Paddy
He could sense her presence even before he heard her. His eyelids fluttered as he did his best to blink, and he felt hands on him, examining him. With a sense of wonder, he thought, they are checking to see if I am alive!
But then the voice of the woman he loved the most, his mother in every sense but one, sounded close by.
Proserpina Delano.
She was here.
She was beside him.
He tried to speak but his voice was not strong enough. The words would not form. She seemed to understand. Her hand, soft and cool, rested on his forehead and then stroked his face.
“It is all going to be all right, son,’ she said softly and he smiled.
If Mumma had said it, then it was going to be all right, he thought as he slipped back into a deep slumber.
*
Tara
She checked her phone surreptitiously on her way to school. She was very fond of Maddie but she was beginning to resent having to share her phone, okay, it was not really hers, but to let Maddie read her messages; it was getting to be a little too much. She sighed and stared out of the window as the car drew up to the school gates. Her brothers jumped out and rushed to the gates.
*
She followed sedately, willing herself to take the chance and check her phone before entering the school. Her mind was working furiously as she tried to come up with a plan.
She had a sudden idea and raced to the washrooms. Closeted inside a stall, she pulled out her phone and giggled softly. Iusuf had already sent her three messages! And it was just morning!
He must really miss her… maybe he loved her?
She blushed a bright pink and went back to her phone, focussing on the messages.
*
She texted back quickly. He wanted to know how she was and how things were at home.
She replied happily, typing feverishly, misspelling often for she was not as good at it as Maddie was.
‘Good,’ she texted, beaming to herself.
‘I am good.’
To her astonishment, it was as though he had been waiting out there for her reply for he immediately shot back,
‘And everyone at home, my love?’
She blushed harder, fumbling to text within the closed confines of the washroom stall.
And then, came his question.
“But the Capo is dead, right?’
*
Tara felt a vague uneasiness. Had she mentioned Philippe’s disappearance to Iusuf? She did not recall doing so but maybe she had…?
She knew that she had told him about her family in passing; she had been talking more about herself, her dreams, a future with a man she loved, and maybe five babies…
Frowning, she tried to think hard.
*
She could not remember having spoken about the Capo to her friend but Iusuf was kind and considerate, caring and loving so she must have slipped up and told him. Although Mumma was always being so very silly, warning them not to tell anyone about what went on in their home, Tara thought that Mumma was plain stupid at times. She might have all those fancy degrees and was an excellent cook who could bring out the most delicious fare ever. But then, she was always having babies!
The young girl scrunched up her nose, conveniently forgetting that her own idea for the future, was to have a large family.
*
Tara tossed her head, her long blonde hair in braids bouncing as she did so.
But she smiled happily as she typed back her reply,
“He is on his way back home.’
*
Hila
She crossed the street and hailed a cab to take her to the Club for her briefing. The cat had been fed and had disappeared after making his customary round to check for milk and food.
Settling down in the cab, Hila reflected pensively.
Danielle believed in doing things in an elaborate way.
So the training module was in its last stages and Hila felt a reluctant tug of admiration for the way the woman was handling such a large enterprise under, of course, the eagle eye of the Mafia Don who continued to be hands-on and available although he was one of the most shrewd and busiest of executives she had seen.
As she entered the building, she saw that there were a few guests who were being escorted around the Club. Men who looked as though they were dripping in cash, she thought, twisting her lips derisively. As she walked towards the side entrance, she felt a gaze on her.
The hairs on her neck prickled uncomfortably.
Uneasily, she turned and looked back.
*
One of the guests was looking her way, openly leering at her. She felt a shudder run through her; there was something ugly, and demeaning about the way he was staring at her. Reflectively, she recalled that the same creepy fellow had been on a tour of the building the previous day and he had been caught trying to run a hand up the skirt of one of the young women who was in training with her. His name was Sanz and he was some big-shot arms dealer from Spain.
Unfortunately for him, Danielle had spotted him and given him a discreet tongue-lashing. The woman was undeterred by the big names, thought Hila with a smile.
*
The disgusting fellow must be very rich and have contacts in the right places which was how he was back, she mused absently as she crossed the wide foyer and took a shortcut to the conference room.
She preferred to be alone; the less she revealed of her background, the better. So when she finally vanished after completing her mission, there would not be too many loose threads to tie up.
And no one would miss her when she disappeared.
Yes, Hila was an ace at blending effortlessly into the background.
*
With a toss of her head, she marched forward and felt safe when she was deep inside the building.
As Hila changed into the white blouse and short black skirt which was the uniform for the bottle girls and the other servers, she had observed cryptically that the outfit was tantalizing for it promised more than it actually revealed.
The skirt, a kilt in reality, was short, reaching just mid-thigh, and the blouse was figure-hugging, stretched as it was across her firm breasts. Definitely, a design that was the brainchild of the redoubtable Danielle, the White Witch, she thought, her full, plum-coloured lips curving up sardonically.
But Hila barely looked at herself as she made sure that her hair was in place. With a smile at the other women, she stepped out to head to the conference hall where the briefing was to happen.
As she set off down the carpeted corridor, she almost jumped back as one of the doors opened and a man stepped out. With a feeling of disgust, she recognized the man who had been staring at her earlier, his desire, hot and repugnant, in his small black eyes. He blocked her way as she murmured softly, lowering her head, and making to move forward, avoiding him,
‘Excuse me.’
The man laughed, an ugly sound and he lifted his hand to grab her.
‘Good b*obs,’ he leered, as he was a man who had never known the word “No.’ come from the mouth of any woman.
*
Miguel Sanz was an arms dealer from Spain on a visit to meet and confer with the notorious Lucien Delano.
The fifty-year-old man with his slightly rotund figure was still handsome but he had the jaded air of a man who moved from woman to woman, eager to quench his sexual appetite. There was no constancy in him as his third wife had realized before she had moved off with a substantial amount from him as alimony.
Sanz was a millionaire in his own right and had a virtual harem back home. He enjoyed women and the redhead with her plump figure had attracted his attention the first day when he had come to check out Lucien Delano’s extravagant new Gentleman’s Club that was rumored to offer every kind of depraved, decadent man a place to exorcise his kinks.
Sighting the little plump bird had attracted his attention the first time around; and he had managed to wheedle an invitation for a second visit, ostensibly to admire the construction and book a room for the future. His companions, also his compatriots, had wandered away on the guided tour of the place being conducted by the White Witch, Danielle M.
He had watched the routine of the women who were in training and had decided to waylay the woman who seemed to be a loner of sorts. When she raised her startled green gaze to his face, he smiled. Such a plump doe. Now she would get what she was obviously dying for.
His c*ck.
*
Hila shrank back, taken by surprise. She had been deep in thought, thinking of the eldest of the Delano children, Piers of the hard grey-blue eyes who had intrigued her and managed to revive emotions she had believed to be long dead…
Now she regarded the man before her, his large white, incredibly white gleaming as he smiled at her, a predatory smile.
Like a shark observing his meal ticket, she thought grimly.
He was already smelling of drink and it was only ten in the morning!
He moved to hold her and she reacted instinctively.
*
She had been trained in Krav Maga when she was in the Israeli army. But she had been captured during one of the last ops when she had been brutally raped and tortured by her captors. An incident following close on the heels of the death, no annihilation of her entire family. Perhaps it was that one event that had caused her to lose her concentration that fateful evening when she and her teammates had invaded the hole where the terrorists had been hiding. At any rate, she had made a mistake in timing that fateful day and had been captured. Fortunately, her teammates returned to rescue her in a matter of a few hours. But not before she had endured the most degrading, the most horrendous hours of her life.
Bruised and bloody, she had been shifted immediately to hospital but the damage to her mind had been too deep, and she had left the MOSSAD.
Her personal life was in shambles too, for her fiance had moved on and married another girl, and she had left the country of her birth, meeting the Monk’s men at a bar where she had been working to me money to survive.
And her life had taken a different road.
*
But her training and her swiftness were still within her which was why she was still an effective and feared assassin.
For Hila had not just been in the military, she was a highly skilled soldier, having been part of LOTAR, the dreaded anti-terrorist cell of the Israeli army, she was a black belt holder in the martial arts as well.
*
Without stopping to think, her instincts kicked in and she threw a straight punch using her lead hand. The man who had been taken by surprise, stumbled back, looking baffled and then furious.
He had never imagined that the young red-haired woman with the plump figure would defend himself; nay, no woman rejected the advances of Miguel Sanz. But before he could react, she had followed up with a spinning crescent kick. This kick, a slightly more powerful version of a basic Krav Maga Slap Kick was delivered with such grace and precision, as taught by her instructor, that it would appear to a person watching them, that she was executing a dance movement.
Unfortunately, given the momentum of the spin, it hurt the man more than he had ever imagined it would and he collapsed to the ground with a howl of pain.
Though it appeared to have been done effortlessly, anyone with a discerning eye would have seen that it was more difficult to execute. This kick hits the target with the side of the foot. It takes strength, practice, and deadly precision to make it effective and she had timed it in such a way that the man crumpled to the carpeted floor, with a scream.
She was already moving away, smoothening her hair before the man could react to the final blow she had administered; a palm heel strike with the padded part of her palm. He fell down, blood spouting from his nose as she disappeared.