his cackle haunted me as we took the elevator to the ground floor. Jackson recalled his men as Fell gave Trot the green light.
“I don’t see why we couldn’t kill him.” Missile tossed her shoes into the SUV and ranted about how easy it would have been.
“Did you get a good look at him? He is on his way O.U.T.” Fell slipped in beside me, sandwiching me between them. Jackson took the driver’s side, and Nonno took the passenger seat after surveying the street as if it were a kingdom he ruled.
But someone was missing.
“Where’s Wolf?”
Chapter Thirteen
“Son of a bitch! No one saw it.” Jackson paced as he waited for the next check-in from his men.
“Good news, Sprout got the tracker on the Surgeon’s van.”
“Where is it now?” I tried to contain my nerves by running through scenarios and checking statuses. All while keeping a running list of details chugging through my thoughts. Anything to distract me from the empty hole gouged into my heart.
Fell pulled up the digital map of eastern Pennsylvania. I’d already marked all the company properties and residences connected with the plates I caught at the equestrian center. That property had also been traced and mapped with blue pins rather than red. I wasn’t certain if the company that owned that location was truly connected or not. The property was still operating during the day while the auction company sorted out an estate sale. The caretakers were from a reputable firm. One that would take forever to trace to any one client. We focused on the most local properties available as short-term rentals and of a certain class that the Surgeon appreciated.
My knowledge of his former habits, compared with the information from Nonno’s network populated too many choices. Ones we’d weed out as soon as we got a fix on the van.
“Gladwyne,” one of Jackson’s men confirmed.
“Either the postmodern tri-level or the Normandy estate,” I said, scanning the listings within that section.
Both had impressive gardens boasted in their descriptions. A must for any property the Surgeon used as a residence.
“Shit. The tracker stopped moving.”
“Where?” Jackson leaned over Fell’s shoulder crowding her.
