Page 114 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
“That a .40 cal or a nine millimeter?” he asks.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say.
The kid in the cargo shorts blurts nervously, “Armin, this dude was just standing there in the middle of the disco—”
“Shut up, Kenny. The reason I ask is ’cause I got a few nines, but I’m thinking about adding the .40 cal to the collection.” Armin calmly smokes his cigar.
“I’ll give you this one if you let me borrow your tender to get to the yacht next door,” I tell him.
Armin’s brows lift. He’s Middle Eastern, Turkish maybe, built like a wall and completely unfazed by my presence. I’m not sure if he’s nuts or if I should offer him a job. Maybe all that hair doubles as body armor.
He assesses my state of agitation and my outfit of deadly weapons. “Why, you got somebody to kill over there?”
Kenny draws in a horrified breath and shrinks away from me.
“Nope, I got somebody to save, and I don’t have time to dick around with conversation.”
“The ship next door belongs to the Oracle software guy, Larry Ellison. Came in last night with his family. We cruise the same waters lotta the time, recognized his yacht.”
“Thanks for the intel. You just saved me from crashin’ another bachelor party. You gonna let me borrow your tender or what?”
“Oh, this wasn’t a bachelor thing,” Kenny meekly chimes in. “Armin gets paid to party by all these different brands. Like, to post pictures on Instagram with all the girls while he’s wearing expensive watches and drinking top-shelf tequila and stuff. He’s totally famous, I can’t believe you don’t recognize him—”
“Shut up, Kenny!” Armin and I say in unison.
Kenny shuts up. Armin scratches his bushy beard. “I got a sub on board if you’d rather take that. You look like a guy who likes to take people by surprise.”
I’m liking this guy more and more with every word coming out of his mouth. “Yes. That’s fuckin’ brilliant. Thank you.”
Armin smiles. “Cool. But I’m driving.”
Thirty-Four
Mariana
In my cocoon of shock, it doesn’t seem at all strange to order the kneeling assassins to rise. They do, holstering their weapons and clasping their hands in front of their waists as I’ve seen them do countless times before, but never for me. Then they stand there, waiting for my command.
“Salvatore,” I say quietly, addressing the only one I know by name.
His gaze cuts to me. “Si, Capo?”
Capo. I swallow the sick laugh tickling my throat. If I start laughing, I might never stop. “How many other people are on this boat?”
“Fourteen crew, the captain, and us.” He makes a gesture to encompass his companions, me, and the bodies on the floor.
“Will the tender hold that many?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” I stand there trying to think for a moment, forcing my thoughts around the cotton candy of my mind.
Salvatore clears his throat, and I focus on him again. He obviously wants to speak.
“Yes?”
With surprising dignity, holding himself tall, he says, “I disrespected you earlier, Capo, on the flight. I didn’t know who you were. We weren’t told…” He thinks better of whatever he was going to say and falls silent for a moment. Then he continues in Italian. “It would be my honor to end my life in payment for this disrespect.”
An aria plays in the background, a pair of soaring sopranos singing about betrayal and heartbreak, their love for the same man. I never would have guessed opera would be the soundtrack in hell.
