Savage Lover, page 21
part #3 of Brutal Birthright Series
“I’ve seen you two together,” he hisses. “I followed you out to the bluffs. Saw you in the backseat of his car . . .”
My skin crawls, knowing what night he’s talking about. Nero fucked me in the backseat of the Mustang until the windows were running with steam, and both of us were drenched in sweat.
Schultz was watching us the whole time?
That fucking creep.
“That’s an interesting use of police time,” I mutter.
“I wasn’t on duty that night,” Schultz says.
I try to pull my wrist out of his grip, but he holds on tight, not letting me move an inch.
“I thought you were smarter than that,” Schultz says. “A girl like you . . . with a body like that . . . you could have picked a better class of man. You still could.”
“Are you talking about yourself?” I ask him.
“Why not?”
I look up into his face, furious and disdainful.
“Because say what you want about Nero . . . he never forced me to do a damn thing I didn’t want to do.”
I twist my wrist, wrenching it out of Schultz’s grip.
“For a bad guy, he’s a pretty good guy,” I tell him.
Then I push past Schultz, leaving him alone in the interrogation room.
It’s almost ten o’clock. I’ve got to get over to the lab.
I’M STANDING on the doorstep of 379 Mohawk Street. Nero and I found this place via the property records for Evan Cargill.
After Ali let slip her little comment about Levi and his brother, Nero and I put two and two together. Levi sells drugs out of his house on Hudson Ave. But he makes them in his brother’s basement.
While Evan has been squandering his inheritance in Ibiza, Levi’s been using his house. Now that big brother is coming home, Levi’s pissed because he’s got to find a new location for his lab.
Nero and I confirmed all this by doing a little spying of our own. Taking a page out of Schultz’s book, we tracked Levi to the Mohawk Street house, which he apparently visits every Thursday night to pick up the product for the week. Or I should say, his trusty bodyguard Sione picks it up, while Levi makes sure he never carries so much as a single pill on his person.
But he does come to the house. And that’s where I’ve got to meet him. If I have any hope of Schultz getting rid of my unwanted “boss” once and for all.
I knock on the door, bouncing nervously on the balls of my feet while I wait for someone to answer. I can feel the microphone between my breasts. I’m sweating a little, and I’m afraid the tape might come loose. I try to hold still, so I don’t jostle it any more than necessary.
At last the door cracks. I have to look up to meet Sione’s stern, unsmiling gaze.
“I need to see Levi,” I tell him.
He stares at me, like he’s thinking about slamming the door in my face. Then he cracks it just wide enough for me to pass.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Levi demands, the second I step inside. He’s standing there with Pauly, Sione, and a guy I don’t know. All four of them look tense and irritated. Nobody is laying around smoking weed here—the Hudson Street house may be for partying, but Mohawk is all business.
“Who the fuck told you about this place?” Levi shouts.
“Nero sent me,” I say, quickly.
“What?” Levi says, narrowing his eyes.
“He wants to make a deal with you.”
“What kind of deal?”
“He wants product. A lot of it.”
Levi casts a swift glance at Sione. I think I see his huge shoulders lift and lower in a near-imperceptible shrug.
“Why did he send you?” Levi says.
“I’m his girlfriend.”
“His girlfriend?” Levi hoots.
Pauly mutters something to Levi, maybe confirming what I’ve said. Levi’s face changes in an instant, becoming much more respectful.
“I didn’t know that,” he says.
“He wants me to check out the lab. If he likes what I tell him, his family will place an order.”
“This ain’t McDonald’s,” Levi says, frowning. “I don’t usually manufacture for anybody else.”
“Fine,” I say, coldly. “I’ll tell the Gallos what you said.”
“What, like . . . all of them?” Levi says, looking nervously from me to his men.
“Yeah, all of them,” I say. “Enzo’s been letting you run your little operation in his neighborhood. I would think you’d want to stay on friendly terms with the Gallos. But don’t let me tell you how to run your business.”
Levi licks his lips, irritated by but not quite bold enough to lip off about the Gallos.
“Fine,” he says, shortly. “Let’s go down.”
I already told Schultz I was going to use the Gallos as a cover story. Still, I hope he doesn’t get any bright ideas about using that part of the tape as evidence.
I follow Levi down the creaking wooden stairs to the basement.
It’s about twenty degrees hotter down here. I was already flushed and overheated from the stress of lying to a bunch of tightly-wound drug dealers. Now my skin starts to sweat worse than ever. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, not wanting Levi to notice.
“Don’t you have AC?” I ask.
Levi shrugs. “It’s hot in the kitchen,” he says.
The basement is large, but low-ceilinged. Only tiny windows set high in the walls lead to the outside. The space is totally unfinished—bare concrete floors and exposed struts. Still, there really is an industrial “kitchen” of sorts, with vats, a distillery, and a hood that vents into the backyard.
The three “cooks” are dressed in boxer shorts, leather aprons, heavy-duty gloves, and rain boots. They’re all wearing face-masks. Sweat drips down their exposed skin.
I have no idea what they’re doing. I can see various stages of drug-making in process, but I don’t know what any of it means.
“So where do you get your ingredients?” I ask Levi.
“The precursor ingredients come from China,” he says. “You start with safrole. Then you make methylamine hydrochloride from formaldehyde and ammonium chloride.”
I nod my head like I know what any of that means. Vic would understand. Hopefully Schultz does too, on the other end of the wire.
Levi continues his explanation, pointing out the various stages of drug-making. I keep nodding and egging him on, hoping this is enough “incriminating evidence” for Schultz to bust down the door. In fact, I expect to hear the cops breaking in any second.
I sneak a quick glance at my watch. It’s twenty to eleven. Not only do I need to get Schultz in here, I also need to get out myself. I’m supposed to pick up Nero and the others at 11:05 precisely.
“Then you crystallize the MDMA oil by combining it with hydrochloric acid and isopropyl alcohol,” Levi finishes.
“Sounds like a lot of work,” I say, weakly.
“Yeah, it’s a shit-ton of work,” Levi says. “And don’t touch anything ‘cause there’s mercury fucking everywhere.”
Great. I’m probably taking a week off my life every minute I spend down here.
“Satisfied?” Levi sneers. “Gonna give me a good report to Nero?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It all looks . . . great.”
“What the fuck is that?” Pauly says, pointing to my stomach.
In slow motion, I look down. Without me even noticing, the tape peeled off my sweat-soaked skin, and the microphone fell out of my shirt. It’s now dangling by my crotch, hanging at the end of its wire.
Quicker than I can blink, Levi pulls a knife and slashes the front of my shirt. He rips it open, revealing the loose tape, the microphone, and the battery pack. He rips it off of me, throwing it to the ground and stomping on it until it’s a mess of broken plastic.
“You’re a fucking rat,” he says, blue eyes alight with fury.
“Yeah, and the cops will be here any second, so don’t even think about using that,” I say, eyeing the switchblade in his hand.
To my shock and dismay, Levi just laughs.
“I don’t think so,” he spits. “I have a signal jammer in every corner of this house. The cops didn’t hear shit from that recording. Which means nobody’s coming to save you.”
He jerks his head at Sione.
“Get rid of her,” he says.
Sione seizes me by the arm and starts dragging me up the stairs.
“No!” I shriek. “You don’t want to do this!”
“I absolutely do,” Levi says, carelessly.
Sione is dragging me like I’m a rag doll. It takes zero effort for him to pull me back up to the main floor, and into the actual kitchen.
I struggle and flail with all my strength. I might as well be punching a wall. He doesn’t seem to feel any of it.
“Don’t!” I beg him. “If you kill me, Nero’s gonna—”
“I don’t work for Nero,” Sione grunts. “I work for Levi.”
With that, he closes his massive hands around my throat and starts to squeeze.
In the two seconds of blood flow I have left, I close my eyes and try to picture what Nero would do in this situation.
I remember what he told me:
You’re always going to be the smaller opponent. So don’t even try to play fair. Hit them in the vulnerable spots: eyes, nose, throat, kneecaps, groin, feet.
With every bit of my remaining strength, I stomp down hard on Sione’s instep. Then I boot him again, right in the kneecap. His trunk-like leg buckles under him, and his hands loosen slightly around my throat. That’s when I kick him as hard as I can in the balls.
He lets go of me for an instant, doubling over. I grab the knife Nero gave me out of my pocket, and I whip it open just like he showed me. Then I stab it down into Sione’s shoulder.
I could have tried to stab him in the neck. But even in my desperation, I don’t want to kill him.
That turns out to be a huge mistake.
As I turn to flee, Sione grabs my ankle, jerking my legs out from under me. I crash down on my stomach, knocking the air out of my lungs. My chin hits the linoleum, cracking my teeth together and biting my tongue hard enough to fill my mouth with blood.
Sione is dragging me back toward him, his eyes rage-filled and murderous. I flip over and kick upwards at him, but it’s useless. He’s just too fucking strong.
He grabs me by the tattered remains of my shirt and jerks me toward him, swinging one massive fist at my face.
Wildly, I grab for the only thing at hand—a cast-iron fry-pan on the stove. The pan connects with the side of his head a millisecond before his fist can cave in my face. The blow jolts him, and his fist grazes off my forehead instead, still hitting me hard enough to fill my vision with stars.
Still, I manage to grab the handle of the knife and jerk it out of his shoulder.
We both stumble backward, in opposite directions. I’ve got the knife, and he’s got about a hundred and fifty pounds on me. We circle each other, Sione looking dazed but deadly.
Meanwhile, I hear somebody stomping up the steps.
Levi yells, “What the fuck is going on up there? Don’t tell me you need help with one little—”
At that moment, the front door explodes inward under the force of a police battering ram. Somebody tosses a metal canister into the house, and it rolls into the hallway between the kitchen and living room.
Sione stares at it, his brain not quite back to normal speed.
I sprint toward the back door. I wrench it open just as the canister explodes. The light and noise are blinding.
The force flings me down the back steps onto the grass. Even though I only caught part of it, I’m crawling around blind, my ears ringing. I know I don’t have a second to waste. I sprint for the back fence, only able to see a blurry outline of where I’m going. I vault over it, skinning both arms, but dropping down safe on the other side.
I’m flooded with adrenaline, my body telling me to run, run, run away from Levi’s house as fast as I can.
Instead, I army-crawl through his neighbor’s yard, circling back around.
I can see the cops swarming into Levi’s house, shouting, “GET DOWN! GET DOWN!” to everybody inside.
Looks like enough time passed that Schultz got worried. Or he managed to pick up some of the recording.
I don’t really give a shit anymore. Schultz is occupied, so I did my job. Or at least, most of it. There’s one more thing I need . . .
My vision is starting to come back, though everything still sounds muffled, with a constant high whine over top.
I’m creeping around to the back of the police cars, to the van at the edge of the roped-off street.
Taking a deep breath, and staying low, I jog out from the neighbor’s yard to the driver’s side door. It’s unlocked. There’s no key in the ignition, but that’s not a problem. Using Nero’s knife, I turn the screws on the steering column, then strip the insulation off the battery and ignition wires. Twisting them together, the dashboard lights up. I take a quick peek out the front windshield, to make sure that hasn’t attracted any attention. The cops are all facing the other direction, focused on the house.
I grab the starter wire and spark it against the other two.
The engine revs to life.
Fucking bingo.
Resisting the urge to burn rubber, I quietly pull away from the curb and drive off without anybody noticing.
24
NERO
I don’t particularly like sending Camille back to Levi’s house. Especially with only that idiot Schultz to protect her. But I trust Camille to take care of herself. And Schultz to look out for his own best interests by keeping his informant alive.
Still, I’m more distracted than I’ve ever been, heading into this job.
And that’s not a good thing.
Because this shit is complicated. In fact, I’d almost say that I’m nervous. If I were willing to admit to feeling an emotion like that.
Let’s just call it . . . tense. A tightness that runs from my scalp all the way down my spine.
I look at my watch: 10:02. Camille should be going into Levi’s house right now.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, I regret how we planned this. It seemed like the only way to make sure Schultz was occupied. But now it seems insane, pulling two jobs in one night . . .
We should have stayed together.
If we all get out of this alive, I’m not letting Camille out of my sight anymore. She can stay safe right by my side.
“You okay?” Seb says to me.
“Of course,” I reply.
I shake my hair out of my eyes, determined to focus.
Sebastian, Mason, and Jonesy are all gearing up. We’re at Jonesy’s house ‘cause we’re using his van. He’s got this nice white windowless electrician’s van, from his time working for Brickhouse Security. That was four years ago, but Jonesy hasn’t forgotten how to cut his way into most any electrical panel, including the one powering Alliance Bank.
I love Jonesy, but he’s twitchy as fuck. When he’s in a manic phase, he stays up all night hacking government websites, trying to prove his conspiracy theories. When he’s in a depressive state, he holes up in his basement and won’t let anybody come over unless they bring pizza and a six-pack, and agree not to discuss anything but Halo.
You have to catch him right in the middle of those two states, when he can actually be productive.
Today he seems in good spirits. He’s showered (always a good sign), and he’s got a new pair of glasses that make him look a bit like John Lennon during his bearded Jesus phase.
Jonesy drives us to 600 North LaSalle, where we use a stolen keycard to get into the underground parking garage.
This is a mixed-use building, with a bunch of law firms and private equity companies using the office space. It’s not the perfect access point, because lawyers and finance types like to work late at night, but it has one very special feature—a patio garden space that extends outward to within twelve feet of the Alliance bank.
We hop out of the van, taking a ladder and a couple of paint cans out of the back.
“Let me know if you have any trouble,” I say to Jonesy, tapping the earpiece nestled in my right ear.
He nods. “Don’t cut the glass ‘till I give you the okay.”
Jonesy drives off, headed for the electrical grid that powers the Alliance building. It’s about twelve minutes away, and he’s got to stay there for the duration of the job, manually clamping off the signals for the perimeter sensors. He won’t have time to drive back and pick us up again. That’s got to be Camille.
Compulsively, I glance at my watch again. 10:16. She’s is definitely in Levi’s house by now.
Mason, Seb, and I take the elevator up to the sixth floor. We’re all kitted up in paint-spattered coveralls, but I’d rather not run into anybody who might wonder why a bunch of painters are headed into work at ten o’clock at night.
Luckily, the sixth floor is quiet. I see a light on down the hall—some junior lawyer slaving away over a huge stack of files, most likely. Our little painting crew quietly makes its way over to the garden patio.
It’s a pretty space, full of outdoor lunch tables and open umbrellas to shade the lawyers from sun or rain.
I’m more interested in what lies on the other side of the railing.
We try to move in total silence. We’re six floors up, with a street right below us. We don’t want to attract any unwanted attention.
Carefully, we extend the ladder and stretch it out over the gap between buildings. It’s easy to secure the ladder on our side. On the opposite end, the legs rest only on a three-inch windowsill. The smallest jolt, and we could knock the whole thing down, with a whole lot of noise, and a shattered spine for whoever was trying to climb across.
The person is me, to start with.
Sebastian and Mason hold the ladder steady while I start to crawl across. This is the worst part, because there’s nobody to secure it on the other side. I’ve just got to be slow and careful.
It’s fine while I’m on the side being held by Seb and Mason. However, the further I venture out to the middle, the more flexible and unstable the metal struts feel. I’m not afraid of heights. But it’s not exactly pleasant to be ninety feet up in the air over cement.
