The Heist (30 page)

Still, it had
troubled him enough to make a mental note of it and discuss it with
Teodora later — for her medical opinion, of course — nothing
else.

Alicia rose.
The mini skirt sat high on her thighs, so she gently tugged at the
bottom as she moved to stand directly in front of the Don. Raising
her left leg upwards, she kicked her ankle out a little so that it
was balancing on the armrest of his oversized chair, snaking her
arms upwards under her hair so her fingers could find the small
switch to the wire, Alicia flicked it to the ‘off’
position.

What she was
about to do was not as they had planned. Xavier wanted her in, kill
Belcastro and get out.

This was it
though, this was the moment Alicia avenged her family and she was
about to make the most of it. The two most important males in her
life were outside anyway so nothing could go wrong…she thought
internally.

Xavier’s eyes
widened, then narrowed, as he hit the comms units.  Looking
over at Shuggie, he snarled, “What the fuck just happened? Do you
still have audio/visual on Alicia?” When Shuggie shook his head, he
nearly flew across the room to pummel his face. “Get it back online
-
Stat
”.

She was in
there. Alone.  

Anything
could be happening to her right now, and he was only feet away and
not helping her. Every second that passed seemed like an eternity,
and the sweat was beading down his spine, as his anxiety was
increasing.

“
Shuggie, don’t fucking test me on this. Get me Alicia back
online.
Now!
”

Shuggie’s
fingers worked quickly on the surveillance equipment, but he gave a
defeated look to Xavier, hoping he would keep his voice down and
not attract any attention “Commander, ah need ye tae listen tae me.
Alicia’s switched her own unit aff.  She’s locked us oot,
Commander.”

He watched
the ticking time bomb in Xavier’s eyes ready to explode. This was
not good.

“
Your name,
tell me your name,” Belcastro drawled

“
Ali Sir, my
name is Ali.”

“
This is a
boy’s name, you must have shortened this, tell me your full
name.”

Alicia had
moved her hands so they were running up and down her stocking-clad
leg, a small smirk playing on her lips as she felt the grip of her
Glock.

“
Alicia Sir,
my parents named me Alicia.”

“
Bella! The
Bella is Italian! Beautiful name for a beautiful lady. You will be
perfect for my personal entertainment.”  Snr Belcastro had
shifted his hand to loosen his tie as Alicia was inching closer to
him, dipping her head to the side her lips ghosted over his
ear.

“
Alicia
Carberletti,” she whispered.

Belcastro
stilled.

A bad move on
his part as Alicia took his moment of stupidity to move and, using
the rope Xavier had disguised as a belt around her waist, she had
Belcastro’s hands and feet bound in seconds.  Using his own
tie as a gag, she secured it around his mouth, not caring that she
had moved at inhuman speed. He was about to die anyway.

Alicia spun
the seat around then took a seat on his desk.Pulling the Glock from
the top of the suspender on her thigh, she twirled the pink gun
around on her finger then started to taunt him.

“
You know the
Carberletti name don’t you? All I want to do is have a little talk
with you, so sit back and chillax and soon it will all be
over.”

“
The
robberies?” Alicia popped a cherry lolly into her mouth, sucked on
it a couple of times then moved it slowly with her tongue to the
side of her mouth.

“
That was me,
all me, just my little self.”

Belcastro’s
eyes almost bugged out of their sockets as he faced the thief, the
name ‘
Carberletti
’ resonating in his head.

“
Good aren’t
I? Now tell me how is your family doing? Word on the street is that
it’s only you and your son left, such unfortunate circumstances
that took your wife and youngest son from you. It’s heart wrenching
to have your family taken from you, wiped out. You see Mr.
Belcastro, my father and twin brother were killed also.”

Alicia had to
take a deep breath so calm herself down, now was not the time for
her emotions to surface.

“
Killed by
your
family. So I think it’s only fair the same
happened to the living Belcastro...but news flash! You are the last
of your line.”

Belcastro had
went green as he sat and processed what he was being told. Alicia
had slipped from his desk and was circling around the chair he was
tied to when she stilled and opened the palm of her hands where the
two eye balls sat. It was her trademark shot when she killed. She
always looked into their eye. She was the last person they would
ever see. Placing them on the table she reached down into the
purse that was sitting on her shoulder and produced a camcorder.
Turning it to face the far away wall, Alicia started the tape. The
video footage of the torture and murder of Belcastro Jr played out
on the wall.

“
He tasted vile by the way, his blood was full of artificial
substances, and the young prodigy was so keen to impress Daddy at
his prestigious school that he had to take shit up his nose just to
stay awake…but never fear I sorted that for you.  He’s
sleeping
forever
now.”

“
Your son knew his killer. She was the last person he ever
saw, and his father? Oh Snr Belcastro you are about to look into
the eyes of his killer too, and she will also be the last
person
you
ever see.”

Alicia’s hand was raising
upwards, Belcastro’s eyes were darting from left to right as he
tried to move in the chair, the barrel of the gun was now pressed
against his forehead.

“
This is for
my father and brother.”

Alicia’s
finger pulled the trigger, the sound of the single shot music to
her ears as she watched his body slump. Overcome with emotion at
the years of planning it had taken to come to this point, she took
a moment to stare down at Belcastro. Frozen in her stance, unable
to move, she was unaware of the commotion surrounding
her.

“
Alicia!
”
Her name was being roared. She knew those voices that were calling
for her, but as she stared at the lifeless body of Belcastro she
slowly went into shock…

The noise of the gun
going off reverberated through the mansion, and Shuggie was pretty
sure the bullet hadn’t even left the barrel of the gun before
Xavier was out of that room, and kicking the office door down.
 Leaving the surveillance equipment, he took out his weapons
and ran after Xavier, covering his back as swarms of Belcastro’s
guards made their way to their Boss’s office.

Xavier
wrapped his arm around Alicia’s waist, ripping the gun out of her
hand and giving a cursory look over her for injury.

“
Are you hurt,
Sweetcheeks?”

He got no
reply, as Alicia was rooted to the spot.

“
Alicia, can
you hear me? Alicia….?”

Within
seconds, the room was filling with gunfire as the guards tried to
get past Shuggie and towards Alicia. Covering her with his body, he
bent her over double, throwing his arm back, and firing back over
Shuggie’s left shoulder to execute the two nearest guards. Shuggie
lifted the corpses, using them as a shield to block up the broken
door, firing shots as he backed up to his Commander’s
position.

Xavier
pleaded with Alicia to come back from the edge. He needed to
get her out of there, and she needed to be back in the game for him
to do that safely.

“
Alicia — snap the fuck out of it, yeah?
Sweetcheeks, Now
!”

That name,
‘Sweetcheeks’, was what it took to free Alicia from her catatonic
state of shock, and when she blinked her vision came back quickly.
 

All around
her were dead bodies and Hugh was here, so who was holding
her?

“
Sweetcheeks
!” Xavier… her bodyguard was squeezing the life out her. “I
can’t breathe you prick, what’s happened?”

In between
another volley of shots, Xavier shouted into Alicia’s ear so that
she could hear him. “You went off script, that’s what fucking
happened.”

Turning his body to the
right, tucking Alicia under his left arm, Xavier returned fire as
the guards started closing in on them. Shuggie had flashed out of
the room on his instructions, to ensure that the foot soldiers were
bringing up the rear, and the explosives were ready to be
detonated.

Just as he was about to
tell Alicia to flash them out of there, he heard a whizzing past
his ear, followed by a soft thud.  Alicia went limp in his
hold.

Roaring her name, Xavier
flung her slumped body over his shoulder as he ran and charged the
Belcastro guards, hurling throwing stars with his left hand and
firing his semi-automatic weapon with the right.  For all his
size, he was swift on his feet and turned, dodged and rammed anyone
in his way. He could see the dark, damp patch growing at the side
of Alicia’s body, and he knew the smell of fresh blood
anywhere.

His Sweetcheeks had been
shot when he was supposed to be protecting her. He only had
one objective now, and that was damage limitation. Get Alicia
out of there, and back to the base so that her wounds could be
attended to.

Shuggie had
seen Xavier and what looked like a sack of coal thrown over his
shoulder. As a head started bobbing, he realised the ‘sack’ was
Alicia, and as soon as his Commander was clear of the landmines, he
gave the order to detonate.

As the
grounds and mansion exploded in a fireball, Shuggie grabbed Xavier
and Alicia and flashed them all back to the base, having left
instructions for the foot soldiers to retreat back to their
original coordinates in the trucks they had arrived in.  He
was mentally exhausted from the exertion. He normally could only
transport one other person when flashing, but two?

As he fell to
the floor, he saw that Xavier’s face was wet. Tilting his head
to the side he was about to ask what was on his face, when he
realised exactly what it was.

Tears.

His Commander was crying
as he held the body of the youngling in his arms.

“
Shuggie…Help
me!”

Xavier could barely get
the words out before his knees gave way and he was holding Alicia
out to him like a sacrifice.

Crawling over towards
Xavier, Shuggie bit into his own wrist and fed his blood to Alicia,
forcing her mouth open to swallow it down. He heard her start
to murmur and took it that his blood was healing her, which was
precisely the moment he gave in and let his body go into its
death-sleep for the day.

“
Alicia…Sweetcheeks, wake up.”

Xavier’s tone
was soft, but insistent as he cradled her to him, resting back on
his heels, as she lay in his arms.  His large tears were
slowly dripping onto her forehead as his lips moved against her
skin. “For me, Alicia. Wake up, for me?”

When did I
feed
? Wondering where the hell she was
that it was raining and she was getting wet, Alicia’s eyes
fluttered open slowly.
Oh…
it wasn’t rain, it was salty
mortal tears that belonged to Commander Raige.
Confused that she had missed something here, she tried to
move her body but realised she was being held in death grip.
 Why could she smell congealed blood?
Fuck Xavier was hurt!  
Maybe
grown men do cry when in pain after all…who knew?!

“
Oi you
Prick, you’re squeezing the life out of me here, let go, you’re
injured and need attention.” Satisfied she’d done her good deed for
the day, Alicia smiled up at Xavier, the events of earlier having
taken leave of her mind.

Smiling down
at Alicia, relief washing over him, he carefully laid her
down.

“
Sorry,
Sweetcheeks — I thought…” he left his sentence unfinished as he
caught sight of his hands and stood up, walking quickly to the
bathroom.  Locking the door behind him, he turned on the
faucet to wash Alicia’s blood off of his hands. He knew that
he had been overreacting and now felt foolish and
ashamed.

What was he thinking
of?

She was an
immortal vampire, of course that wound would mean nothing to her.
 She didn’t even feel pain. He had been thinking like the
dumbass mortal that he was.

Alicia sprang
to her feet from where she was lying down, staring at the bathroom
door that Xavier had closed on her.

“
You thought
I was what?” Placing her hands onto her hips she felt the damp
patch.

Ah
duck!

“
It’s my
blood isn’t it, you thought I was dead didn’t you? What the
hell happened back there?” When she got no response after ten
minutes she rolled her eyes and head to her own room.