The Heist (13 page)

A compromise
was met when I allowed her to wear her black leather lace up
boots.

After
scowling at anyone that dared to wish her a happy birthday it was
my darling husband that managed to coax our daughter from the
stairs.  Her love for her Papa radiated over her face, showing
her two dimples as he lifted her into his arms, walked her down to
the ballroom and moved them both with grace over the dance floor,
Alicia was like a princess in her father’s arms.

That was
enough to calm her down and forget about her purple gown she was
wearing and she soon ran off to find my little Prince, Alessandro
Jnr.

The night was
a success, our children being spoiled with lavish gifts and money,
the food was wonderful, the champagne was flowing until the last
guest left at two am.
With both our
children exhausted and safely tucked up in their beds, Alessandro
called me to his study. The look on his face was grim as I took a
seat.

Whilst the
party was in full swing, ten of our guests had been robbed of their
jewels, family heirlooms that adjourned their necks and fingers,
pocket watches, gold snuff boxes and copious amounts of lira were
stolen in our very home and under our very eyes.

Alessandro
had our security detail working on the guest list, to look for
suspects. How appalling that someone came to a children’s birthday
celebration and stole in front of our very eyes.

It saddens me
that a living being could ruin a child’s day this way.’

Closing the
journal, Alicia realised that her tenth birthday had been the night
she made her first steal.  The thief was never caught that
night just as she has never been caught — and as for that Commander
Prick? Well, she wasn’t about to let him catch her
either!

“
I don’t
fucking believe this!”

Xavier’s tone
was remarkably calm as he checked his bank account — the one he
used when working, that is. There were zero funds showing. Nothing
paid in, nothing paid out. It had been wiped clean as though it had
never been operational. There was only one explanation for this.
The Belcastros were fucking with him. A quick check of his offshore
accounts proved that three other accounts had been tampered with,
not only this one. “Dirty, low life motherfucking scumbag
cunts.”

“
Date went
well then Commander, aye?” Shuggie folded his arms and leaned on
the side of the door as he watched the commander at his
computer.

Turning slowly
to face Shuggie, Xavier’s expression was not amused.
“
You
will keep
til later asshole, yeah? Take a look at this.” Turning the screen
around so that Shuggie could see it, Xavier added in his
head
while your eyes are still in your
head, fucker
.  He would neither
forget nor forgive the trick Shuggie had played on him with the old
woman in the restaurant, but for now this matter took
priority.

“
Wit the fuck!
Dae these Belcastros huv a fucking death wish? Who’s working fur
them that could pull aff a stunt like this?” Shuggie mirrored
Xavier’s incessant mood as he finally looked up from the screen to
face him. “Wit ur ye gonnae dae, Commander?”

“
Not sure.
Yet. I need to have more to work on before I confront the bastards.
So sit your ass down and start finding out when and where they
hacked into my accounts, and then do a trace on theirs.  They
want to wipe out my funds and get me working pro bono? No fucking
bueno.”

Xavier lit his seventh
cigarette in fifteen minutes, and stared over Shuggie’s shoulder as
he started to type.  It was going to be a long
night.

Snr Belcastro took a long
pull from his cigar, then stumped it out on the forehead of the
guard who was forced to his knees in front of him.

“
I don’t take
kindly to incompetence Santiago. You were meant to find out where
Commander Raige went, who he spoke with — fuck, I wanted you to
find out how many shits he takes and if he washes his damn hands
afterwards. But losing him in town? Losing him?” A loud slap
resonated in the room as Snr Belcastros hand connected with
Santiago’s face.

“
If you fuck
up again, it won’t be you who I will come after…no, it will be your
beautiful wife, and that pretty little daughter of yours who will
pay for your mistakes. They would make fine assets to my
business arrangement with the Russians, don’t you
think?”

A shaken
Santiago knew it was futile to beg for mercy when Snr Belcastro was
in this mood. Hell, he’d carried out the old man’s dirty work for
more years than he cared to admit.  But when your family is
being threatened, there was no way he would make any more errors in
this assignment — which was precisely why this was the motivating
technique Snr Belcastro used time and again.

 
It had
a hundred percent success rate.

****

Slipping the
god awful looking piece of material (more commonly known as a
maid’s outfit) over her body, Alicia tied her hair back into a
loose ponytail then to complete the outfit, spilled her feet into
the faux leather flats, muttering that imitations would blister her
feet as her hand reached for the feather duster.

Security was
tight at the mansion all thanks to that arrogant male who dated
‘lions’ so the next best thing was to get close and carry out her
forced revision stake out
inside
the mansion itself — by disguising herself as one
of the maids.
Of course the Don’s office
was off limits…but Alicia had an ace card — her vampire
hearing!

She sneezed
all the way along the corridor, dust mites irritating her as she
carried the foreign object on her hand. There was no way in hell
she was
actually
going to clean anything. She wouldn’t have known how to
anyway!

No this was a case of get
in, listen and then get out as quickly as she could.

****

All through the day,
Shuggie worked in the sun-tight room trying to untangle the web of
worms and spyware that the hacker had skilfully weaved to cover
their tracks.  

“
Ah dinnae
ken who they huv working fer them but one things fer sure,
Commander, they’re fucking good. Giving me a run fer mah money, an
there’s no many oot there that kin dae that.”

It was now a
matter of personal pride to Shuggie that he hunt down their hacker.
No one ever bettered him with computers, and he wasn’t about to
concede defeat now.

Xavier left
Shuggie working away as he climbed into his SUV and headed straight
for the Belcastro mansion.  He wouldn’t confront him about his
suspicion that they had stolen his money out of his bank accounts
straight away, he needed actual proof before he did that.  His
intention, however, was to feed Belcastro with some random shit
about having various leads on the gang of thieves that were
targeting his property and business and to give him some shit about
‘having his best men working on it’.
There
was no way in hell that he was going to give them the
actual
Intel he had —
that Friera was the head of the gang of thieves.

That little nugget of
information would stay between him and Shuggie for the time
being.

All the while
he would be on a fact finding mission to figure out what the fuck
was actually going on and why they would think he, the fuck
handsome and feared Commander Xavier Raige, would be an easy target
for the Belcastro’s to rip off.
He had
undertaken this mission on good faith, and he did not respond to
dirty tricks and backstabbing well. He never could abide two faced
liars.

There was a
distinct air of corruption about the mansion, Xavier thought dryly
as he was turned away from Snr Belcastro’s office for the third
time in succession. The first time, he was told that the Senor was
in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed. The second time, a man
called ‘Santiago’ was being dragged out of the office by his hair
and led away by two of Belcastro guards. This time though, there
wasn’t even the attempt at an excuse as to why he wasn’t being
allowed access to the old bastard. This only reinforced his
suspicions that they were enjoying treating him like their
bitch.

Xavier’s mood
was already sour, but this was adding insult to
injury. Deciding that there was little point in hanging around
like a fan girl for Snr Belcastro to step out of his office so that
he could confront him, Xavier took a short detour before leaving
the mansion.

All he need was five
minutes in Snr Belcastro’s private quarters to see if the careless
old man had left any incriminating evidence lying around.
 Nodding to some guards as he passed them on the mezzanine
before climbing the stairs to the bedrooms, no one suspected that
he was doing anything other than a sweep around to ensure the
security systems were fully operational.

****

“
Thank you
Senorita, I shall take my break now.” Alicia smiled as she headed
down the corridor to the staff quarters. Spanish was one of the
many languages she could speak fluently.  Ten minutes were
over quickly and it was time to get back to work.  Heading out
of the room, she took a slow walk back to the office area of the
mansion.

Tossing the
feather duster to the ground when she entered the office with a
look of disgust on her face. Alicia wasn’t exactly the type that
revelled in the act of cleaning, and the sneezing was starting to
get on her nerves.

Her interest
had been piqued however when she overheard a conversation…the
Russians were involved in this somehow.  She needed to get
back home and check those flash drives again, there had got to be
something that she had missed the first time she looked them
over.

Turning and
leaving the office, she headed down the corridor, paying more
attention to the god awful shoes on her feet, she felt herself
collide with something hard.  “Excuse me….”

Hardly
noticing the chambermaid who had bounced off of him and nearly hit
the wall, Xavier looked down. “Just watch where you’re going in
future, yeah?” He was about to march past her when he took a second
glance.

Friera.

It was fucking Friera,
right here in person, in the Belcastro mansion bold as fucking
brass!

Xavier
grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her into the nearest room,
talking through gritted teeth. “What the fuck do you think you’re
playing at?”

“
Ah duck! You
stalking me again soldier boy?” Alicia smirked as wriggled in his
hold. “You are hurting me, now be a nice prick and let me go…
please!  Or is it a kiss you’re wanting, since you dragged me
into a cupboard?”

Ignoring her
comments, Xavier kept a firm grip of her arm, glaring at her.
“Planning to rob them in plain sight, were you? You have a set of
balls on you, Sweetcheeks, I’ll give you that. Do you have any
notion of the amount of shit you are getting yourself
into?”

As he hissed
the words into her ear, Xavier had to use all of his self-control
not to take her into his strong arms and kiss the breath right out
of her. She was deliberately put on this earth to cause him
trouble, he was completely convinced about that. And she was doing
a damn good job of it too.

“
At least I
have balls.”

Still
smirking, Alicia looked up, his eyes were dark green today. These
were his ‘pissed off’ shade. She had observed in their now three
encounters with one another that his eyes changed shades depending
on his mood.

“
As if I
would rob anyone! I told you Commander Prick, you know nothing
about me, so let me go! I won’t scream of make a scene and you…well
you can go grow a pair of balls. I’m sure the old ladies just love
that about you don’t they?”

Still
ignoring her jibes, Xavier took out his cell and started filming
her.

“
Confess to
the thefts and attempted thefts. Give me the names of your
co-conspirators, and it will go better for you when I hand you over
to Belcastro. Don’t be a fool, female, you have been caught and you
will have to pay for your crimes. This way, I will be able to have
some sort of leverage to plead for leniency for you, yeah?” He
didn’t know why it mattered so goddamn much that she didn’t suffer
at the hands of Snr Belcastro, but even the thought of anyone
touching a hair on her head made his deadly mood,
vicious.

“
Oh! You want a picture? Well allow me to pose just perfectly
for you shall I?” Not answering any more of his questions about her
crimes and how he thought he could save her skin, Alicia moved
closer, flipped her middle finger up, stuck out her tongue and
posed for her five seconds of fame. ‘Action man’ was too busy
filming her and…did he
growl
? Yep, she was pretty sure he
had just growled there!

Alicia knew
he was so preoccupied with the filming of her ‘confession’ he
didn’t notice her bending her knee and lifting her leg towards his
balls. With force, her knee connected with his crown
jewels.