Fire Bound (Sea Haven Sisters)(73)

He needed a woman. He’d tried to call Arturo several times but the man hadn’t picked up. Still, he’d left him a message to pick up one of the girls working for him. One that still wasn’t as trained as they’d like. The fact that Arturo hadn’t answered meant he had brought the girl to their little school and was working with her. By now, she would need his tender care. Arturo always commanded fear. When Luigi arrived, the girl would need gentle handling. Not gentle when it came to sex, but those little intimate gestures they misread into thinking he cared for them. Just a touch here and there, that was all it took after Arturo spent a little time with them.



He laughed aloud as he slid behind the wheel. He so enjoyed watching Arturo work, almost as much as Arturo enjoyed working. Still, he was going to have to find out exactly what happened, how the widow had died. He hated losing that income. Arturo was good at what he did, but sometimes he was a little too enthusiastic.

Luigi couldn’t get too angry with his oldest friend, not when there were times when he was a little too enthusiastic himself. It was easy to forget the women brought them in money when they were having such a good time. Sometimes clients forgot that as well, but that was okay, because then they paid for that mistake over and over. If Arturo or Luigi killed the golden goose, they got nothing but that moment’s pleasure from it.



He spent the rest of the drive fantasizing about giving Angeline to a couple of the men who were regular customers, men who had killed twice. They liked to make their purchase together. Of course Luigi charged them double, and since they’d killed twice, he made certain to give them the girl who brought in the least amount of money – just in case. Arturo had to clean up quite a mess both times.

It would be fun to film Angeline’s slow, torturous death. He couldn’t chance it, of course, but still, thinking about it was one of his favorite pastimes. Bringing anyone else in on Angeline’s death would be a risk he couldn’t afford to take. He planned the next best thing. He’d already discussed just how sweet Angeline would die with Arturo. His best friend had agreed to take her to the privacy of training school and spend a few hours with her before Luigi killed her.



Angeline had always been far too arrogant and haughty to ever talk to Arturo. She didn’t like him in her house and made no bones about letting both Luigi and Arturo know. Arturo would love to get her to himself in that training school. The instruments he had weren’t toys. He knew how to cause a woman such pain she would beg for death. He was equally as good at humiliation. Arturo hated Angeline almost as much as Luigi did.

She always treated their soldiers with a kind of disdain and frowned on Luigi being friends with someone who never rose above personal bodyguard in the organization. She harped on the fact that her father would never have tolerated Arturo’s familiarity with the boss. She was just the opposite of Lissa. Lissa threw her arms around Arturo, hugged him with genuine affection, joked with him, treated him like family and had, on more than one occasion, taken care of him when he was ill. If there was anyone Arturo cared anything for other than Luigi, it was Lissa. Still, like Luigi, Arturo knew Lissa had to die. It would be sad, but it was necessary.



Luigi turned the vehicle onto the long winding drive to the back part of the property. He’d scored with the building, snatching it up the moment it was on the market. In town, yet secluded, no one would ever have a clue what went on there. He loved being there with the women, and his enemies, all at his mercy inside the soundproof building, surrounded by the rest of the town. No one ever suspected.

As the car approached the last bend, nearly overgrown with foliage, he saw an orange-red glow. Frowning, he automatically accelerated and then slammed on the brakes as the building came into view. There were no flames on the outside, but windows were breaking, and through them he could see a vicious, hungry blaze leaping greedily at the walls and seeping under the doorway. The outside walls were black and blistered with the incredible heat.



Arturo must not have returned yet. He caught up his phone as he backed down the drive fast. Punching in Arturo’s number, he swore as it went to voice mail. “The building’s on fire. Inside. I can see the flames. Call me. Now.”



Heart pounding, he drove fast away from the fire. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the place when the fire department came. He had no idea how much of the inside of the building would be destroyed, but he knew the investigators often could read a lot in the ashes. He was going to have to spread money around to get the official report and either bury it, tweak it, or let it go at what they found. Thankfully, he knew Arturo had gotten the widow’s body out of there.