Untraceable (33 page)

“
Okay,” he conceded, but
then quickly snapped, “Don’t call block my number anymore—that
pissed me off!”

Micah laughed.

“
What?” David
growled.

“
All the shit that’s
happened and what really pissed you off was me blocking your
number?”

He could hear the smile forming on
David’s face through the phone.

“
I won’t block your
number, but don’t expect me to answer all your calls.”

“
Where are you?” David
finally asked.

“
Virginia.”

“
Still cleaning your
tracks?”

“
Something like
that.”

“
Just as long as you
aren’t in New York trying to tackle Caprizio alone, I’m
happy.”

“
No—I’ll need my partner
for that.”

“
Damn straight,” David
replied.

“
Are you sure Botachelli
told Jerry about the drug bust?”

“
Yeah. Gwen asked me to go
to him about the plant. He said he told Rizzo to let Donzi and
Marty know what was getting ready to go down in their districts,
and to stay out of the way. Jerry overheard.”

“
Let’s give him something
to ‘overhear’ and see if it leaks to Sharon.”

“
Like what?”

“
Head home tomorrow and
tell Botachelli you want to arrange a private meeting. He can
either allow Jerry to be present or he can simply tell him, but
make sure Jerry is the only one who knows.”

“
Knows what? What’s the
bait?”

“
Lambert’s Point train
yard in Norfolk, liquid container 78443 on the very north track
near the pipeline.”

“
And what am I saying
he’ll find there?

“
Vitale Moretti’s
body.”

“
I hope you know what
you’re doing, bro.”

“
Me too.”

Ten p.m. the following night, Micah
was crouched on the catwalk above the Lambert’s Point water
treatment facility. He was two-hundred yards away from the railway,
with a night-vision birds-eye view of container 78443. David sent
him a text and said Botachelli let Jerry in on the meeting. It had
been less than an hour since Jerry left for home. Micah was
prepared for a long night, but it didn’t take fifteen more minutes
before he spotted Sharon’s rats combing the area. He knew why; they
needed to get there before Botachelli’s men were to supposedly
arrive in a few hours. If Botachelli got to Vitale’s body first, it
would be placed for the police to find. Once the police had a
Family under investigation, normal activity that generated income
would be crippled. The only thing they didn’t know was that
Botachelli had no interest in a body; he just wanted to know if
Jerry was a weasel. The weasel was out of the hole.

The container of sodium hydroxide was
found and he watched for the next thirty minutes as her men fought
the vapors while they attempted to remove what little was left of
the body. The fifty percent solution was used for aluminum
production and crude oil treatment among other things, but it also
had the capability to render flesh, muscle, and tendons to a liquid
brown slime, leaving nothing but brittle, disconnected
bones.

He’d had enough entertainment watching
the idiots work. The leak was discovered, and now Micah was going
to make sure Jerry had lots of things to tell Sharon
Moretti.

CHAPTER twenty-five

Sharon told him she wanted to see him
the next day. He tried to refuse, telling her a week was too early
for them to be seen together, but she wasn’t about to let him go
without having him for her ‘last night on the beach.’ She said no
one, at least no one who would dare tell, would see them together.
She would be heading to Atlantic City to convene her first meeting
of capos since she assumed her father’s position. If she was going
to prepare people to fill rolls in Botachelli’s clan as well, she
needed to start now before Micah set everything into
motion.

She made no effort to hide her
intentions when he arrived. In the week he’d been away from her,
her bruises hadn’t healed. They were lighter now, but she still
bore the marks and the pain. She pointedly told him that, even
though she immensely enjoyed their first encounter, she didn’t want
too many marks to take home with her. She told him that tonight he
would show her a gentler side of himself.

He stood there rigid and unyielding as
she began undressing him by the couch. Her first priority was to
disarm him. He didn’t have his shoulder harness on tonight, but her
hand drifted immediately to the small of his back. She wore a large
smile as she pulled his Glock from its hiding place in his
waistband. “Now why did you even bring this, Micah?” she taunted
him, “You know you’re not going to hurt me—not yet anyway. Tonight
is strictly pleasure—no business—not your kind of business
anyway.”

She unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it
off his thickly muscled arms, then kissed and tweaked his nipples
through his cotton tank. She tried, again, to kiss him on the
mouth, but he turned his face. She seemed to tolerate his
unwillingness to kiss, but she wasn’t happy when he wouldn’t raise
his arms to allow her to pull off his tank.

She had a small platter of star fruit,
guava, and strawberries that she had been cutting on the coffee
table. She reached over and picked up the sharp little paring knife
and slipped it under each shoulder strap.

He never flinched, nor blinked when
she nicked his trapezius muscle as she sliced through the
fabric.

She placed the knife back on the
table, but noticed the blood when she returned her attention to
removing the destroyed tank, “Sorry,” she whispered in his ear and
then slowly suckled the small cut clean. “You could make this a
little easier you know,” she continued to breathe in his ear, her
hands wandering down to the button on the top of his jeans. “God, I
love how stubborn you are,” she stated as she continued undressing
him unassisted.

To his happy amusement, and her
displeasure, without the violence it seemed his physiological body
had no interest in her. Just like the two different times he hired
hookers when D’Angelo sent Leese running, he wasn’t
aroused.

He wasn’t surprised when she opened
her handbag and produced a bottle of Viagra.

“
Somehow, I knew you were
going to be difficult,” she cooed. “But that’s okay, handsome,” she
continued, pushing him to seat himself on the couch. “I enjoy a
challenge.”

She straddled his naked lap. The only
thing she wore was a mid-thigh-length, thin t-shirt, and as soon as
she seated herself, he realized she didn’t have any panties
on.

She tried, unsuccessfully, to push the
pill into his mouth.

“
Don’t piss me off,” he
threatened, roughly removing the pill from her slender fingers, and
then throwing it across the room.

“
What’s the matter Micah?”
she tisked. “Do you need a little porn show to get you going? I
could call Giovanni. He and Leese could—”

He grabbed her by the throat and
picked her up, moving her body from being seated on him to beside
him and pressed against the arm of the couch.

“
You should have
threatened me with your phone call routine first,” he hissed as he
loomed above her. “If he’s not expecting your call in a certain
number of minutes, then you have a problem.”

She was struggling under his powerful
grip as she attempted to remove his hand to no avail. “I don’t need
to, Micah,” she hoarsely choked. “I check in with him every day.
What happens when I don’t call tomorrow? You have no idea where to
find her, do you? If you did, I’d have been dead by now. Let me go;
play my game or forget she ever existed.”

Even if Giovanni made Leese
untraceable, he could never forget her nor stop searching. His grip
softened.

“
Now you can either remove
my top and get into this, or you can take a pill and get into this,
either way Gavarreen, I want everything you’ve got tonight—minus
the bruises.”

He gripped the neckline of her tee and
shredded it as his mouth descended to her breast.

Her lips parted as she inhaled deeply;
normal breathing wouldn’t be easy tonight. She asked for her
lover’s intensity, but receiving it caught her off
guard.

~:~

“
You seem a bit
pre-occupied,” Sharon whispered as she reached over and allowed her
fingers to trace his jaw line. She propped herself onto her elbow
in the darkened bedroom and kissed his shoulder. “Don’t worry about
her, Micah. Giovanni is fully under my command. He isn’t going to
do something stupid to her unless I order it. And, as long as you
do what I want then there won’t be any need to have him do
anything. I am concerned about one thing though.”

“
What?” he stated flatly.
He honestly didn’t care about her concerns.

“
If you need more time to
get rid of Botachelli and arrange my entrance into your clan, I
doubt Giovanni knows the first thing about how to deliver a
baby.”

“
You have to promise me,
Sharon that you will let her go when this is over. Once you have
command there won’t be any reason to hurt her or my
son.”

“
Oh,” she stated with
genuine surprise, “it’s a boy? I didn’t know you knew that already.
Actually I’m getting rather torn on this subject.”

“
You said as long as I did
what you wanted—”

“
Yes, I did, and I fully
intend to honor what I promised you. I just may have to hold
something back out of the bargain.”

The low growl rolled up from his chest
without warning, “Don’t cross me.”

“
Cross you? No. I’m
starting to think I’d like to keep you. You can be my underboss. I
might even consider some type of co-boss arrangement. Your family
will be safe, but you will stay with me.”

“
I decline,” he replied as
he stared at the ceiling.

“
Why are you even
attracted to her? You’ve been mafia your whole life, just like me.
We don’t know any other world, Micah. You’re trying to fit into her
orderly society and become something you’re not.”

She sat up on her knees
and turned his face toward her, “You weren’t responsible for the
original contract on her life, but
everything
that has fallen on that
poor girl since is directly attributable to
you
—and you know it’s
true.

“
Even if you finish this
job and walk away from me, how long will it be before something
else happens? And, I don’t mean by me,” she added quickly. “You’d
be doing her and your son the most unselfish favor of their lives
by stepping out of the picture.”

She leaned down and put a slow kiss
over his heart, her voice dropping into a throaty range, “I’ll make
you comfortable, happy even if given the chance. We’re right
together, and I think you’re starting to figure that
out.”

His face was expressionless, but
inside his heart was being ripped apart by her well thought-out
lines. He kept telling himself that this is what she does. This is
how she plays her game so well; she makes you see things her
way—but what if she was right?

Once Robert had been jailed, he should
have never returned to take Leese for himself. He could feel the
anger inside as he considered how very selfish he had been to hurt
Leese this way, all so that he could claim her. Had he stayed away,
he was certain what would have happened. She would have gone on her
date with Ryan. Ryan would have won her over, and she and he would
both be happy and safe. At the rate he was going, he’d end up
getting them both killed. Good people were going to pay for his
desire to take what her pure heart had unselfishly offered
him.

“
I’m flying to New Orleans
in a few hours. Botachelli will be dead in a day or two,” he
whispered. “With him and your father out of the way, you can have
what you want and she goes free.”

“
But
you
are becoming what I want, Micah.
If you know she’s absolutely safe, will you stay with me?” she
begged, cuddling back down against his body, stroking his muscled
arm, nibbling and kissing his shoulder, and allowing her groin to
press firmly against his bare hip. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted
something as much as I want you—not even being a Boss,” she finally
admitted. “It’s like we were made for each other—absolutely perfect
together. Come back to me and we’ll set her free together. I’ll
have Giovanni take her to the nearest airport and let her go. She
can rent a car or buy a plane ticket, but she’ll be alone and
safe—permanently.”

“
And if I refuse your
offer to stay? What happens if I go back to her?”

“
Then be happy until
something else goes wrong and you end up blaming the only person
who is truly responsible for all her pain. When Botachelli is dead,
and providing you scare Rizzo enough for him to step out of my way.
I want to meet and celebrate, Micah. Just the two of us—tell me if
you’ll come back or if you’re just going to torture her for a
little longer?”