Snippet #1562647

Once again her call went to voice-mail. With three attempts committed, Vivian knew that she would be resorting to other contacts and methods of finding her employer. Nick was in trouble. He’d never failed to answer that phone on any normal day. Today was odd, and she was up to her ears in issues.

Setting her personal cell back into her pocket the mercenary got to work on the cellphone she’d stolen off her former lover. The basic model was well known but alterations were very apparent. Sitting herself down at her desk in her bedroom, a place where she had often polished weapons, Vivian pulled the back of his phone off again with her left hand. Taking a clamp left in a small drawer on her right side she set the phone with the screen facing down and toward her. With the tool holding the phone steady to the desk she was able to get to work.

The morphine was far from a booster to her senses. In fact every so often she would pause, her hand poised over the electronic device, while she waited for her vision to clear. Despite the direct shot of morphine she still felt the echoes of her broken bone. It would take a properly placed acupuncture pin to calm the nerves, a trick she’d rather do before bed when she wasn’t moving around. Her wrapped and splinted right hand remained on her lap while she moved. Often she would slip up and move it anyways, using it more as a weight. She couldn’t maneuver her fingers with any ease yet. The swelling was pushing against the bandage now. She could feel her pulse deep through her arm.

It wasn’t at all that her attention was completely directed towards removing the low bug. When the scuffle of a person entering her apartment occurred she stopped her work, holding a miniature screw-driver in her left hand and listening. She knew it was him from his footfalls, a pattern well exercised and remembered by heart. The smell of his cologne and sweat met her nose as he approached her from behind. Goddamn him. He’d done enough to wrong her. Now he had the audacity to take her twice in one day. Enough was enough.

"You really shouldn't do that,” he warned, his voice low and husky. He was breathing heavily, meaning he’d been an idiot and rappelled down her apartment building until he’d found the right window. His showmanship bothered her. Now she was out window as well as her personal sanctuary due to the fact that he now knew her address.

“I rigged it to blow the lithium battery if someone started messing with the back up tracking device. I'm sure you know what a frag grenade victim looks like when face is hit with searing hot shrapnel," Al explained, taking it upon himself to sigh as if he was dealing with a child. Vivian sat upright with her body unmoving, her eyes watering in the process. She knew better. She knew everything he was saying and could have finished his sentence if she'd wanted. Her former lover pulled the screwdriver from her hand, something she released because she had absolutely had it with him. She would no longer be nice. She was seething. Her teeth clenched tightly and her hand hung over her work. A displeased look took over her face. The morphine didn't seem to matter. Adrenaline was kicking in and she could feel her eyes focus.

Al set his switchblade down on her working desk, the knife handle carved and black, reliable and a tool that he had taken with him all over the world. The man got to work on his own phone, not even seeming to notice Vivian who sat just to the side of him. She watched his hands go about the task she had set about doing, in the exact series of steps she had been attempting to run through just moments before, only with one hand. When he resumed speaking, explaining his choices of wiring and booby-trapping Vivian closed her eyes, letting her left hand fall onto her lap with her right clenched into a tight fist. Exhaustion was pushing her into extreme irritability. He had no idea of the animal he was frustrating. She had lost all sense of decency now when it came to dealing with him.

Alphonse grabbed hold of his switchblade, flicking it close with a swish and replacing it in with the rest of his gear. Slowly he backed away, eying her naked walls and décor choice with judgmental eyes.

"You ever think about back then...?" He trailed, his voice low and in thought. Vivian’s eyes flashed open and she licked her lips, sitting forward, her left hand moving under the ledge of the desk. It seemed as if she were occupying herself really, pressing her hand into the ledge of the desk while she looked ready to burst into tears. Slowly her fingers slid, gripping the lip until they brushed against the cold metal of her Glock 22, hidden for safekeeping underneath the desk board. It was a point of easy access and a gun hold she’d built into the furniture herself. That’s what her apartment was, strictly functional. Bold pieces of artwork added a modern feel with the red and steel grey color palette but otherwise it lacked her personal touch. It lacked the luster of her Italian dwelling. That place she knew would remain hidden.

She pulled the gun swiftly. It wasn’t a time to be slow, no matter how much her body willed it. Within five seconds she was standing, facing him, her body taught and in position. With one hand she held her gun, prepped and ready, a regular magazine inserted and the safety off. Within six she’d fired a shot, aiming for his upper shoulder. With the first out of the way she dove at him, wrenching her right arm into the air and bringing down her elbow into the back of his neck. He’d turned his back to her.

Al shuffled forward but was quick to turn and face her. He grabbed her gun hand, barely staggering from her blow. Vivian tossed her head forward, ramming the crown of her skull into his jaw. Due to their height difference she slammed into the bottom of his chin, sending his head back. This time he was forced, due to simple physics, back from her. She fired again, this time into his right arm for good measure, before bringing her gun in a pistol whip across his face to knock him out.

When his body hit the floor she breathed deeply with accentuated pants. She shook her head and winced, feeling the throb of a migraine in her forehead. It felt as if a person were taking a rubber mallet to the small space between her eyes. Congestion gathering in her nose. She snorted back spit and snot before stepping back and setting her gun back down on her desk. She had only a few minutes to ensure that she had more time. Moving back into her ensuite bathroom the mercenary pulled a small vial of clear liquid and a fresh syringe. The anesthetic was a drug that would have no side effect on him when he woke. Depending on how much she injected, he could be out for an additional half an hour to six hours. Knowing she needed sixty minutes to clear her apartment and wipe it down of her presence she took an allotted amount before reproaching her former lover.

“I’m not sorry for this,” she grunted as she leaned beside his neck and pressed the needle into his jugular with her left hand. With the injection in she felt his body further relax into the wood of her floor. Taking the garbage in her hand she moved quickly, reclaiming weapons, clothes and whatever she could. Most of it was already boxed. All she had to do was move it into the main room before calling on the doorman to claim it and ship to an address that she gave him. From there she would bounce her belongings gradually through people until they would lose documentation before getting them to Italy. Due to her connections with people in shipping Vivian knew he would never find her things.

The weapons she had on her included her reassembled Beretta, Glock 22 and a stowed away Cheytac sniper rifle, her baby of babies. It was all replaced in her personal suitcase, barely unpacked since her arrival in the US, and left with the doorman as well for her to claim in half an hour. For twenty minutes she gloved herself and ran over the surfaces she’s touched and come across. Wiping down her apartment was such a common exercise, such a repeated task, that she knew she would have no trace of her existence there. Within fifty minutes of giving Alphonse his shot she departed, taking with her suitcase from the doorman and heading back onto the street.

Earlier this morning she’d called a connection to have her Camaro left on her block. No ticket had been left on her dash, a courtesy of having Nick on her side. Climbing into it she tore off from her block heading straight off the island.

Once she had gotten across the bridge she pulled off to the shoulder of the road and took out her personal cell phone to call the one man she’d heard was also watching Nick; Alessandro.