Chapter 10
She tugged the hem of her dress down nervously as she stepped out of her sleek car and walked towards the men standing at the front door.
"Looking good, Sugarbear."
Kensi almost smiled at the sound of Deeks' voice in her ear. She knew he was parked somewhere in the vicinity, although Cappo's house was conveniently located so that it was extremely difficult to spy on him.
They had decided on an earpiece and backup for tonight, even though the earpiece was a huge risk and backup too far away to be of any help. She was basically just letting the team listen in, and she was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the situation.
"Shut up, Deeks", she said.
"Yeah, shut up, Deeks", Sam echoed, as Callen laughed.
Kensi added a jiggle to her walk and smiled to Cappo's men as they stepped forward to frisk her when she reached the house. One of them was short, shorter than Kensi, but he was built like a brick, with a big chest and a square head. Kensi smiled at him as his partner put his hands around her waist to check for concealed weapons.
"My gun's in the car, Sergio, just as always."
He nodded at her as he ran his hands down her arms anyway, his face set.
He went up the steps and opened the front door for her.
She gasped as she stepped inside and looked down to see scattered white rose petals strewn on the polished hardwood floors from the front door to the living room.
"What the…" she murmured under her breath, following the trail Cappo had apparently laid out for her.
"What?", Deeks asked, clearly agitated with not having eyes as well as ears.
"Rose petals", she whispered as way of explanation, afraid of being overheard.
"Really?! A romantic crime boss… I could write a book."
"Please don't", Sam said immediately, causing Kensi to smile a little.
"Oh, c'mon! We'll all be in it, the four horsemen. The astonishingly good-looking detective, the two less good-looking, but still badass, federal agents, Kensi will be wearing THAT dress-"
"Or something similar to work every single day?", Callen finished for him, looking at Sam knowingly.
"Deeks!", Kensi snapped, she was too distracted to reprimand him for his comment, instead she wanted him to be quiet so she could focus.
"Yes, Kenselina?"
"She wants you to shut up again", Callen said, smirking.
"You all need to shut up or I'm taking this thing out of my ear", she mumbled.
She reached the glass patio doors, and looked out. Next to the pool there was a set table, lit candles, 2 chairs, and a sinlge white rose. It would have been a beautiful sight, had she not been undercover, and had the man waiting for her on the other side of the door with a confident expression on his face not been a criminal.
He studied her from head to toe and his smile widened ever so slightly in appreciation.
"Isabella", the way he whispered the name made her shiver.
"Alex."
She took a step forward and to the left, intending to squeeze past him, but he crowded her in against the doorjamb. Kensi looked up at him as if amused at his impatience.
"I thought you wanted to talk shop, darling", she said innocently.
"Is everybody ready for tonight?"
"Packages are en route. They'll be delivered in 5 hours."
"Then business is taken care of."
His hand toyed with one of the buttons on her dress.
"We need to brief the boys, and pick up the cars."
"Business can wait, you're more important", he said quietly, his eyes rising to meet hers.
She was shocked at his words. It's one thing to be trusted, even liked, but men like Cappo treated their women like possessions, and although possessive about them, they rarely cared much for them.
"Am I?"
"Yes, I do not know what I would do without you, mia. The business...", he trailed off, gesturing with one hand as if to say: not important.
Kensi brought her hands to his face.
"Then stop", she said quietly. She was working on instinct here, afraid she'll ruin everything and get herself killed, but she's a federal agent and although she has shot a lot of people on the job, she didn't kill for sport, so if she could make him come in or arrest him without adding to the body-count, she had to try.
He looked startled at her words and she tensed, waiting for his reaction. He ran one hand over his face, but didn't say anything.
"Stop, Alex. We can find other things to do", she added, watching him.
"Madre di Dio", he whispered against her ear, making the exclamation sound more like a curse than a prayer. "Perdonami, Bella, per favore", he whispered again fervently, as if he couldn't hold back the words.
"Forgive you for what?", Kensi asked.
He brought one hand up to her throat and touched the marks he had left on her the night before. "I shouldn't have choked you. It was cruel of me."
She shrugged and said nothing, trying to control her anger.
"It is a cruel life", he stated matter-of-factly.
"It doesn't have to be", Kensi said. She felt completely off balance.
She thought about what to say.
Hey, Alex, are you sick? Been watching too many rom-coms between murders? Shot anybody in the head today? 'Cause maybe that's it. Go outside and kill a cat so I know you're still a shitty psychopath of a person.
"I cannot abandon my family", he said before she could add anything. "Blood is everything. Spill it or die for it. It will do you well to remember that, Isabella."
Good enough.
"Let's eat."
Kensi sauntered downstairs as if there was nowhere else in the entire world she'd rather be, but she had to fight off the urge to wipe off her palms on her jeans and check to see if her weapon's still in place.
She was nervous, more so than when she walked into the house 2 hours ago.
After dinner, Cappo had suggested an impromptu dip in the pool and had practically carried her in when she protested. Half an hour later, her hair was wet, and she was annoyed that she had had to risk a text to Eric saying that she was alive and well and that her earpiece no longer worked.
She threw her purse on the large gleaming mahogany table in the middle of the room, startling some of the guys who had not heard her enter.
She squared her shoulders confidently and took a second to glance around the space. Aside from the upstairs, the kitchen, and the living room, she hasn't seen much of the house.
The room was large and mostly empty, and had much more of the stuffy feeling and smell a house gets when it has stayed closed up for a long time than the rest of the house did. She could see it was artfully decorated and furnished for a basement, but they had only uncovered the furniture they needed and hadn't bothered with the rest, so the place looked more like a storage room than anything else.
She found it reassuring that the whole house looked more like a warehouse than it did a home, because it meant Cappo wasn't making any new plans to stick around.
Cappo's men were all gathered around the table talking about tonight's drop off, and except for Mario Costa's brother, Marco, who looked like he just tasted something sour, they all looked relieved when she joined them. She hitched a hip onto the edge of the table and slid one of the open maps towards her.
"We meet here", she said, putting her finger on the map for the men to see.
"Why not at one of the abandoned buildings we found last week?," one of them asked as soon as the words left her mouth.
"They wouldn't go for it," she replied dismissively, "they're not stupid. Besides, abandoned buildings are always the Doughnut Squad's first guess, so-"
"Why would we be worried about the fucking cops?" Costa asked, spitting out the last word like it was dirty.
"We're not. Cappo told me to be extra careful, so we're being extra careful," she said impatiently.
"We meet here," she said again, "it's an old stretch of road, single-track, hugs the side of the mountains, no houses, no pull-outs. We'll take this road until we reach this side of the tunnel, they'll come from the other side. Questions?"
Some of the men shifted restlessly, but didn't say anything.
The two younger cousins, Leo and Tito, desperately wanted to impress Cappo and the family, so they didn't care who the orders came from. The rest, however, have been with Cappo much longer and resented the fact that he put her in charge over one of their own.
Reggie, one of Cappo's favorite cousins, looked up from his laptop, displeased.
"No place for extra insurance." Cappo didn't like loose ends, didn't like anything that could lead back to him, which meant they preferred to wipe out the delivery guys, or at least set up an ambush as "insurance".
"But no place for them to ambush us either," she said calmly.
"We need to go get the trucks," she said when nobody else piped up, wrapping up the discussion.
"No."
Kensi looked past Reggie, raising an eyebrow at Cappo, who had been standing in the doorway for the last few minutes listening to her.
He had forgone the creepy Italian business-man look for snug black jeans and a button down shirt, making him look younger, but no less threatening.
He walked towards the table and set down the glass of Scotch he had in his hand.
"Reggie, Marco, take Leo and Tito and pick up the cars," he ordered without glancing at any of the men.
He made a dismissive gesture towards the rest and as they dispersed in different directions, he leaned forward on the table, resting his weight on his forearms without breaking eye-contact with Kensi.
"You ride with me."
Okay, I know some of you have had children and even grandchildren in all the time that has passed between my last chapter and this one. But see, that's why there's a follow button! You could be 91 on your deathbed, and get an alert(!), and with any luck you'll still get to finish this story before you go. :)
It's 3 am on my side of the world, but I just couldn't let another day go by without uploading.
I hope you're all as busy as I have been lately and that you didn't even have time to think about this unfinished story and be mad at me for it.. until now.
Here's a teaser!:
"Shoot him!", Cappo said coldly.
She closed her eyes briefly.
I'm sorry, Deeks.
She opened her eyes and pulled the trigger.
S.