Page 2 of Pain and Pleasure

“Yes, Sir?”

I pull my handgun from my glove box and tuck it into my belt.

“Tell the men to be heavily armed. Your fuck up could have us meeting Juan Carlos a lot sooner than we originally anticipated.”

I end the call without waiting for his response, gunning it down the freeway and towards her campus. Thirty or so minutes go by and I am nearing her parking lot, taking in the several blacked out SUV’s that are parked in her complex. There’s a reason why I have men staged in several different spots in the city, it just wasn’t supposed to be for this reason. It wasn’t supposed to be because ofher.

Before I call for anyone, I run up the stairs to her unit, banging on the door until Ricky opens it with a shocked expression on his young face.

“You! What the fuck have you done? There've been several strange men in suits scouring our place for Emmie when she’s supposed to be withyou.Where the fuck is she?”

I brush past him and into the living room, hearing the click of the front door close behind me. It looks like her here, small and sunny. A little light that illuminates any shit surface or person that she touches.

“She’s missing because of you, isn’t she? That’s why she’s been acting so differently lately. Because you’ve done something to her.”

I don’t respond to him, just continue searching the apartment for any sign or clue that she might have for her location. He can’t have her yet, he just can’t.

“Answer me, god damnit!” Ricky shouts from behind me.

I sigh in annoyance before turning to look at him. He’s so young, this boy. Young and immature and so unlike Emmie that it baffles me that she’s been friends with him for most of her life. She’s wise for her age, you’d think he would be as well. I have zero confidence that he’ll be able to navigate our world, but I also have no choice because of her.

“I’m sorry to do this,” I say before approaching him and knocking the side of his head with my gun. He falls to the floor with a loudthump, unconscious immediately. I pull out my phone to dial one of my guards.

“I need you to come inside of Esmeralda’s apartment and keep watch on her friend. Tie him up and do something to quiet him if he wakes up. Don’t let him out of your fucking sight.”

“You got it boss.” I hang up the phone and leave as soon as my guard answers, walking out of the door and onto the staircase.

As I make my way down to the parking lot, I notice something shiny in the rocks beneath the staircase. As I get close, I see that it’s a set of keys on the rocks. Emmie’s keys. I pick them up and survey them, noticing all but one key is missing. The key to her mother’s house. I pull my phone out and dial Sergio.

“I need everyone to follow me to her mother’s house. Bring all the ammo that you have with you. Have the guard upstairs take her friend back to my house and watch him there.”

I hang up and put the keys in my pocket, switching them out for my car keys. I speed towards her mother’s house, a half an hour drive, give or take. It takes me twenty minutes and I pull up with my men behind me. The house is dark and the windows are boarded up. It’s been weeks since payments have been made, but the front door is wide open.

I approach quietly, my hand resting on the gun tucked into my belt. I wave for my men to draw their guns once we reach the doorway, checking the scene before we enter. It’s eerily quiet and smells of mold. No sign of life has been in this hell hole since we took them weeks ago, unless the sign of life is a sewer rat with a mustache that thinks he’s the son of God himself.

My men disperse. Two stay in the living room while the others walk to the kitchen and backyard. I make my way towards her old bedroom, kicking open every door in the hallway, but still coming up short. Once I’m at her bedroom door, I wave for Sergio to come behind me. Both of our guns are drawn as we kick the door open, expecting a scene before us, but we are only greeted with familiar silence.

Her room stays untouched, looking the same as we left it weeks prior. We walk further in to see if there are any clues sticking out to us, maybe more clothes taken or something left behind, but we are left with nothing. Nothing but frustration and a small bit of worry for the woman I allowed myself to feel for, the woman who started smashing away at my walls with a hammer the first moment she saw me.

I start throwing things in a rage, breaking dresser drawers and kicking away everything in my line of sight. My anger is red and it blurs everything before me. Sergio stays silent the entire time, which is a good thing. I can’t be held responsible for killing my late father’s assistant. He begins shuffling through papers that are scattered along her bed when the sound of footsteps stops us both in our tracks.

“If you’re looking for him, you won’t find him here.”

Emmie.

I turn around at her voice and stare at her large, green eyes. There, in the bedroom doorway, stands Esmeralda. Looking a lot calmer and a lot less terrified than I expected. Her arms are folded across her chest and a frown is set above her eyes, her full lips catching my gaze.

She’s alive. She’s alive and she’s here.

“Why are you still here, Dante?”

Her voice is a whisper and that’s all it takes before I start marching towards her, not giving a fuck if Sergio or any of my men are watching. I grab her chin with my fingers and look into the orbs of her eyes, bending down to do the one thing I’ve wanted to do most in the last twenty-four hours. I do the one thing that constantly lives in the depths of my mind: I kiss her.

2

Esmeralda

His lips areon mine immediately and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Not like I would want to anyway.

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