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Chapter Thirty-One
- Dante -
THE MOON HAD GONE BEHINDthe clouds, darkening the lanai. The pathway lighting provided a soft glow that was not obtrusive, but still provided enough blackness to hide. I knew every inch of the area, from where the table and chairs sat in the center to where the potted plants lined the edges.
The man who lurked in the shadows did not.
I didn’t need additional light to know that he crouched behind a palm tree not five feet from where I stood watching him. He was sloppy... or desperate... or both. I was offended that someone wanted me dead so much that they took out a contract on me, but also that they gave it tohim. There were others who would have loved to put razor wire around my neck or a bullet into the base of my skull. They were professional men. At my level. They would have made killing them before they could kill me a challenge.
This man did not. Thwarting his inept plan was easy. My only real goal was to keep him out of the bungalow, keep him away from Noemi. If he continued to delay in making his move, I would take him where he was, pull him further into the bushes and try to get a little information from him before I sank my knife into the side of his neck.
I couldn’t take too long with the interrogation. I couldn’t risk Noemi awakening. The sleeping pills that I told her were ibuprofen should have lasted for eight hours. Mixed with the wine, she should have slept peacefully until well after dawn. As I suspected, the hitman didn’t appear until about four am. The sun would rise at about five-thirty and he had already wasted fifteen minutes crouched by the palm tree. He was either unprepared or scared... or a decoy.
With little more than a whoosh of air, the bullet hit its mark in the back of his head.
“What the –” I heard a surprised voice mutter from the foliage to my left.
I listened and waited. Five minutes went by and he couldn’t resist his curiosity anymore.
“What the fuck?” he whispered as he crouched over his dead friend. “Bastard will pay for this.”
Shoes off, I made my way to him. Years of practice and skill meant I was close to him in seconds without his knowledge. This man, like his dead comrade, was an amateur. If he were smart, he’d have already been gone, leaving his friend to be found in the morning.
I slipped my arm around his neck and my gun into his back. He struggled as my choking grip tightened. “Shhhh,” I warned him. “We’re just going for a little walk. If you stop fighting me, I won’t kill you.” I left out the word “yet.”
I pulled him away from the lanai to a crop of palm trees. With my knee and gun in his back and my arm still choking him, I bent him down to his knees.
“Did you think this would be easy?” I couldn’t help but ask. Something still didn’t feel right about the scenario. I felt him shake his head.
“Who sent you?”
“I can’t tell you,” he gasped, trying to suck in as much air as he could. I didn’t let up the grip I had on his throat. “He’ll... he’ll kill me.”
“You’re a dead man anyway,” I hissed in his ear. “Who wants me gone?”
He shook his head again and I raised my gun with the silencer on it to his temple. I pulled the trigger just as he gurgled, “It’s... not about... you.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow move from the trees into the bungalow. There were three of the son-of-a-bitches. I dropped the man where he fell and sprinted into the bungalow.
I had few choices in what I needed to do next. The dead man’s words echoed in my mind. “It’s not about you.” Then it was about the only other person there – Noemi. Once again, there was no time to think about it.
I crept quietly into the bungalow, following the shadowy figure from the lanai to the living area. He went slowly, his unfamiliarity with the layout of the room causing him to bump into an end table as he looked around. I stayed in the doorway, my body flush against the wall.
He stood in the entryway to the bedroom where Noemi slept.
He struggled, fighting me hard when I leapt from the shadows, wrapping the razor wire around his neck. I held the wire with one hand while I kept the other wrapped around his mouth, trying to minimize the noise he made. I got an elbow in my stomach, but having suspected that’s how he’d react, I was prepared for his assault. I tightened the wire, pulling backward, but not getting a clean cut. His struggling pissed me off, so I spun him around and put a boot in his gut, pulling the wire taught as he fell. I could feel the blood start to coat my gloves.
I usually liked to look my victims in their eyes as the light faded from them but this time, I had to get my satisfaction from keeping one hand over his mouth as he gasped and gurgled as the hair-splitting edge of the wire cut through the tendons of his throat. He grabbed at the black shirt I had changed into and I pulled backward out of his reach.
“Don’t touch me, you mother-fucking cocksucker,” I growled. “You threatened her? You came here and fucking threatened her?” I hissed in his ear. “Fucking die.”
With all the strength I could muster, I pulled tightly on the two blunt ends of the wire, not stopping until the bastard’s head was nearly cut off.
Confident that the man was dead, I dropped the ends of the wire and stood up.
I blinked in the darkness at the form standing in front of me. With a hand covering her mouth, Noemi clutched the bedroom curtains, her body frozen with fear.
“Dante?” she whispered, her voice quivering.
