The Frenchman's Revenge (60 page)

“Oooh, this is delicious.
And this bath is luscious.
W
ill you join me, darling?
Please, Bai, get in with me.”

“Not now,
ma petite
. I have a surprise for you after your bath, but first I want you to relax and enjoy the bath, yes,
mon amour?
”

“Oh, I love surprises. Quick, give me just a small hint?
Is it something to wear? Something to eat?
Something we will do today?”

“Hmm, after a fashion, I guess you could say it is all three.
Mais qui,
cherie
, how can it be a surprise if I tell you what it is?
Soak in your tub, and sip on this marvelous libation.
”

Some time later
,
Elena thought she heard voices and assumed the servants had brought their
breakfast
.
Much as she hated to leave the fragrant bath, the water had cooled and without realizing it she had drunk all of the brandy and was a little tipsy.
She would have to tell Wan
the brandy
was spectacular and most relaxing.
She smiled to herself
,
thinking
she might crawl back in bed
--after making love
,
of course.
She would never be too tired for that!

She slipped out of the tub and dried herself off and then put on the beautiful
robe
Bai had
packed
for her.
It wasn’t as transparent as the ones he usually chose
.
I
t was almost demure, elegant.
Hmm, she thought with a smile, I guess he wants me to be a seductress to
day
, not show all my wares at once. With a quick twist
,
she piled her hair on top of her head and rubbed jasmine leaves under her breasts and between her thighs.
She loved the tingling feel on her sensitive skin and the way the spicy aroma mixed with the musky odor between her legs.
Good God, I’m not even in the same room with him and I am already wet, she thought with chagrin. But what better way to let him know how much I love him and desire him.

Elena walked in the bedroom
,
then drew back in surprise when she saw Bai talking with a small Chinese man. They were standing by the sofa
,
speaking in Chinese and didn’t see her in the doorway.

“I’m sorry.
I didn’t know someone was here.”

She clasped her
robe
tight against her chest
,
grateful that Bai had selected a discreet
gown.

Bai smiled at her and walked toward her holding out his hand.
His eyes were twinkling and it was clear he had a secret.

“Elena, this is Chou Li.
He is part of the surprise I told you about.”

At that moment
,
Elena saw a tray of instruments on the small table beside the bed
.
It took her a moment then a rush of trepidation
hit
over her when she understood what they were.

“Those are for…the…piercings…for our rings?” She managed to stammer
.

“Yes,
cherie
.
Don’t
be
frightened.
Chou Li is a skilled practitioner, the finest there is in San Francisco
. H
e was gracious enough to accept my request to
‘
implement
’
my wedding gifts for you.”

“I… I didn’t expect to do this so soon, Bai.”

Elena was trembling and her eyes were wide as she looked askance at the tray of fierce looking instruments.

“Ah
mon amour
, you know, I am an impatient man.
A hungry man
with many appetites
. I am eager to see the lovely rings on your beautiful body. How can I wait when I know how stunning your nipples and pussy will be decorated in precious jewels?
”

He smiled at her hesitation and pulled her close to his chest.
He whispered in her ear.

“
Now tell, me,
ma petite fille
, would you like me to go first
? Let Chou Li pierce the end of my cock
, so that you can see how it is done?”

Elena shivered and clung to his chest.

“
No…no…Bai.
I think I better go first or I don’t know if I will have the courage to proceed.”

“
O
ui, mon amour.
Come
cherie
.
Lie here on our bed—upon these pillows.
I will lie beside you and whisper outrageous things in your ear to distract you. Chou Li tells me that each of your nipple piercings will take no more than a minute or so
,
although the ones on our more extravagant parts may take a little longer. Also
,
let’s have another glass of Wan’s brandy.
It will have a pleasant numbing effect.
Someday
,
we will tell him what we used it for,
oui
?
Do you think he will be amused?”

Elena gave a shaky laugh
,
then seeing the banked excitement in Bai’s eyes
,
she took a deep breath and reached out for his hand.

“You are an amazing lover, Bai. And I have to tell you seeing that wicked wolf winking at me from the end of your cock is worth any pain I may feel.”

Bai roared with laughter
.
Chou Li who also understood English turned his head to hide his smile.

“Remember,
cherie
, we will have to wait several days before we attach our rings but God yes, it will be worth the wait.
Come love; let us drink to one another and to a lifetime of erotic adventures.”

“And, Bai…to the wicked warlord?”

“
Mais oui
, Elena. To wicked – always wicked.”

Chapter 2
7

Friday night was cool, dark
, threatening to rain
.
It was a moonless night and what stars there were hid behind a bank of heavy clouds.
Four of Aldo Marcello’s men waited in the abandoned warehouse next to a remote part of the New York harbor.

They
knew their
job
,
what was expected of them
.
They had been doing it for so
long
that
it
had become mindless
and t
heir complacenc
y
showed.
Over the years
,
they had become
sloppy
, lazy about protocol
,
as
testified by the
four empty
grappa
bottles
strewn on the ground.

It was nearly one in the morning and the last of the gang emissaries had left. The men added the final bundle of cash to the overflowing crate and prepared to hammer it closed.

Angelo and Rico settled the top on the crate and
began
driving in the nails.
B
aggo
dragged
over
a
wheeled
pallet
to transport the crate to the boat waiting in the harbor.

Sal stood beside them
,
checking off the names of the gangs who had graciously added their loot
to
the
overflowing pile
,
and shook his head in appreciation.

“You have to hand it to that son of a bitch, Aldo.
He’s smart as hell.
Who else could think up a money pit like this and get fifty goddamn gangs to go along with it
?”

“Think it has anything to do with the fact that they know they’re dead men if they don’t participate?” Baggo asked with a disgruntled sigh.

“Yeah, well there is that factor
,
” Sal added with a grin
.
“But you still have to give Aldo credit for thinkin
’
it up. Shit, I remember when we had four gangs participating and now
,
for Christ’s sake
,
we got fifty with four more likely next month.
Aldo’s damn well made himself the leader of every fuckin
’
gang in New York.
There ain’t a single ga
n
g that don’t acknowledge that fact.”

Angelo hammered the last nail in the crate and lit a cigarette.

“You’re right, Sal.
And it ain’t just the number of gangs that have grown. Fuckin
’
hell, if your tally board there is any where near correct, we
got
close to
a million dollars worth of loot stuffed in this little packing crate.”

Rico nodded.

“
And that
doesn’t count
the jewels
we got
this time
.
Christ, how the hell could D’Magio’s gang think they could get away with stealin’ from a goddamn museum?
Somebody said Queen fuckin’ Nefertiti wore the damn thing!
”

Sal laughed and his faced cracked with a sly grin.

“Well, they actually did get away with it
. W
hat they didn’t get away with is thinking they
didn’t
have to include it in the monthly loot for Aldo.”

He added, “And Christ, it only took choppin’ up two of their men for Aldo to demonstrate what happens when the little guys think they can hold back from the big man.”

Baggo rolled his eyes and said what they all thought though usually no one was brave enough to say it out loud.

“You know, we’ve been about as loyal as a group of
Wops
could be
. W
onder when Aldo might think about shoving a little of this booty our way.
Hell, we ain’t stolen so much as a fiver in two years of collecting the loot.”

Sal grinned again
,
but there was
no
humor in his hard eyes.

“You’d think we all like
our
braggioles
and b
ollocks
nestled up
against
our hairy
asses
rather than
Aldo hand feedin’ em to his
fuckin
’
mutts.”

The other three men nodded and each one gave a little hitch to
his
trousers
,
just to confirm why they wouldn’t think of stealing f
rom
Aldo.
What was left unsaid was that even though they had worked together for more than two years, they didn’t trust each other
;
any one of them could be Aldo’s eyes and ears.
It was a mindset, a culture that Aldo bred in the gang and it served him well.
Not only were his men scared shitless of Aldo
,
they were all scared of each other.

There was a rustling sound outside the door and the men looked up with mild interest.

“It’s okay,” Baggo said.
“It’s
time Dante
and the boys
come help us
load the
boat.”

“If they haven’t drank themselves to a stupor
,
that is.
Just becuz we got that ring of off duty cops guardin’ the road, I don’t like it when Dante and the others get so
bolloxed
they forget we got priorities.”

Rico guffawed with a disdainful shrug at the empty bottles against the wall.

“
Bolloxed
, kinda like we do?”

The words had barely left his mouth when his cigarette dropped from his hand and Rico hit the ground face first a ten inch blade st
icking out of the
back of his neck.

“Bloody hell! What the fuck…”

Sal shouted reaching for the gun in his pants. He got no further when a bullet hit him between the eyes and he crumpled to the ground.

At that moment
,
five masked men strode though the doorway
,
leaving Baggo and Angelo standing wide eyed an
d shaking.