Chapter 10: Bloodlines

“What is taking so long?” Alexa growled leaning against the car door. They were tracking Malcolm Foster’s movements but the computer screen in front of her indicated he hadn’t left his office. Three hours had passed since Kasper made the call to inform the final WET CEO of their demands but, he didn’t seem in too big of a rush to meet the ransom.

“Relax, A. Foster will do as he’s told or else.”

“Or else what? What did you do, K?”

“Whatever was necessary to ensure we got what we wanted. I added a little incentive for Malcolm Foster so he knew we meant business.”

“What does that mean, Kasper?”

“Jerome,” Alexa’s eyes widened and she took a threatening step forward.

“Jerome who?”

“Jerome Foster, a college student up in Sunset Valley. I took him to an undisclosed, secure location and I’m holding him there for ransom.”

“You what?! Are you crazy? You kidnapped his son? Why? How could you do that?! It was bad enough that you wanted to blackmail him. Why would you involve his family?”

“Because we’ve seen how serious he takes blackmail. He ignored our demands until his family was threatened and you wanted your freedom. We don’t have time to beat around the bush!”

“You’re insane! Don’t try and hang this up on me! I never would have gone through with this plan had I known and you knew that! It’s why you kept it from me!”

“Look, A, if there was any other way, I’d have tried it. Don’t worry, the plan will go off without a hitch, I promise,” he sighed, putting his hands up defensively before pulling her against him. “Trust me, ok? I’ve got everything covered this time. When this is all over, when I can have that raven-haired, green-eyed beauty you used to be, I want to move us some place tropical.”

“I don’t know. I have a really bad feeling about this whole thing, Kas. And you’re acting really out of character,” she said, taking a step away. He pulled her back and cuddled her against him. Aroused by the way she looked at him, he brought his lips to hers for a breath-taking moment. She moaned at the feel of his lips and he drew back and nudged her nose with his. Kissing, her forehead, he gently rubbed circles on her arm as he held her. The scent of her vanilla body wash invaded his nose every time she moved and brought a smile to his face.

“It’ll be fine, A. Just think: blue waters, golden sands, mixed drinks on demand while sitting out under the warm sun and watching the waves roll to shore.”

“Mmm, that does sound nice.”

“And it will be!” he kissed her again reflexively. “No more jobs. No more pretending to be someone we’re not. Just you and me, together and free, like it should always be.”

Alexa thought a moment as Kasper pressed her deeper into his arms and a funny feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. Moving back a step she looked up into his face confused over something he’d said. “Kasper?”

“Yeah, Baby?”

“How do you know my real hair and eye color?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just a few moments ago you said you wanted me back as the raven-haired, green-eyed beauty I used to be. How do you know what I used to look like?”

“I don’t know. I guess you must have told me at some point,” he shrugged mechanically as his grip weakened around her.

“No. No, I never told you; I’ve never told anyone. ‘Alexa’ was the one person I never replicated because she needed to be kept safe. The only way anyone could know her is if…”

“Is if what?” he asked, his eyes narrowing on her.

“Is if they knew ‘Alexa.’”

“Oh.” Kasper afforded himself a smile as a sudden realization came over her. “Oops.”

“Oops?”

“What else can I say? I screwed up. But you gotta admit, I had you convinced for a while there, five years to be exact,” he laughed and fell over slightly from the rowdy bellow. “FIVE YEARS and you never figured it out. Damn. I’m good. Although technically I guess it’s been more like thirteen.”

“Kasper?”

“Wrong!” the man smiled wickedly and paced the floor in front of her. “I mean, in all fairness, I did know a ‘Kasper’ – kinda stole his identity. Terrible name, don’t you think? Then again, you had hippies for parents who thought ‘Echo’ and ‘Blaze’ were great names for kids so really you’re no authority on that in the least.”

Alexa turned to run and the man gripped her tightly and shoved her hard against a wall. “Not uh, uh, let’s not do that ok? We wouldn’t want things to get messy, Alexa.”

“Messy? Are you planning to kill me, Kasper?” she asked, wincing through the pain of the tight grip in which he held her.

“Now why do you insist on calling me by that name? I told you, Kasper is dead! I should know after all. I killed him! I mean you said it yourself; Kasper was a rat-faced geek too weak to hold a pencil! Did it not surprise you that I am in much better shape? I mean come on, Alexa; you’re smarter than that!” he said, pounding his index finger against her temple.

“Well if you’re not Kasper, who are you?”

“Think, Alexa. Think really hard; you’ll figure it out.” The man growled as he backed away from her.

Silence consumed the space as her beating heart pounded heavier between her ears. The man standing in front of her had fooled her so completely. She had no idea what to think. And then, as if drawn from the very pit of her subconscious, a name appeared and a picture of a loving family sitting on a piano in the living room of a large home. “Vincent Piozzo,” Alexa gasped and nearly sank to the floor in shock.

“DING! DING! DING! He was my father! You murdered my family, Alexa. One-by-one you hunted them down and brutally massacred them all!”

“You were the little boy missing from the picture. No…no!”

“Yes; Sammy Piozzo, at your service!”

“When I got there that night, I found everyone asleep in their beds just like when your family came for mine; everyone but their son. The bed was made and the lights were off. I figured he was at a friend’s,” she swallowed hard and looked up into his eyes as if by magic everything would suddenly appear and she’d know the whole truth.

“Luckily for me I was on a camping trip with my school. I barely missed being butchered like my parents! And you, you were especially cruel to my father,” he rumbled, his voice low and mimicking a growl. Pain dripped from the words he spoke and Alexa knew all too well exactly how it felt to have your entire family taken from you.

“I did to him the exact thing he did to my Dad!”

“I wasn’t a runaway,” he continued, ignoring her outburst. “When you and I met 13 years ago on the streets I was an orphan; all thanks to you! So do you know what I did? I hatched a plan. I set a trap for an elusive, yet effective assassin. I pretended to be this big bank president in need of your help to get rid of my little ‘hacker’ problem. It wasn’t hard playing two roles at once; you should know a little something about that right, Alexa?” he asked, staring down at her confused face.

“I hired you to ‘kill’ me. The plan was for you to murder an innocent kid living on the streets and for my unwitting accomplice to record it and send it to the cops. I wanted you to suffer in prison for the rest of your natural born life. But you couldn’t do that could you? Oh no. You had rules. Rules of who to kill and who not to kill and my life was spared. That’s when I realized sacrificing myself for the greater good wouldn’t have been enough. No. I had to make you pay for all the hurt you’d caused. So I tracked you down for a second time,” he laughed again, this one more boisterous than the last.

“For such an ‘elusive’ killer I was able to find you not once, not twice but three times, each time was relatively easier than the last. And when I found you again, you were going by Sarah, the mousey copy editor in Philadelphia. It was then I inserted myself into your life. It was then I realized just how useful you actual were. It was then that I—that I fell in love with you,” he sighed, his voice getting softer and he turned his back to her as he spoke. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, you know. You were supposed to kill me. I wasn’t supposed to be left to feel this way about the person responsible for my life going to shit.”

“I didn’t make your life any less of a hell than your father did to me! He murdered my mother, my father and my two brothers because he HATED my Dad for standing up to him. But you know what’s worse than being killed for being a Good Samaritan? Having some sadistic mob boss slaughter you in your home while your 9-year-old daughter watched! At least you were 14 and didn’t have to see what I saw!”

“I didn’t do this to you, Kasper! The person responsible for your unfortunate life is the same man who took mine all those years ago, Vincent Piozzo. The only difference is you called him ‘Dad.’ Make no mistake about it. All of this is because of him!”

“Yeah, yeah you’re right. I knew it then and I know it now.” Sammy took three large steps forward that again had Alexa’s back pinned to the wall. He grinned sadistically and rushed her, tugging her against him hard and wrapped her securely against his chest.

Alexa whimpered as he looked down at her through a cold, darkened gaze. She saw no light, no sparks of life; just a dark void of evil as he stared at her. “What are you gonna do to me, K?”

“Please, call me Sammy. And do to you? Absolutely nothing. We’re more kindred than you realized all those years ago on the streets of Brooklyn Heights. You and I were made for each other, Alexa.”

“You’re crazy if you think I want to have anything to do with you!”

“Crazy? No, Alexa, I’m not crazy. I’m in love and so are you.” Sammy pressed his lips against her mouth hard and smiled inwardly as he felt Alexa kiss him back. Pushing her into the wall he lifted her leg over his hip and ground his stiffening arousal between her thighs. He growled when she roughly pulled his mouth off by tangling her fingers in his hair and he grabbed her wrists. 

Holding them over her head, he went back to his brutal kiss, nibbling and sucking her lip as he forced his tongue down her throat. Alexa moaned as the warmth of his body kept her pinned against the wall. She turned her head and Sammy took the opportunity to drink in her skin, planting kisses down her neck and collarbone until he reached her chest. Her nipples hardened beneath his hot breath and he laughed throatily, “Look at that, your body still wants me even if you claim you don’t,” he snarled and moaned louder as he ardently kissed her lips.

Clasping her hands around his waist, he slowly unbuttoned her jeans and curled his fingers down the front of her pants. Quickly sinking his hand behind her cotton panties, Alexa sighed as Sammy’s fingers delved inside her creamy center and her head fell back against the wall. He moved with her, rubbing and pumping his fingers between her moist lips as she bucked her hips on his hand in frantic, needy circles. Harder and faster, he fingered her deeper, fucking her tight, wet opening with his meaty digits until she was moaning louder in heat. “Sammy…” his heart warmed, hearing his real name roll off her tongue in a light, feminine sigh as she came and he leaned forward, taking her mouth again in a fiery kiss.

The alarm on his cell phone went off and he groaned against her mouth before pulling away. “Time to go. We have a meeting to attend…at least I do.” Sammy smiled at her, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Grabbing Alexa by the wrist, he yanked her towards the car. Pulling a bag from the backseat, he removed a pair of handcuffs and a rope.

Before Alexa could utter a word, he had her hands locked in front of her and threw her to the ground against a stone pillar in the large empty space. “I wanna trust you, Sweetheart, I do. But you’ve just come across some pretty mind-blowing information and I don’t know where your head is right now. So, I’m going to the meeting alone. I’m gonna take Malcolm Foster’s money, buy our plane tickets and I’ll come back for you, I promise.”

“You son of a bitch! If you think I’m going anywhere with your lying, sneaky, manipulative…”

“Hey now, let’s not say something one of us will regret ok?”

“Evil, disgusting, despicable asshole!” she shouted and Sammy took a step back.

“Ouch. It’s like you just don’t get me,” he grinned, ripped a piece of tape from the roll in his hands and placed it over her mouth. “Just in case you wanna get cute and call for help.” Sammy kissed her lips through the tape and sighed. “I’ll be back, Beautiful. And then it’s Mai Tai’s and golden sands!” he danced around the back of the car heading towards the driver’s side and Alexa watched as he drove off.

Sammy waited across the street a while, surveying the area before the CEO arrived. He was to come alone, no cell phone, no GPS or other tracking equipment, carrying two bags of cash; no bills higher than a $50 and completely untraceable. Alexa had selected this place for a reason. It was secluded, vacant and there were several vantage points where she could act as a sniper while he made the deal. 

But plans change and now he needed to come up with a new solution. Thinking quickly, Sammy pulled out the bag from his backseat. Grabbing a laser pointer and garage opener from the glove box, he rigged a remote light to Alexa’s .50 cal to serve as the sight of a sniper rifle and placed it on the ledge of the building across from the meeting point. Maybe he could bluff him, after all he’d fooled a trained assassin into thinking he was someone else. Besides if all else fails, he had his sidearm. He pulled his mask on and waited.

Several minutes passed and he watched the time tick away, keeping a close eye on the streets for any and all movement. Moments later a nondescript black sedan pulled into the empty drive of the old farmhouse and Sammy waited for the driver to exit the vehicle before approaching the location. “You came alone, that’s good. I’m glad to see you listened.”

“Where’s my son?”

“You got the money?” Foster motioned to the large duffel bags at his feet and Sammy took several steps back, beckoning the CEO to follow. “Drop them into the trunk. Don’t try anything funny or your son won’t make it to his next birthday.”

“Please, tell me where he is!”

“Get back in your car, Foster.”

“My son!”

“MOVE! And keep your hands where I can see them,” Sammy growled, flicking the button in his hand. Foster looked down at the red beam of light aimed at his chest and slowly backed away towards his car. Sammy moved back towards the bags in his trunks and waved a metal detector over them scanning for tracking devices. Once he was satisfied there were none, he opened them and sifted individually through the stacks ensuring they were all bills and not blank pieces of paper or dye packs.

Sammy then placed the bags onto a scale in the backseat, weighing them for the amount they held. Afterwards, he started over to Foster, smiling happily before addressing him. “It appears to be all there. Drive ten miles down that way and look for a small, red farmhouse. There’s a phone on the kitchen table. Once I’ve made it safely out of the area, I’ll call and tell you where you can find your son.”

Foster got behind the wheel of his car and backed out of the lot and Sammy rushed towards his. Driving as fast as he could, he peeled away from the vacant building, hurrying through the streets of Fairhaven and back to the warehouse parking garage where he’d left Alexa. Pulling a phone from his pocket, he dialed the first number in the phonebook, gave the CEO an address and told him where to find Jerome.

Laughing to himself, he crushed the disposable phone in his hand and tossed it down the storm drain as he drove. “Alexa?” Sammy ran towards the last place he’d seen her and yelled noticing the broken cuffs on the ground. “ALEXA!”

A quick search of the area came up empty, she was not in the immediate vicinity and he growled viciously and slammed his fist against a car window, cracking the glass in three places. “Alexa, this isn’t funny, get your ass out here now!” he demanded. Sammy heard the sound of a trigger hammer clicking and he turned to his right, slowly, to find Alexa holding him at gunpoint. “Alexa, Sweetie, what do you think you’re doing?” he spoke through clenched teeth as he stared at her.

“You and I have some unfinished business.”

“Baby, put the gun down! You’re not gonna shoot…” A loud bang ricocheted through the empty building as Alexa squeezed off a round near Sammy’s foot and he jumped slightly and shut his eyes. An annoyed growl left his lips and he slowly opened his eyes to look at the woman standing in front of him. “Alexa, honey, this isn’t funny,” he snarled through gritted teeth. “Put the gun down and let’s talk.”

“Talk?” she replied through a watery laugh and waved the weapon around anxiously. “What the hell is there to talk about? Your family killed my family, I killed yours and now the surviving children of both want revenge…kinda funny when you actually think about it.”

“Alexa…”

“What? You have another revelation you want to share with me, Kasper?”

“IT’S SAMMY!” he yelled angrily at her refusal to call him by his name. “Sammy Piozzo.”

“And probably the only truthful thing you’ve ever said to me,” she growled and aimed the gun at his head. 

“Now, Alexa, you’re being ridiculous. You know very well lying is our business.”

“NOT TO EACH OTHER!” she shouted and Sammy sighed in frustration. “That mask looks ridiculous on you,” Alexa smiled as she lowered her weapon. Sammy laughed as he yanked the cloth from his face and charged for her, grabbing her around the waist, he swung her in his arms and brought her mouth down on his. “You get the paperwork?”

“Oh I got it, piece of cake. You had me nervous there for a second. I actually thought you were gonna waste me.” He gently caressed her cheeks before planting another passionate kiss on her lips. “I knew you’d come around, Baby. You ready to get out of here?”

“Absolutely.”

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