Michael Morley - Viper

Stephanie Muller was a lesbian. She'd slept with him several times and worked hard to pleasure him all night because she needed the money. Especially the big money he was offering for the job she'd do for him later today.

Most of Stephanie's recent life had been a fake. She just switched off and sailed through whatever shit life had thrown at her. The first dollop of brown stuff came her way when she was a stripper in Hamburg. While working the city's Sinful Mile, the infamous Reeperbahn, she fell head-over-heels in love with an Italian businesswoman. She trusted her heart rather than her brain and moved to Naples. Predictably her new Latin lover turned out to have several other Latin lovers and Steph got dumped within the month. Life was a bitch. Penniless and hungry she'd done anything she had to in order to feed herself. And the latest offer that Valsi had made her would keep her fed for a long time.

'I gotta go,' said the twenty-six-year-old, wriggling out from beneath his muscled arm.

'Not yet. I'm not finished with you.'

Steph glanced at the plastic Swatch on her wrist. 'It's six thirty; you know everything I have to do today.' She sat up on the edge of the bed and felt raw and sore. The sheets were marked with blood from the rough anal sex that he'd made her endure. She felt too dizzy to stand. In a second she'd be okay. She looked across the room to find where her clothes had been thrown.

Valsi grabbed a clump of the thick black hair that hung in little-girl curls down her slim pale back and pulled her towards him.

'Ow! Hey!'

'You got time.' He forced her head towards his groin.

There was no point complaining. No point inviting a beating. Steph switched off. Let her attention drift as she did his bidding. The room was pink and green with the kind of carpets, bedding and curtains that she knew she could never afford. The furniture looked antique. Chairs with curved backs and big dark wood wardrobes with matching chests of drawers. A dressing table full of perfumes and a matching full-length mirror. She had no idea what it was worth but she'd love to have stuff like that.

Valsi finished grunting and rolled away from her. 'Okay, get the fuck out of here.'

Steph struggled painfully to her feet. She walked naked to the bathroom and spat his semen in the sink. He'd told her not to use his toothbrush, or his wife's or child's. Both still stood unashamedly in a glass on a shelf, like two abandoned soldiers. She squirted toothpaste on her finger and scrubbed as best she could.

'There's money on the dresser,' Valsi shouted from the bed as she appeared from the shower, recovered her clothes and dressed.

Steph took the five hundred euros he'd placed next to a photograph of two people she guessed were the owners of the untouchable toothbrushes. With any luck this would be the last time she'd be brutalized by him. He'd promised her ten thousand euros for the job she'd do in two hours' time. Ten grand for a morning's work. Not a fortune, but enough to change your life. Rome, Milan or even Florence were good places to start over if you had that kind of cushion in your purse.

She let herself out without saying goodbye. Lit a cigarette as she walked along the driveway to the iron gates that protected Valsi's house. Usually a man emerged from a wooden security hut to flirt with her and let her through, but today no one came.

'Hello!' she shouted, craning her neck around some large laurels that hid the small hut. 'Hello, could someone let me out, please?'

Steph was about to knock on the window but stopped with her hand in mid-air. 'Madonna Santa! Oh, my sweet God!'

The guard had been shot dead. His blood and brains were sprayed up the wooden back panel of the shed. The man was still seated, his automatic rifle cradled in the crook of his left arm.

Steph froze with fright.

Should she run back to the house and tell Bruno? Or should she just get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible?

She chose the latter.

Shaking. Close to tears. Careful not to look again at the near headless body, she slowly snaked her hand inside the wooden hut and pressed the button that electronically opened the iron gates.

They clanked into life.

She was through them just as soon as the gap was wide enough.

Gone long before they'd finished opening. 7.30 a.m. Casa di famiglia dei Valsi, Camaldoli Bruno Valsi was still in bed when two armed men crept cautiously into his house.

He'd heard them at the front door.

Listened to their hushed voices and creaking feet on the staircase.

Known what to expect.

He grabbed the gun from beneath his pillow, rolled off the far side of the mattress and opened fire.

'Boss, boss! It's us!' The shout came from one of two men who'd just turned up for security duty and found their colleague dead in his hut. 'It's Alfonso and Gerardo.'

Valsi had blasted holes in the bedroom door. 'What the fuck are you doing?' he shouted as they cowered outside the room. 'Get the fuck in here!'

Alfonso, thirty-two years old, entered first; he was white-faced from shock. Gerardo, a young man of just twenty, followed, even more afraid.

Valsi was naked. Kneeling behind the bed. His arms were stretched across the mattress and he gripped a pistol in a shooting stance. 'Put your hands up. Let me see them.'

Their hands went up.

'Walk to the centre of the room.'

They knew the drill. Knew they should never have entered the house without permission.

'So, what the fuck is this about?' he demanded.

'Beppe's dead,' explained Alfonso. 'Someone shot him in his hut and the house intercom is dead as well.'

'What?'

'Bullet in the face. His head is spread everywhere.'

Alfonso looked towards Gerardo. 'Tell Signor Valsi what you found.'

Gerardo was so scared he had trouble speaking. 'L-like Alfonso said, he was dead. He is d-d-dead, Signor Valsi.'

'Calm down.' Valsi waved his gun at the other man. 'Alfonso, throw me those trousers, by the chair.' They looked away as he pulled them on. 'Let's go.' Valsi whipped a used white shirt off the back of the chair, walked barefoot downstairs, through the house and out to the guard hut.

He didn't even blink when he saw Beppe Basso's bloody body. Beppe the Short – that was his nickname – now he really was short.

To be precise, he was about four inches shorter than he used to be.

Valsi bent down inside the hut and found the missing inches, spread across the inside of the roof and the back panel of the guard shelter. 'Fuck and damn!' He banged his fist against the door frame.

He jammed the pistol into the waistband of his pants and turned to Alfonso. 'Call Pennestri and Farina for me. I want them here as soon as possible.'

Valsi headed back to the house. The war was on. This was just the start of it.

He avoided the landline and used an untraceable cellphone to call the Family consigliere.

Ricardo Mazerelli picked up after two rings. 'Pronto.'

'It's Bruno. I have a dead guard here. Shot in his hut. The cops are going to be all over the joint in minutes.'

Valsi listened closely to Mazerelli's reply. Tried to judge from the tone of his voice how shocked he was. 'Okay, I'll get people round. Have you touched anything?' The lawyer sounded unfazed.

'Not the body, but the hut. Alfonso and some kid were here too. They've trampled the fuck out of the place, probably got their prints and hairs all over the stiff.'

Mazerelli noted that Valsi hadn't even had the decency to give the dead guard a name. The guy was a monster. Nobody mattered but himself. 'Have you called the police, or had anyone ring them?'

'No. Not yet. You want that I do that?'

'No. I'll do it. Put the phone down now and get in a taxi and come straight over to my apartment. Bring with you any clothes you were wearing when you went near the guard. Don't speak to anyone else.'