Sniping Her Mafia King

Arwen sat at a table straddling a chair and grinned at the way Naomi held a cigar clenched between her teeth. The woman was in the mood to inflict violence and at only an inch taller than Clara Draxton who was sitting cross-legged on a countertop with a bottle of vodka in her hands, with a shit-eating grin on her face, she was a contradiction in every way possible. "This is better than therapy!" Cat gave an excited shout and then looked to Sabine, "sorry Sabine but it is."

"Hey, I agree." Sabine grunted as she took a handful of pretzels from a bowl and tossed one in the air and caught it with her mouth. "I've been looking forward to this since Cat set it up."

"Same," Corry leaned over Arwen and kissed her cheek noisily. "I'm so happy you let us do this."

Josephine gave a shriek, "me too. This is the best night ever!"

Bliss, Naomi's wife wrapped her arms around Naomi's waist from behind and rested her head on her shoulder. "I'm still surprised you let him leave the house intact when he was there," Bliss looked at Arwen.

"Couldn't kill him with Deidre watching," Arwen chuckled. "We were in Boston this week and she told me the girls and I are a bunch of hotheads."

"She did not!" Cat exclaimed laughing.

"She did," Arwen gave a shake of her head, "she's been getting sassier and sassier lately." She pointed at Jesse, "she has the tea with Pima on Monday. She's excited. I anticipate the shell she's been coming out of will shatter." Isabella spoke up, "she's been talking to Portia a lot. They're good for each other."

"I agree," Arwen said and then took a long drink of her beer. "Speaking of good for her, she's been texting back and forth with Mathis, and they have a video date tonight. I heard her on the phone this morning calling him a pansy for complaining about the exercise program."

"Our little Deidre?" Corry asked curiously. "Our quiet mousy little Dee?"

"The funny thing is, I was observing his program remotely and she didn't know I heard her. His coach was taking a video for me, and he was doing exercises and talking to Dee. He complained he was hurting, and I heard her call him a pansy. I damn near pissed myself. Coach said he calls her three times a day."

"He really likes her," Clara said with a smile touching her cheek softly. "I personally pulled his file. He hasn't had a serious girlfriend since high school and not linked to anyone. He's smart and dedicated to his sport."

"The day we met him, he chased her down outside and whispered something about her eyes after getting her number. It was very romantic." Arwen tapped her heart with her fingertips and the girls all made an aw sound

"You know if he hurts her though we have to kill him," Naomi said bluntly. "Like him," she pointed past Arwen's shoulder to the man tied to the modified chair with his mouth gagged and duct taped shut. His eyes were wide as he watched the group of ten women casually sitting around having drinks and snacks in a Bellona safehouse. "He is going to die a slow painful death."

Arwen looked over her shoulder and lifted her beer as if toasting him and grinned, "do you know he believed I loved him?"

All the women laughed loudly at the thought.

"I did take a peek at his pecker," Corry grinned at her. "I don't usually get to do a lot of up close and personal and when we grabbed him, I needed to see why you stayed with him three months. He's hung."

"He was a good f**k," Arwen agreed, "or at least I thought he was. Then I got wrecked last night and I stand corrected."

The girls hooted with laugher, except Jesse who made a gagging noise.

Bliss leaned forward, "did the mob boss give you multiples? Did Torben teach him the ten second trick?"

"Pfft," Arwen laughed as Jesse shoved Bliss playfully, "my man doesn't need parlor tricks."

"Your man?" Cat jumped on her verbiage.

"According to him, as long as I'm his, he's mine." Arwen gave a shrug of a shoulder. "He let me stake equal claim."

"Do you get to brand him?" Jesse gave a snort.

"No, but he's not branding me either," she looked at Jesse pointedly, "how many bite marks you got?"

“f**k you, Beddoe," Jesse's harsh words were softened by her wide grin.

"Nah, I like the boy Cavallaro's not the girlie ones," she ducked away from Jesse's punch.

"Did boss-lady really tell you to tell him we're a gang?" Sabine asked curiously.

"Yup," Arwen shook her head still in disbelief over the call.

"Did you?" Jesse asked quietly, not sure if she wanted to know the answer. It was clearly bothering her to have her secrets spilled to her Sicilian family.

"I did. He stopped in to see me at the clinic because he wanted to make sure I was okay," she gave a little smile and stared at the tabletop, knowing her cheeks were reddening. "I told him I was part of a gang with Jesse and our boss has told him to get his s**t together and get the FBI off my a*s or my boss was going to do it and he'd probably not appreciate how indelicate she would be. He said he had already begun dealing with Agent Slimy Sack."

"Did he have a thousand questions?" Jesse pushed.

She met her friend's eyes and laughed, "no, I cannot reiterate enough how much he doesn't want to know what you get up to. He said the less he knows about your skills in particular the better. He'd be wanting to ask for favors if he knew the extent of our talents." She grinned as Jesse shook her head, "did you know he has a captain's license?"

"Yeah," she shifted uncomfortably. "Torben let it slip on one of his helicopter skiing escapades Addy flew the chopper."

"Why did we not like him before now?" Clara asked curiously. "He's hella cool." She grinned a crooked smile, "see what I did there? Hella, helicopter?"

The group all groaned loudly at her joke while she snort-laughed madly.

Naomi spoke up, "he might be cool right now because we know he doesn't traffic women and he's boning our girl, but he's still The King. He's dangerous and deeply involved in illegal activity to the point our boss had to get her," she pointed her cigar at Arwen, "to spill our secrets."

The girls were all quiet and absorbing the information Naomi shared. An outsider knew they were a gang. It never got less weird.

"He fed my chickens," Arwen said suddenly and looked up to the group. "He helped Deidre weed my garden while I was sleeping off the food poisoning and he fed my chickens and Dee showed me a video of him carrying Henrietta and clucking at her." "I want to see the video," Cat said.

Arwen pulled her phone and the girls all huddled around to watch.

Naomi sighed, "fine, he's cool. We'll kill him though if he hurts you."

"I'll shoot him myself," she grinned suddenly and then twisted at the waist to look at Trace, "just like I'm going to shoot him. Right in the head." Her last sentence was delivered cold, and the air changed with the comment.

Naomi jumped off the counter and walked towards Trace, using a lighter to light the cigar in her mouth. She took a few puffs and then stood over him. "When I saw the text messages this f*****g loser sent to Deidre, our sweet, innocent, Deidre who couldn't harm a fly, all I wanted to do was beat him to death."

The man tried to squirm in the chair, but he was tied tightly to the bolted down furniture he barely moved an inch. His eyes widened in terror as she took the cigar and pushed it into his face. The hiss of burning flesh started to fill the area. Naomi leaned into his face and spoke hotly, "you're going to pay you fucker. You scared our baby girl."

"Trace," Arwen stood up as she watched him struggling, "these are my friends. Remember when you and I had dinner together the last time? You told me I was too intense for you and my need to run home every time Dee called me made me too much work for you? Remember when you said you wanted to break up because you had met someone else and rather than cheat on me you just wanted to be honest and end things so you could f**k other people? I remember it. I was good with it. I mean I was pissed you used my kid as an excuse to break up in order for you to get your d**k wet with another woman, but I was ready to move on."

She got close as Naomi backed away and she straddled Trace in the chair draping her hands over his shoulders, leaning back to slap his face lightly, "but you, you realized I am," she looked to Jesse, "what is you called me? The bee's knees?" "Yup, you're the bee's knees." Jesse laughed.

"I'm the bee's knees, Trace," his blue eyes were bulging and his nostrils flaring as he gasped for breath. His face was ruddy and flushed and she knew he was terrified. The girls had been rough on him when they'd kidnapped him from his condo. "You decided you wanted me back, no matter what. You very stupidly made a decision to send abusive text messages to my kid." She took a breath, "I'm going to tell you a secret, Trace." She whispered loudly in his ear, "I'm an assassin. My friends, they're assassins too." He started to panic then shaking under her and she giggled as he did, "I can smell your fear Trace and I like it." She licked the side of his face Naomi hadn't burned, before slapping it hard.

She hopped off his lap, "I've known these women since I got custody of my girl. They are my support system but most importantly, they all love Deidre. They are very protective of her. Now Deidre, she doesn't know what we do. She thinks we're just feisty girls who get into fights in clubs. Because she was scared, she called a mob boss to get you off my property because she was worried you would hurt me. I couldn't let her think her actions got you killed. I made sure Mr. Cavallaro didn't kill you but my friends, they didn't like my decision. They want you dead." She frowned at him, "and me? I really want you dead. You told my baby girl to kill herself. I think it only fair then, you," her smile was menacing, "are going to kill yourself."

"But not before we have fun with you," Cat said coming closer, twirling a blade around her fingertip. "You told a vulnerable woman who has been through hell and back for more than half of her life to kill herself, just because you wanted to f**k her auntie." Cat jammed her knife into his shoulder and twisted it before yanking it out. His scream was muffled around the gag. "What did you say? I didn't hear you." She mocked him as she punched him in the crotch. He couldn't even double over from the way he was tied yet they all knew he was hurting.

"We did some digging, Trace," Clara walked closer chuckling as he recognized her his eyes narrowing first in confusion and then surprise when he placed her, "Aw, he knows who I am. When Arwen was recruited by our organization, I was one of the people assigned to collect her. Me," she pointed to Naomi and Bliss, "and those two women there, the three of us, were part of her first team. We helped her through her first kills. She's our girl and little Dee became ours too. When I found out you told her to kill herself, I decided to hack your computer. You know I'm really good at it right?" She pulled a couple of throwing stars from her pocket, examining them, "I noted the weekend you sent those mean and nasty texts to our little girl, Mr. Lovett, you, did an internet search on how to kill someone and make it look like an accident."

"Tsk, tsk," Arwen clicked her tongue, "were you trying to figure out how to kill my little girl?" He shook his head denying Clara's accusation, his eyes blinking rapidly through his tears.

Clara threw one of her stars, immediately followed by the other and watched with a tilted head as they lodged millimeters apart in his right pectoral muscle. "Just because you cleared your search history doesn't mean it's gone, dumbass. f**k I hate stupid men." She got close to pull her stars out of his bare chest, dragging them downward and then punched him in the face. "You don't get to search how to snuff out a kid's life, dickwad." "She's small but mighty," Corry chortled loudly as he squirmed to get away from Clara.

"Damn right I am," Clara grinned a downright scary smirk, "f**k you Trace." She took the edge of one of her stars and ran it down the side of his face, putting a mark eerily similar to her own, "that's for telling her the scars on her face make her ugly. Now you're as ugly as you think we are."

Jesse looked at the thighs of the man sitting in only his boxer briefs before running her hand over the wound on his thigh. "Did my cousin do this?" She punched it hard, and he jolted at the impact. "My cousin and I apparently share an affinity for putting blades into thighs. I wonder if he knew just a quarter inch to the right, he would have nicked your artery."

"I did ask him not to kill him," Arwen tossed out, leaning past Jesse's shoulder to look at Trace's terrified face, "I wanted to do it myself."

"He definitely knew," Jesse agreed and then took her knife and reopened the wound on his thigh. "This is for Deidre, you motherfucking piece of s**t. You mocked her limp. Now you get to take one to your afterlife."

"Trace, I think you've pissed off a lot of the wrong people," Sabine said with a sigh. "My hypothesis is you felt threatened by a young girl who, in spite of her disabilities, was easier for Arwen to love than you are, despite your big strong masculine body. As big, strong, and powerful as you thought you were, you came second to a girl with scars on her face and who walks with a limp and you knew, you would never be able to compare. You knew Arwen would never love you as much as she did Deidre and you thought, in your infinite wisdom," she drawled sarcastically, "if she died, you would swoop in, and comfort Arwen and she'd fall in love with you." Her face twisted angrily, "you, selfish, ignorant prick. I spent years treating the child with my colleagues through her trauma, teaching her to feel valued and special and you undermined it all with a single text. You took a woman who had beaten the odds and made her feel a burden to the person who loves her most." She ripped his gag out of his mouth, "what do you have to say for yourself?" "I'm sorry," he screamed, "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking -"

Whatever he was going to say next was stopped as Sabine, in her black leather gloves grabbed his tongue and with a swift swipe of a blade, cut his tongue out. "Now you no longer have the ability to use your words to hurt anyone." His guttural screams were punctuated by the laughs of the women behind her. Sabine turned to look at the group, "I'm so glad to be here."

"That was f*****g cool," Isabella laughed loudly. "Oh my God, Sabby. That was glorious."

Josephine clapped Sabine on the shoulder, "you are my hero." She bent down and picked up the tiny nub of his tongue and slapped his cheek with it, before shoving the fabric gag back into his mouth. "Leave it to the shrink to know how to silence a man. I'm not as slick as the good doctor," Josephine winked at Trace playfully, "I'm rougher around the edges than my counterpart," she gave a fake giggle, "so I'm just going to do what I do best." She pulled a knife from a pocket at her thigh and jammed it downward into his c**k. His head writhed back and forth, his eyes rolling with agony as she twisted it furiously. "I hope you rot in hell you useless piece of shit."

Corry hooked her arm through Isabella's, and they shared a wicked grin as they approached the man who was fading fast. Corry slapped his cheeks, "don't die yet, Trace. We want to tell you what's going to happen next."

Isabella laughed lowly, "see, Trace, the lady who came to see you in the hospital, the psychologist? She works for our organization. Her notes talk all about how after your mugging and finding out the muscle damage was going to keep you from ever competing again, you talked about how you just wanted to die."

Corry continued speaking, "so, earlier this evening, a letter was mailed to your parents in your handwriting, about how you simply couldn't go on. You told them you loved them, but you had nothing left to live for without your weightlifting s**t. You said you were going to throw yourself off a bridge." As his head lolled to one side, a whimper escaped his lips and Corry gave a bitter laugh, "you f****d with the wrong people, Trace. You threatened one of ours." Isabella moved behind him and then simultaneous with Corry plunged a blade into his torso with a heavy grunt. She leaned forward behind him whispering in his ear, "you'll never hurt another child again."

His eyes opened as the pain of the dual stabbing struck him in the chest and back. He looked to Arwen beseechingly, his voice garbled over his missing tongue and the blood covered cloth in his mouth.

Bliss moved to stand beside Arwen, and she rubbed her shoulder. "Look at us, killing off the people who threatened your cousin. One more time for old time's sake?"

"Yes, but can I just say, as much as I love looking through my sniper scope, I'm going to thoroughly enjoy being up close and personal." She took the gun Bliss put in her hand.

"You should be proud, Trace. You're about to be assassinated by unknown assassin number five on Interpol's most wanted list. She passed our friend Jesse about a month ago when she took out a politician who was abusing the girls in the school he was sponsoring." Bliss commented with pride. "I like to think I took up her training where her father left off. He taught her to shoot. I taught her to shoot to kill." Bliss kissed her cheek noisily, "show him. Show him what you can do."

Arwen lifted the gun and saw the expression on his face, begging for mercy and she gave a sneer. "You scared my little girl. Nobody frightens her and gets away with it." She lifted the revolver and fired the shot, his head immediately slumping over. She pursed her lips and looked to Bliss, "that felt good but I thought I'd feel something more."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe since we were lovers, I'd be sad about it or remorseful. I'm not."

"Not even a little?" Sabine asked

"Nope. Not even an ounce. I could really go for ice cream. Gelato. Is there a gelato shop open this time of night?"

"I bet we could get Addy to find us one," Jesse grinned suddenly. "He knows all the best Italian places in little Italy!'

"Clean-up crew has been dispatched," Clara said as she looked at her phone, "but I'm up for ice cream."

Arwen saw all the girls looking at her pleadingly, "oh my god, fine." She pulled her phone out and called Addy.

"Mia cara, what can I do for you at midnight on a Thursday night?"

"The girls forced me to call. They think you can tell us where we can find a good gelato shop which might still be open. We've had drinks and far too much fun at our little party and we're hungry for ice cream. Jesse felt you would know where we should go." He chuckled lowly, "are you drunk?"

"Drunk? Nah, just high on life."

"Well then, I will check with a friend of mine to see if he would mind opening his shop for you to have an ice cream party. Give me a couple of minutes and I'll send you the address."

"Ask him if he got rid of Agent Puny p***s," Clara called out loudly earning laughter from all the girls.

He chuckled, clearly hearing Clara's question. "As of this evening, he is no longer an agent of the FBI." Addy told Arwen who gave a thumbs up the girls. "I had a lengthy conversation with his supervisor and made it clear any further violation of my rights as an American citizen would result in me filing a lawsuit against the American government. I have enough evidence of illegal wiretaps, surveillance, and searches, not to mention the stalking of my girlfriend by an actual agent to make the charges stick. It would not be a hard case to win."

"Ruthless and sexy," Arwen grinned, "you know just what to say to a girl."

He laughed, "did you accomplish what you set out to do this evening?"

"I sure did."

"Good girl. Ice cream is on me. Santino just let me know the owner of my favorite shop will allow me to open it up for you. I'll text you the address." "Sweet. Thanks Addy."

"You're welcome, beautiful. I'll see you later."

The line went dead, and she looked to Jesse, "you can tell the powers that be, the situation with the feds was handled. He got our favorite agent fired and threatened a lawsuit. Apparently, he has evidence of them conducting an illegal surveillance of him and his businesses. He must have a hell of a lot of evidence if they agreed to back off."

Clara laughed, "he does. I hacked his hacker. They have files upon files. Are we going for gelato?"

"Yup."

"Clean-up will be here in sixty seconds. Let's roll."

Arwen followed her friend out of the Bellona safehouse and gave one last look at the dead man in the chair. She gave a shake of her head at the lack of emotion she was feeling. What did it say about her? She forced it away and jogged towards the girls who were walking a bit ahead of her. Her questions were better posed to Psych-One than in her own head. She'd have to discuss it with her at her next session. For now, she was going to eat gelato at her lover's favorite spot. What a great way to end the night.