Vengeful Bounty Read online

  “Ready?”

  “Always.”

  We put our game faces on and walked with quiet confidence as the distant pulse of the club within the cement mesa beckoned us to come inside and play our deadly game.

  2

  Aaron stood monitoring a screen that only he could see on a silver podium in front of him. The screen was connected to the metal detector to his left. Like any other guest at Sin Den, Colt and I had to walk through the two thin milky white rods that reached to the ceiling and that would detect if we had any weapons.

  Colt and Aaron exchanged nonchalant smiles, pretending not to know one another. Aaron was tall; he towered over both of us. His hair was buzzed short, blond fuzz with jagged green color streaks racing across his scalp. His arms were about as beefed up as a wrestler’s, and even though I can hold my own in a fight, I wouldn’t particularly want to tick the guy off. One landed punch to the jaw and I’d be out, and minus a few teeth.

  Colt stood between the metal detector rods and a blue light flashed at the top of both and traveled to the bottom, giving Aaron the reading on the screen. Aaron probably saw more weapons than even I knew Colt was packing, but he gave my brother a nod and let him through.

  My brother stood on the other side, waiting at the big red door that had SIN written in glowing glittery paint across it. The door that would lead to our man. The techno beat sounded muted on this side of the barrier, but soon we’d be attacked by the sound full-force and would barely be able to hear one another talk.

  It was my turn to be scanned, and Aaron gave me the same nod. He pressed a latch under the podium that opened the pressurized door with a hiss.

  “Nice to see someone not wearing a suit,” he said, his voice deep. “Seems like that’s the fashion tonight. Black suits, gold neckties, and wide-brimmed hats.”

  That was our hint. Nando’s men were in those suits.

  “Oh, really?” I said. “Must be the new craze. I never can keep up.”

  “Have fun,” Aaron said, then promptly greeted a group of women in short skirts and rainbow triangular haircuts, which was a Vogue fashion trend I had kept up with and detested about as much as pop music.

  We entered the club. The pulsing jungle beat surrounded us now, and Colt had to lean in and put his mouth right next to my ear so I could hear him.

  “I’ll keep a look out for you, and when I see you taking Roberto upstairs, I’ll start my little commotion.”

  Leaning back, I said, “What is it you’re going to do?”

  “Could be one of a few things! I’m just going to see where the mood takes me.”

  He spotted a few women nearby and, grinning from ear to ear, went to introduce himself with sanguine charisma. I hoped he knew what he was doing. But he usually did.

  I made my way to the bar. It was important that when I found Roberto I had some alcohol on my breath so I could pull off being a ditsy drunk. There were several bars propped up around the place, round stools hovering around the table rings. I chose the one nearest me and smiled at the bartender, who smiled back at me. She was a little thing, maybe 5 feet tall. She was practically naked, save for the glittery red paint that covered her body. Her nipples had little pasties on them, so she wasn’t completely nude. I couldn’t see below her waist, but I hoped her “area” had something covering it, for the love of hygiene. How long did it take to wash that paint off? Did some bartenders get hired, only to find that they were allergic to it?

  “What’ll it be, sweetie?” she asked.

  “Oh, I guess give me a vodka tonic.”

  “Righto!”

  She disappeared into her round glowing cabinets, and I scanned the dance floors. There were three main floors in this, the biggest room. They were elevated about a foot from the ground. Hundreds of tiny round lights lit up in an array of colors when a person’s foot was on them. The place was packed. Nando wasn’t anywhere I could see, but some of his men were.

  A couple of them sat on floating stools a few seats down from me. I tapped my foot and pretended to be interested in the many different shapes of booze bottles on the curved wall of the bar, as well as the rows of vapor cigarettes on sale, but I kept my real attention on the suits out of the corner of my eye. They had earpieces that fit over their right ears, snug and transparent. No doubt to be able to communicate with each other. I’d seen that model of device before. They had to be wearing wristlets that activated the speaker. I glanced at one of the men’s wrists, and sure enough, the transparent loop with rectangular silver buttons was there.

  The bartender handed me my drink, and I downed half of it in one swig.

  For the next half hour I nursed the drink, making sure I didn’t stay around any one person for more than a minute or two. I walked around, slowly getting into my role. I let my eyelids droop until I had a husky, tipsy, Marilyn Monroe look going. I started to sway and slightly stagger around. I danced with a few people, letting them play grab-ass, and before long, I was good and fake drunk.

  Roberto wasn’t nearly as tall as I imagined, but I knew him immediately.

  He had been dancing with a cute blonde with silky shoulder-length hair for the last two songs, but when she went to the bar, he was left solo. Now was my chance. I broke away from my current dance partner, who quickly found another person to gyrate against. I planted my feet on two of the light circles, and pink and maroon beams of light illuminated my legs.

  He spotted me.

  I gave him a come hither smile, equipped with Marilyn eyes.

  He was all mine.

  The cigarette he’d just lit released ribbons of smoke, and he stood still, gazing at me like a lion might at a gazelle. With a move too smooth for me to describe, he dropped the cigarette on the floor, snuffed it out with his shoe, and opened his arms.

  I had to try mighty hard not to laugh. If it had been any other place or time, I would have let him come close enough for me to pour my drink on him then walk away, but now wasn’t the time.

  I walked up to him, pretending to lose my balance, and then giggling, fell into his arms.

  “Well, hello,” he purred, getting a good feel of my posterior as he caught me.

  “Hey, sessy,” I said, doing my best to breathe alcohol breath in his face.

  “Would you like to dance?” he asked with a strong Italian accent.

  “Oh, darlin’, would I! Where you from? You don’t sound like you’re from ’round here.”

  “I am from Italy,” he said, waiting for my glee.

  “Oh! Whadrya doin’ in Texas?”

  He chuckled and looked down, then met my eyes again. “It is a job. I get paid very well for coming here to work. But let us not speak of work and business tonight. Let us enjoy one another.”

  “Whatever!” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Lesss dance!”

  I made it clumsy, but sexy enough so that he was sure to want more. Anytime his hands gravitated toward my boobs, I guided them down my back. I couldn’t have him finding my little laser gun and ruining all the fun. In my boots, I was taller than he was by a couple of inches, but that didn’t seem to sway his confidence. After a couple of songs and discussions about our star signs, I started to breathe down his neck and give him little wet kisses.

  He took the bait.

  Aaron had informed Colt that Roberto never made it through the night without taking at least one girl to the fourth floor (the only floor that didn’t have bars or dance floors). The fourth floor was usually reserved for celebrities who wanted a nightcap. But it also served as a good room for slutting around for people who paid the right price. Think cheap motel, but more expensive.

  “Come upstairs with me,” he said.

  “Ussstairs? Are we ’lowed?” I asked, feigning nervous excitement.

  “Oh, I am allowed to do anything around here.”

  “Ooo, I bet you are, so sessy!”

  I let him help me not to stumble as we stepped down from the dance floor and headed toward the elevators in the back. I looked over m
y shoulder for purple hair. My brother was at the bar, chatting with the triangle-haired women from earlier. His eyes darted from them to the balcony right above us. There, Nando stood watching the high-rise pole dancers in their cages, which were hanging from chains in the ceiling over our heads. So that’s where the bastard was. His men surrounded him, but he stood out like a sore thumb in his horrendous yellow suit and black tie. His dark Spanish skin glistened with sweat. He’d probably been drinking heavily tonight. He licked his lips, running the tip of his tongue along his little moustache, gazing at the dancers, their skin painted like the bartender’s. Hmm. Turns out they did have a shell of hard plastic (painted like their bodies and not clear, whew) covering their naughty lower bits. Thank the stars; I’d be able to sleep tonight.

  I hoped that Colt could see me. I would have waved if I knew it wouldn’t grab Roberto’s attention, but my brother was amazingly aware as usual, and he met my eyes with a wink.

  Showtime.

  Colt now had approximately ten minutes to cause his commotion, which would get Nando to that roof and into my hands. And I had about ten minutes to get rid of Roberto, make sure the mini-plane wasn’t paged, and catch the Octopus off guard.

  The domed elevator had mirrors within mirrors on all four of its walls, plus the ceiling and floor. It was ridiculous and disorienting. I don’t know how people who’d been drinking could stand it when I could barely keep from getting dizzy sober.

  Roberto’s hands were all over me, and I guided them to my hair, my arms, my legs—anywhere but the chest.

  We spilled out of the elevator on the fourth floor like a couple of teenagers in heat, and suddenly he jumped ahead of me and down the hallway with velvet magenta walls. Electric candles lined them, I guess to simulate being in some exotic far-away castle of old. He found room 406 and placed his thumb on the sensor lock. It opened, and he turned the handle, letting the two of us into a lavish bedroom decorated with gargoyles, more electric candles, and shimmering waterfalls lit underneath by blue lights. The bed was lavish, a sea of gold blankets and purple pillows. I immediately jumped on the bed, squealing.

  Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve been an actress. I acted plenty during catches. Maybe it wasn’t Oscar-winning, but I tended to be convincing enough. Amazing what people will believe when they want something to be true. And in this case, Roberto wanted me to want him, so that’s just what he saw.

  He snapped his fingers, and music, more synthesized stuff, but this time much more subdued and ethereal, trickled out of the walls. It was meant to seduce me. I think I’d done my job, however, due to the steel-like bar of manhood in his pants he pressed against me as he crawled on top of my body.

  I leaned my head back, letting him caress my throat with kisses, and even let him get in a little boob grab before I took his hands and sucked on his fingers.

  Roberto was not worth quite as much as Nando, though he was also a wanted man. Nando was sitting pretty right now at $75,000. And Roberto was somewhere around $7,000. We liked to keep the Fish alive because killing them is illegal for us. Bounty hunters aren’t assassins. Bounty hunters worked for the law. Sometimes it made me frustrated, though, especially when I thought about all the tax money that went into making their lives in jail comfortable. There were so many opportunities to just flat snuff the pricks and get them off the face of the Earth. For instance, at any moment I could’ve pulled out my gun and shot Roberto in the head. But then I’d be the one running from the law.

  But I wasn’t too bummed about letting Roberto go tonight. Not only was Nando worth more, he was the leader. You see, whenever the head of any sort of crime organization got caught, it always shook his cronies up for a while. They had to regroup and reorganize. Since they had no integrity, they tended to fight over who would now be in charge, even if someone had already been chosen. That sort of thing usually gave us enough time to root the rest of the ones out with warrants, if they didn’t bail from the show completely. Sometimes, if we were really lucky, it dissipated the organization, kind of like cutting the head off an animal. Remove its brain and the rest doesn’t last very long. Roberto could fly back to Italy and work the streets as a gigolo, for all I cared.

  “Talk to me,” I said to the horny Italian on top of me.

  I girlishly played with my dangling faux diamond earrings, secretly twisting the one on my right ear. A little speaker at the base of the jewel turned on.

  “What do you want me to say?” Roberto asked, yanking off his tie and throwing it on the floor.

  “Anything, juss talk to me, sessy. Say somethin’ in Italian.”

  I leaned in with my right ear and let him speak:

  “Voglio il vostro corpo. Voglio essere all’interno di voi.”

  “Whatever you say!” Pushing him away dramatically, I grabbed my earring for another girlish tug, turning it again to disengage the speaker. “How do I know you aren’t isssulting me? How do I know you really like me?”

  “How about,” he said, “you let me show you?”

  Glove surprise time.

  “Lemme see what you’ve got,” I said, giving his crotch a good grab.

  He went for his zipper, more than happy to oblige.

  I slid my arms around his neck. With my hands behind his head, I reached into my left glove with my right thumb and pressed the hidden little button. I had five seconds. He fiddled with his pants, the zipper not cooperating.

  Slowly, sensually, I brought my left hand to his neck, placing my thumb directly on the soft flesh between his jaw and his throat.

  A soft click sounded and Robert’s eyes went wide. The little needle within the glove’s thumb secreted a sedative that would’ve knocked out an elephant, and after a couple of twitches, he collapsed on top of me. I gave him a moment before I shoved him off of me and onto the floor. He hit the ground with a thud.

  I leapt off the bed, grimacing at how moronic I’d had to act, though I had to admit the man was devilishly good-looking, even if he was short. Straddling him just in case he did wake up, I grabbed his wrist and took off the band that would turn on his earpiece’s speaker.

  I quickly took off my earring that had recorded his voice and, as if on cue, his earpiece started shrieking.

  “Roberto! Roberto! Come in!” a male voice said, backed by screams.

  Holding my earring in front of my mouth, I squeezed it and spoke in as thick of an Italian accent as I could, “Yes? What is wrong?”

  The voice that came out was Roberto’s, the earring having captured his voice patterns perfectly and converted mine to his.

  “Call the plane!” his earpiece said. “There’s been trouble! Some crazy person with purple hair is trying to kill him!”

  “I’m on it,” I said in Roberto’s voice. “It is on its way. Send him up.”

  I turned off the transmission and smashed the wristlet against the floor, crushing it with my boot. I took the earpiece out of his ear and smashed that as well. Then I ran to the window.

  I opened it and looked to my right. A ladder led to the roof. Perfect.

  Damon would’ve been so proud.

  I stopped, looking down at the empty side of the building, wondering where that man was. And why he didn’t return. We had so many memories together. So many adventures I’d never forget.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to see other people,” he’d said before he left two and a half years ago.

  Of course I didn’t want to see other people. Why would he even ask? He was always so hard on himself. We’d have a good week, enjoy each other’s confident company and talk about our future, and then it was back to the self-deprecating and telling me he was a jerk, not worthy to be with me, etc. Up and down, like a rollercoaster. Why couldn’t he believe my intentions were true? Why couldn’t he see the man that I saw?

  I shook it off. I had business to do. Pulling the laser gun out from my bra, I climbed the ladder and peeked over the edge. I loved all my guns, but the emerald green Pixie was one of my favorites. It
fit like a double ring over my pointer and middle fingers and had a hair trigger button that would fire white pulses of laser fire with the slightest brush of my thumb. A guard with a really large weapon (good grief, it looked like a bazooka, for heaven’s sake) stood next to the tall box where Nando’s elevator would soon arrive.

  He suddenly saw me, but I was faster.

  I shot him in the arm, then in the chest, both targets smoking from the cauterizing blasts. Running over and kicking the weapon he’d dropped away, I moved just in time for him to miss grabbing my ankle. A nice kick to the head and he was unconscious. I loved those boots. I wore them often.

  I dragged Mr. Guard off to the side so Nando wouldn’t see anything amiss when the door opened.

  The elevator door slid to the side, and I let Nando walk onto the roof. Confusion lit his face as he looked all over for his escape plane that wasn’t there.

  When he turned and saw me, I smiled before the side of my boot met the side of his head. K.O.!

  “Sis! Over here!” Colt’s voice cried.

  I turned around to see what looked to be my brother’s head floating in midair. He was driving the Dodge Charger, only he’d turned on its invisibility cloak and had the window rolled down. He leaned over and opened the back passenger-side door.

  A commotion was starting up below us: women screaming, men cursing, and lots of doors slamming. I saw little white spurts of laser fire flashing up at us from below.

  Dragging Nando by the feet, I said, “Get closer! This moron’s heavy!”

  Colt drove the car a few feet away from me, and I hurled Nando inside. Then I jumped into the front.

  “Oh, have I got stories!” Colt said, laughing so hard he looked like he might cry. “Oh, this one will go down in the books!”

  The elevator door opened and two of Nando’s men stepped out, aiming guns.

  “Colt!” I said. “Just get us to the station alive, and then you can tell me all about it!”

  The invisibility cloak seemed to throw the men off (the technology is still relatively new), but they shook off their shock and started firing.