The room was large, furnished only by a king size bed. It smelled of new paint and sheets that needed changing. Windows looked out on the Sound, and I spotted a purple Bell corporate-type helicopter approaching the beach.
“Let’s try a few on the bed. Take off your top, show me those sweet tits again.”
I struggled to look unsure.
“Come on, all the famous bitches did nudes. Marilyn Monroe did nudes. You want to be famous like her, right?”
I chewed my lower lip and pretended to think it over. “Well, okay, I guess.”
I set my purse on the nightstand, perched on the bed and untied the bikini top. I needed an opening, some way to escape my photographer without the men downstairs finding out and greeting me with gunfire.
I let the top fall to the bed.
He snapped a few shots then paused, stretching his neck.
“Stiff neck?” I asked.
“It’s nothing. Arch your back more. Show me what a hot little slut you are.”
“I can help you with that,” I cooed. “The stiff neck. I used to date a chiropractor.”
I climbed to my knees. Sitting back on my heels, I spread my thighs wide and patted the bed in front of me. “Why don’t you come over here.”
The smile spreading over his fat face had nothing to do with spinal adjustment. He put down the camera and sat where I’d indicated.
I massaged his shoulders for a few seconds, then unbuttoned his shirt, revolted that his boobs were even larger than mine.
“You really do want a modeling career, don’t you?”
“More than anything.” I pressed myself against his back, skin on skin. Circling my arms around his shoulders, I snaked one hand down to his crotch.
He moaned, deep in his throat.
“I can adjust this, too,” I said.
“Oh, yeah, baby. Here I thought I was going to have to slap you around. I still might. Horny bitch like you would like that, I bet.”
Charming.
I cradled his head between my breasts then smoothed my right hand around his shoulder and massaged up the back of his head to his scalp. I could feel him relax, goose bumps rising on his back.
I collared his neck with my left arm, and then before he realized what was happening, I grabbed my right elbow, pushed his head downward into the V of my left arm and flexed my biceps, applying pressure to his carotid artery.
He tensed, but even though he had weight and strength on me, it only took seconds before he was unconscious. Stopping the blood supply to the brain will do that.
I slipped out behind him and let his body fall back on the bed.
Breaking someone’s neck isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. It also isn’t lethal 100% of the time.
Breaking someone’s trachea and cutting of their air supply is simpler, and more effective. It’s possible to survive a broken neck. Survive not breathing? Not so much.
I chopped the sex-trafficking pig in the windpipe, not sticking around to watch him suffocate. Grabbing my scrap of a bikini top, I slipped the memory card out of the camera and into my purse and closed the door behind me.
I had finished tying the top around my back and slinging my purse across my chest by the time I reached the patio. The
The other men were gone.
So was Julianne James.
“
I started down the steps, leaving the door open behind me. Once the helicopter left the ground, Julianne would be lost, and I’d be damned if I was going to let that happen. She had taken up with some bad people, which made her more like me at that age than I wanted to admit. But I’d been given another chance.
She deserved one, too.
“Where are you going?”
I hadn’t spotted Udelhoffer standing behind a hedge that separated pool from lawn, but now he stepped out from the right, coming at me fast for such a big man.
Adrenaline spiked my blood, making everything slower, clearer. Udelhoffer’s movement. The drum of my heartbeat. The smell of the water and screech of the gulls. I stopped and held up my hands. “I was just wondering where everyone went.”
“What happened to Ronnie?”
“He’s taking a breather.”
Udelhoffer’s eyes narrowed. His beefy fingers twitched. I could see him thinking it over. Asking himself, is this just some dumb bimbo, or is something going on here?
His training kicked in.
His hand went for the Tec-9.
I anticipated the move and kicked to the side, my right foot striking just below his knee cap. I followed the blow through, scraping the side of my shoe down his shin, drilling the stiletto heel into his instep.
He bellowed like a bull.
Without pause, I brought a knife hand blow to his forearm, targeting his radial nerve just below the elbow. Localized strikes are hard to pull off on a moving target, but I was fast.
The Tec-9 fell from his grip and swung on its sling. I grabbed the strap, dropped, and jerked it off his shoulder, twisting as I did. Then I released. The machine gun skittered across flagstones without going off.
I moved to follow-up with a chin jab, missing and hitting his chest. High heels were effective weapons, but they also made balancing trickier. By putting so much of my weight behind the stab to his foot and the blow to his arm, I’d left myself unbalanced.
I saw him aim the palm of his hand for my chin, but I couldn’t reverse my momentum fast enough.
My head snapped backward, the blow clanging through my skull. My brain stuttered, overtaken with too much stimuli at once. I staggered, almost going down. Motes of light swirled in my vision just as the pain came.
He lunged at me again, slamming a fist into my solar plexus.
Air burst from my lungs, and I doubled over and tried not to puke.
He came at me again, an old-fashioned right hook this time.
I twisted out of the way, causing his attack to bounce off the top of my skull. But even though it was a glancing blow, the force clanged through my head like a fire bell. I was able to get in close and respond with an elbow strike, snapping it up under his chin, but I wasn’t sure the behemoth even felt it.
“That’s enough.”
I heard the unmistakable sound of someone racking a semi-auto.
Udelhoffer and I both stumbled to a halt. Above us on the steps, Hawk Nose glared down, a 9mm pointed at my chest.
Another dark-haired man emerged from the house, one I hadn’t seen before. Wearing a white Scarface suit, he held an automatic pistol.
Outnumbered and outgunned, I dropped my gaze and rounded my shoulders, looking submissive.
“Take her inside. Think you can handle that, Udelhoffer?”
The brute grumbled, breathing hard. He wrapped his left arm around my right like a bridegroom escorting me down the aisle, then grabbed my hand, locking me into place by his side. It was a hold often used by police to
