Page 67 of Assassin's Heart
We waited impatiently for the man’s final rough grunts. I grimaced, disgusted, as he rolled off the woman’s body a few moments later, his wet penis flopping against his thigh. The way the woman curled away from him confirmed my earlier thoughts. Nothing we could do about it tonight, but later, we could give her options to get out.
“You have the recording?” I asked Eli.
“I’m not a total fuckup, you know.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Levi said, his face tight with concentration. We were like the three bears on an op—Levi dead serious, Eli joking to relieve the tension, and me somewhere in between. Just right, as I liked to refer to it. When we left the safety of the SUV, it would be a different story, but right now…
It took only a few minutes for Fiori to fall asleep, still splayed like an upended frog across the bed. The woman took longer. A half hour after she drifted off, we moved out. The rain had started earlier, but as we neared Fiori’s property, lightning flashed across the sky, followed by the crash of thunder.
“Handy,” Eli said, his voice reaching me in the mic I’d tucked into my ear. “Dogs will be going crazy.”
I acknowledged the gift with a grunt and proceeded along the back fence of the five-acre property Fiori occupied when he was in town. Modest compared to the Italian villa on the coast of Sicily or his Maui estate, but convenient. And easier to police, this close to his family’s enemies.
They hadn’t seen an enemy like us, though.
With the storm, patrols had dwindled to one every ten minutes or so. We waited for the latest guard, the accompanying German shepherd hesitating at the end of his leash for no more than a moment before being led forward with a rough command. Eli had already hacked Fiori’s security. Now the mini computer strapped to his forearm allowed him to flicker the power once, twice, before cutting it just long enough for us to climb the electrified fence.
“Good thing they don’t have a backup generator.” I carefully straddled the discreet but definitely there barbed wire atop the barrier.
“Oh, they do.”
My balls did a rapid retreat into my body. “What?” I hissed at my brother. A sloppy scramble got me over the side for a quick jump to the ground.
Eli’s laugh was quiet in my ear, but the lack of volume couldn’t hide his sadistic amusement. “I said they had a backup; I didn’t say it was useable. Unfortunately for them, it’s experiencing technical difficulties.”
“Are we doing this, or are we hanging here for a chat?” Levi muttered.
Eli dropped to the ground between us. “Just a sec.”
Electricity hummed along the fence, barely audible. Lights dulled by the storm flickered back on.
Crouching, the three of us ran for the nearby woods. Unlike our estate, Fiori had left the land surrounding his mansion wild. Looked pretty, but it was shit for security. We were within a hundred yards of the house in less than five minutes, without even a close call.
“Thank fuck for waterproof gear,” Eli said in my earpiece.
No kidding.
Crouching in the underbrush, we gave Eli a few minutes to flicker the power a couple more times, allowing security to lower their guard where the electricity was concerned. When Levi gave the signal, Eli sent the command to his keypad and the lights went out.
Levi shot from cover immediately. I was directly on his heels, Eli just behind. Levi had a grappling hook secured to the roof in seconds. No more than four minutes passed before the three of us were inside the obscenely large bathroom attached to Fiori’s master suite.
Eli turned the power back on.
“Get the alarm taken care of,” Levi warned. Even without the backup generator, the alarm system had its own battery pack. It would’ve registered the window opening. Too bad the system included a connection to the Internet in order to send information back and forth to the off-site security company. Easy access for them—and for us.
“On it.”
Levi moved to the bathroom door. I opened a side pocket on my fatigues and pulled out the prepped needle waiting there. We couldn’t remove the woman, not without making her a target—disappearing might give the impression that she’d helped us—but we could keep her from knowing what was going on. Levi signaled with four fingers, counting down. Four… Three… Two… At one he opened the door, allowing me to slip past.
The girl was taken care of without trouble. The needle slipped into her arm without waking her, the effect of the ketamine almost immediate. We gave it several more minutes before my brothers made quick work of gagging and securing Fiori to his own bed—as roughly as possible.
I watched. Waited. Let the killer slip to the fore.
Finally Fiori was settled against the headboard—or maybe I should say trussed to it. Levi did enjoy his ropes; they meant his victims could be fully awake for their torture. I moved to the end of the bed, feet braced apart, arms crossed over my chest.
“Good evening, Sonny,” I said.
Fiori huffed angrily behind his gag. A few moments of mumbling followed.
