Hard Limits(23)

Nico could never make love to Carmela. Not that she would know the difference. Or care, for that matter. Carmela used sex for power. Love didn't enter the equation.

The knock from the door interrupted them. One of his lieutenants. "Might I?"

Nico nodded, signaling for him to come in.

"Here are the tapas you ordered," the man said, leaving a tray on the table.

He'd asked for food a while back, before turning on the computer. Now he couldn't swallow a single bite.

"Where were we?" Carmela asked once they were alone again.

"I was working. You were leaving."

She smiled condescendingly. "Let me pour you a drink and we'll eat something."

"Not hungry." Nevertheless, he grabbed the molecular analyzer and pointed it at one of the tapas.

Carmela looked at the device questioningly. "And that?"

"Life insurance. Molecular analyzer."

She threw her head back and laughed. "Do we have to hire a tester, like in the Middle Ages?"

Nico didn't miss a beat. "No, thanks. This is faster." He plugged it into the phone.

Carmela shook her head, amused. "Aren't we being a bit paranoid? Tell me if we are offing the chef. There are several recipes I need to get from him first."

Well, taking into consideration he'd survived the last attempt on his life by divine providence, yes, paranoia was very much needed. His men had found the person in the restaurant responsible for spiking Nico's food: the sous-chef, a poor devil guilty mainly of being an unlucky gambler with a shitload of debts, who was supposed to signal when Nico passed out. The hitman was an enforcer for a rival cartel. No mystery there. How he'd known where to find Nico and how he'd been able to get so close, that was far more interesting. Locating said hitman had been trickier. And a dead end: when they caught up with him, his rotting corpse had been already floating in the sea for over a week.




 

 

"So?" Carmela asked, motioning at the molecular analyzer.

The first tapas were a snack of bread, brie, and chistorra sausage. "Clean. So far."

"If you aren't hungry, I'll gladly take these from you. Consider it my sacrifice on the altar of your paranoia."

"Be my guest."

She looked over his shoulder at the pictures in front of him. "Pretty girls. For you? You never used to sample the merchandise."

Force himself onto traumatized women who were being sold as sex slaves? He'd rather die.

He glanced at the pictures. They had been taken before the girls were drawn in. They were all smiling. Happy. Falsely believing they were getting visas to go abroad to become models or musicians or nannies or whatever excuse they'd been told. The girls' ordeals had just been starting then. Now, they didn't look like this.

He tamped down his rising fury and said as matter-of-factly as he could, "I'm reserving them. Got buyers."

He'd been trying to save as many as he could, as often as he could, diverting them to bogus buyers or tipping police off, but there were so many, he was not even making a dent. Bringing down the whole infrastructure and sending the traffickers to the deepest, darkest hole he could find would do that.

"Good. These seem rather innocent," she said, pointing at the ones he'd separated. The youngest ones. "Unskilled too. Never understood this male obsession with virginity. Nothing more boring than that, if you ask me."

"They pay big money. We need cash."

Needing cash was something Carmela understood. It made sense in her world in a way human decency didn't. She was the kind of woman who hated being ignored. Vindictive to a fault. Full of herself too.

His skin crawled at her proximity. But she had been, for a long time, the confidante behind the powerful man, and Nico still needed her resources and knowledge, especially about the sex trafficking.

She nuzzled his neck, reached down, and squeezed his shaft through the jeans. Subtle, Carmela wasn't.

Nico closed his eyes. Jesus fucking Christ. He couldn't do this shit anymore.

"Sure I can't convince you to call it a day and stop working?"

Unceremoniously, he moved her hand away. "Not in the mood. Maldonado left the finances shaky to say the least. I have shit to do."

She took the tray, tsk-tsking. "You were more fun before, Russian."

"I was never fun."

"As you wish," Carmela finally said, turning around and swaying her hips on her way out. "I'll leave you alone with those pictures to mouse off to. You know where to find me if you change your mind." 

Nico gripped the molecular analyzer and pressed his eyes shut, trying to block the pictures. Carmela. All of it. This shit was killing his soul. Whatever small part was still left, it was not going to survive this.