TamiraK
TMF Poster
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The Cult of Tickle Assassins
The Cult of Tickle Assassins II
The Cult of Tickle Assassins III: Trainee Syra Rahul's Final Exam
The Cult of Tickle Assassins IV: Pereira vs. Rahul
The Cult of Tickle Assassins V: City of Angels
The Cult of Tickle Assassins VI: Sweet Vengeance
by Tamira K.
(continued directly from The Cult of Tickle Assassins V: City of Angels)
Chapter 1
Agent Syra Rahul and Associate Agent Donna Pardus closed the doors of the black 4x4 and sat in silence as Syra considered the next step.
‘Can I use your cell phone?’ she asked.
‘You can try,’ replied Donna, edging the phone from her latex pantsuit, ‘but it’s been actin’ squirly since I took an unplanned dip in a pool… and the ocean.’ Against all odds, the phone shone to life. ‘Well, whaddaya ya know? Looks like a great ass silhouette ain’t the only benefit of this outfit.’
Syra dialled HQ. After giving her personal code, she was connected. ‘Director Zhang here. MS Baker is with me. You’re on speakerphone, Senior Agent. What’s the situation?’
‘Well, Susan Rosetti’s sister is out of the equation, as you probably know.’
‘Yes.’
‘And we’ve lost contact with Cheryl Pereira.’
‘She’s a secondary concern at this point.’ The call went mute.
‘Ma’am?’ said Syra.
Zhang returned. ‘If there’s anything we need to know before we take this further you’d better tell us now. MS Baker tells me you have some information that may give us the advantage.’
‘I can handle it when I get back to New York, ma’am.’
‘Senior Agent, you’ve been in action virtually without pause for days on end—‘
‘I’m fine ma’am—‘
‘—and within that time you’ve neutralised a high-profile target, gotten into a violent encounter with an ex-agent, been tortured for several hours, undertaken a side mission and disposed of Lorena Marcuzzi. I think it’s time you had a rest.’
‘I’m fresh, ma’am. The plane ride back will be enough for me to recuperate.’
The line went silent again. Syra couldn’t help but feel irked that her current capability was in question while realising that she would similarly question anyone else’s at this stage. She tried to dismiss the knowledge that the mission was now a personal one for her; Patrick’s murder and the indignity of being tickle-tortured to the verge of death whilst Giada Rosetti looked on with her filthy feet propped up was a memory that would not fade any time soon. She did not want this assignment taken away from her.
Zhang returned. ‘There are some specific things we require from this situation, moving forward.’
‘Yes, ma’am. What are they?’
Zhang made way for Baker to speak. ‘The Rosetti crime family are unlikely to stop in their pursuit of revenge and when they work out what happened with Lorena Marcuzzi they will respond. We are not in the business of tit-for-tat, so need to cut the head off this snake. If the the top people were not only gone, but humiliated in the eyes of the world, it wouldn’t take long for the other crime families to do our work for us.’
‘We are working on a plan to gain media coverage but without drawing attention to the organisation,’ said Zhang.
‘I have just the plan,’ said Syra.
‘Very well,’ said Zhang. ‘There’s a pilot waiting for you at Santa Monica Municipal Airport. The jet is comprehensively stocked with everything you might need. And, because you’ve faced armed resistance once already, there are also handguns on board. Don’t use them unless you have to.’
‘Of course, ma’am,’ she said and hung up. ‘We need to get to Santa Monica Municipal,’ she said to Donna.
‘“We”? I’ve got clients to see, honey.’
‘You’re not coming?’
‘I left the cult because their way of doin’ things didn’t fit with my style. My life is here now; they just call me as a last resort. You’ve got enough help back on the East Coast.’
‘Can you at least drop me at the airport?’
‘Sure.’ Donna started the engine and put her foot on the gas.
‘By the way, your little apprentice asked if I could give her some lessons,’ said Syra.
‘Lolly?’
‘Yeah. I think she was impressed by the desperate sounds your client was making. I was surprised you hadn’t taught her everything you knew about what we do.’
Donna pursed her lips.
‘Maybe she’ll come see me in New York. She might find her niche out there.’
‘I taught her plenty,’ Donna sniped. ‘She just needs a refresher. From me.’
‘Hm. Perhaps,’ said Syra as she watched the world pass outside her window.
‘Why do you want me to help you out?’
‘I thought you might be frustrated that you were outwitted by Lorena. Plus, there will be plenty of opportunity to be sadistic on this mission – much more opportunity than playing dominatrix in the Hollywood hills.’
Donna broke into a grin. ‘Use reverse psychology much?’
‘Only when necessary,’ replied Syra with a deadpan expression.
‘Right,’ said Donna. Then she added, ‘You know, if these Rosettis have got any damn sense, they’ll be at a secret location by now.’
‘I can pretty much guarantee it.’
‘You know where?’
‘Nope.’
‘I assume you’ve got a plan to find them?’
‘Yep.’
Donna was amused by Syra’s cocksure attitude. ’Okay, I’ll come. Apart from anything, you’re right – I feel like I had a good fuck but didn’t get to come; I need to scratch that itch.’
‘I thought you might.’
‘How tall are you, girl?’ asked Donna.
Syra looked at her. ‘Five-five. Why?’
‘You ain’t got the right to call Lolly “little”, honey.’
Syra shrugged. The lights of the airport glowed into view.
Chapter 2
Agent Denise Jones watched the sparse moonlit clouds pass below, between her and the black endless fields of Nebraska. Her emotions were a jumble of confusion – the image of her friend Patrick’s murder was emblazoned on her mind and the disturbing sounds of Syra and Cheryl’s helpless laughter as she was forced to torture a senior agent at gunpoint echoed in her ears.
Unpredictable shivers caused her to tremble as these memories mixed with a boiling need to unleash revenge on the people who made it all happen. And, just a few yards away, on the same RID jet that was carrying them both back to New York, one of them sat in a cage, handcuffed by her wrists and ankles to an iron chair.
Lorena’s bodyguard, Danni, felt like 180lbs of muscle when Denise and Syra lifted her unconscious body onto one of the makeshift Rosetti torture frames. She woke up the moment Syra left the building and Denise was concerned at one point that even the scaffolding frame wouldn’t be able to contain her as she furiously yanked and shook against it. Denise had to use all her own restraint to keep from inflicting serious damage on the captured gangster but managed to keep her cool until the clean-up team arrived.
Danni’s demeanour was now very different; the profanity and graphic threats were now concealed behind a half-smirk that reeked with the promise of violence. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Denise for the whole evening but Denise was in no mood for a staring contest. It wouldn’t take much to light her fuse, which would lead to a very unpleasant end for the chained woman and disciplinary proceedings back at HQ.
She had been told by her seniors to get Danni back for questioning and she consoled herself that there was therefore no option of causing her any harm. Plus, the two 6’5” members of the clean-up team who had been ordered to accompany Denise and the pilot back to New York in case of anything unexpected taking place on the plane, would also step in should Denise lose her cool.
But, oh, she wanted to so much.
A phone situated on Denise’s table rang. She answered it. ‘Jones.’
‘Denise, it’s Syra.’
‘Hi. You okay? Where are you?’
‘I’m fine. Probably a couple of hours behind you but I’m on my way back. Do you know the location of the Rosetti hood?’
‘She’s with me.’
‘Okay. I’m going to need some information from her. I need addresses – anywhere that Giada could be hiding out. It can’t wait until you reach headquarters. Do you reckon you can get that?’
Denise’s gaze met Danni’s. ‘It would be my pleasure,’ she said and hung up.
The plane wobbled with turbulence and she had to steady herself as she stepped towards the cage.
‘The fuck you lookin’ at?’ Danni snarled, stirring the two clean-up specialists from their semi doze. Denise stood next to them and they looked up expectantly.
‘Guzman, isn’t it?’ said Denise to the first.
‘Proctor. He’s Guzman,’ said Proctor, indicating his partner.
‘I need the keys, Proctor.’
‘Why’s that, Agent Jones?’ asked Proctor, who reached into his pocket for the keys to Danni’s cage and cuffs.
Denise didn’t answer, she just beckoned with an outstretched hand. As she approached and unlocked the cage door Danni primed herself for action even though there was no way she could break from the cuffs.
‘You can’t fuckin’ touch me – I’ve got rights!’
‘Bitch, you’ve got nothing while we’ve got you. Nobody even knows you exist right now,’ said Denise as the cage door creaked open and she stepped inside. ‘I can do whatever I want until you tell me what I want to know.’
‘You think I’m gonna give things up because you tickle me?’ she mocked. ‘I ain’t weak like le tue amiche puttane! Get to fuck!’
Her unintimidated attitude rankled Denise, who felt especially impatient.
‘Who says I’m going to tickle you? I find intense pain on the journey to certain death to be more effective.’ Danni’s cocksure attitude faded a little. Denise edged behind her so she was out of view, ‘Maybe if I put some piano wire around your thick neck and squeezed tight until it started to slice through the skin in into the muscle, you’d find the incentive to talk before it reached your windpipe…’
As she had hoped, the description of what she could do caused Danni to hunch and tense the muscles in her neck, drawing her physical and psychological defences away from any other part of her body.
When Danni’s shoulders reached a pinnacle Denise grabbed at her ribs, making her jump in the seat. Before she could stop herself, she immediately burst out laughing. It took all of Denise’s focus to maintain a middling pressure around the textured muscles and nerves; not to go too hard and cause pain. Danni bounced in her seat and her laugh became a series of whoops and ooh-hoo-hoo’s as she tried to control her reactions.
‘Give me Giada’s safe house addresses!’ shouted Denise.
‘Ffffffff-uck o-hoh-hoh-hoffff!’ Danni growled through her laughter.
Denise clenched her teeth in frustration. Yes, Danni was obviously ticklish, but that wasn’t going to help – Syra needed the information ASAP and it would take an hour or two to interrogate this woman, especially in this position. She let go, pulled the keys from her pocket and unlocked Danni’s right ankle.
‘What are you doing, Agent?!’ asked Guzman, alarmed.
‘Don’t question what I’m doing; if you’re concerned, cover her with your firearm,’ snapped Denise without facing them. She looked at Danni, ‘So, don’t try to be clever or they’ll shoot you, okay?’
Danni was puzzled but quickly realised that if she was being released, it was only so that she could be placed in a more problematic position. Denise unlocked her right wrist.
Danni could see past Denise to the two men who were not covering her, but looking at each other in confusion at Denise’s actions. Without hesitation, she kicked up into Denise’s thigh with a strength that lifted Denise off her feet and caused her leg to give way as she landed.
The keys landed in Danni’s lap and Proctor and Guzman grabbed for their guns. Danni threw her free leg around Denise’s shoulders and grabbed her own ankle with her free hand, yanking Denise in tight and trapping her throat against the metal chair seat. She immediately began to choke.
Chapter 3
‘Put them fuckin’ guns down, dickheads! She wants me alive, not dead, and she don’t have long before she’s morta!’ The men hesitated. ‘Down! On the floor! Now!’ She yelled, and drew her leg in tighter, making Denise cough more.
‘Okay, okay!’ said Proctor and dropped his gun. Guzman relented and did the same.
‘Don’t take me for an idiot! Kick them away from you!’
Proctor kicked them both away.
Danni tucked her right foot behind her left knee as she lifted the keys and unlocked her left wrist. She then detached the cuffs from the chair and threw them at Guzman. ‘Sit the fuck down and cuff yourselves to each other, under that table.
‘No way!’ said Guzman.
She responded my pulling Denise’s throat hard against the chair seat. Denise made a horrible, involuntary choking sound and struggled feebly against the muscular leg. ‘DO IT!’ screamed Danni.
Proctor and Guzman could tell these were not empty threats and reluctantly took their seats. Proctor cuffed himself and reached under the table, Guzman took the other cuff and clicked it around his own wrist. With one edge of the table attached to the wall, the central table support pole and the two seats fixed in place, they were trapped with little room to manoeuvre.
‘Hey! What’s all the yelling back there?’ called a voice from the front of the plane. Jenkins, the pilot, had opened the cockpit door and was cut short by the sight of Danni throwing Denise to the floor. She landed, choking and semi-conscious. Danni quickly released the cuffs around her left ankle, pocketed them and stood victoriously.
Jenkins slammed the cockpit door shut and locked it.
‘You know why I like it when you black girls grow your hair into these long, frizzy locks?’ asked Danni. ‘It makes it easier to do this…’ she stepped over Denise and grabbed her hair, dragging her along the floor to the two pistols. She stuck one into the back of her pants and held the other one as she dragged Denise to the cockpit door. She hammered on the door with the gun. ‘Hey, fuck-head, take this plane down now, or I execute your buddies out here until you do!’
Denise was light-headed and her vision blurred with tears. She felt a jolt as the jet accelerated.
‘I’m serious, you motherfucker! Right…!’ Danni aimed the gun at Proctor. Proctor and Guzman ducked behind their seats just as a rumble of turbulence shook the plane and when Danni fired the bullet hit the back of Guzman’s headrest.
Denise broke Danni’s grip on her hair and sent a left upper cut under her jaw. Danni fell back against the wall but flew back with an experienced rapidity that took Denise by surprise. She whipped the gun across Denise’s cheek, decking her.
A livid snarl crossed Danni’s face and she took aim.
‘Jenkins! Take us up!’ screamed Denise.
It took Jenkins a moment to realise what he had heard, then he pulled back on the yoke.
Denise grabbed the support column of her table and Danni felt her feet begin to slip. The jet curved skyward as Danni and every unsecured item tumbled down the aisle. Danni crash-landed onto the front of the open cage and dropped the gun.
Denise clambered onto the back rest of her seat and the light-headedness returned. The jet’s emergency air supply masks popped free from their units and dangled toward the back of the plane.
‘Give it up!’ called Denise over the roar of the engines. She looked down the aisle and saw Danni pull the other gun from the back of her belt. She hid behind the seat. ‘Jenkins! Drop!’
Jenkins pushed the yoke forward and the everyone lifted from their seats as gravity was temporarily cancelled.
Danni gripped the cage and took a wild shot at the cockpit door.
‘Are you fucking crazy!?’ shouted Guzman. Danni switched her aim to him and he struggled to find cover.
‘Level off, now!’ called Denise.
The nose of the jet raised and gravity took hold again. Denise plumped into her seat and Danni dropped to the floor. She quickly scrambled to her feet and ran at the cockpit, unloading the gun clip at where she presumed the lock to be.
Denise pounced from her seat and knocked her into the air-locked door opposite. Danni shrieked with anger as she dropped onto her butt; the gun and cuffs clattering to the floor. Denise rushed at her but Danni was again too quick and thrust a juggernaut of a kick into Denise’s stomach. Denise flew awkwardly under her table.
‘Jenk…!’ she tried to call but she was too winded to speak.
Both women looked simultaneously at the floor where the gun and the handcuffs lay in the aisle. The gun was closer to Danni. Proctor and Guzman watched as they both made a lunge and neither could understand why Denise deliberately snatched for the cuffs.
Denise forced a deep, painful intake of breath.
‘Jenkins! Bank left!’
The plane immediately twisted left-side-down. Danni fell against the door and fumbled for the gun, which tumbled under her back. Proctor and Guzman saw Denise cuff her own ankles either side of the table support.
‘What the hell…!?’ said Guzman and he watched as Denise dropped her upper body, like a bat hanging from the ceiling of a cave. She reached across the aisle and, as Danni tuned to get the gun, she grabbed hold of the emergency door release.
‘Oh, shit!’ said Proctor and he and Guzman clung onto their table.
Danni turned in time to see Denise stretched out right next to her. It took a moment for her to register the position the agent was in but her thoughts were interrupted as she felt the door shift behind her.
‘What the fuck are you doing!?’ yelled Danni and she raised the gun but before she could squeeze the trigger there was a searing rush of air and the plane shook violently.
‘Shit!’ said Jenkins as emergency alarms sounded, signalling the open door and loss of cabin pressure. He righted the jet to avoid losing control.
‘Yaagh!’ growled Denise in frustration as gravity now fought against her and she struggled to keep hold of the door release.
Danni dropped to her feet and was about to land a knock-out punch when Denise grabbed hold of her belt with one hand and wrenched the handle. A deafening roar filled the cabin as guns, cups and phones were sucked out of the cabin. Danni flung out her arms and legs out and caught the doorframe but was kept from disappearing into the vacuum by Denise’s grip on her belt, which she now held with both hands.
‘Give me the addresses!’ screamed Denise.
Danni stared at her in disbelief but didn’t answer.
‘I’ll let go of you!’
‘Fuck you!’ yelled Danni as fury mixed with her sense of terror.
‘Last chance!’
‘Fuck! You!’
Denise’s patience left her as quickly as plastic cups had left the plane. One hand let go of Danni’s belt and crawled up to her waist. Their eyes locked on each other and a look of dread filled Danni’s face as Denise began to wriggle the tip of her thumb into the surface of her oblique muscle.
Denise had performed countless missions but she had never before seen someone so terrified as they felt the tickling sensation take hold. Still, despite her fear, the corners of Danni’s mouth began to curl up and her jaw began to tremble. Denise strengthened her hold and wriggled faster.
‘No! Stop!’ cried Danni.
Denise responded by crawling her other hand up to mirror the action.
‘Stoppit! Don’t!’ Though the rushing air took all moisture from the inside of the jet, Danni felt her palms begin to sweat and she began to slip from the doorframe. She strengthened her grasp but in doing so, lost her ability to hold in the laughter.
‘No! Ha ha ha ha! Sto-hop! Stop tickling! You’re going to kill me-ee-ee-eeeee!’
‘Address!’ screamed Denise, tickling harder. She sensed the pressure beginning to normalise and soon she would lose the advantage of the vacuum effect.
‘EE-EE-EE-EEEEE…!’ shrieked Danni. ‘East Mountain R-Road!!!’
‘Number!?’
‘I don’t know th-the number!’ she wailed through her laughter, and tears began to stream from her eyes. ‘It’s got a statue of a lion in the front yard!’
Denise knew this was as much as she was going to get and she watched as the last tear from Danni’s eye stopped streaming towards her hair and rolled down her cheek. Amid her laughter a look of realisation was followed immediately by a flash of vengeance. Gravity caused a strain on Denise’s back.
‘I-h-I’m gonna f-fucking kill you!’ said Danni as she began to pull herself back into the cabin.
With one last burst of strength, Denise tightened her body and tickled frantically into Danni’s waist. She burst out laughing and fell backward. Her hands slipped on the door frame and she was whisked from the plane with a screeching laugh that evaporated into the black night sky.
Denise dropped to the floor.
Proctor and Guzman appeared from behind their seats.
‘I don’t suppose you guys have a spare set of keys?’ she asked, indicating her bleeding ankles. They shook their heads. She matched their movement with an ironic head shake of her own. ‘Jenkins! I need you to call HQ! Tell them we have a message for Senior Agent Rahul! Then we need to turn back and land!’
‘Copy that!’ shouted Jenkins.
‘Sorry boys,’ Denise said to Proctor and Guzman.
‘What for?’ asked Guzman.
‘Well, this clean-up is gonna cover a wide area.’
Chapter 4
‘What do you mean, she didn’t answer?’ Giada Rosetti shouted into her cell phone.
Luca Marcuzzi sat in an armchair, watching his niece with contained disapproval. She’d taken ownership as the head of the family, which, because her mother had just been executed, seemed like a position he and his sister, Lorena, could temporarily entertain. With Lorena serving as underboss and himself as consigliere, he believed they could influence her enough to behave the way a boss should, and do things the way that they wanted. But this situation was going at full speed and wobbling on the rails.
‘I spoke to her thirty seconds before I called you! … Why didn’t you go look for her? … Listen, if you knew what was goin’ on in you territory as well as you should, you should’ve been able to find her without us drawin’ you a fuckin’ map! … Yeah? You owe my father a debt and this is your chance to repay it. Find my aunt—and I mean now—or you’ll have a debt that I’ll have to come and collect myself!’ she screamed and hurled the phone into the sofa. After a few breaths she sat on the sofa to collect it and check her messages.
‘You know you shouldn’t talk to the heads of other families like that. It’s disrespectful,’ said Luca after a pause.
‘Spare me, Uncle Luca. Pussyfootin’ around ain’t getting us nowhere. The old school way of sitting round a table every time you wanna wipe your ass is long gone. Things need to happen fast. And why aren’t you more worried about your sister anyway!?’
‘I wanna know the information before I get emotional about it. Remember, the Galuzos are our allies; we need them on-side—‘
‘We won’t get the information if the Galuzos don’t pull their thumbs out their asses!’
‘Lorena said she was okay. She said she’d just killed one of those bitches—‘
‘What’s our man in the FBI sayin’? He should be able to track her, for fuck sake.’
Luca sighed. ‘He’s gone AWOL. Last time we heard from him was when he told us about this RID organisation.’
Giada’s frustration had nowhere to go. She caught sight of one of her men as he walked past the window. Beyond him were the rocky woodlands of the Sourland Mountain Reserve.
‘Why the fuck are we hidin’ out here anyway?’ she snapped. ‘They came to us twice and we dealt with it.’
‘Things haven’t exactly gone to plan since then, G. And because I don’t know fuck-all about this RID thing, it’s safer that we’re here until we do. They exist in the shadows. Now, so do we.’
‘It’s embarrassing – hidin’ at the first sign of trouble. If Victor Abate hears about this, he’ll make his move.’
‘Pah!’ Luca dismissed the comment. ‘Victor Abate is a wannabe Don with some mid-level muscle. He can’t take us down.’
‘He can if we’re a laughing stock amongst all the other New York families.’
‘You let me handle Victor.’
‘You’d better!’
Luca didn’t appreciate this tone. ‘Listen, G, I think it’s time for you to stop being the acting head of the family and—‘
‘I’m not the acting head of the family! I’m Donna Giada Rosetti. I don’t give a fuck if I’m twenty-two and female – I’m gonna be remembered in history!’
‘It’s not about bein’ twenty-two and female, G,’ said Luca, although his condescending tone let her know that it was at least 99% to do with that. ‘It’s about experience. You should let me run the show until you’ve seen enough to…comfortably take over.’
‘Like an apprentice, you mean?’ she said, as though experiencing a moment of enlightenment.
‘Yeah!’
‘Fuck off. I’m going nowhere until I’ve found every bitch and motherfucker who had anything to do with momma’s murder and line their decapitated heads up along West 34th Street. Then I’ll have a reputation people will remember!’
Chapter 5
Syra and Donna hunched among the trees of the Sourland Mountain Reserve. Both were dressed in black combat gear and equipped with backpacks. Their breath was visible in the morning air and the rising sun cast shadows from the branches that jaggedly sliced through the steam.
They were watching a house. In the front yard was a long-unused stone fountain with a rearing lion in the centre and outside three men in leather jackets did nothing to diminish what anyone pictures when asked to visualise a typical mafioso goon.
‘I’d say it’s pretty much certain that Giada is in there,’ whispered Syra.
‘That may be so. But unless you know some magical kung fu tickle finger of death shit, we ain’t getting to her without a bloodbath,’ said Donna. ‘It seems like this might be the right time to use our guns.’
‘No. Giada needs to be taught a lesson and, for that, we need her alive.’
‘If you’re taking this personal, girl—‘
‘I’m taking this like an agent of RID. We don’t start blasting away at the first sign things get difficult. Bullets mean investigations and potentially leaving evidence behind.’
‘You’re the boss. Tell me what we do now.’
‘Stealth. We’ve both got chloroform. We get down there and take out the muscle, tie them up and wait for anyone else to come find them and we do the same to them. Once Giada and Luca are the only ones left inside, we pull our weapons, but don’t shoot them. We tie them up and work our way through them all. Giada can watch as her crew and uncle fall. Then we get to her.’
Click.
They froze and looked over their shoulders to find a twenty-something member of the Rosetti crew standing thirty yards behind them and covering them with a semi-automatic. Around his forehead was strapped a pair of night vision goggles.
‘You know, the other guys laffed at me when I spent the dough on these beauties. I told ‘em, “They’re not only for huntin’ fuckin’ deer in the nighttime.” And now, look what I caught me!’ He spoke with a genuine pride and lack of animosity, as though he expected Donna and Syra to congratulate him for thinking outside the box.
– – – – –
A knock at the door prompted Luca to pick up his handgun. One of his men stood beside the door. Luca signalled for him to check who was outside. He uncovered the peephole and looked out.
‘Boss – I think you’re about to be very happy!’ he said.
‘Who is it?’ asked Giada.
He opened the door to reveal the cute Indian woman who Giada watched get tickle-tortured for hours by her aunt and aunt’s bodyguards and the tall black woman who ruined the party by saving her, dressed as Catwoman. Their hands were cable-tied behind their backs. The young gangster pushed them in with the barrel of his weapon. Giada’s mouth fell open with amused disbelief.
‘Ohhhhh!’ cried Luca. ‘Look at what Ricky fuckin’ caught!’
Ricky was followed in by the three other henchmen who had been patrolling the perimeter.
‘I found ‘em in the woods!’ Ricky beamed. ‘They were watchin’ the house. Found ‘em with with my new toy!’ He delivered this last sentence with a smug smirk directed at his compadres.
Giada remained in her armchair, reminiscent of a queen in her throne, and casually propped her flip-flopped feet up on a coffee table. Syra noticed with disgust that her soles looked even dirtier than when she last saw them.
‘Put ‘em down,’ Giada ordered.
Ricky thrust the gun into Donna’s back and she stumbled to her knees. He tried the same to Syra but she twisted and refused to go down. Luca grabbed her by the hair and yanked her hard to the floor. ‘Get the fuck down, puttana!’
‘Where’s my aunt?’ asked Giada with uncharacteristic composure.
‘We don’t know—‘ Syra’s words were punctuated with a crack to the head from the butt of Luca’s gun and she fell sideways onto Donna.
‘Take it easy, fat boy!’ said Donna. ‘She’s telling you the truth!’
Syra adjusted herself so she was kneeling upright again. Giada nodded to two of her men, who stepped forward and each placed a gun against the heads of the two women.
‘I’m gonna ask you one more time,’ said Giada. ‘If you say the words “don’t know”, one of you will get ya brains emptied all over the carpet and while Denny cleans it up—‘
‘Oh, man…’ whined one of the henchmen.
‘—the other one will get took down into the basement here and hanged by the neck to a ceiling beam, where all of my men take turns doing whatever they like to ya. Then we’ll ask ya again.’ She looked Syra dead in the eyes. ‘I’ll let you guess which one I’m gonna let get fucked raw for hours.’
A trickle of blood leaked from Syra’s head. She didn’t blink as she held Giada’s stare and eventually Giada’s need to blink made her give way.
‘Where is my aunt?’ asked Giada. The sheen of her composure was tarnished.
‘Okay,’ said Donna. Syra was concerned about what she would say as, after the Rossettis knew, there would be no reason for them to keep them alive. ‘She’s still in LA.’
‘Whoopee-fuckin’-do,’ said Luca. ‘Where in LA?’
‘Well, that’s the thing: she could be in several places…’
‘You want me to hack your fuckin’ arm off?! Talk!’
‘Okay! Give me a second, would ya!?’ said Donna. ‘She could be out in the Pacific, incinerated in a furnace or sprayed across a field as plant food through a wood chipper. In any case, she’s dead since my girl, here, dropped a steel shutter door on her thick skull.’
Syra felt her heart drop and closed her eyes. The next moments felt like slow motion as a shadow crossed the sunlight, muted gunfire shot six times and she felt a thick, warm spray across her face. She braced herself to see Donna on the floor, then registered the tinkling of glass and heard bodies drop all around her.
‘What the fuck!?’ screamed Giada.
Syra opened her eyes and took in the scene: all the gangsters lay dead on the floor and Giada sat clutching the arms of her chair and glaring at a broken side window where stood Cheryl Pereira, holding a pistol equipped with a silencer.
‘I saw you creepin’ around outside. You took your time, girlfriend!’ said Donna.
‘You want me to apologise?’ asked Cheryl without taking her focus from Giada. ‘Call it evens for launching me through some patio doors, huh?’
Syra quickly sat back and looped her butt and feet through her arms. She ran to the kitchen, collected a knife and came back to cut Donna’s wrists free. Donna picked up a pistol and covered Giada so that Cheryl could make her way inside.
‘Shit, man. I got someone’s brains in my goddamn hair.’
Cheryl smirked as the three of them stood side-by-side over Giada who trembled with fear and anger. ‘You bitches killed my family!’
‘Er, strictly speaking, I didn’t,’ said Donna. ‘I just tortured your aunt.’
‘And, strictly speaking,’ said Cheryl, ‘we wouldn’t have if your parents, uncle and aunt weren’t murdering assholes to begin with.’
‘If you shoot me, evidence goes to the papers about who you are and what you do!’ snapped Giada.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Syra.
‘My mom’s voicemail!’ She indicated Cheryl. ‘I’ve got a recording of this c**t torturing my mom to death! I told my guys if I go missing they should email it out immediately. So, fuck you!’
Chapter 6
Syra towelled off as Donna entered the steamy bathroom.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Syra.
‘Everything’s ready,’ said Donna, pulling off her jacket and vest top. Syra was mildly surprised at how large her breasts were. It was the first time she had seen them out of a skintight outfit. ’They even had a bunch of stuff we could use – seems like they also bring people here to do their interrogating. We did a shout test – they have the place soundproofed.’
‘Good. Wash that blood off yourself and I’ll see you down there.’
‘Gotcha.’
Syra made her way to the basement and sensed herself interrupting a conversation. As she descended the stairs she found Cheryl leaning against a sink and Giada in a position that she would have never expected to end up in.
In the middle of the room a wooden table was covered and padded by several thick blankets. On top of the blankets knelt Giada, dressed in nothing but a black lace G-string. Her knees were apart. A single leather mitten covered both hands and cuffed the wrists. Her feet hung over the lower edge of the table, with her ankles secured in thick leather padded restraints that were attached to two heavy-duty circular eye bolts. Her wrists were drawn between her legs and tied to a single eye bolt in the centre of the table; between her feet. This resulted in Giada’s butt being forced high into the air, while her head and shoulders were pressed against the bench. For good measure, Cheryl and Donna had put a studded leather collar around her neck and chained it to the top of the table to keep her head in place.
‘Nice work,’ said Syra.
‘I think so,’ said Cheryl.
‘How did you get here?’
‘Charter jet.’
‘You know what I mean. How did you know where to find them and find us?’
‘I didn’t know I’d find you. You were just lucky I did. As for how I found this place… I have my own sources.’
‘Tech Agent Michaels?’ asked Syra bluntly.
‘Yep. He fancies the pants off me.’
‘He shouldn’t be giving information to fugitive agents.’
‘You wanna rewind time and play by the rule book, Syra? Where do you think you’d be now?’ Cheryl indicated Giada’s current position.
‘I’m just saying what a senior agent should say. I’m glad to see you, Cheryl.’
They smiled at one another and Syra circled their captive. Giada had the fit and toned body of any 22-year-old who had placed most of her emphasis on uploading bikini workout videos to her social media apps before recently taking over the family business. Her skin was flawless, except for the soles of her size 8 feet, which looked like she had been walking in coal dust for months. This somewhat disrupted Syra’s sixth sense of knowing exactly where on her sole she would be the most sensitive.
She stepped over to the backpacks, which sat on a draining board beside the sink where they had been washed clean of the earlier violence. Cheryl watched as she rummaged inside her own backpack.
Donna descended the stairs in her combat trousers and vest top. Her freshly-cleaned afro was tied into two bunches, which looked surprisingly cutesy for such a statuesque woman.
‘I’m ready. Where do we start?’
Syra held up two nail brushes and a bar of extra-creamy moisturising soap.
‘We start by getting this girl cleaned up.’
Chapter 7
‘You people really are fucked up!’ shouted Giada. ‘I’m not telling you where the recording is so you can do whatever you like!’
‘We will,’ said Cheryl.
‘Fuck you, you c**t!’ screamed Giada.
At that moment Syra felt a strange pang of empathy with Giada’s situation. After all, she was only twenty-two and it wasn’t long ago that she was in a similar position.
‘Tell me something, Giada – if we let you go now, would you change your ways?’
Cheryl and Donna looked to one another.
‘What are you talkin’ about?’ Giada barked from her awkward position. ‘Don’t fuck with me!’
‘I’m not,’ said Syra. ‘If we let you go, would you go and get yourself a decent life that didn’t involve hurting other people?’
Cheryl stepped forward, ‘Wait a minute—‘
‘Who da fuck are you to say that to me!? You’re a bunch of freaks who killed my family and torture people to death! At least I finish people quick!’
‘You mean, like threatening me with hours of being raped and interrogated?’ asked Syra.
‘Yeah,’ said Cheryl, ‘and I’m sure, if your aunt had found me and my mother, she would’ve been real humane!’
‘I tell you what,’ said Giada, ‘once I’m out of here, I’ll call in every favour from every contact; I’ll track down your families, chop them up and dump them in a pile outside RID; and arrange for the world’s paparazzi to come down and photograph the whole thing! We have people in the FBI. You’re fucked, Donna and Syra and Cheryl!’
Syra paused for a moment. Cheryl and Donna watched her closely.
‘Fine,’ she said at last. ‘Cheryl, can you put some water that bucket?’
Cheryl breathed a sigh of relief and lifted a bucket from beneath the sink. She ran some warm water until the bucket was half full, then placed it on the floor at the bottom of the table.
‘What are you doing?’ said Giada, starting to get nervous. She pulled at the rope that held her wrists, but there was no give.
‘Look at this, ladies,’ said Syra, indicating Giada’s filthy feet.
‘Yeurgh!’ said Donna. ‘Do you got no regard for personal hygiene, girl?’
Syra dropped the soap and nail brushes into the bucket, then lifted a floating sponge from it and squeezed it over Giada’s filthy feet. Even a brief flush of water formed pools of blackened water that slowly seeped into the concrete floor.
‘Who wants a first go?’ asked Syra dropping the sponge into the bucket.
‘Oh, I think homegirl, here, has earned it!’ Donna indicated Cheryl.
‘Thanks,’ said Cheryl. She retrieved the sponge and unceremoniously swiped it over Giada’s soles.
Giada wriggled in her prone position and gave tiny grunts of discomfort as the rough sponge rubbed her feet clean.
‘Jeez. You’re one dirty ho,’ said Cheryl as she repeatedly swept each sole. When her feet were free of all the loose dirt, Cheryl threw the sponge into the sink and dunked her hands into the bucket to retrieve the bar of soap and a nail brush. She rotated the soap in one hand until it had formed a creamy lather then dropped it back into the bucket and smothered Giada’s left sole in slippery bubbles.
‘You bitches are sick in the head!’ shouted Giada, finding the sensation disconcertingly pleasant. Then Cheryl’s fingers slipped between her toes and she gnashed in frustration. ‘Get off me, you fuckin’ bitch!’
In response, Cheryl clasped the top of Giada’s foot and swiped the bristles of the nail brush at a medium speed from her heel to her toes. Giada stiffened and gurgled through her clenched teeth with a response that could have been mistaken for electrocution. Cheryl didn’t hesitate to take the brush on a reverse journey.
‘Agh! Stop doin’ that!’
The women noticed the undeniable wobble that already invaded Giada’s throat; an intonation with which they were all intimately familiar. It indicated that the defences were falling, the battle was won, and that, no matter how hard the target wanted to deny it, there was an unrelenting sensation in the pit of her tummy that would rise with each touch and soon overflow with sounds that would undermine her own protestations.
Cheryl scrubbed the brush once more up and down Giada’s sole. Giada’s next predictable move was to refuse to make a sound and focus on zoning out the sensations or, at least, not permitting her tormentors to see the effects.
The scrubbing remained at a regimented pace, then became constant and erratic. She frowned and her eyes squeezed tighter, her lips pursed hard and she took short, sharp breaths through her nose.
‘Got a problem, sugar?’
Startled by how nearby these words were delivered, Giada’s eyes popped open to see Donna; her elbows propped on the table, her chin resting in both hands and a faux butter-wouldn’t-melt expression on her face.
With her cheek pressed against the surface by her predicament, Giada had to drag her nose against the table padding in order to look in the opposite direction only to see Syra spectating with her arms folded.
‘Fuck you!’ Giada seethed through clenched teeth. Her resolve faltered further as Cheryl continued to scrub her sensitive sole. ‘Y-you’re too chicken shit to take me on untied!’
‘God, you’re right,’ said Syra with as deadpan an expression as it is possible to display. ‘Let me release you so we can prove ourselves oh no you nearly had me with your reverse psychology.’
Donna and Cheryl laughed.
Giada grimaced with pure hate and tears welled in her eyes with frustration. She spat at Syra but the projectile fell well short of the target.
‘Yuck, nasty girl!’ said Cheryl and ramped up the speed of her brushing.
Giada’s face fluttered through a series of contortions as a tsunami of sensations surged up her leg, through her torso and erupted in an outburst of girlish laughter.
Donna noticed a sigh of satisfaction from Cheryl at this sound, which could only have been sexual. She got a little turned on herself at the warm release of stress Giada’s collapse appeared to deliver in her.
Meanwhile, Syra maintained a businesslike focus on which motions and areas most exploited Giada’s vulnerabilities.
The slippery foam from the RID-devised soap refused to dissipate as Cheryl scrubbed up-and-down, left-and-right and figure-8’s all over Giada’s left sole. Giada squealed with a constant angelic laugh that was contrary to all other personality traits they had observed in her.
Suddenly Cheryl stopped, which gave Giada the chance to react like a newly chained wild puma.
‘Let me out of here!’
The women ignored her. Cheryl plunged her hands into the bucket again and pulled the bar of soap from the milky warm water. The outer layer was now a mushy gel and she smeared the bar over both of the exposed soles in front of her. She then dropped the soap and lifted out the second nail brush.
‘Ready for round two?’ taunted Cheryl.
But before Giada could answer, both nail brushes began scrubbing both feet relentlessly. She screamed in protest and helplessness, which, in such a sound-contained area, made the women wince. Her feet flicked this way and that; the milky gel dripping from her soles as the bristles skated all over. She gasped a deep breath and a gave a prolonged and piercing scream that melted into laughter as she ran out of breath. She gasped for breath but the next scream wouldn’t come. Instead, she was paralysed with laughter.
Very soon her laughter hit a predictable rhythm of four girlish and diminishing Haaaa haaa haa ha’s, followed by a desperate gasp for breath that sounded identical each time.
Cheryl’s flared nostrils and appearance of sexual dominance made Donna wonder why on earth she would want to stop doing this; she couldn’t have been any more in her element.
Syra and Donna were happy to spend an hour watching Cheryl tickle-torturing Giada’s young soles without any change in the results except that Giada was dripping with sweat. During brief moments of respite, as Cheryl adjusted the brushes in her hands, Syra saw the rapid changes in Giada’s expression. As soon as she wasn’t being tickled, her hilarity dropped into expressions of desperate exhaustion.
Giada knew she was in trouble.
Syra considered how this was the brat who casually chowed down on popcorn while presiding over her own unbearable torture and decided it was time to get involved. While Cheryl continued to lubricate and scrub Giada’s ticklish feet, Syra knelt onto the top of the table and shuffled until her knees were either side of Giada’s head.
‘What the ffff-haa haa haa haa!? … What thefffff-ha-ha-haa-haaaahhh…?!’ cried Giada as the words were stolen from her throat each time before she could finish the sentence.
‘I’m about to join in, Giada. I though that was perfectly obvious,’ said Syra. ‘Of course, you could make this easier on yourself by telling us where that recording is.’
Cheryl paused her attack.
‘Get fucked!’ Giada barked.
‘I thought you’d say that,’ said Syra. ‘You should pray that I ask you again at some point – sometimes I get carried away and forget.’
Giada’s current inelegant position, plus the laughter she was being forced to endure meant that her tummy muscles were permanently tensed. Syra reached forward and curled her fingers around Giada’s elevated waist. Giada’s vocal response to this simple action confirmed what Syra already suspected – this was a hot spot.
She nodded to Cheryl to indicate that she would commence this next movement as a solo…
Chapter 8
Syra’s fingers pressed into the inverted muscles of Giada’s waist. Her reaction was immediate. She attempted to scream but the impulse to laugh was too strong and overruled the attempt to do anything else.
This laughter was loud and almost joyful; like the kind of laughter that she might produce if rolling around with female friends and a group pillow fight turned into a group tickle fight. Not that any of them could imagine her participating in such a thing.
Syra wriggled and scampered up and down Giada’s torso – working her magic into the hips, waist and lower ribs of the ticklish young woman. Each movement brought an extra level of hysteria. Then she caught Donna analysing her techniques.
‘I hear Mozart could play the piano upside down,’ said Donna, referring to Giada’s inverted position.
An almost imperceptible smirk affected Syra’s lips as she accepted the compliment.
Constant waves of shrill and desperate laughter were again punctuated by deep intakes of breath that began to rasp at Giada’s throat. After fifteen torturous minutes, she dragged her face across the padding and seemed to be attempting to form words.
‘Shhh-aa haa haa haa haa haaa…! Shhhaaaaa…! Shhhh-heee-eee-hee-hee heeeeeee…!’
Syra responded by pressing more firmly. Giada spluttered with surprise that this torment was possible to feel any more ticklish and savage screams of laughter drifted into periods of elongated silence as she struggled to inhale.
After an hour Syra stopped without warning and shuffled back off the table, more for the benefit of her knees than any other strategic reason.
Giada’s face was once again visible to Donna and Cheryl. Her expression was that of a person whose humanity was being drained away. Her pallor was akin to being in a state of shock; flushed red around the cheeks and a pale, yellowish bloodlessness in her nose and lips. Any semblance of fortitude had vanished and her desire to breathe was so strong that it almost sealed her nostrils with each inhale.
When the sense that she might faint had passed, she waited, anticipating further interrogation. It didn’t come.
Instead, Syra and Cheryl silently handed the baton over to Donna. Giada caught sight of her sadistic smirk and panicked.
‘Okay! Okay! Okay! I’ll tell you where the recording is!’
Donna stopped in her tracks, displaying an angry disappointment.
‘Where?’ asked Syra.
‘You have to promise to stop tickling me and let me go!’
‘Carry on, Donna.’
Donna took another step forward.
‘No!’ Giada cursed herself through gritted teeth. She couldn’t think fast enough to come up with anything but the truth. ‘In a safe! Installed under the floor in our meat-packing warehouse!’
‘Great!’ said Donna and stepped to the table behind Giada.
‘Wait! You promised you’d let me go!’
‘You’re hearing things, girl,’ said Donna.
‘We’re not interrogating you any more, Giada,’ said Syra. ‘You’ve told us all we need to know – we can find any warehouse your family run and our tech guys with have no trouble locating and opening your safe.’
Giada was speechless.
‘Now we just need to get rid of you,’ said Cheryl.
Giada dragged her face back across the covers to glare at Cheryl. ‘Why?!’
‘You said it yourself,’ answered Syra, stepping into her field of view, ‘You’ll never give up. Even if you promise us or convince yourself of it now, it won’t happen. We don’t want more of our people killed, more innocent people killed or for you and your rats in law enforcement to learn any more about us. Our organisation has been around for hundreds of years and its existence must remain secret.’
‘My organisation will exist beyond me too! I have friends who will take over!’
‘Not after all the other New York families are aware that your uncle and aunt are gone and that you met your end in some freaky and perverted sex game. I think that might just extinguish any sense of credibility for the Rosetti family. Especially since you’re the last of them.’
‘I’m not in a perverted sex game!’
‘That’s what it’ll look like, sugar,’ said Donna as she took hold of Giada’s underwear and tore them apart as easily as if they had been made of tissue paper.
‘No!’ panicked Giada.
Donna was a little taken aback by what she saw. ‘My, my, girl! You sure you’re not kinky? Most of my clients don’t get as turned on as you look right now!’
‘Fuck you! I can’t help it!’
‘Ladies, we have a unicorn!’ said Donna with a beaming smile. ‘Looks like we won’t have to do so much work after all!’
From a leather pouch on the side of her belt Donna lifted a single cotton swab and a small bluejay feather.
‘I kinda expected her to have something more…latexy,’ Cheryl said to Syra in a low tone.
Giada struggled as she tried to make out what Donna was doing behind her but it wasn’t long before she felt an unexpected sensation – a gentle irritation between her butt cheeks that anywhere else on the body may have gone unnoticed.
‘What are you doin—? yiieeaah!’ squealed Giada and her body spasmed violently but, due to her position and bonds, she couldn’t move. ‘Get off my asshole!’ she cried, but the giggles were already coming. Donna ever-so-gently twirled stroked the cotton bud in circles, stimulating the tips of the tiny hairs on Giada’s skin and a vain attempt to contain her reaction erupted into an all-out frenzy as Giada discovered the penetrating intensity of the sensation.
Even Syra and Cheryl hadn’t seen a reaction like this before, while Donna seemed to take it in her stride. Giada’s hysteria was a tumultuous mania of screams, cries, incomprehensible pleading and laughter.
‘You like that, honey? You’re gonna lurrrrve this…’ taunted Donna and she stroked the tip of the feather over her victim’s recently waxed labia.
Giada’s crazed noises reached a higher pitch and, all at once her sweat-covered body began to shudder and strain. Her back hunched and then arched, yanking her shoulders up. There was a cracking sound. At first the women thought she may have pulled her own arms out of their sockets, but then Donna noticed that the central bolt to which her wrists were tied was at an angle.
‘Erm, ladies—‘ began Donna, but her torturous intent was on automatic pilot and, with a scream that could have shattered windows, Giada involuntarily wrenched once again and the bolt came free, splitting the table down the middle and releasing her arms—though her hands were still cuffed together—and the bolt that held her collar in place. In a second she was upright on her knees. With glassy eyes that made her seem all the more deranged, she glared at Cheryl and swung her arms, which whipped the rope with the bolt still attached through the air. The sharp screw end of the bolt slashed across Cheryl’s face and she fell back against the sink.
‘I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!’ screamed Giada and lifted her arms high over her head, ready to swing down, but the bolt wrapped over a ceiling beam and sling-shotted towards Donna. She ducked just in time and grabbed it. Giada pulled down with an unnatural strength that lifted Donna into a standing position. She tugged back on the rope with all her weight, lifting Giada’s arms straight up.
‘Hold on!’ said Syra as she made a dash at Giada, but at that moment the table yawned open and Giada’s weight dropped and almost lifted Donna off the floor. With her ankles still attached to both sides of the table, her legs were spread wide. She began to thrash wildly, gambling that if everything collapsed, it would be one of the other bolts that gave way and released her ankle.
‘Hold her!’ shouted Cheryl.
‘I am!’ said Donna. ‘Hurry!’
Syra quickly grabbed the nail brushes from the soapy water and began scrubbing Giada’s soles causing her to to twist wildly and crumble into erratic giggles.
Cheryl spotted the as yet unexplored hollows of Giada’s sweaty underarms. She ran to join the other women and immediately went to work; scurrying her fingertips with incredible speed into her armpits.
Giada threw her head back and, for several seconds all went silent, except for the creaking beam and the scrubbing brushes. Her head then dropped forward and silent laughter squeezed all the air from her lungs until the inevitable desperate dry gasp.
Syra and Cheryl continued to tickle her relentlessly. Donna strengthened her position and snaked the rope around her left arm and reached between Giada’s open legs. The young woman was wetter than they could have hoped for.
‘NOOOOOOO!’ she screamed, ‘MERCYYYYYYY!’
But the three agents were not about to show mercy.
The light tickling around her pussy and extreme torment of her ultra-ticklish armpits and soles overloaded her mind and forced non-stop maniacal laughter from her. Soon the lack of oxygen added to the delirium caused by the unbearable and inescapable tickling.
Her mind couldn’t accept any more. And, pretty soon, neither could her body.
Chapter 9
Syra slowed to a stop. Giada’s body swayed a little as she hung from the rope.
The three of them were sweating and panting. Syra and Cheryl moved back. Donna untangled her arm and let go of the rope. With a splintering crash the table collapsed, freeing one of ankle restraints as Giada had predicted.
They stood in silence for several moments.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Cheryl.
‘Nothing,’ replied Syra. ‘The scene is pretty much as we planned it – it looks like an accident during a kinky sex session.’
‘And what about the carpet of corpses upstairs?’ asked Donna.
‘The clean-up team will deal with that. Let’s get out of here.’
Chapter 10
Syra and Cheryl sat in the reception outside Director Zhang’s office, looking a lot fresher and cleaner than they had at any point over the past week, although several cuts and bruises were visible on their faces and hands.
From the tone of the muffled voices beyond the door, they could tell a meeting was coming to an end. The door opened and out stepped Donna.
‘They’ll see you now, ladies,’ said Donna.
‘And you off? Back to LA?’ asked Syra.
‘Yeah. I got a long line of hungry men and women waiting for what I can give them.’
‘I’ll bet,’ said Cheryl.
‘You do? Well, tell you what, sugar – you bring your fine self back to LA sometime and maybe I can give you a freebie.’
Cheryl smirked. Syra held out her hand and Donna took it.
‘Thanks for your help,’ said Syra.
‘Any time,’ she winked and strutted from the room.
Cheryl and Syra knocked and entered Zhang’s office. Inside they found Lynette Zhang and Mission Supervisor Baker. Zhang motioned for them to sit.
‘Congratulations, Senior Agent Rahul,’ said Zhang. ‘It got messier than we would have liked, but you’ve been through a lot and you’ve completed several missions. Quite a chain of events you set in motion, Ms Pereira.’
Cheryl didn’t answer.
‘Can I ask why you decided to come back willingly?’ said Baker.
‘Unfinished business,’ said Cheryl. ‘I like to end the things I start.’
‘You started here as an agent. You knew what it entailed. You also broke the rules and ran from the consequences,’ said Zhang.
‘I know. And I apologise for the things that have happened because of me. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Cooper and Sloane…’ her eyes welled with tears. ‘I just wanted to leave. My outlook changed. I can’t apologise for that. Doing this as a job isn’t normal and it took me some time to recognise it. I love tickling and I’m a sadist, but I never wanted to kill people with it. I suppose I joined RID at a time when I wasn’t ready to make those decisions.’
‘That doesn’t alter that you ran away from your responsibilities.’
‘If I may, Director,’ said Syra. ‘I’ve known Cheryl since I joined the cult. I know the decision will have been almost impossible for her to make. She had the option to disappear but instead she came back and saved the lives of myself and Associate Agent Pardus.’
‘I know,’ said Zhang. ‘And that’s why the Committee of Directors has made the rare decision to pardon you. But you cannot just leave; you made an oath of allegiance.’
Cheryl was relieved but confused.
‘What then?’ she asked.
‘As you’ve discovered, we have associate agents all over the country—all over the world. So, you can become an associate agent.’
‘As a dominatrix?!’
‘Not necessarily. We can discuss options,’ said Baker. ‘For now. Take a holiday. Both of you.’
Syra’s brow wrinkled.
‘And before you protest, Senior Agent: that’s an order,’ said Zhang.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Epilogue
The sun was delivering its final golden rays of the day as Syra and Cheryl stepped out into the fresh air of the grasslands. Cheryl lit a cigarette before speaking.
’Where will you go on vacation?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s got to be somewhere quiet.’
‘I get that,’ said Cheryl, sighing out a long plume of smoke. ‘Maybe we can meet up when we both get back.’
‘Yeah. Maybe. You don’t want to see the back of me then?’
‘Nah. Not yet.’
Syra smiled. For the first time in many years it felt like she had made a friend.
THE END.
The Cult of Tickle Assassins II
The Cult of Tickle Assassins III: Trainee Syra Rahul's Final Exam
The Cult of Tickle Assassins IV: Pereira vs. Rahul
The Cult of Tickle Assassins V: City of Angels
The Cult of Tickle Assassins VI: Sweet Vengeance
by Tamira K.
(continued directly from The Cult of Tickle Assassins V: City of Angels)
Chapter 1
Agent Syra Rahul and Associate Agent Donna Pardus closed the doors of the black 4x4 and sat in silence as Syra considered the next step.
‘Can I use your cell phone?’ she asked.
‘You can try,’ replied Donna, edging the phone from her latex pantsuit, ‘but it’s been actin’ squirly since I took an unplanned dip in a pool… and the ocean.’ Against all odds, the phone shone to life. ‘Well, whaddaya ya know? Looks like a great ass silhouette ain’t the only benefit of this outfit.’
Syra dialled HQ. After giving her personal code, she was connected. ‘Director Zhang here. MS Baker is with me. You’re on speakerphone, Senior Agent. What’s the situation?’
‘Well, Susan Rosetti’s sister is out of the equation, as you probably know.’
‘Yes.’
‘And we’ve lost contact with Cheryl Pereira.’
‘She’s a secondary concern at this point.’ The call went mute.
‘Ma’am?’ said Syra.
Zhang returned. ‘If there’s anything we need to know before we take this further you’d better tell us now. MS Baker tells me you have some information that may give us the advantage.’
‘I can handle it when I get back to New York, ma’am.’
‘Senior Agent, you’ve been in action virtually without pause for days on end—‘
‘I’m fine ma’am—‘
‘—and within that time you’ve neutralised a high-profile target, gotten into a violent encounter with an ex-agent, been tortured for several hours, undertaken a side mission and disposed of Lorena Marcuzzi. I think it’s time you had a rest.’
‘I’m fresh, ma’am. The plane ride back will be enough for me to recuperate.’
The line went silent again. Syra couldn’t help but feel irked that her current capability was in question while realising that she would similarly question anyone else’s at this stage. She tried to dismiss the knowledge that the mission was now a personal one for her; Patrick’s murder and the indignity of being tickle-tortured to the verge of death whilst Giada Rosetti looked on with her filthy feet propped up was a memory that would not fade any time soon. She did not want this assignment taken away from her.
Zhang returned. ‘There are some specific things we require from this situation, moving forward.’
‘Yes, ma’am. What are they?’
Zhang made way for Baker to speak. ‘The Rosetti crime family are unlikely to stop in their pursuit of revenge and when they work out what happened with Lorena Marcuzzi they will respond. We are not in the business of tit-for-tat, so need to cut the head off this snake. If the the top people were not only gone, but humiliated in the eyes of the world, it wouldn’t take long for the other crime families to do our work for us.’
‘We are working on a plan to gain media coverage but without drawing attention to the organisation,’ said Zhang.
‘I have just the plan,’ said Syra.
‘Very well,’ said Zhang. ‘There’s a pilot waiting for you at Santa Monica Municipal Airport. The jet is comprehensively stocked with everything you might need. And, because you’ve faced armed resistance once already, there are also handguns on board. Don’t use them unless you have to.’
‘Of course, ma’am,’ she said and hung up. ‘We need to get to Santa Monica Municipal,’ she said to Donna.
‘“We”? I’ve got clients to see, honey.’
‘You’re not coming?’
‘I left the cult because their way of doin’ things didn’t fit with my style. My life is here now; they just call me as a last resort. You’ve got enough help back on the East Coast.’
‘Can you at least drop me at the airport?’
‘Sure.’ Donna started the engine and put her foot on the gas.
‘By the way, your little apprentice asked if I could give her some lessons,’ said Syra.
‘Lolly?’
‘Yeah. I think she was impressed by the desperate sounds your client was making. I was surprised you hadn’t taught her everything you knew about what we do.’
Donna pursed her lips.
‘Maybe she’ll come see me in New York. She might find her niche out there.’
‘I taught her plenty,’ Donna sniped. ‘She just needs a refresher. From me.’
‘Hm. Perhaps,’ said Syra as she watched the world pass outside her window.
‘Why do you want me to help you out?’
‘I thought you might be frustrated that you were outwitted by Lorena. Plus, there will be plenty of opportunity to be sadistic on this mission – much more opportunity than playing dominatrix in the Hollywood hills.’
Donna broke into a grin. ‘Use reverse psychology much?’
‘Only when necessary,’ replied Syra with a deadpan expression.
‘Right,’ said Donna. Then she added, ‘You know, if these Rosettis have got any damn sense, they’ll be at a secret location by now.’
‘I can pretty much guarantee it.’
‘You know where?’
‘Nope.’
‘I assume you’ve got a plan to find them?’
‘Yep.’
Donna was amused by Syra’s cocksure attitude. ’Okay, I’ll come. Apart from anything, you’re right – I feel like I had a good fuck but didn’t get to come; I need to scratch that itch.’
‘I thought you might.’
‘How tall are you, girl?’ asked Donna.
Syra looked at her. ‘Five-five. Why?’
‘You ain’t got the right to call Lolly “little”, honey.’
Syra shrugged. The lights of the airport glowed into view.
Chapter 2
Agent Denise Jones watched the sparse moonlit clouds pass below, between her and the black endless fields of Nebraska. Her emotions were a jumble of confusion – the image of her friend Patrick’s murder was emblazoned on her mind and the disturbing sounds of Syra and Cheryl’s helpless laughter as she was forced to torture a senior agent at gunpoint echoed in her ears.
Unpredictable shivers caused her to tremble as these memories mixed with a boiling need to unleash revenge on the people who made it all happen. And, just a few yards away, on the same RID jet that was carrying them both back to New York, one of them sat in a cage, handcuffed by her wrists and ankles to an iron chair.
Lorena’s bodyguard, Danni, felt like 180lbs of muscle when Denise and Syra lifted her unconscious body onto one of the makeshift Rosetti torture frames. She woke up the moment Syra left the building and Denise was concerned at one point that even the scaffolding frame wouldn’t be able to contain her as she furiously yanked and shook against it. Denise had to use all her own restraint to keep from inflicting serious damage on the captured gangster but managed to keep her cool until the clean-up team arrived.
Danni’s demeanour was now very different; the profanity and graphic threats were now concealed behind a half-smirk that reeked with the promise of violence. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Denise for the whole evening but Denise was in no mood for a staring contest. It wouldn’t take much to light her fuse, which would lead to a very unpleasant end for the chained woman and disciplinary proceedings back at HQ.
She had been told by her seniors to get Danni back for questioning and she consoled herself that there was therefore no option of causing her any harm. Plus, the two 6’5” members of the clean-up team who had been ordered to accompany Denise and the pilot back to New York in case of anything unexpected taking place on the plane, would also step in should Denise lose her cool.
But, oh, she wanted to so much.
A phone situated on Denise’s table rang. She answered it. ‘Jones.’
‘Denise, it’s Syra.’
‘Hi. You okay? Where are you?’
‘I’m fine. Probably a couple of hours behind you but I’m on my way back. Do you know the location of the Rosetti hood?’
‘She’s with me.’
‘Okay. I’m going to need some information from her. I need addresses – anywhere that Giada could be hiding out. It can’t wait until you reach headquarters. Do you reckon you can get that?’
Denise’s gaze met Danni’s. ‘It would be my pleasure,’ she said and hung up.
The plane wobbled with turbulence and she had to steady herself as she stepped towards the cage.
‘The fuck you lookin’ at?’ Danni snarled, stirring the two clean-up specialists from their semi doze. Denise stood next to them and they looked up expectantly.
‘Guzman, isn’t it?’ said Denise to the first.
‘Proctor. He’s Guzman,’ said Proctor, indicating his partner.
‘I need the keys, Proctor.’
‘Why’s that, Agent Jones?’ asked Proctor, who reached into his pocket for the keys to Danni’s cage and cuffs.
Denise didn’t answer, she just beckoned with an outstretched hand. As she approached and unlocked the cage door Danni primed herself for action even though there was no way she could break from the cuffs.
‘You can’t fuckin’ touch me – I’ve got rights!’
‘Bitch, you’ve got nothing while we’ve got you. Nobody even knows you exist right now,’ said Denise as the cage door creaked open and she stepped inside. ‘I can do whatever I want until you tell me what I want to know.’
‘You think I’m gonna give things up because you tickle me?’ she mocked. ‘I ain’t weak like le tue amiche puttane! Get to fuck!’
Her unintimidated attitude rankled Denise, who felt especially impatient.
‘Who says I’m going to tickle you? I find intense pain on the journey to certain death to be more effective.’ Danni’s cocksure attitude faded a little. Denise edged behind her so she was out of view, ‘Maybe if I put some piano wire around your thick neck and squeezed tight until it started to slice through the skin in into the muscle, you’d find the incentive to talk before it reached your windpipe…’
As she had hoped, the description of what she could do caused Danni to hunch and tense the muscles in her neck, drawing her physical and psychological defences away from any other part of her body.
When Danni’s shoulders reached a pinnacle Denise grabbed at her ribs, making her jump in the seat. Before she could stop herself, she immediately burst out laughing. It took all of Denise’s focus to maintain a middling pressure around the textured muscles and nerves; not to go too hard and cause pain. Danni bounced in her seat and her laugh became a series of whoops and ooh-hoo-hoo’s as she tried to control her reactions.
‘Give me Giada’s safe house addresses!’ shouted Denise.
‘Ffffffff-uck o-hoh-hoh-hoffff!’ Danni growled through her laughter.
Denise clenched her teeth in frustration. Yes, Danni was obviously ticklish, but that wasn’t going to help – Syra needed the information ASAP and it would take an hour or two to interrogate this woman, especially in this position. She let go, pulled the keys from her pocket and unlocked Danni’s right ankle.
‘What are you doing, Agent?!’ asked Guzman, alarmed.
‘Don’t question what I’m doing; if you’re concerned, cover her with your firearm,’ snapped Denise without facing them. She looked at Danni, ‘So, don’t try to be clever or they’ll shoot you, okay?’
Danni was puzzled but quickly realised that if she was being released, it was only so that she could be placed in a more problematic position. Denise unlocked her right wrist.
Danni could see past Denise to the two men who were not covering her, but looking at each other in confusion at Denise’s actions. Without hesitation, she kicked up into Denise’s thigh with a strength that lifted Denise off her feet and caused her leg to give way as she landed.
The keys landed in Danni’s lap and Proctor and Guzman grabbed for their guns. Danni threw her free leg around Denise’s shoulders and grabbed her own ankle with her free hand, yanking Denise in tight and trapping her throat against the metal chair seat. She immediately began to choke.
Chapter 3
‘Put them fuckin’ guns down, dickheads! She wants me alive, not dead, and she don’t have long before she’s morta!’ The men hesitated. ‘Down! On the floor! Now!’ She yelled, and drew her leg in tighter, making Denise cough more.
‘Okay, okay!’ said Proctor and dropped his gun. Guzman relented and did the same.
‘Don’t take me for an idiot! Kick them away from you!’
Proctor kicked them both away.
Danni tucked her right foot behind her left knee as she lifted the keys and unlocked her left wrist. She then detached the cuffs from the chair and threw them at Guzman. ‘Sit the fuck down and cuff yourselves to each other, under that table.
‘No way!’ said Guzman.
She responded my pulling Denise’s throat hard against the chair seat. Denise made a horrible, involuntary choking sound and struggled feebly against the muscular leg. ‘DO IT!’ screamed Danni.
Proctor and Guzman could tell these were not empty threats and reluctantly took their seats. Proctor cuffed himself and reached under the table, Guzman took the other cuff and clicked it around his own wrist. With one edge of the table attached to the wall, the central table support pole and the two seats fixed in place, they were trapped with little room to manoeuvre.
‘Hey! What’s all the yelling back there?’ called a voice from the front of the plane. Jenkins, the pilot, had opened the cockpit door and was cut short by the sight of Danni throwing Denise to the floor. She landed, choking and semi-conscious. Danni quickly released the cuffs around her left ankle, pocketed them and stood victoriously.
Jenkins slammed the cockpit door shut and locked it.
‘You know why I like it when you black girls grow your hair into these long, frizzy locks?’ asked Danni. ‘It makes it easier to do this…’ she stepped over Denise and grabbed her hair, dragging her along the floor to the two pistols. She stuck one into the back of her pants and held the other one as she dragged Denise to the cockpit door. She hammered on the door with the gun. ‘Hey, fuck-head, take this plane down now, or I execute your buddies out here until you do!’
Denise was light-headed and her vision blurred with tears. She felt a jolt as the jet accelerated.
‘I’m serious, you motherfucker! Right…!’ Danni aimed the gun at Proctor. Proctor and Guzman ducked behind their seats just as a rumble of turbulence shook the plane and when Danni fired the bullet hit the back of Guzman’s headrest.
Denise broke Danni’s grip on her hair and sent a left upper cut under her jaw. Danni fell back against the wall but flew back with an experienced rapidity that took Denise by surprise. She whipped the gun across Denise’s cheek, decking her.
A livid snarl crossed Danni’s face and she took aim.
‘Jenkins! Take us up!’ screamed Denise.
It took Jenkins a moment to realise what he had heard, then he pulled back on the yoke.
Denise grabbed the support column of her table and Danni felt her feet begin to slip. The jet curved skyward as Danni and every unsecured item tumbled down the aisle. Danni crash-landed onto the front of the open cage and dropped the gun.
Denise clambered onto the back rest of her seat and the light-headedness returned. The jet’s emergency air supply masks popped free from their units and dangled toward the back of the plane.
‘Give it up!’ called Denise over the roar of the engines. She looked down the aisle and saw Danni pull the other gun from the back of her belt. She hid behind the seat. ‘Jenkins! Drop!’
Jenkins pushed the yoke forward and the everyone lifted from their seats as gravity was temporarily cancelled.
Danni gripped the cage and took a wild shot at the cockpit door.
‘Are you fucking crazy!?’ shouted Guzman. Danni switched her aim to him and he struggled to find cover.
‘Level off, now!’ called Denise.
The nose of the jet raised and gravity took hold again. Denise plumped into her seat and Danni dropped to the floor. She quickly scrambled to her feet and ran at the cockpit, unloading the gun clip at where she presumed the lock to be.
Denise pounced from her seat and knocked her into the air-locked door opposite. Danni shrieked with anger as she dropped onto her butt; the gun and cuffs clattering to the floor. Denise rushed at her but Danni was again too quick and thrust a juggernaut of a kick into Denise’s stomach. Denise flew awkwardly under her table.
‘Jenk…!’ she tried to call but she was too winded to speak.
Both women looked simultaneously at the floor where the gun and the handcuffs lay in the aisle. The gun was closer to Danni. Proctor and Guzman watched as they both made a lunge and neither could understand why Denise deliberately snatched for the cuffs.
Denise forced a deep, painful intake of breath.
‘Jenkins! Bank left!’
The plane immediately twisted left-side-down. Danni fell against the door and fumbled for the gun, which tumbled under her back. Proctor and Guzman saw Denise cuff her own ankles either side of the table support.
‘What the hell…!?’ said Guzman and he watched as Denise dropped her upper body, like a bat hanging from the ceiling of a cave. She reached across the aisle and, as Danni tuned to get the gun, she grabbed hold of the emergency door release.
‘Oh, shit!’ said Proctor and he and Guzman clung onto their table.
Danni turned in time to see Denise stretched out right next to her. It took a moment for her to register the position the agent was in but her thoughts were interrupted as she felt the door shift behind her.
‘What the fuck are you doing!?’ yelled Danni and she raised the gun but before she could squeeze the trigger there was a searing rush of air and the plane shook violently.
‘Shit!’ said Jenkins as emergency alarms sounded, signalling the open door and loss of cabin pressure. He righted the jet to avoid losing control.
‘Yaagh!’ growled Denise in frustration as gravity now fought against her and she struggled to keep hold of the door release.
Danni dropped to her feet and was about to land a knock-out punch when Denise grabbed hold of her belt with one hand and wrenched the handle. A deafening roar filled the cabin as guns, cups and phones were sucked out of the cabin. Danni flung out her arms and legs out and caught the doorframe but was kept from disappearing into the vacuum by Denise’s grip on her belt, which she now held with both hands.
‘Give me the addresses!’ screamed Denise.
Danni stared at her in disbelief but didn’t answer.
‘I’ll let go of you!’
‘Fuck you!’ yelled Danni as fury mixed with her sense of terror.
‘Last chance!’
‘Fuck! You!’
Denise’s patience left her as quickly as plastic cups had left the plane. One hand let go of Danni’s belt and crawled up to her waist. Their eyes locked on each other and a look of dread filled Danni’s face as Denise began to wriggle the tip of her thumb into the surface of her oblique muscle.
Denise had performed countless missions but she had never before seen someone so terrified as they felt the tickling sensation take hold. Still, despite her fear, the corners of Danni’s mouth began to curl up and her jaw began to tremble. Denise strengthened her hold and wriggled faster.
‘No! Stop!’ cried Danni.
Denise responded by crawling her other hand up to mirror the action.
‘Stoppit! Don’t!’ Though the rushing air took all moisture from the inside of the jet, Danni felt her palms begin to sweat and she began to slip from the doorframe. She strengthened her grasp but in doing so, lost her ability to hold in the laughter.
‘No! Ha ha ha ha! Sto-hop! Stop tickling! You’re going to kill me-ee-ee-eeeee!’
‘Address!’ screamed Denise, tickling harder. She sensed the pressure beginning to normalise and soon she would lose the advantage of the vacuum effect.
‘EE-EE-EE-EEEEE…!’ shrieked Danni. ‘East Mountain R-Road!!!’
‘Number!?’
‘I don’t know th-the number!’ she wailed through her laughter, and tears began to stream from her eyes. ‘It’s got a statue of a lion in the front yard!’
Denise knew this was as much as she was going to get and she watched as the last tear from Danni’s eye stopped streaming towards her hair and rolled down her cheek. Amid her laughter a look of realisation was followed immediately by a flash of vengeance. Gravity caused a strain on Denise’s back.
‘I-h-I’m gonna f-fucking kill you!’ said Danni as she began to pull herself back into the cabin.
With one last burst of strength, Denise tightened her body and tickled frantically into Danni’s waist. She burst out laughing and fell backward. Her hands slipped on the door frame and she was whisked from the plane with a screeching laugh that evaporated into the black night sky.
Denise dropped to the floor.
Proctor and Guzman appeared from behind their seats.
‘I don’t suppose you guys have a spare set of keys?’ she asked, indicating her bleeding ankles. They shook their heads. She matched their movement with an ironic head shake of her own. ‘Jenkins! I need you to call HQ! Tell them we have a message for Senior Agent Rahul! Then we need to turn back and land!’
‘Copy that!’ shouted Jenkins.
‘Sorry boys,’ Denise said to Proctor and Guzman.
‘What for?’ asked Guzman.
‘Well, this clean-up is gonna cover a wide area.’
Chapter 4
‘What do you mean, she didn’t answer?’ Giada Rosetti shouted into her cell phone.
Luca Marcuzzi sat in an armchair, watching his niece with contained disapproval. She’d taken ownership as the head of the family, which, because her mother had just been executed, seemed like a position he and his sister, Lorena, could temporarily entertain. With Lorena serving as underboss and himself as consigliere, he believed they could influence her enough to behave the way a boss should, and do things the way that they wanted. But this situation was going at full speed and wobbling on the rails.
‘I spoke to her thirty seconds before I called you! … Why didn’t you go look for her? … Listen, if you knew what was goin’ on in you territory as well as you should, you should’ve been able to find her without us drawin’ you a fuckin’ map! … Yeah? You owe my father a debt and this is your chance to repay it. Find my aunt—and I mean now—or you’ll have a debt that I’ll have to come and collect myself!’ she screamed and hurled the phone into the sofa. After a few breaths she sat on the sofa to collect it and check her messages.
‘You know you shouldn’t talk to the heads of other families like that. It’s disrespectful,’ said Luca after a pause.
‘Spare me, Uncle Luca. Pussyfootin’ around ain’t getting us nowhere. The old school way of sitting round a table every time you wanna wipe your ass is long gone. Things need to happen fast. And why aren’t you more worried about your sister anyway!?’
‘I wanna know the information before I get emotional about it. Remember, the Galuzos are our allies; we need them on-side—‘
‘We won’t get the information if the Galuzos don’t pull their thumbs out their asses!’
‘Lorena said she was okay. She said she’d just killed one of those bitches—‘
‘What’s our man in the FBI sayin’? He should be able to track her, for fuck sake.’
Luca sighed. ‘He’s gone AWOL. Last time we heard from him was when he told us about this RID organisation.’
Giada’s frustration had nowhere to go. She caught sight of one of her men as he walked past the window. Beyond him were the rocky woodlands of the Sourland Mountain Reserve.
‘Why the fuck are we hidin’ out here anyway?’ she snapped. ‘They came to us twice and we dealt with it.’
‘Things haven’t exactly gone to plan since then, G. And because I don’t know fuck-all about this RID thing, it’s safer that we’re here until we do. They exist in the shadows. Now, so do we.’
‘It’s embarrassing – hidin’ at the first sign of trouble. If Victor Abate hears about this, he’ll make his move.’
‘Pah!’ Luca dismissed the comment. ‘Victor Abate is a wannabe Don with some mid-level muscle. He can’t take us down.’
‘He can if we’re a laughing stock amongst all the other New York families.’
‘You let me handle Victor.’
‘You’d better!’
Luca didn’t appreciate this tone. ‘Listen, G, I think it’s time for you to stop being the acting head of the family and—‘
‘I’m not the acting head of the family! I’m Donna Giada Rosetti. I don’t give a fuck if I’m twenty-two and female – I’m gonna be remembered in history!’
‘It’s not about bein’ twenty-two and female, G,’ said Luca, although his condescending tone let her know that it was at least 99% to do with that. ‘It’s about experience. You should let me run the show until you’ve seen enough to…comfortably take over.’
‘Like an apprentice, you mean?’ she said, as though experiencing a moment of enlightenment.
‘Yeah!’
‘Fuck off. I’m going nowhere until I’ve found every bitch and motherfucker who had anything to do with momma’s murder and line their decapitated heads up along West 34th Street. Then I’ll have a reputation people will remember!’
Chapter 5
Syra and Donna hunched among the trees of the Sourland Mountain Reserve. Both were dressed in black combat gear and equipped with backpacks. Their breath was visible in the morning air and the rising sun cast shadows from the branches that jaggedly sliced through the steam.
They were watching a house. In the front yard was a long-unused stone fountain with a rearing lion in the centre and outside three men in leather jackets did nothing to diminish what anyone pictures when asked to visualise a typical mafioso goon.
‘I’d say it’s pretty much certain that Giada is in there,’ whispered Syra.
‘That may be so. But unless you know some magical kung fu tickle finger of death shit, we ain’t getting to her without a bloodbath,’ said Donna. ‘It seems like this might be the right time to use our guns.’
‘No. Giada needs to be taught a lesson and, for that, we need her alive.’
‘If you’re taking this personal, girl—‘
‘I’m taking this like an agent of RID. We don’t start blasting away at the first sign things get difficult. Bullets mean investigations and potentially leaving evidence behind.’
‘You’re the boss. Tell me what we do now.’
‘Stealth. We’ve both got chloroform. We get down there and take out the muscle, tie them up and wait for anyone else to come find them and we do the same to them. Once Giada and Luca are the only ones left inside, we pull our weapons, but don’t shoot them. We tie them up and work our way through them all. Giada can watch as her crew and uncle fall. Then we get to her.’
Click.
They froze and looked over their shoulders to find a twenty-something member of the Rosetti crew standing thirty yards behind them and covering them with a semi-automatic. Around his forehead was strapped a pair of night vision goggles.
‘You know, the other guys laffed at me when I spent the dough on these beauties. I told ‘em, “They’re not only for huntin’ fuckin’ deer in the nighttime.” And now, look what I caught me!’ He spoke with a genuine pride and lack of animosity, as though he expected Donna and Syra to congratulate him for thinking outside the box.
– – – – –
A knock at the door prompted Luca to pick up his handgun. One of his men stood beside the door. Luca signalled for him to check who was outside. He uncovered the peephole and looked out.
‘Boss – I think you’re about to be very happy!’ he said.
‘Who is it?’ asked Giada.
He opened the door to reveal the cute Indian woman who Giada watched get tickle-tortured for hours by her aunt and aunt’s bodyguards and the tall black woman who ruined the party by saving her, dressed as Catwoman. Their hands were cable-tied behind their backs. The young gangster pushed them in with the barrel of his weapon. Giada’s mouth fell open with amused disbelief.
‘Ohhhhh!’ cried Luca. ‘Look at what Ricky fuckin’ caught!’
Ricky was followed in by the three other henchmen who had been patrolling the perimeter.
‘I found ‘em in the woods!’ Ricky beamed. ‘They were watchin’ the house. Found ‘em with with my new toy!’ He delivered this last sentence with a smug smirk directed at his compadres.
Giada remained in her armchair, reminiscent of a queen in her throne, and casually propped her flip-flopped feet up on a coffee table. Syra noticed with disgust that her soles looked even dirtier than when she last saw them.
‘Put ‘em down,’ Giada ordered.
Ricky thrust the gun into Donna’s back and she stumbled to her knees. He tried the same to Syra but she twisted and refused to go down. Luca grabbed her by the hair and yanked her hard to the floor. ‘Get the fuck down, puttana!’
‘Where’s my aunt?’ asked Giada with uncharacteristic composure.
‘We don’t know—‘ Syra’s words were punctuated with a crack to the head from the butt of Luca’s gun and she fell sideways onto Donna.
‘Take it easy, fat boy!’ said Donna. ‘She’s telling you the truth!’
Syra adjusted herself so she was kneeling upright again. Giada nodded to two of her men, who stepped forward and each placed a gun against the heads of the two women.
‘I’m gonna ask you one more time,’ said Giada. ‘If you say the words “don’t know”, one of you will get ya brains emptied all over the carpet and while Denny cleans it up—‘
‘Oh, man…’ whined one of the henchmen.
‘—the other one will get took down into the basement here and hanged by the neck to a ceiling beam, where all of my men take turns doing whatever they like to ya. Then we’ll ask ya again.’ She looked Syra dead in the eyes. ‘I’ll let you guess which one I’m gonna let get fucked raw for hours.’
A trickle of blood leaked from Syra’s head. She didn’t blink as she held Giada’s stare and eventually Giada’s need to blink made her give way.
‘Where is my aunt?’ asked Giada. The sheen of her composure was tarnished.
‘Okay,’ said Donna. Syra was concerned about what she would say as, after the Rossettis knew, there would be no reason for them to keep them alive. ‘She’s still in LA.’
‘Whoopee-fuckin’-do,’ said Luca. ‘Where in LA?’
‘Well, that’s the thing: she could be in several places…’
‘You want me to hack your fuckin’ arm off?! Talk!’
‘Okay! Give me a second, would ya!?’ said Donna. ‘She could be out in the Pacific, incinerated in a furnace or sprayed across a field as plant food through a wood chipper. In any case, she’s dead since my girl, here, dropped a steel shutter door on her thick skull.’
Syra felt her heart drop and closed her eyes. The next moments felt like slow motion as a shadow crossed the sunlight, muted gunfire shot six times and she felt a thick, warm spray across her face. She braced herself to see Donna on the floor, then registered the tinkling of glass and heard bodies drop all around her.
‘What the fuck!?’ screamed Giada.
Syra opened her eyes and took in the scene: all the gangsters lay dead on the floor and Giada sat clutching the arms of her chair and glaring at a broken side window where stood Cheryl Pereira, holding a pistol equipped with a silencer.
‘I saw you creepin’ around outside. You took your time, girlfriend!’ said Donna.
‘You want me to apologise?’ asked Cheryl without taking her focus from Giada. ‘Call it evens for launching me through some patio doors, huh?’
Syra quickly sat back and looped her butt and feet through her arms. She ran to the kitchen, collected a knife and came back to cut Donna’s wrists free. Donna picked up a pistol and covered Giada so that Cheryl could make her way inside.
‘Shit, man. I got someone’s brains in my goddamn hair.’
Cheryl smirked as the three of them stood side-by-side over Giada who trembled with fear and anger. ‘You bitches killed my family!’
‘Er, strictly speaking, I didn’t,’ said Donna. ‘I just tortured your aunt.’
‘And, strictly speaking,’ said Cheryl, ‘we wouldn’t have if your parents, uncle and aunt weren’t murdering assholes to begin with.’
‘If you shoot me, evidence goes to the papers about who you are and what you do!’ snapped Giada.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Syra.
‘My mom’s voicemail!’ She indicated Cheryl. ‘I’ve got a recording of this c**t torturing my mom to death! I told my guys if I go missing they should email it out immediately. So, fuck you!’
Chapter 6
Syra towelled off as Donna entered the steamy bathroom.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Syra.
‘Everything’s ready,’ said Donna, pulling off her jacket and vest top. Syra was mildly surprised at how large her breasts were. It was the first time she had seen them out of a skintight outfit. ’They even had a bunch of stuff we could use – seems like they also bring people here to do their interrogating. We did a shout test – they have the place soundproofed.’
‘Good. Wash that blood off yourself and I’ll see you down there.’
‘Gotcha.’
Syra made her way to the basement and sensed herself interrupting a conversation. As she descended the stairs she found Cheryl leaning against a sink and Giada in a position that she would have never expected to end up in.
In the middle of the room a wooden table was covered and padded by several thick blankets. On top of the blankets knelt Giada, dressed in nothing but a black lace G-string. Her knees were apart. A single leather mitten covered both hands and cuffed the wrists. Her feet hung over the lower edge of the table, with her ankles secured in thick leather padded restraints that were attached to two heavy-duty circular eye bolts. Her wrists were drawn between her legs and tied to a single eye bolt in the centre of the table; between her feet. This resulted in Giada’s butt being forced high into the air, while her head and shoulders were pressed against the bench. For good measure, Cheryl and Donna had put a studded leather collar around her neck and chained it to the top of the table to keep her head in place.
‘Nice work,’ said Syra.
‘I think so,’ said Cheryl.
‘How did you get here?’
‘Charter jet.’
‘You know what I mean. How did you know where to find them and find us?’
‘I didn’t know I’d find you. You were just lucky I did. As for how I found this place… I have my own sources.’
‘Tech Agent Michaels?’ asked Syra bluntly.
‘Yep. He fancies the pants off me.’
‘He shouldn’t be giving information to fugitive agents.’
‘You wanna rewind time and play by the rule book, Syra? Where do you think you’d be now?’ Cheryl indicated Giada’s current position.
‘I’m just saying what a senior agent should say. I’m glad to see you, Cheryl.’
They smiled at one another and Syra circled their captive. Giada had the fit and toned body of any 22-year-old who had placed most of her emphasis on uploading bikini workout videos to her social media apps before recently taking over the family business. Her skin was flawless, except for the soles of her size 8 feet, which looked like she had been walking in coal dust for months. This somewhat disrupted Syra’s sixth sense of knowing exactly where on her sole she would be the most sensitive.
She stepped over to the backpacks, which sat on a draining board beside the sink where they had been washed clean of the earlier violence. Cheryl watched as she rummaged inside her own backpack.
Donna descended the stairs in her combat trousers and vest top. Her freshly-cleaned afro was tied into two bunches, which looked surprisingly cutesy for such a statuesque woman.
‘I’m ready. Where do we start?’
Syra held up two nail brushes and a bar of extra-creamy moisturising soap.
‘We start by getting this girl cleaned up.’
Chapter 7
‘You people really are fucked up!’ shouted Giada. ‘I’m not telling you where the recording is so you can do whatever you like!’
‘We will,’ said Cheryl.
‘Fuck you, you c**t!’ screamed Giada.
At that moment Syra felt a strange pang of empathy with Giada’s situation. After all, she was only twenty-two and it wasn’t long ago that she was in a similar position.
‘Tell me something, Giada – if we let you go now, would you change your ways?’
Cheryl and Donna looked to one another.
‘What are you talkin’ about?’ Giada barked from her awkward position. ‘Don’t fuck with me!’
‘I’m not,’ said Syra. ‘If we let you go, would you go and get yourself a decent life that didn’t involve hurting other people?’
Cheryl stepped forward, ‘Wait a minute—‘
‘Who da fuck are you to say that to me!? You’re a bunch of freaks who killed my family and torture people to death! At least I finish people quick!’
‘You mean, like threatening me with hours of being raped and interrogated?’ asked Syra.
‘Yeah,’ said Cheryl, ‘and I’m sure, if your aunt had found me and my mother, she would’ve been real humane!’
‘I tell you what,’ said Giada, ‘once I’m out of here, I’ll call in every favour from every contact; I’ll track down your families, chop them up and dump them in a pile outside RID; and arrange for the world’s paparazzi to come down and photograph the whole thing! We have people in the FBI. You’re fucked, Donna and Syra and Cheryl!’
Syra paused for a moment. Cheryl and Donna watched her closely.
‘Fine,’ she said at last. ‘Cheryl, can you put some water that bucket?’
Cheryl breathed a sigh of relief and lifted a bucket from beneath the sink. She ran some warm water until the bucket was half full, then placed it on the floor at the bottom of the table.
‘What are you doing?’ said Giada, starting to get nervous. She pulled at the rope that held her wrists, but there was no give.
‘Look at this, ladies,’ said Syra, indicating Giada’s filthy feet.
‘Yeurgh!’ said Donna. ‘Do you got no regard for personal hygiene, girl?’
Syra dropped the soap and nail brushes into the bucket, then lifted a floating sponge from it and squeezed it over Giada’s filthy feet. Even a brief flush of water formed pools of blackened water that slowly seeped into the concrete floor.
‘Who wants a first go?’ asked Syra dropping the sponge into the bucket.
‘Oh, I think homegirl, here, has earned it!’ Donna indicated Cheryl.
‘Thanks,’ said Cheryl. She retrieved the sponge and unceremoniously swiped it over Giada’s soles.
Giada wriggled in her prone position and gave tiny grunts of discomfort as the rough sponge rubbed her feet clean.
‘Jeez. You’re one dirty ho,’ said Cheryl as she repeatedly swept each sole. When her feet were free of all the loose dirt, Cheryl threw the sponge into the sink and dunked her hands into the bucket to retrieve the bar of soap and a nail brush. She rotated the soap in one hand until it had formed a creamy lather then dropped it back into the bucket and smothered Giada’s left sole in slippery bubbles.
‘You bitches are sick in the head!’ shouted Giada, finding the sensation disconcertingly pleasant. Then Cheryl’s fingers slipped between her toes and she gnashed in frustration. ‘Get off me, you fuckin’ bitch!’
In response, Cheryl clasped the top of Giada’s foot and swiped the bristles of the nail brush at a medium speed from her heel to her toes. Giada stiffened and gurgled through her clenched teeth with a response that could have been mistaken for electrocution. Cheryl didn’t hesitate to take the brush on a reverse journey.
‘Agh! Stop doin’ that!’
The women noticed the undeniable wobble that already invaded Giada’s throat; an intonation with which they were all intimately familiar. It indicated that the defences were falling, the battle was won, and that, no matter how hard the target wanted to deny it, there was an unrelenting sensation in the pit of her tummy that would rise with each touch and soon overflow with sounds that would undermine her own protestations.
Cheryl scrubbed the brush once more up and down Giada’s sole. Giada’s next predictable move was to refuse to make a sound and focus on zoning out the sensations or, at least, not permitting her tormentors to see the effects.
The scrubbing remained at a regimented pace, then became constant and erratic. She frowned and her eyes squeezed tighter, her lips pursed hard and she took short, sharp breaths through her nose.
‘Got a problem, sugar?’
Startled by how nearby these words were delivered, Giada’s eyes popped open to see Donna; her elbows propped on the table, her chin resting in both hands and a faux butter-wouldn’t-melt expression on her face.
With her cheek pressed against the surface by her predicament, Giada had to drag her nose against the table padding in order to look in the opposite direction only to see Syra spectating with her arms folded.
‘Fuck you!’ Giada seethed through clenched teeth. Her resolve faltered further as Cheryl continued to scrub her sensitive sole. ‘Y-you’re too chicken shit to take me on untied!’
‘God, you’re right,’ said Syra with as deadpan an expression as it is possible to display. ‘Let me release you so we can prove ourselves oh no you nearly had me with your reverse psychology.’
Donna and Cheryl laughed.
Giada grimaced with pure hate and tears welled in her eyes with frustration. She spat at Syra but the projectile fell well short of the target.
‘Yuck, nasty girl!’ said Cheryl and ramped up the speed of her brushing.
Giada’s face fluttered through a series of contortions as a tsunami of sensations surged up her leg, through her torso and erupted in an outburst of girlish laughter.
Donna noticed a sigh of satisfaction from Cheryl at this sound, which could only have been sexual. She got a little turned on herself at the warm release of stress Giada’s collapse appeared to deliver in her.
Meanwhile, Syra maintained a businesslike focus on which motions and areas most exploited Giada’s vulnerabilities.
The slippery foam from the RID-devised soap refused to dissipate as Cheryl scrubbed up-and-down, left-and-right and figure-8’s all over Giada’s left sole. Giada squealed with a constant angelic laugh that was contrary to all other personality traits they had observed in her.
Suddenly Cheryl stopped, which gave Giada the chance to react like a newly chained wild puma.
‘Let me out of here!’
The women ignored her. Cheryl plunged her hands into the bucket again and pulled the bar of soap from the milky warm water. The outer layer was now a mushy gel and she smeared the bar over both of the exposed soles in front of her. She then dropped the soap and lifted out the second nail brush.
‘Ready for round two?’ taunted Cheryl.
But before Giada could answer, both nail brushes began scrubbing both feet relentlessly. She screamed in protest and helplessness, which, in such a sound-contained area, made the women wince. Her feet flicked this way and that; the milky gel dripping from her soles as the bristles skated all over. She gasped a deep breath and a gave a prolonged and piercing scream that melted into laughter as she ran out of breath. She gasped for breath but the next scream wouldn’t come. Instead, she was paralysed with laughter.
Very soon her laughter hit a predictable rhythm of four girlish and diminishing Haaaa haaa haa ha’s, followed by a desperate gasp for breath that sounded identical each time.
Cheryl’s flared nostrils and appearance of sexual dominance made Donna wonder why on earth she would want to stop doing this; she couldn’t have been any more in her element.
Syra and Donna were happy to spend an hour watching Cheryl tickle-torturing Giada’s young soles without any change in the results except that Giada was dripping with sweat. During brief moments of respite, as Cheryl adjusted the brushes in her hands, Syra saw the rapid changes in Giada’s expression. As soon as she wasn’t being tickled, her hilarity dropped into expressions of desperate exhaustion.
Giada knew she was in trouble.
Syra considered how this was the brat who casually chowed down on popcorn while presiding over her own unbearable torture and decided it was time to get involved. While Cheryl continued to lubricate and scrub Giada’s ticklish feet, Syra knelt onto the top of the table and shuffled until her knees were either side of Giada’s head.
‘What the ffff-haa haa haa haa!? … What thefffff-ha-ha-haa-haaaahhh…?!’ cried Giada as the words were stolen from her throat each time before she could finish the sentence.
‘I’m about to join in, Giada. I though that was perfectly obvious,’ said Syra. ‘Of course, you could make this easier on yourself by telling us where that recording is.’
Cheryl paused her attack.
‘Get fucked!’ Giada barked.
‘I thought you’d say that,’ said Syra. ‘You should pray that I ask you again at some point – sometimes I get carried away and forget.’
Giada’s current inelegant position, plus the laughter she was being forced to endure meant that her tummy muscles were permanently tensed. Syra reached forward and curled her fingers around Giada’s elevated waist. Giada’s vocal response to this simple action confirmed what Syra already suspected – this was a hot spot.
She nodded to Cheryl to indicate that she would commence this next movement as a solo…
Chapter 8
Syra’s fingers pressed into the inverted muscles of Giada’s waist. Her reaction was immediate. She attempted to scream but the impulse to laugh was too strong and overruled the attempt to do anything else.
This laughter was loud and almost joyful; like the kind of laughter that she might produce if rolling around with female friends and a group pillow fight turned into a group tickle fight. Not that any of them could imagine her participating in such a thing.
Syra wriggled and scampered up and down Giada’s torso – working her magic into the hips, waist and lower ribs of the ticklish young woman. Each movement brought an extra level of hysteria. Then she caught Donna analysing her techniques.
‘I hear Mozart could play the piano upside down,’ said Donna, referring to Giada’s inverted position.
An almost imperceptible smirk affected Syra’s lips as she accepted the compliment.
Constant waves of shrill and desperate laughter were again punctuated by deep intakes of breath that began to rasp at Giada’s throat. After fifteen torturous minutes, she dragged her face across the padding and seemed to be attempting to form words.
‘Shhh-aa haa haa haa haa haaa…! Shhhaaaaa…! Shhhh-heee-eee-hee-hee heeeeeee…!’
Syra responded by pressing more firmly. Giada spluttered with surprise that this torment was possible to feel any more ticklish and savage screams of laughter drifted into periods of elongated silence as she struggled to inhale.
After an hour Syra stopped without warning and shuffled back off the table, more for the benefit of her knees than any other strategic reason.
Giada’s face was once again visible to Donna and Cheryl. Her expression was that of a person whose humanity was being drained away. Her pallor was akin to being in a state of shock; flushed red around the cheeks and a pale, yellowish bloodlessness in her nose and lips. Any semblance of fortitude had vanished and her desire to breathe was so strong that it almost sealed her nostrils with each inhale.
When the sense that she might faint had passed, she waited, anticipating further interrogation. It didn’t come.
Instead, Syra and Cheryl silently handed the baton over to Donna. Giada caught sight of her sadistic smirk and panicked.
‘Okay! Okay! Okay! I’ll tell you where the recording is!’
Donna stopped in her tracks, displaying an angry disappointment.
‘Where?’ asked Syra.
‘You have to promise to stop tickling me and let me go!’
‘Carry on, Donna.’
Donna took another step forward.
‘No!’ Giada cursed herself through gritted teeth. She couldn’t think fast enough to come up with anything but the truth. ‘In a safe! Installed under the floor in our meat-packing warehouse!’
‘Great!’ said Donna and stepped to the table behind Giada.
‘Wait! You promised you’d let me go!’
‘You’re hearing things, girl,’ said Donna.
‘We’re not interrogating you any more, Giada,’ said Syra. ‘You’ve told us all we need to know – we can find any warehouse your family run and our tech guys with have no trouble locating and opening your safe.’
Giada was speechless.
‘Now we just need to get rid of you,’ said Cheryl.
Giada dragged her face back across the covers to glare at Cheryl. ‘Why?!’
‘You said it yourself,’ answered Syra, stepping into her field of view, ‘You’ll never give up. Even if you promise us or convince yourself of it now, it won’t happen. We don’t want more of our people killed, more innocent people killed or for you and your rats in law enforcement to learn any more about us. Our organisation has been around for hundreds of years and its existence must remain secret.’
‘My organisation will exist beyond me too! I have friends who will take over!’
‘Not after all the other New York families are aware that your uncle and aunt are gone and that you met your end in some freaky and perverted sex game. I think that might just extinguish any sense of credibility for the Rosetti family. Especially since you’re the last of them.’
‘I’m not in a perverted sex game!’
‘That’s what it’ll look like, sugar,’ said Donna as she took hold of Giada’s underwear and tore them apart as easily as if they had been made of tissue paper.
‘No!’ panicked Giada.
Donna was a little taken aback by what she saw. ‘My, my, girl! You sure you’re not kinky? Most of my clients don’t get as turned on as you look right now!’
‘Fuck you! I can’t help it!’
‘Ladies, we have a unicorn!’ said Donna with a beaming smile. ‘Looks like we won’t have to do so much work after all!’
From a leather pouch on the side of her belt Donna lifted a single cotton swab and a small bluejay feather.
‘I kinda expected her to have something more…latexy,’ Cheryl said to Syra in a low tone.
Giada struggled as she tried to make out what Donna was doing behind her but it wasn’t long before she felt an unexpected sensation – a gentle irritation between her butt cheeks that anywhere else on the body may have gone unnoticed.
‘What are you doin—? yiieeaah!’ squealed Giada and her body spasmed violently but, due to her position and bonds, she couldn’t move. ‘Get off my asshole!’ she cried, but the giggles were already coming. Donna ever-so-gently twirled stroked the cotton bud in circles, stimulating the tips of the tiny hairs on Giada’s skin and a vain attempt to contain her reaction erupted into an all-out frenzy as Giada discovered the penetrating intensity of the sensation.
Even Syra and Cheryl hadn’t seen a reaction like this before, while Donna seemed to take it in her stride. Giada’s hysteria was a tumultuous mania of screams, cries, incomprehensible pleading and laughter.
‘You like that, honey? You’re gonna lurrrrve this…’ taunted Donna and she stroked the tip of the feather over her victim’s recently waxed labia.
Giada’s crazed noises reached a higher pitch and, all at once her sweat-covered body began to shudder and strain. Her back hunched and then arched, yanking her shoulders up. There was a cracking sound. At first the women thought she may have pulled her own arms out of their sockets, but then Donna noticed that the central bolt to which her wrists were tied was at an angle.
‘Erm, ladies—‘ began Donna, but her torturous intent was on automatic pilot and, with a scream that could have shattered windows, Giada involuntarily wrenched once again and the bolt came free, splitting the table down the middle and releasing her arms—though her hands were still cuffed together—and the bolt that held her collar in place. In a second she was upright on her knees. With glassy eyes that made her seem all the more deranged, she glared at Cheryl and swung her arms, which whipped the rope with the bolt still attached through the air. The sharp screw end of the bolt slashed across Cheryl’s face and she fell back against the sink.
‘I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!’ screamed Giada and lifted her arms high over her head, ready to swing down, but the bolt wrapped over a ceiling beam and sling-shotted towards Donna. She ducked just in time and grabbed it. Giada pulled down with an unnatural strength that lifted Donna into a standing position. She tugged back on the rope with all her weight, lifting Giada’s arms straight up.
‘Hold on!’ said Syra as she made a dash at Giada, but at that moment the table yawned open and Giada’s weight dropped and almost lifted Donna off the floor. With her ankles still attached to both sides of the table, her legs were spread wide. She began to thrash wildly, gambling that if everything collapsed, it would be one of the other bolts that gave way and released her ankle.
‘Hold her!’ shouted Cheryl.
‘I am!’ said Donna. ‘Hurry!’
Syra quickly grabbed the nail brushes from the soapy water and began scrubbing Giada’s soles causing her to to twist wildly and crumble into erratic giggles.
Cheryl spotted the as yet unexplored hollows of Giada’s sweaty underarms. She ran to join the other women and immediately went to work; scurrying her fingertips with incredible speed into her armpits.
Giada threw her head back and, for several seconds all went silent, except for the creaking beam and the scrubbing brushes. Her head then dropped forward and silent laughter squeezed all the air from her lungs until the inevitable desperate dry gasp.
Syra and Cheryl continued to tickle her relentlessly. Donna strengthened her position and snaked the rope around her left arm and reached between Giada’s open legs. The young woman was wetter than they could have hoped for.
‘NOOOOOOO!’ she screamed, ‘MERCYYYYYYY!’
But the three agents were not about to show mercy.
The light tickling around her pussy and extreme torment of her ultra-ticklish armpits and soles overloaded her mind and forced non-stop maniacal laughter from her. Soon the lack of oxygen added to the delirium caused by the unbearable and inescapable tickling.
Her mind couldn’t accept any more. And, pretty soon, neither could her body.
Chapter 9
Syra slowed to a stop. Giada’s body swayed a little as she hung from the rope.
The three of them were sweating and panting. Syra and Cheryl moved back. Donna untangled her arm and let go of the rope. With a splintering crash the table collapsed, freeing one of ankle restraints as Giada had predicted.
They stood in silence for several moments.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Cheryl.
‘Nothing,’ replied Syra. ‘The scene is pretty much as we planned it – it looks like an accident during a kinky sex session.’
‘And what about the carpet of corpses upstairs?’ asked Donna.
‘The clean-up team will deal with that. Let’s get out of here.’
Chapter 10
Syra and Cheryl sat in the reception outside Director Zhang’s office, looking a lot fresher and cleaner than they had at any point over the past week, although several cuts and bruises were visible on their faces and hands.
From the tone of the muffled voices beyond the door, they could tell a meeting was coming to an end. The door opened and out stepped Donna.
‘They’ll see you now, ladies,’ said Donna.
‘And you off? Back to LA?’ asked Syra.
‘Yeah. I got a long line of hungry men and women waiting for what I can give them.’
‘I’ll bet,’ said Cheryl.
‘You do? Well, tell you what, sugar – you bring your fine self back to LA sometime and maybe I can give you a freebie.’
Cheryl smirked. Syra held out her hand and Donna took it.
‘Thanks for your help,’ said Syra.
‘Any time,’ she winked and strutted from the room.
Cheryl and Syra knocked and entered Zhang’s office. Inside they found Lynette Zhang and Mission Supervisor Baker. Zhang motioned for them to sit.
‘Congratulations, Senior Agent Rahul,’ said Zhang. ‘It got messier than we would have liked, but you’ve been through a lot and you’ve completed several missions. Quite a chain of events you set in motion, Ms Pereira.’
Cheryl didn’t answer.
‘Can I ask why you decided to come back willingly?’ said Baker.
‘Unfinished business,’ said Cheryl. ‘I like to end the things I start.’
‘You started here as an agent. You knew what it entailed. You also broke the rules and ran from the consequences,’ said Zhang.
‘I know. And I apologise for the things that have happened because of me. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Cooper and Sloane…’ her eyes welled with tears. ‘I just wanted to leave. My outlook changed. I can’t apologise for that. Doing this as a job isn’t normal and it took me some time to recognise it. I love tickling and I’m a sadist, but I never wanted to kill people with it. I suppose I joined RID at a time when I wasn’t ready to make those decisions.’
‘That doesn’t alter that you ran away from your responsibilities.’
‘If I may, Director,’ said Syra. ‘I’ve known Cheryl since I joined the cult. I know the decision will have been almost impossible for her to make. She had the option to disappear but instead she came back and saved the lives of myself and Associate Agent Pardus.’
‘I know,’ said Zhang. ‘And that’s why the Committee of Directors has made the rare decision to pardon you. But you cannot just leave; you made an oath of allegiance.’
Cheryl was relieved but confused.
‘What then?’ she asked.
‘As you’ve discovered, we have associate agents all over the country—all over the world. So, you can become an associate agent.’
‘As a dominatrix?!’
‘Not necessarily. We can discuss options,’ said Baker. ‘For now. Take a holiday. Both of you.’
Syra’s brow wrinkled.
‘And before you protest, Senior Agent: that’s an order,’ said Zhang.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Epilogue
The sun was delivering its final golden rays of the day as Syra and Cheryl stepped out into the fresh air of the grasslands. Cheryl lit a cigarette before speaking.
’Where will you go on vacation?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s got to be somewhere quiet.’
‘I get that,’ said Cheryl, sighing out a long plume of smoke. ‘Maybe we can meet up when we both get back.’
‘Yeah. Maybe. You don’t want to see the back of me then?’
‘Nah. Not yet.’
Syra smiled. For the first time in many years it felt like she had made a friend.
THE END.
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