The Pleasure of Pain 2 Page 4

  "Shhhh, don't cry babies everything is going to be alright." She said as she grabbed both of them out of their beds. They both were dressed in their pink night gowns.

  "Where's mommy? I want my mommy!" Both girls cried as they flinched from the sound of all of the gunshots and automatic fire.

  "Shhhh, quiet girls and quickly put on your shoes." Ms. Linda said and pulls out a pair of earplugs and put them in Ayoyna and Isis ears to block out the screams and gunshots, and then she bends down and ties their sneakers.

  Ms. Linda heard footsteps creeping up behind her. She turns around while still bent down to see a ski masked gunman standing at the door staring at them. Even with his mask on, she could tell that he was smiling as he raises the machine gun in his hand and aims at them. Before he could squeeze the trigger Ms. Linda pulls out a small sub-nosed 3.57 from her dress pocket and squeezes the trigger. The gunman's head exploded like a pumpkin, hit with a sledge hammer. Ms. Linda's hands shook as she now held the smoking gun with her heart pounding. Her mind was racing all over the place as Ayoyna and Isis scream in horror. She tries to collect her thoughts and didn't see the second gunman until it was too late. He raised his M16 riffle and fire off a single shot that crashes into her chest knocking the wind out her and sending her flying backwards to the floor next to Ayoyna and Isis' feet. The young girls cried with their palms of their hands buried in their faces as the gunman aims at them. Then he felt the barrel of a gun on his temple. He looks from the corner of his eyes to see a beautiful woman standing there. Tess squeezes the trigger destroying the man's face. He slumps over dead sideways.

  "Iris, cover me!" She shouted as she sees more gunmen climbing through the second story hallway window.

  Iris steps out the master bedroom into the hallway and let go rapid fire that filled the three gunmen climbing through the window violently, sending blood and chunks of their body parts flying everywhere onto the hallway walls.

  Tess ran into the girl's room and checked Ms. Linda's pulse by her wrist. Ms. Linda opens her eyes and coughs weakly. I guess it's a good thing I put on this bullet proof vest when I heard the alarm go off, dear huh?" She said and smiled.

  Tess partly opens Ms. Linda's dress and returns the smile.

  "Can you get up?" Tess asks.

  "Yes I can." Ms. Linda replied.

  "Good because we got to go." Tess said as she looks at her daughter and touches her face to console her.

  "Shhhh, be strong for mommy okay, don't cry." Tess said.

  Ayoyna couldn't hear her mother because of the ear plugs in her ear but read her lips and shook her head up and down and wipes her tears away with the back of her little hands.

  "That goes for you too Isis, no crying be strong and hold each other's hands." Tess said.

  "It's clear!" Iris shouted from the hallway.

  "Good! Vanessa, Layla get ready for step 2." Tess said into the two-way receiver in her ear.

  "Okay, we're ready." Layla replied.

  Tess left the room with Ms. Linda holding the girls hands, following closely behind Tess. Tess and Iris dig into Tess' jacket pocket and pull out two smoke grenades, then pull the pins and toss them down the stairs to the first floor. The house quickly filled with grey thick smoke as it seeps from the grenade. The hit squad outside that was firing at the house, stops and look at each other with a confused look as smoke came out the windows and the front and back doors. They were giving the orders to rush the house.

  Tess leads the way down the stairs as they all cough from the thick grey smoke. Vanessa and Layla pops up off the floor from guarding the front and back door as they try not to choke on the thick smoke.

  "You two okay?" Tess said as she came face to face with them.

  "We're good!" Layla replied.

  "Come on!" Iris shouted as she sent a spray of bullets out through the living room windows as a group of gunmen came running closer to the house.

  Bullets filled their bodies with holes. Tess ran, leading the way to a door that opens up to a small laundry room. She walks over to the washing machine and turns the dial to super wash then spin dry. Then steps back as the wall with the dryer and washing machine open up.

  "Damn bitch! You never told me that was there." Iris said.

  "I always planned two escape routes no matter where I am." Tess replied, as all of them could hear the stomping of footsteps rushing into the house.

  Tess looks at Vanessa and nodded her head.

  "I'm on it." Vanessa said, already knowing what Tess wanted her to do.

  She pulls two flash grenades out of a small bag she was carrying and opens the laundry room door while Layla and Iris cover her. She tosses one of the flash grenades into the living room and the other towards the kitchen area. Then she quickly shuts the door. Twenty-five gunmen were now inside the house searching for the women, when the flash grenade exploded and lights up as bright as the sun shine through the whole house, blinding them all.

  "Let's fucking go!" Tess shouted as they walk down the stairs of the secret passageway behind the washing machine and dryer.

  The wall shuts close when Layla was the last to enter. In front of her were Vanessa then Ms. Linda and the two little girls kept in the middle of the group. The tunnel they were walking in was so dark that they couldn't even see their hands in front of their faces. Layla felt around the small pouch she had on her shoulder, next to her sniper rifle and pulls out five glow sticks and bends them, until each of them was now a bright green glowing light. She passes them up to Vanessa, Ms. Linda and Tess. The green lights lit up the dark tunnel as they walk with a quick pace.

  "We're running out of time and need to move faster Tess shouted."

  "Why?" Ms. Linda asks while moving as fast as she could while holding Ayoyna and Isis hands.

  Iris, Vanessa and Layla knew why and try to speed up.

  "Because, once the alarm goes off at the house and no one punches in the security code before a half hour a countdown starts." Vanessa explained, since she was the closest to Ms. Linda.

  "A countdown for what?" Ms. Linda asked with a puzzled look on her face.

  "The house is wired to explode." Vanessa said.

  "Oh Lord." Ms. Linda responded.

  "Come on children move faster." She said forgetting that the little girls had ear plugs in their ears and couldn't hear a word she said.

  Halfway through the tunnel Tess stopped and looks down at a clear trip wire on the floor connected to C-4 explosives on the wall.

  "Everybody watch your step, Iris grab your daughter." Tess said as she ran back and scoops Ayoyna up in her arms and carefully steps over the trip wire and Iris did the same, with her daughter in her arms, with everybody else following behind.

  Meanwhile, back in the house, most of the hit squad had gotten back their eye sight as more enter from every exit and window. A short man no taller than 5'3" enters the house, and by his presence you could tell he was the leader. He looks around at his men in disgust.

  "Find those bitches now! They couldn't have gone far out of this house!" He shouted in a thick accent.

  "We're searching boss, but they just disappeared." One of the gunmen replied.

  The short man raises his 9mm-glock and aims it at him then squeezes the trigger, sending a bullet crashing into the center of his head.

  "The next man that says they can't find those bitches will end up dead, like this fucker!" He shouted. "And I want you to grab every picture and computer or laptop in this house!" He screams.

  "Boss, come check this out." Another gunman said and leads him to the laundry room.

  He taps on the wall behind the washing machine and dryer.

  "See the wall hollow." The gunman said.

  The short man smiles while giving orders.

  "Okay, blow the shit and find them!" He said and took a step back as the gunman puts a small explosive on the wall and runs out the room.

  The wall explodes revealing a staircase that lead to a dark tunnel.

  "Go after them
now!" The short man shouted.

  A group of twenty gunmen ran down the stairs into the tunnel, while the rest ram shacks the house.

  "I have to find out where that tunnel ends at." The short man said and walks out the house, stepping over the dead bodies of his men and puddles of blood.

  As he walks to his truck he turns around just as the house exploded.

  'Boom!'

  The house blew to pieces, killing all the men inside and the recall of the blast blows the short man into the air backwards onto the ground. He opens his eyes to see the house completely destroyed and on fire. Then screams and as detached arms land onto his chest.

  "Ahhhh!" He tosses the arm off him that smells of roasted meat, while crawling backwards.

  "I want them bitches found now! Surround the whole area!" He shouted into a small black walkie-talkie, then more trucks pull up and some of the gunmen spread out in different directions in search of Tess and her team.

  Tess, Iris and the others held the wall made of dirt in the tunnel as the vibration from the explosion made them lose their balance.

  "How much farther we got to go Tess! This tunnel is long as hell!" Iris shouted.

  "A half mile more and we will clear the tunnel." Tess responded while keeping her pace.

  Layla was at the end of the line that they was speed walking in and heard what sounds like footsteps stomping towards them. She turns around and got down on her knees, then puts down her Mac11 machine gun and unstraps the Russian sniper rifle with the digital scope off her shoulder. She looks through the scope. The tunnel was pitch-black, with only the green glow from the glow sticks giving her light. She presses a button on the digital scope and the view turns bright green, but she still couldn't make out anything in front of her. She presses the button once more, and then it turns into thermal heat vision.

  "Oh shit, we have company!" She shouted as she looks at the body heat signal of a group of men running towards them.

  She held her breath and aims at the head of the first bright red figure and squeezes the trigger and watches his body drop. She squeezes the trigger two more times, watching two more bodies drop, then felt bullets fly pass her head.

  "Okay that's my cue to get the fuck out of here." Layla said out loud to herself, while strapping the sniper rifle back onto her back and picking up her machine gun and takes off running, catching up to Tess and the rest of her team.

  Layla toss a flash grenade behind you!" Tess shouted.

  "I'm out!" Layla responded.

  "I have one left." Vanessa said while pulling the pin out of the flash grenade and tosses it behind her without looking.

  It flew pass Layla's head and lands on the ground.

  "Everybody close your eyes!" Vanessa shouted as the flash grenade explodes and a light as bright as the sun consumes the tunnel for a mile behind, blinding the group of gunmen.

  They stumble in there steps as they rub their eyes as Tess and her team made it to the end of the tunnel to see a stair case.

  Tess quickly walks up the stairs and smashes a padlock off with butt of her SKS sub-machine gun to a door that was above her head, and pushes it open and climbs out with Iris following behind, then helps their daughters and Ms. Linda up out the tunnel, with Vanessa and Layla coming out last. They all look around to see that they were in a huge old barn with hay and a black Ford F150 pickup truck that had something very big connected to it, that had a cover over it.

  Tess wasted no time. She ran to the giant barn double doors, with Iris by her side and broke the lock and pulls the chain off the doors, then pushes it open. Tess hops into the truck and opens the glove department and grabs a set of keys. She then starts up the truck and pulls it out of the barn, tolling the giant object connected to the truck, until she was on a clear path of grass out in the open.

  Back in the tunnel some of the group of gunmen regain their sight and continue to walk down the tunnel knowing they were closing in on their targets, while other stumble in the darkness. Something inside told one of the gunmen, that was in front of the line to look down. He removed a small flash light from his waist and shines the light down. At the first look, he didn't know what he was staring at, but then it became clear as he follows the clear almost invisible thin string wire, to the dirt wall that was connected to C-4 explosives. He grins under his mask.

  "Hahaha, you bitches thought you had us." He said while laughing.

  Then one of the gunmen that hadn't fully gotten back his eyesight stumbles into another man, making him fall and bump another gunman, causing a chain reaction, until the gunman in front of the line got bumped. He looks on in horror as his leg pulls the trip wire.

  "Noooo!" His scream was cut short as he exploded into pieces with the rest of the gunmen and the tunnel collapsed.

  "Damn, I loved that house." Vanessa said as she steps out the barn and could see a cloud of smoke and fire blazing high a few miles down where there house used to be.

  "How in the hell do you expect us to get away and drive out of here Tess? Those gunmen will catch up with us in no time." Iris said suddenly.

  "No, I have a better idea then that. Just help me remove this cover fast." Tess responded as she stood by the huge object behind the truck and began to remove the cover with Vanessa and Iris helping.

  When the cover finally hit the ground, it revealed a black helicopter. Everybody's jaws dropped in shock as they stare at it.

  "We're going to fly out of here." Tess stated.

  "Damn bitch, how you get a helicopter, and who's going to fly it, I pray not you?" Vanessa said.

  Tess just smirked I'm the boss and I invested our money very well, if I must say myself, and Layla's going to fly it." Tess replied.

  "Layla?" Vanessa and Iris said simultaneously and looked at Layla, the youngest of them all.

  "Yes, I been having Layla go for lessons for over a year now for two hours a day to learn to fly helicopters and small planes, you never know when that may come in hand in our line of work, but this isn't the time to discuss this. We need to get out of here." Tess said as she opens the back door to the helicopter and helps Ms. Linda in, then her daughter and Isis.

  Ms. Linda fastens their seat belts. Layla sat in the cockpit and flicks a few switches. The large helicopter propellers roar to life, making a pulsating sound. Tess sat next to Layla while Iris squeezes in the back with the others. Layla's palms sweat from nervousness.

  "Don't worry, you got this. You did it plenty of times, nothing changed." Tess said to her.

  Layla looks at her mentor and nods her head as she slowly pulls back the control stick.

  "Well that encouragement speech needs to hurry the fuck up. We have company!" Iris shouted over the loud pulsating sound of the propellers as she sees seven black trucks speeding towards their direction.

  The helicopter eases off the ground and high into the air as bullets flew passed it. Layla flew the helicopter with skills into the night sky.

  Le Poeme

  Chapter 6

  In one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, Florence was filled with buildings of history and millionaires, it was one of the many European cities where the wealthy would live or come to play. With each street filled with high end name brand label stores, like Gucci, Michael Kors and so much more. People from all over the world would come to visit and get a look of how the rich lived. Lamborghini's, Maserati's and Maybach Mercedes cruise down the streets. This was normal to see on an everyday basis.

  In an elite elegant three story lounge called Le Poeme, where only the rich were allowed to come mingle, and flirt. Upstairs on the third floor was a condo that Tess owned along with the Lounge up under an alias name. Tess and Layla sat in the luxurious office with T.V. monitors that were connected to cameras that were inside and outside of the lounge, even cameras down the block watching the cars that pulled up.

  "Tess, why did you choose to come here? We haven't been here in a few years. There are too many people in this city you think we might get spotted?" Layla sai
d while spinning a long sniper bullet on the desk like a dradle.

  "It's because there are so many people here that we will go unnoticed, besides we won't be staying here too long. I just need a place the girls were familiar with, to calm them down for a while until I think of our next move and by the way, we're in the hell is Iris?" Tess said.

  "I don't know, you already know how that chick always disappears, she's always been that way for years now, I find it funny." Vanessa said.

  "So who sent that hit squad after us? Was it Boss Ho-Jin's people or the Santiago family?" Layla asked.

  "None of the above, it was the damn Asian Mafia, I took the mask off two of their faces and they were Chinese. My question is how in the hell do they keep finding us? That was the second house in a year and a half. That's crazy they have to have a way of tracking us, but how?" Tess responded.

  "Well we need to find out how they are doing it and soon. I checked all our things for tracking devices, but there were none what so ever." Tess said.

  "Tess I think shit is getting hot and we should just buy the small island and live out the rest of our lives." Vanessa said.

  "We need to do three more contracts, that's all and we will have enough money, not just for us but our children's children. I know what I'm doing, you all just need to trust me, I got us this far. We have seen things that women of color from the hood will never see, unless they realize the world is bigger than a neighborhood or a damn block. We have traveled the world to get killed, to bleed together and we took lost." Tess said as she lowers her head and thought of Ebony then Bless. How she lost her closest friend and the love of her life.

  Vanessa quickly wiped the tears from her eyes, thinking of her lost sister, Ebony. At first she blamed Tess for her sister's death but knew it wasn't her fault. This was the lifestyle she had chosen, just like the rest of them, but something just didn't set right with Vanessa. There were too many unanswered questions, like how did the suitcase full of money with a tracking device get in the basement or her house in Queens when no one knew of that house but her inner circle. Tess, Iris, Layla and her sister Ebony were the only few people that could get passed her red-nosed pit bull, Chew-Chew to plant the suitcase there while she was in Philly handling the drug business and watching the workers. Then it was the fact they kidnapped her and all her cash, it all didn't make since, but Vanessa only spoke about it a few times with Tess, because without the missing pieces to put it all together what was the point of constantly discussing it. Vanessa thought to herself.