Sniping Her Mafia King

Bump in the Night

Arwen was perched high on a stack of shipping containers and waited for her Alpha to give her commands. She had been the first to arrive on scene and find her post. Corry had been pissed she’d gotten this vantage point first. She grinned as she locked gazes with the woman further down the way, one container lower. She knew with their goggles on, she could clearly see her face. Nobody could see her where she was unless she sat up like she had done to mock Corry. She had the highest spot in the place. She saw Corry shoot her another grimace and she blew a kiss her way. The woman smiled before putting her serious face back on.

The lights of approaching vehicles caught her eyes, and she turned her head, “Alpha One and Two, we have company. Three black escalades coming in the south entrance to the shipyard in the adjoining enclosed area. Do we know who owns the containers over there?” It was never a good thing to see armored vehicles in the dead of night in a New York shipyard. The location they were in right now was leased by an Italian mafia family. Heaven only knows who rented the adjoining parcel of space.

“Can you see what they’re doing?” Alpha-Two’s voice cut into her thoughts.

“Repositioning,” Arwen kept her body tight to the container and used her glasses as she completely pivoted her position. “We have a lot of company in the yard. Two snipers on the warehouse building overlooking the small parking area. At least six or seven men running to hide in the shadows. Five men getting out of the first Escalade.” She watched as a bodyguard opened the door and a long lean frame exited the car confidently, shaking out his arms and adjusting his cufflinks, “f*****g bloody hell.” She exhaled sharply, “The King.” She stared at him through her binoculars and drank in the sight of him. Why did she have to have such a raging hard on for this guy? Even through her glass the man was impeccable.

She kept herself tucked tight to the top of the container hoping her cover wasn’t blown. They weren’t in the immediate vicinity of where he was, and it was clear they were all focused on the car that had preceded Adrianu Cavallaro’s. “Why the f**k is he here?”

“Calling HQ in now,” Clara Draxton’s voice cut in. As Alpha-One, Clara Draxton was a no-nonsense straight-shooting woman. She was clearly pissed off the man was in the middle of her mission.

Naomi’s voice, the leader of the team Arwen was part of on a regular basis cut into her thoughts, “get me a count on how many men Delta-two.”

“Yes ma’am,” she switched out her binoculars to her heat signature goggles and looked down at the miniature computer screen laying flat on her forearm. One of the perks of being part of such an elite team of assassins was access to equipment the rest of the universe could only dream of. “Five men total from car one. No stragglers. Car two was three men. Car three taking up the rear has three men inside not getting out. From where I’m positioned, I can count six-foot soldiers hiding in the shadows. The King is traveling with a small army, and it explains why his side of the dock is missing the normal expected number of guards.” Arwen let her gaze stay on his face. As she studied him, she heard his voice echoing in her head with his promise she would be his. The thought he considered women a possession for him to own made her stomach turn with unbridled fury. There was being a dominant male to a willing woman and then being a brutal man who took and owned whatever he wanted. She feared he was in the latter category, and it irked.

The voice of Artemis, the leader of their covert organization of women who rescued victims of domestic and s****l abuse, echoed in her ear demanding eyes and ears on the man had her moving to comply. She positioned her cameras to take in the scene unfolding in the distance.

Jesse, one of her closest friends in the world teasing her about the man in front of them made her grit her teeth with fury.

“Delta-Two, he’s a bit twitchy. I take it he didn’t like you dumping out his flowers. Perhaps you should go down and talk to him about why you didn’t like them.”

She was going to kill her. Now all the girls were going to know he was chasing her. They were worse than locker room jocks when they got started. “f**k you, Juno.” Arwen’s voice was cold.

“You and I need a chat.” Jesse’s tone was accusing to Arwen and clearly, she felt Arwen had been a bit careless in her shot, “my ear is aching from the piercing shriek of a bullet whizzing past my head two days ago.”

“You’ll live,” Arwen sighed with boredom and dread for the upcoming argument she was going to have with her friend, “can I shoot the misogynistic motherfucker now?” Her leaders denied her request and she gave a mock pout before switching her gear to one of the newest innovations from Draxton Enterprises technology lab. The equipment allowed for Arwen to trace heat signatures even through the thick metal of the shipping containers and she scanned around and felt her stomach drop.

“Heat signatures,” she whispered sadly. Everything in her wanted her to run to the container and pull out who were clearly more kidnapped women She looked back to the four men standing in a face off. Was Adrianu Cavallaro here to pick up a shipment of women? Is this why he was here? She couldn’t be sexually attracted to a s*x offender. She was going to vomit. She should have just shot him when she took out his father and his henchman.

She and the girls waited while Artemis and her team at HQ sorted out what to do next and she continued to observe the man. Sometimes the hardest part of this job was the waiting for instruction. She wished she had Jesse’s language skills. She wasn’t sure what they were saying but it was clear Cavallaro was pissed off with the three men. His tone, body language and narrowed eyes, which she was heavily focused on, clearly belied his wrath. The man was in a rage. Perhaps his package wasn’t being delivered according to expectations.

He said something to one of the men and from her vantage point she saw the sudden cruel smirk twisting his lips when he uttered a harsh blunt phrase and then lifted a single digit into the air. She gasped when the three men in front of him dropped simultaneously to the ground, the low hum of silenced bullets echoing in the night. She immediately scanned back to the snipers she had noted before and saw them racing down from their positions to assist with Adrianu’s commands to get the women out. Or at least, she presumed it was what he was saying. As she looked around she noted several men were down on the ground and she realized everyone who had accompanied the three men from the first car and anyone who may have been affiliated with them had quickly been dealt with. Adrianu Cavallaro ran an efficient and lethal team. It was sexy as hell.

As at least ten men began carrying, assisting, and coaxing women to a waiting vehicle, it was clear he was not there to hurt them. She felt her chest clench involuntarily as he rushed to a woman stumbling in his direction and draped his coat over her shoulders and pull her into an embrace and let her sob on his shoulder. He was rescuing the women. Artemis’ voice in her ear telling them to let him have this one and rescue the girls confirmed her suspicions.

Now how was she supposed to hate him. He might be a mafia king but at least he drew the line on trafficking women. Damn. She knew she was eyeballing him hard from where she was perched but the man was exquisite to behold. Right now, he was powerful and directorial and in full command as he made sure all of the women were taken care of. She had a pulse thrumming in her most sensitive spot between her legs at the aura the man was exuding. He was the epitome of masculinity, raw power and clearly displaying empathy which was not an emotion she thought he possessed. He was a mafia don and emotions were not their strong suits. She considered the reason he’d merely popped in and out at the restaurant for Dylan’s wedding was because he was working on this rescue. She decided she was screwed if he was going to be a good guy on top of hot and dominating.

“Your man looks good, Delta-Two,” Corry’s voice broke into her thoughts.

“Not my man and go f**k yourself Delta-One,” Arwen snapped back.

“Good thing you didn’t shoot his head off,” Cat, the Gamma on the team spoke up. “He seemed to be the only good person who knew those girls were there.”

“How did he find out what we didn’t?” she complained pursing her lips with frustration. “For the record, I never intended to shoot his head off. Just give a flesh wound to make it look good.”

“Instead, you almost took out Juno,” Cat chuckled.

“Nah, I simply hit the space between them. I knew what I was doing,” Arwen’s laugh was dark as she rolled toward the other side of the container to look in the direction of the container of women they were going to rescue.

Arwen was part of what she considered to be the greatest organization of all time. Bellona. Named after the ancient Roman goddess of war, their mission was simple. Locate and rescue women who were in dangerous situations from abusive bastards who have exploited their power and dominance over what they considered the lesser s*x. Her collective contained hundreds of women, assassins and spies who felt they were doing work the police and legal organizations affiliated with governments were unable to do correctly. They had infinitely more resources, less regard for the law and had no qualms for getting dirty or bloody.

When she had been nineteen and in the process of hunting down the gang who had murdered her aunt and uncle and had left her cousin for dead, Bellona had come calling. She hadn’t even wasted a second of her time in making her decision. She had been all in. They had given her support, acceptance and even arranged for her to gain custody of her cousin and they had gained a sharpshooter trained by a hell of a marine whose skills were improved with every single mission. She missed nothing, learned everything and was cool and collected under the most dangerous of situations. When she’d met Jesse, the girl had already been part of Bellona for two years. Cat joined near the same time as Arwen had. They had become fast friends.

Tonight, she was on her last mission with her current team with Naomi as her Alpha. With the number of events increasing in the eastern seaboard of the USA, their leaders had felt it was necessary to implement a third team. After tonight, she would be Delta-Three on a team headed by one of her closest friends. Jesse Chavez would lead and Isabella Ruiz and Cat McGraw, two of her other closest friends would round out their team of four. While she was excited to start on a new team she would miss working with Naomi. The move was bittersweet. She had learned heaps from the woman who had recruited her. Now it was time for her to give other women the same kind of education. She, Jesse, Isabella, and Cat were going to be the team to watch, she thought smugly. They had youth, skill, and cold brutality on their side.

She adjusted her rifle on it’s stand and peered through the scope as the two teams began the countdown to taking over the control of this container. Luca Cavallaro, the now deceased father of Adrianu, had men who even after his death were loyal to him and his desire to run a s*x trafficking operation. Arwen grunted as she considered Adrianu had managed to find the container belonging to the family’s biggest enemies yet had missed the container right under his nose. Although if she were honest, she knew Jesse had stolen the information from the desk not an hour before the old man had died so it made sense, he hadn’t seen it.

She provided cover to the women on the ground and picked off several men who got in the way of their rescue operation.

“Alpha-One, you have a pair of armed men coming to your right,” she spoke quickly into the mic and watched as Clara Draxton used her blades to effortlessly slice their throats and eliminate the risk. She fired her gun and took out another man. “I’m at seven,” she commented to nobody in particular. “Should I leave the rest for you all or are you even playing?”

“f**k you Delta-Two,” Corry said with a grunt, “you’re taking all my shots.”

“Not my fault you got here late and took the low ground. Did you want to come up here with the big girls?”

“b***h,” Corry spit at her with a laugh in her tone.

“Alpha-Two,” Arwen spoke again, “you have a target approaching from behind. He either has a gun in his pocket or he’s really excited to see you.” She watched as her friend and mentor easily and silently dispatched the man. She c****d her head and watched her leader who appeared to be all business. Normally she revelled in ripping these men apart, but she was strangely quiet. Interesting. “Alpha-Two, you are a few steps from the container. Heat signatures remain constant but low. They’ve been in the container for three weeks. Their supplies are probably exceptionally low. They could be desperate. Proceed with caution.”

She watched as the two Alpha’s went towards the container and pulled it open. There was a lot of shouting and chaos as the team circled in and got the women out. As the women were moved to a series of waiting medical vans, Arwen kept her eyes peeled for any stragglers who might have been missed in the yard.

It was clean straight-forward mission now Adrianu Cavallaro’s brief interruption was over. Once the women were all loaded and taken away, Arwen gathered all her supplies and made her way to the off-site rendezvous point. Clean-up crew was on its way. Not a single body would be recovered by anyone other than Bellona and their teams. Someone had joked they should put all Cavallaro’s dead men in the container with a note to Addy they’d cleaned up his mess. She considered it wasn’t a bad idea.

She broke her gun down into the small pieces and shoved it in the bottom of her bag. Making her way through the shipping containers she found the cut in the chain link fencing she had made earlier and made her way through.

As she was walking away towards where she would meet her crew her cell phone rang. She answered it first ring using her wireless headphone device. “Delta-Two.”

“Delta-Two, you’re to report directly to HQ for debrief.” The unknown yet familiar voice on the other end was curt.

“Of course, I already assumed.”

“Also, we were asked to pass a message along to you.”

“What message?”

“The King asked Juno for help in providing medical and psych assistance to the women he rescued this evening.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Juno thought it might be of interest to you.” The line went dead.

Arwen kicked a rock angrily and watched as it skipped down the alley, she was in. f**k Jesse. Was she trying to drum up support for her sleeping with her cousin or was she simply letting her know it had been a good call not to shoot him in the face like she’d originally wanted? Either way, Jesse was sending her a message the King wasn’t as bad as they were making him out to be.

Fifteen minutes later, after sneaking and ducking through alleys and hiding behind buildings, avoiding traffic and people, Arwen made her way to the waiting vehicle. She slid in the front seat and looked to Naomi sitting in the front.

“Alpha.”

“Delta.”

“Where’s Gamma and Beta?”

“Coming,” she shrugged, drumming her fingers on the dashboard of the car.

“You okay, Alpha?”

“My wife wants back in,” she blurted her out in uncharacteristic fashion.

“Oh,” Arwen was surprised. “Really? Fieldwork?”

“Not yet. Right now, it’s just work with the Firestarter. But do you know what’s going to happen? She’s going to do a bit office work and then she’s going to miss sniping people and she’ll be on a f*****g team and there won’t be anyone home to watch the kid.” Naomi grunted. “Don’t get me wrong. I want to support her in whatever she does and if this is what she wants, then great.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“What if she wants me to stay home?”

“Would she?”

“It would take one time for one of us not to be home on time and the kid get stuck waiting outside like a goddamn latchkey kid and it will be a battle of who needs to be home.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. We are better at f*****g than talking,” Naomi said bluntly. “I know I need to go home tonight and tell her what I’m feeling but truthfully, I’d rather face a firing squad on my own. Neither of us are good with emotional shit.”

Arwen chuckled, “you know you said an awful lot to me just now.”

“Yeah, but I’m not sleeping with you.” Naomi grinned. “Speaking of sleeping with, what’s going on with you and the King?”

“Adrianu Cavallaro made a play for me last weekend in Vegas.”

“I heard. Bliss and I watched him watch you. Bliss considers you a little sister. She was counting all the ways to torture him if you asked her to.”

“He then sent me flowers on Monday.”

“Oh.”

“Then at the wedding today told me he wanted us to have dinner. I declined very politely.”

“Did you?” Naomi chuckled.

“I did. Very politely. He then stated I would be his.”

“Why do men think that’s a turn-on for women?”

“Maybe it works for some women? I don’t know. I wanted to punch him in the throat after I ripped his d**k off and shoved it in his mouth.” She was lying. It worked for her in some situations. She needed to sort out if this was one of those situations. If he wanted to own her like one of the girls in the container, then his d**k was coming off. If he wanted her to be his submissive in a consensual s****l relationship, well, then it was a whole other kettle of fish. Well, as long as he never found out she killed his father. That would be awkward.

Naomi laughed loudly at Arwen’s comment, “I’ve trained you well.”

Arwen was quiet for a minute, “the worst part?”

“What?”

“I think I wanted to shoot him the other day because he terrifies the f**k out of me.”

They were both quiet as they absorbed her statement.

The rear passenger seat opened, and Cat slid in behind Arwen. “Holy f**k, did you hear?”

“Hear what?” Naomi asked.

“The King asked for a team to help with his rescues. I’m going to the hotel he’s got them in to do medical exams.”

“You don’t have to go straight to debrief?” Arwen asked with her eyebrow high in the air.

“Nope. Got to report back after I attend to the girls. He called Juno and asked if anyone from the women’s shelter would be able to help him.” Cat kicked out of her boots and into a pair of track shoes.

Isabella slid in beside Cat on the other side. “f**k, am I the last one?”

“Yes, Beta you are.” Naomi said as Arwen grumbled under her breath about Cavallaros.

Isabella grunted, “I have to do debrief because I switched team and position tonight. They want to see how I handled it.”

“Better than having to go to debrief because your d**k is hard for the King,” Naomi threw Arwen under the bus.

Isabella looked at Arwen in the front seat, “can I give you a tip?”

“A tip?” Arwen turned and looked at her friend who was smirking in the back seat.

“Yeah, when I was first dating Cam and he was being a jackoff, I got called into debrief more than once because I wanted to run my blade across his throat. I might have mentioned my rampant desire to kill him instead of dealing with my emotions.” Isabella made a face, “don’t tell them. They make you go back for secondary.”

“I told them yesterday. Probably why I got the personal call to remind me to go straight to debrief.” Arwen grunted.

As the other three women groaned in what she could only described as co-misery, she realized with a small smile at the very least, she was surrounded by women who knew what she was going through.