My Boyfriend's Back chapter 12

Continued after the most horribly long break, for Tinsel Fairy / Tina. Don't worry, chapter 13 won't take so long!

I disclaim. I don't own anything except the prose and a few incidental characters. Damn...

Chapter 12

Shawn Douglas Brady, brainwashed to believe himself to be and act as Angelo Salvatore, the most eligible and handsome bachelor in the upper echelons of New York society, crawled through the claustrophobically small air vent on his hands and knees, feeling the metal scrape the skin off of his legs and palms as he did so. He bit back a swearword, knowing the slightest sound could compromise his position. The sounds of human beings drinking, gambling, dancing, and, he suspected, whoring, came clearly up from below.

He swung his entire body left in one easy movement, and threw himself against the grating at the end. He looked down into a brightly lit, well furnished office with chrome fittings and black leather chairs. ‘Typical modernist junk that won’t outlast the year,’ he thought rather bitterly, remembering the Spartan appearance of his own base.

The room was empty of people, so Angelo started unscrewing the grate in front of him, calculating both the size and the security aspects of the room. It was large, roomy and very badly guarded. It was also unfrequented at a quarter past three a.m., the time he was visiting it. With the only the slightest hint of a grin on his very handsome face, he dropped silently into the room and waited for an alarm bell to sound. When it didn’t, he reached up for his briefcase and slipped from the room, running along the corridor, with its grey carpet and soft cream wallpaper, into the safe room.

He snapped on the light, and glanced around him. The room itself was small, a mere cupboard to the palatial rooms downstairs, but it was important. The low cost décor was merely to make it look like an unused office, but it was far more than that. This was where the jewels that the officials gave to their favourite girls were kept, and the jewels were what had brought Angelo here. He hungered for money with a surprisingly rapacious appetite, for with them he might be able to buy his freedom and go into his business for himself. He had always - though it was the always of the months he remembered - to go to sea, and a sufficiently large cache of rare stones would win him away not only from the Boss but also from New York.

The smile on his lips, as he moved the Picasso painting from its place on the wall and flicked the switch that it had hidden, was just slightly devilish, and if someone else had been watching him, they would have said he appeared like a mischievous small boy. Angelo had yet to realise how young he appeared to all those who did not see that fathomless coldness in his eyes or hear the biting sarcasm in her voice.

The second panel, covered by the picture of the Tahitian flower girl in red slid back, exposing the safe. With a ‘Samson safe cracker - no where is safe with us’, he spun the combination and heard the click that told him the door would now swing open safely. Perhaps he was being over cautious, but before he opened it, he stepped behind the door, making sure that, when it flew across the room, none of the trick paint would splatter him.

Fingering the diamonds, rubies, emerald and sapphires as he loaded them into his briefcase and closed it with a snap. Replacing the paintings, he felt a different smile stretch his lips, one of artistic appreciation.

"The lady in red," he murmured, and started valuing the picture at current auction prices.

The scream that rent the air as he replaced the picture made his blood run colder. His head snapped around and in an instant he was behind the door, light switched off and briefcase firmly held under one arm. Screams like that meant only one thing: trouble, and lots of it.

He wanted to simply slip down the corridor again, leave them to whatever the hell it was they were doing, but something in him refused to let him do so. The chevalier of olden times that dwelt in his heart dug his heels in and yanked on the reins of Angelo’s will power.

Not even daring to curse silently, Angelo Salvatore went to earn his name.

"Miss Belle, my feet hurt," Spanner Joe complained plaintively, trailing after the petite blonde with a mission, hours before Angelo left his apartment for his night’s work.

"Spanner," Belle called over her shoulder without slowing down, "it’s only another four blocks and then we’ll be able to rest at the hotel. I promise, we can take a cab back."

Cursing in Italian under his breath, Spanner Joe followed her to the fifteenth white mansion they had visited that day. None of them had been the Maison Blanche, and his shoulders, legs, ankles and knees were all protesting at the unjust treatment.

Belle knocked at the door with what Joe had already termed her ‘let me in or there’ll be trouble’ face on. He hoped they would let her in, and quickly. His boots were still wet from the blood that had gushed the last snooty butler’s nose.

The door swung open slowly, the hinges creaking slightly, and an old man in blue overalls was revealed.

"Can I help you?" He asked in a quavering voice, evidently surprised by the appearance of this tiny blonde and her enormous bodyguard. He thought he recognised her as Miss Kirsten Storms, that famous New York socialite and gave her a little bow. "I beg your pardon, Miss Storms, I didn’t recognise you at first. I’m afraid Mr Dimera isn’t here right now, but Ms Dimera is."

With a triumphant smile, Belle walked into the mansion with Spanner Joe walking slowly behind her.

"Through here please, Miss Storms," the man in overalls conducted them through to a half painted sitting room, complete with pictures under sheets and an oriental rug rolled up against one wall. "Ms Dimera will be along immediately. Forgive the mess, please, we were just redecorating."

Belle nodded and smiled, and Spanner Joe gazed around him in open amazement. "These are some nice digs, Miss Belle!"

"Call me Miss Storms for as long as we’re here, Joe," Belle answered, flashing a smile. "He said Ms Dimera was here. I wonder which Dimera he meant? I thought Lexie was still in Salem."

"Hello, Miss Storms," the voice came from behind them, and they both turned to see a tall, beautiful blonde woman standing in the doorway. There was a quick intake of breath.

The blonde woman started forwards. "Isabella?"

Belle gasped, "Mom?"

Angelo slipped the pick into the lock, and twisted gently. From inside the room he could hear the sounds of someone being hit, and biting back their cries. The ice packed around his heart shivered with each blow, and a little compassion leaked out. He squashed it down into the back of his mind, but it stayed there, waiting, not to be dismissed so easily as Angelo had dismissed all of his other feelings.

He had to stop himself humming as he jimmied the lock open and crept inside the darkened room, the plush carpet sinking beneath his feet.

"Tell us where it is," a man’s voice barked, and Angelo felt the bile rise in his throat.

He could see the person being hit now, and it was a girl as young as she was beautiful, and she was very young and very beautiful. Blonde, wind ruffled hair spread in a halo around an angel’s face. He recognised her at once, Miss Kirsten Storms, the woman who had once thrown a coffee pot at his head.

With a calculating gaze, Angelo took in the contents of the room. It was almost bare, except for the chair she was strapped too, and the lamp hanging above her head, but it looked to be richly furnished usually. The walls were a dull grey, the carpet beneath their feet likewise, meant to be undistinguished, but the carpet was deep pile and there were chrome fittings. Angelo realised the room had been stripped bare so the girl could be held here in safety, and wondered that the lock had been so cheap. Then he remembered the security outside the building was so tough that they expected no one to get in.

Well he had, and if they thought he was going to leave that poor girl to her fate, they had another thing coming. He assessed the situation, noting only two men, the one who was hitting her every time she refused to answer the question and the other who asked the questions. The first was a tall, thick set man with black hair and a cruelly shaped mouth, too hard lines of red, dressed in an expensive looking Italian suit. The second was shorter, thinner, with iron grey hair and glasses. His suit also looked Italian, tailor made with it, and his mouth wasn’t cruel. His eyes were though. Angelo could see from ten feet away that, though they were fixed on the girl in front of him, the man’s eyes were small and cold, like grey marbles.

Suppressing a shudder, Angelo slipped forwards, knowing they hadn’t seen his stealthy entrance and pressed a finger to his lips as the girl’s attention became fixed on him. Her eyes were already wide with fear, and now they widened still further with shock. ‘Of all the places,’ she seemed to be saying, ‘I expected to see you next, here was not even on the list.’

"Where is it?" the second man repeated, and when Kirsten simply lifted her chin a little higher and spat into his face, the first man hit her hard across the cheek and she reeled backwards.

Something in Angelo snapped, something he didn’t even know existed, but it set off a chain reaction both in him and events that he had never foreseen came into the realms or probability as he reacted.

In a single bound he had his hands around the neck of the second man and he was squeezing at a pressure point. The man fell to the floor with a dull thud, and the first man, recovering from his shock, charged forwards like an ugly bull.

Angelo quickly side stepped out of the way, bringing his doubled fists down onto the back of the man’s neck and his knee into his groin. Another dull thud sounded as the man hit the floor. Kneeling beside him, Angelo whipped out a long cord he had brought with him, and quickly tied him up. Then he hit him hard twice, first to knock him out and then to break his jaw so he wouldn’t be able to call out for help when he woke up. He tied the second man up too, but didn’t to hit him again. He needed to get Kirsten out and fast.

"Kirsten?" he grabbed her bruised chin, and then, more gently, turned her terrified face towards his own. "I am going to get you out of here, but you need to do exactly what I say."

Unable to speak, she nodded.

"First," he went on as coolly as if they were talking about a picnic in the park, "I’m going to cut you loose. Then you’re going to follow me down the hall into another room. Silently. I’ll tell you what to do next when we get there, OK?"

Another nod.

Angelo busied himself with his Swiss army knife, cutting the ropes that bound her and wondering how the hell he had got himself into this.

"Come on," unthinkingly he took her by the hand, and slowly she stood up. She staggered then, and he caught her as she fell, hoisting her up across his shoulder before she could protest into a fireman’s lift. Then he ran like every demon in hell was at his heels, forgetting caution in favour of speed.

She looked terrible. Her skin was bruised black and blue, her lips were chapped and dry, her hair was rumpled and her clothes were torn. She looked, in fact, the complete reverse of her usual primped and preened immaculate self.

When he put her down again, leaning her gently against the wall in the room he had first lowered himself into, he realised she had fainted.

"Salvatore, what the hell are you doing with her?"

Another man would have started, or looked slightly surprised at least to see Harry walk out of the shadows, but Angelo took it in his stride.

"Rescuing her," he said with the shadow of a grin on his handsome face. "What the hell are you doing here?" he echoed.

"Following you," Harry was the more surprised of the pair. He had not expected this. Actually, he couldn’t say what he had expected, but it certainly wasn’t an unconscious Kirsten and a wicked grin.

"Why?" Angelo’s smile vanished instantly. He needed to know how much Harry had seen. "No, tell me later," he said as Harry began what Angelo realised was going to be a long explanation. "We need to get her out of here."

Harry, overwhelmed and confused, simply nodded and watched as Angelo swung himself easily up into the vent shaft, handing Kirsten up to him as soon as he was ready for her and tossing the briefcase in before he too followed.

Between them, they managed to manoeuvre her through the shaft and out onto the roof. From there, Angelo pushed Harry into the harness, and sent him skidding erratically along the drop line into the enormous apple tree that grew fifty feet away. Then, he strapped Kirsten in and hung on for dear life as they both went flying to join Harry. She would never remember the trip that brought the shots of the guards whistling around their ears, but he would forever, especially in the middle of the night when he slept in his cold lonely bed.

Shimmying down the tree with Kirsten over one shoulder and the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, Angelo glanced around to check for more guards, and then whispered, "Run for it!" to Harry, who needed no encouragement.

The three of them moved through the trees, and Kirsten woke with staring at Angelo’s back side. Confused though not completely unwilling to maintain her position, she cried, "What the hell is going on?" before being silenced by a slap on the rear from Harry as Angelo had his hands full already.

"Shut up!" he whispered fiercely in a tone that sent ripples of excitement down Kirsten’s back. "You’re being rescued, so unless you want to go back there, be quiet!"

After what seemed an hour of staring at Angelo’s posterior and being jiggled around, Kirsten was lain down on the cold ground of Central Park at night and felt Angelo force a bottle between her teeth. Drinking gratefully before she realised what it was, she downed the whisky and spluttered at the burn.

"What the hell is going on?" She repeated once the stinging sensation had ceased. "Who are you really? Where am I?" Then as an afterthought she said, "Thank you for rescuing me."

"You’re welcome," Harry grinned at her. Angelo just looked moodily down at his briefcase, wondering at the night’s events with stoic calm.

"To answer your questions," he said, having caught his breath, "I found you in a room at the Belgravia Mansion being beaten up by a thug and a man who seemed to think you knew something. I’m Angelo Salvatore, I think. You know Harry."

"I know you," she broke in. "I just couldn’t believe it was really the same guy as caught the coffee pot I threw at him and downed the lot in one go."

A flicker of a smile crossed Angelo’s lips, but he went on as cold and precise as before. "You’re in Central Park, but not for long." He took the flask from Harry who had just imbibed half the contents and sipped from it slowly. "We need to get you back to my apartment. Can you walk?"

The beaten girl stood up slowly, "I think so."

"Good," Angelo turned to Harry. "Call a cab. Get in it and go home. Tonight never happened. You never saw any of this and as far as you know, Miss Storms is in bed right now. OK?"

"Nope," Harry said blithely. "You’re forgetting something."

"What?" Angelo was tired, and his mood was worsening by the moment, but his usual sangfroid didn’t slip.

"I know what’s in that briefcase," he grinned.

"No, you don’t." Angelo took another sip of whisky.

"Yes, I do," Harry argued. "It’s jewels and I know to whom they belong."

Too tired to argue, Angelo gave in. "Come on. Call a cab. Miss Storms, I’m sure," his good manners flooded back over them like a warm blanket, "would like to get warm and change her clothes I believe. I also have a rather nice dinner waiting at my apartment she may like to eat."

"A turkey sandwich?" she asked, grasping onto this one strand of sanity in an insane world.

Angelo nodded. "With lettuce and mayonnaise, but no tomato."

Kirsten sighed, content. If he was offering her turkey sandwiches, with lettuce and mayonnaise but no tomato, at this moment she would follow him to the ends of the earth.

She was too tired to fully appreciate the feel of his gentle, strong arms around her as he carried her into the cab, her head resting against his shoulder and Harry carrying her shoes for her, but she felt peace there a wonder relief to her after the last few terrible hours of her life.

Back in Angelo’s Spartan New York apartment, Harry watched with unmatched interest as the girl he had spent years flirting with over elegantly made delicacies ploughed her way through the thickest sandwich he had ever seen, with a bowl of French fries on the side. When she was done, she fastidiously wiped her fingers clean with a paper napkin and handed an amused Angelo the empty plate. "Thank you," she said politely, reaching for a proffered red apple.

"Now I have a question of my own: what did those men want you to tell them?" Angelo’s eyes were less cold than usual, a hint of compassion sparked in their brown depths, but his voice was as coolly controlled as ever.

"Where a painting is," she replied, just as coolly, between ravenous bites of her apple.

"What painting?" Harry sat next to the blonde and took her in slowly. She had an ice pack clamped to her face, bandages on her arms and torso, and a split lip. She looked like she had been through hell, but here she was, calmly, if hungrily, munching an apple, and keeping both men guessing.

"Just a painting," she had finished her apple now and was gazing longingly at the freezer.

"Ice cream?" Angelo asked, reading her mind. She nodded, still hungry. "You can have some if you tell me what painting and where."

She stared at him for a minute, calculating the chance of getting ice cream without telling him anything against the chance of getting hurt if she told him which painting and where. She decided quickly. "It’s a Rembrandt. One of his lesser known pieces. ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son’. Now gimme."

He knew the picture. He had thought it was in St. Petersburg, that was where he’d last seen it.

Angelo took the ice cream out of the freezer and picked up a large silver spoon from the side. She could read the flavour: Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, her favourite. "Where is it?"

They had beaten her black and blue, tortured her with metal strips and kept her without food or drink all day long. Through out it all, she stayed strong. If they had only known, they could have touched her on her weak spot and she would have told them everything. Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream was Kirsten’s greatest weakness, and without a second thought she answered all of Angelo’s questions.

"It’s in the International National Dancers Building." His eyebrow flickered, so she went on, rather more quickly as he moved the ice cream closer to her. "Where the dancers from every country in the UN stay while the UN is in session in New York."

The eyebrow flickered again.

Kirsten sighed. It was typical of men not to know anything about dancers, whereas if they had been sport stars he could have told her everything from their best ever performance to their shoe size. "They all like having their dancing girls in New York so they can compare them to the girls in the Roxy. Each country has a girl who can do their national dance, and they all stay together at this building." She took another napkin and searched for a pen before scribbling down a street number. "That’s what it’s supposed to be about anyway, but it’s basically run by the Corleone family, and the fact that they have the Rembrandt is really pi-" Kirsten stopped short and then corrected herself, "making the Fettuccini family mad. They want it badly."

Angelo spooned more ice cream into her bowl, and she ate it ravenously. "Why?"

"It’s not the picture they want," she confided, "it’s the frame. In code under the gold leaf, there’s the safe number for Old Joe’s fortune. The Corleone family, well, Babe actually, knows what the number is but can’t get at the safe, and the Fettuccini family can get at the safe, but don’t know the number and can’t crack it on account of Old Joe rigging it to explode if they use any number but the right one straight off, within a time limit. Do you have any apple pie?"

Angelo shook his head and she looked disappointed.

Though unwilling to leave them just when things were getting interesting, Harry leapt up before Angelo could stop him and ran outside to buy a pie from the all night baker’s across the street, hoping his act of generosity and kindness would be looked on with favour by the beautiful Miss Storms. When she saw he brought vanilla ice cream too, she smiled sweetly at him and set about devouring the pie.

"You know Babe Corleone?" For the first time, there was feeling in Angelo’s voice, hope in fact.

"I should do," Kirsten replied between mouthfuls. "We are related."

Angelo looked like he had just been told that he was the recipient of a million dollar jackpot prize. "Can you introduce me?"

"Sure, why not?" She grinned at him, split lip and all, over her bowl of apple pie and ice cream. "Got any more ice cream?"

With a slight sigh, Harry opened the freezer door to show her the empty shelves inside. "You cleaned him out."

She shrugged, licking her spoon clean through pink, moist lips. Her immediate hunger pangs satisfied, her curiosity was reawakened. "Why do you want to know this stuff?"

Angelo smiled. "Because I’m curious."

She tried to glower at him, but with that megawatt smile turned on, found it impossible.

"No, really, why do you want to know?" Kirsten laid down her spoon, a sure sign she meant business.

"Why are the Fettuccini family so desperate to get their hands on Old Joe’s fortune?" Angelo asked, quickly changing the subject.

Harry answered instead of Kirsten, "Since Natalya K…"

"I know who you mean," Angelo quickly interposed as Harry stuttered out the Russian name, not realising that he knew the woman personally, and that she was searching for her Super Shawn at that very moment.

"Well, since Natalya K’s new wonder drug came out, every addict’s been forced to come off drugs in a hurry, and no one is getting hooked any more, so a major source of income has been lost to them. Unlike the Corleones, they dealt mostly in cocaine, heroin and opium, some speed, acid and ecstasy, but basically anything that will fricassee your brain real fast. The Corleone family never had anything to do with drugs, just bootlegging liquor and a few…" Harry trailed off as he looked at Kirsten’s expression. He was not going to mention the Corleone dance clubs, renowned throughout New York, in front of her. Then he went on, hoping she hadn’t noticed the pause. "…Other things. The Fettuccini family aren’t going to survive if they don’t get some cash and soon. South America is falling to pieces because the drug barons are losing their wealth and can’t pay their thugs anymore. The whole deal’s shot. So they need Old Joe’s money. Without it…"

"They’re geography ," Kirsten replied with a wicked grin and through a mouthful of pie.

"You mean history," Harry corrected her gently.

"I know what I mean," she snapped back. The smile, tinged with a light of mania, returned. "The Fettuccinis are going to be floating slowly down the river in no time."

She gazed around the room, evidently searching for more food, her hunger pains no longer sated. Angelo sighed, and reached into the cupboard for the packet of cereal he had bought two days before when pretending to shop but actually following the bodyguard of the French ambassador as he searched for mangoes. He grimaced at the name: ‘Captain Courage’s Crunchie Crisp Crackle Snaps’. He handed the carton silently over to Kirsten who took it gratefully and began crunching it dry.

"When can we pay a visit to Mrs Corleone?" He asked, re-crossing his arms.

For a moment the crunching stopped. "Can I sleep here?" He shrugged. He’d give up his bed to her and sleep on the floor. "Good," Kirsten announced between mouthfuls, "then we’ll go in the morning."

"I think I’d better sit down," Harry murmured, sinking into a chair. He glanced at Kirsten who was just beginning to practise her flirting techniques on their host and asked quickly, "Can I stay here too?"

Another shrug. He’d have to find more blankets and pillows, but to let Harry or Kirsten go home only an hour after he’d rescued her with him as an accomplice from the Fettuccini stronghold was to risk their safety and his own. Kirsten would be looked for, so would the jewels, and Angelo, in more than his usual calculating style, decided that Harry could not be trusted to keep his mouth shut about either.

"Do you have any tea?" The faintest smile crossed Angelo’s lips as Kirsten sent another searching gaze searing through the room, ducking her head back and forth to see past either side of her host. The girl was insatiable.

"No, only milk, coffee, hot chocolate, or," he paused and watched Kirsten’s eyebrow flicker up with amusement, "Scotch whisky."

"Not Irish?" Harry asked jokingly.

For a moment, Angelo Salvatore was subdued by Shawn Douglas Brady. He said in wonder, "Irish…"

The door of the apartment flew open as a man in a grey Armani suit kicked it in. Angelo took back control of the mind as his skills became vital.

"Get down," he bit out sharply. He did not lower himself, instead calculating how difficult it would be to get past the man they would have posted on the fire escape, down the three men barging into the room and the two he believed would stand in the hallway. He believed the three of them would live as long as there was no sniper posted on the roof of the opposite building.

"Angelo," the first man said confidently, snidely dusting his cuffs, "still living, I see."

Angelo recognised the man’s voice immediately as that of the right hand thug of the Fettuccini family, Nicholas ‘the knife’. He was undoubtedly here to reclaim Kirsten and take revenge on the man who had rescued her. Angelo showed a feral grin. A straight forward revenge raid he could fight.

Silently, he waited for Nicholas to throw a punch, then blocked it, swept a hand under the other man’s defence, ripped the knife out of his foe’s grip and pushed two fingers under his ribs, knocking the wind out of him and sending him reeling backwards. The two henchmen disturbed by their boss’s swift defeat did not attack immediately, and Angelo took advantage of their hesitation by stabbing both in quick barehanded jabs and knocking both unconscious.

Without a word, Angelo signalled to his stunned companions to follow him, turned the knife in his hand and leaned around the window. The unsuspecting guard only knew of Angelo’s presence when the knife blade pricked against his neck.

"Do you want to die?" Angelo’s voice was as calm as it had been when offering drinks to his guests.

The man began to shake his head, then felt the knife scratch him and choked out, "No!"

"Then tell your boss this," Angelo could have been ordering coffee, but the Mediterranean man’s dark face had turned ash grey. "Miss Storms is under my protection now and my employer’s. Hurt her, and I will personally maim ten of your Mob. Kill her," and at last his voice dropped to a chilling whisper, "and there won’t be a soul to remember the night I came after you." He dropped the knife to above the man’s clavicle, "And the name’s Mr. Salvatore."

He banged the man’s head against the wall, knocking the man unconscious.

He let the body drop and moved Kirsten and Harry out onto the fire escape, bringing the precious briefcase with them. He climbed into the darkness first, wary of attack from below, and let himself drop down.

A sniper’s bullet from the opposite roof whistled two millimetres above his head, ruffling his dark hair, and lodging in the wall behind him. Kirsten, her foot hovering inches above where Angelo’s head had been gasped, Harry stifled a cry of fear, and for the first time that night, Angelo Salvatore felt afraid.

TBC...