As Monika and Bobby made the thirty-kilometer drive west of Palermo to Terrasini, a small fishing community off the Gulf of Castellammare, Bobby was uncharacteristically quiet. Over the last few months, he’d been making changes in his life. Spending real time with Pam, and being a better father to his daughters. And that included building a relationship with Tenikka. But his new mission in life was tightening the reins on Barbara. She was out of control.
Even though she was still a virgin, Barbara had been acting out like a typical, hot-in-the-ass teenager. Constantly on her cell phone, getting calls all day and night. And when she wasn’t talking on it, Barbara was texting furiously back and forth with her girlfriends and boys.
She was staying out late as if the word curfew was something that was implied but not to be enforced. And then there were the clothes she wore. Barbara dressed so provocatively at times that, built like she was, tall like her father and fine like her mother, no man believed she was sixteen. The only thing she had together were her grades because she never did have to study to keep up.
Either way, she has lost her damn mind, and I’m gonna help her find it. He helped her find it early one Sunday morning at 4:30 AM.
Barbara and her girls, Destiny, Jolina, and Kayla had gone to a party at a club in Manhattan that Destiny’s older sister, Cayenne told them about. She drove them out there and got them in the club, but when they were ready to go, Cayenne was nowhere to be found and her phone was going straight to voicemail. Then she tried calling RJ, but he didn’t answer either; his phone was on vibrate because, at the moment, he was going deep.
Barbara panicked.
And then it hit her. “Pills.”
“The white boy?” Jolina asked.
Barbara nodded her head as she scrolled through her contact list until she found his number.
“You think he’ll come get us?” Kayla asked.
“Of course he will,” Destiny said confidently. “He works for RJ. And even if he didn’t, White Boy’s had a major crush on Barbie for years.”
Destiny was right; he did have a major crush on Barbara, and he had no problem stopping what he was doing and go get Barbara and take her home. She was saved. That was until they drove down her block.
“Oh shit,” Pills said as he pulled up in front of the house.
“What?” Barbara questioned.
“Your father.”
“Somebody's in trouble,” Destiny laughed.
By the time Pills had the car in park, Bobby was snatching open his door, and he had his gun in his hand. He pointed the gun at Pills.
“Don’t kill him, Daddy!” Barbara shouted and jumped out of the car.
When Bobby saw that it was Pills and then saw Destiny, Jolina, and Kayla in the backseat, he lowered his gun.
He pointed at Barbara. “Get your ass in the house.”
“Yes, Daddy,” she said and walked as quickly as she could in the house.
Her girls started laughing, but they stopped when Bobby looked in the backseat at them. Then he turned to Pills.
“She got you to come rescue her again, didn’t she?”
“Yes, sir,” Pills said quickly.
“Next time she calls you to come get her, you be sure to call me first. You understand me boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
Bobby reached in his pocket and handed Pills some money. “Now go on and get outta here.”
When Bobby got in the house, he woke up Pam and after what Barbara considered a longer than usual lecture, she found herself grounded for a month. She went up to her room and slammed the door.
Now why she wanna go and do that?
The next morning, Bobby took the door off the hinges.
There was one other major change that had taken place in his life. Bobby had accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior and was still trying to come to grips with exactly what that meant to him. But when Rain called and said that Black and Shy had been taken, he knew he was going and he knew that he’d be doing some killing.
When they arrived at the house where Black was located, Monika found a spot where she could see the property. While Bobby surveyed the area with binoculars, Monika took pictures with a Sentech high-speed digital camera. There was a ten-foot wall that surrounded the grounds and it was heavily guarded.
“I count four men patrolling the grounds,” Monika said as she surveyed the area with her binoculars. “You still wanna go old school?”
Bobby shook his head. “If there are four out here, then there’s at least four, maybe six more inside.”
Monika laughed. “Black would think those are good odds, wouldn’t he?”
“Yeah, he would,” Bobby said and laughed a little.
“We need a plan, and we need the team,” Monika said and thought about Nick.
“Looks like he’s got company,” Bobby said and pointed as a limousine came through the main gate and stopped in front of the house. Monika zoomed in and took pictures as the men exited the limo and went into the house.
“Let’s get back to the base.”
Inside the house, Black had regained consciousness. He looked around the room; he was in a bedroom. Black got up from the bed and checked the door. “Locked.”
Then he walked to the window and found that there were bars on the window. Black opened the window and tried the bars. “That ain’t happening.” So Black made himself comfortable.
Meanwhile, in another part of the house, Taavetti was talking to Gavril Pasternak. He was the leader of the Chechen rebel forces in the North Caucasus. His group had been held responsible for a number of terrorist attacks throughout Russia, most notably the attack on a government office complex in the Chechen capital of Grozny.
Three suicide bombers drove two trucks rigged with explosives into the building and detonated them simultaneously. Pasternak had also claimed responsibility for the attack on the Nevsky Express train that connected Moscow and Saint Petersburg that killed 28 people.
He was there to pay for and take possession of the schematics to create an electromagnetic pulse weapon. Pasternak was accompanied by Grigory Ruerikovichi, Pavel Mikhailov, and Dr. Seok Mangjeol, a North Korean scientist; he was there to verify the validity of the schematics.
“Everything looks to be in order,” Mangjeol told Pasternak and handed him the laptop. Then he transferred the agreed-upon amount into Taavetti’s account in Switzerland.
Once the transaction was complete, Pasternak and his men left the house and Taavetti turned his attention to his houseguest. When he entered the room with two of his men, Black was standing by the window, watching as they got in their car and left the grounds.
“Good evening, Mr. Black,” Taavetti said and approached him. He shook hands with Black.
“Mr. Taavetti.”
“I imagine you want to know why you are here.”
“I imagine you want something. So I’m hoping that you are here to tell me what you want and not to waste my time.”
Taavetti laughed loving the confidence of this man. Too bad he had to kill him. “I only have two questions.”
“And those are?”
“Who are you and what is your involvement with Colonel Mathis?”
“As you know, my name is Mike Black, and Colonel Mathis was the commanding officer of one of my men. He served under him in Iraq.”
“Why did your wife introduce him as Robert Maxwell?”
“Because he asked her to. He told her that it was a prank.”
Taavetti laughed. “I don’t believe you, Mr. Black. You see I checked out your wife’s company, CAMB exporters, and it appears to me to be a company on paper only. That leaves me to believe that you and your wife are government operatives.”
Now it was Black who was laughing. “I assure you, Mr. Taavetti, I am far from being a government operative.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. So I will ask you again. Who are you and what is your involvement with Colonel Mathis?”
Black took a step closer to Taavetti and his men raised their weapons. “My name is Mike Black, an American gangster on a business trip with his wife,” he paused. “But I know that you don’t believe me, so I tell you what; are you familiar with a man named Maurizio Bellini?”
Black watched the expression on Taavetti’s face change.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you are. Why don’t you reach out to him and I’m sure that he will verify every word that I have told you.”
Taavetti turned to one of his men. “Check it out.”
“Yes, sir,” he said and left the room.
“And since you claim to have no involvement with Colonel Mathis, then I imagine that you have no idea what his interest is in me.”
“No idea.”
Taavetti took a deep breath. “I have one of my men checking out what you have told me and if it checks out, you will be free to go. In the meantime, please, make yourself comfortable.”
“Mind if I ask a question…well, it’s more of a statement of fact.”
“And what is that?”
“If you harm my wife in any way, I will kill you.”
Taavetti laughed. “Spoken like a real American gangster,” he said and left the room.
Black went back to the window and looked out knowing that whether they verified his identity or not, Taavetti was going to kill him.