TWO
Luce
"Fuck," I growled, coming slowly toward consciousness. That slowness was proof of the fact that I hadn't just been bashed in the back of the head. No, the fog over my brain, the dryness in my mouth, the weird atrophied feeling to my muscles, yeah, that could only mean one thing.
Once I was out, someone drugged me too.
I let out a sigh, my eyes drifting open to find the source of the cold hardness beneath my cheek. A basement floor.
Yeah, that was about right I guess.
While I had never been taken down before, men like me didn't get the luxury of being surprised by it. It was only a matter of time. Someone was going to get me someday, want to pull me apart, want to melt me in a tub, want to bleach me down the drain.
Maybe a part of me was hoping for another couple weeks, let me take down that newest scumbag I had heard about, but I couldn't say I was exactly broken up about it either.
This was my fate.
I was never going to live to ninety and sit on a front porch bitching about how good things used to be when people knew their neighbors and electronics didn't take over the world. First, because fuck neighbors. Second, because electronics were the shit.
But I knew I would be lucky if I made it to forty without ending up in a cell or a grave, no matter how careful I was.
Why now? Yeah, that was more what was on my mind. It wasn't like it was when I first started out, when I was willing to just... take somebody out on the street or in their own car, no doubt leaving a shitton of evidence behind. It wasn't like I had gotten careless. My methods were even more strict than ever before. I also hadn't taken anyone out who I had considered a risky target. No crime bosses or any shit like that. The last risky move was taking on some shits running a pill mill. But I took out the whole operation. There was no one left to want vengeance.
I took a breath, feeling my lungs burn, as I forced a swallow, rubbing my tongue against the roof of my mouth to get rid of a film I felt coating it.
Fucking poison.
I rarely worked with it. It was too unstable, too unpredictable, too hard to fucking come by.
Poison to kill? Yeah, that shit was easy.
Poison to keep someone out, to keep them down, to keep them weak? Yeah, that spoke of a professional. That spoke of years of studying poisons, of experimenting with them.
"Great," I hissed at myself as I forced my weighted arms to move to press into the floor, willing the strength back to push my weight up so I could look around. All I could see was darkness and a cinderblock wall not too far off.
Poison people were like knife people.
They lived to play with their toys.
I had the distinct impression that I was about to be a very large, very trapped, lab rat.
You know, I might have been a real shit, I decided as I managed to plant one hand on the cold, dirty floor, and find enough strength to propel me onto my back, but I didn't fucking play with my victims like a cat with a mouse.
Sure, they woke up tied up and scared to shit. Usually literally. They literally pissed and shit themselves almost without fail. But our chat was always amicable. For all intents and purposes. I laid out their crimes, showed them my evidence, then gave them a choice between fessing up to the cops or dying by my hand. I didn't poke and prod at them to get any desired result. I guess because there was no desired result. I was just as happy to drop them at a specific location and have a cop ally of mine pick them up and book them.
Surprisingly, very few went that route.
In my tenure doing my job, I think there were maybe three who did. One serial rapist, one serial killer who preyed on prostitutes, and one trafficker.
See, Jersey didn't have the death penalty. And juries were notoriously stupid.
They stood a better shot with our fucked up criminal justice system.
But, hey, who am I to judge?
I was just as happy to get to the killing part.
Of course, that part could never be fully painless. And I was a firm believer in fairness. So I untied them for the big finale. They wanted to get some punches in, in some last ditch effort to think they had some control, so be it.
They didn't realize I had a flawless record.
I always won.
The bad guy always went down.
Then down the drain.
"Fuck," I growled as I landed on my back, able to look around, my eyes adjusting to the dark.
Not only was I in a basement with cement floors and cinderblock walls and, from what I could tell, no windows. No. I was in a mother fucking cage.
It was a good one too.
I forced a leg out, kicking with my admittedly crippled strength into one of the beams, nodding when it didn't so much as budge, sending a slow shot of pain up my leg. Yep, that shit was cemented in deep and bolted into the ceiling. It wasn't going to budge. There was no way out.
I should have been freaking out. My heart should have been frantic, trying to break free of my ribcage. But it was a sluggish, heavy thing sitting inside my chest.
Granted, I wasn't as freaked as a normal person would be, but my heart should have been getting a mild workout right about then; I could only assume it wasn't because it was another side-effect of the poison.
It was likely the reason my stomach felt torn the fuck up too. Luckily, there was nothing in it to throw up.
"Deslanoside. Digitoxin. Digitalis glyoside."
Oh, man.
Fuuuuck me.
That was a fucking woman's voice.
See, there wasn't one fucking sexist bone in my body, not even in regard to female criminals.
Why, you might ask?
Because violence didn't come as easily to them.
Studies have shown that little girls are inherently more gentle than little boys. Now, whether that is nature or nurture is up to the professionals to decide.
But what I did know was that whichever of those they were overcoming - something in their DNA, or a lifetime of programming - whatever trigger was bad enough to send them over the edge, to send them to the dark side, when they got there, Jesus fucking Christ, they were different creatures entirely.
I'd never seen something as ruthless, level-headed, and unforgiving as a woman in power over a criminal empire.
And I had never seen someone as brutal as a female killer.
Maybe it was as simple as whatever sent their lives in that direction had stolen an important part of their humanity from them. But I was inclined to think it had less to do with brokenness and more to do with them realizing their potential. Not being held back by things like fragile egos their male counterparts were afflicted with gave them a lot more time and brain-space to focus on more important parts of their missions.
So being in the hands of a woman who was a fan of poison? Oh yeah, I was in for a world of shit.
Sure, maybe I even deserved it.
But that wasn't an easy reality to resign yourself to.
"Foxglove," she explained when I made no response to her comment.
I had no idea where she was.
Even with eyes adjusted, the space seemed huge. There were plenty of dark corners to hide in. She could be anywhere.
Of course I was poisoned with some pretty goddamn flower.
Couldn't be some badass shit from South America that I could feel like warranted the shitty feeling through my whole system.
Nope.
Pretty pink backyard flowers.
"How quaint," I ground out, focusing on trying to force life into all the seemingly useless parts of my body. "What's next? A little oleander tea?"
"Don't be ridiculous," her voice called back, calm, but if I wasn't mistaken, there was the smallest spark of amusement there. "Oleander doesn't grow in New Jersey. Besides, it would tear up your stomach. And I might want you in pain, but I don't want to be dealing with your bodily fluids."
"Unless you're planning on killing me in the next hour or so, doll, I'm afraid you're going to have to regardless."
There was the distinct click of heels on hard floor, thicker heels, not stilettos, but heels nonetheless.
Then there was nothing for a long second.
Followed by a click.
And light.
My eyes squinted instinctively against the harshness, but also because the brightness caused an almost immediate headache which was, no doubt, thanks to the stupid flower poison too.
I blinked hard several times, looking over to find the heels I had heard. Combat boots, but with heels. Sexy, actually. I liked them. Wasn't exactly opposed to the long, shapely legs that extended from them, clad in tight, dark pants that must have been leather. She had somewhat wide-set hips and a simple black tee showing that while she had a banging curvy lower body, she hadn't been quite as lucky in the chest department. You can't have it all, as they say. She had plenty... and I hadn't even gotten to the face yet.
And what a damn face too.
As evidenced by my interaction earlier with Jazzy, I always had a bit of a thing for women from different ethnic backgrounds. This woman, well, she was Latina. That was about as good of a description as I could give seeing as there were dozens of Latin countries and I didn't know shit about what region looked like what. She was sexy with her deep-set, sultry, dark eyes, her flawless skin, her full lips, and her black lashes, brows, and long hair.
Fucking gorgeous.
And young for a poison expert.
Young for any kind of criminal really.
I'd put her in her mid-twenties, though there was no way to know but asking.
I watched as her chin angled up during my inspection, not calling me on it, not demanding I look away, but making it clear she knew she was the one with all the power. Then she jerked her head to the far side behind me, making me hold in a grumble as I forced my head to turn.
And find a toilet.
"Don't go getting hopeful," she said, tone empty. "It's a prison toilet."
It was too. All stainless steel and one giant piece, none of the inner workings accessible, no parts that could be pulled off and used for a weapon, but with a small sink area on the top.
"Set you back, bare minimum, fourteen-hundred. You want me enough to shell out that kind of money?"
"Who says you're the only person I've had down here?"
"Fair enough," I agreed, finally feeling some of the brain fog lifting.
"Get comfortable," she said, waving a hand.
"What? No introductions? No 'hey, I'm the poison-wielding hell bitch, nice to meet you?'"
"Careful," she said, coming closer to the bars, putting her hands on them, and leaning in slightly. "Or I will give you just enough sodium thiopental to make you feel like your veins have turned into liquid fire. Without the blissful release of death."
With that, she was gone, leaving me with what was most assuredly a psychotic-looking smile. What can I say? Women in charge were sexy. Women who threatened you without blinking were sexy.
Christ.
Where the hell would she even get her hands on lethal injection drugs?
The foxglove made sense. Natural poisons were easy enough to come by. But that shit they used for capital punishment, that was highly controlled. Our good ol' government likely didn't want it getting out that they paralyzed their inmates then set their insides on fire as way of 'humane execution.'
And people thought firing squads were barbaric.
Who was she?
Why did she have me?
Was she just a middle man?
Did someone hire her to bring me in and keep me just alive enough for them to retrieve me and play with me?
That made more sense.
I couldn't think of anything I could have done recently to piss off a poisons expert.
I sighed as I forced my body to curl up, finding the weighted numbness slowly moving away, leaving me with at least a little control over my limbs. I pushed to a sitting position, and dragged my ass over toward the toilet. Reaching up, I used the edges of the sink part to pull myself up, cursing savagely as my legs screamed and almost gave out.
I needed water.
I needed to flush that shit out of my system so I could think, and react, appropriately.
Was I especially keen on the idea of having to fight my way out of that basement? Nah. Was I enthused about the fact that, to do that, I needed to put my hands on a woman? Again, no. But survival was survival. I needed out. And if I had to put my hands on her, hopefully, it was just to restrain her long enough to slip away.
Once I got away, I could figure out who the hell she was. I knew a lot of the players in the underbelly, many of the experts in different fields. I didn't know nearly as much about poisons as I did about guns, drugs, bombs, and trafficking. I needed to remedy that. Starting with one sexy as fuck dark-haired woman with lethal injections at the ready.
You know, if I made it out.
There was no guarantee of that.
And it wasn't me being pessimistic, just honest.
The chances were truly unknown at this point. There were too many variables.
Was she going to open the cage to feed me, if she planned to feed me at all? Unlike the ingenious jailhouse toilet and sink combo, the cage I was fenced in by did not have a slot to slip trays through. But maybe if she was planning to feed me, whatever it was would be small enough to fit through the bars.
Was she going to come in the cage at some point to try to get more poison in me so she could tie me up and do whatever she wanted with me?
Or could she maybe just shoot that shit into me from her side of the bars?
The better a criminal she was, the less a chance I had at getting out.
If she came alone and she opened that cage, I was getting out.
If she didn't open the cage at all, fuck if I knew what my fate would be.
Likely a lot of torture and a messy fucking death.
Truly, in the realm of fairness in the world, that would be rather fitting.
I didn't want to die per se, but it wasn't like I was some great loss to the world. Hell, the only people who would likely even notice were people like Jazzy and Barrett, people just used to seeing my face. Because I didn't have anything even close to resembling a friendship, relationship, or family. A part of that was being a genuine loner. But perhaps a bigger part was knowing that anyone who associated with me was by default in danger.
I wasn't bringing anyone down with me.
And, to be honest, I had done a lot of good with my life. Maybe I had done it in a dark and dirty way, but the end result was the same. I took predators off the streets.
It wouldn't be a tragedy if this was how I went down.
But, that being said, I was going to fight.
As soon as my lovely captor made another appearance.