Chapter 2 - Chapter Two

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Part 2

(1)

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Approximately one hour before the above events...

It was a busy night at The Dorsia, an exclusive restaurant in uptown New York City. Busboys weaved between packed tables ferrying plates of immaculately presented haute cuisine and sparkling glasses of three-hundred-dollar-a-bottle champagne to America’s elite. Business men, movie stars, socialites: anybody who was anybody was there. There was hardly an empty seat in the house, apart from one.

At a table near the back of the room sat three men. Two of them were muscle bound thugs with buzz-cut hair, their black Armani suits bunched and stretched over broad shoulders and thick biceps. Obvious lackeys. The man between them was smaller, medium build, and looked incomparably smarter. He had the shrewd eyes of a confidence trickster and was wearing a stylish open collar ox-blood shirt underneath a dark grey sports jacket and slacks. Untouched drinks sat before the trio, beers for the lackeys, an olive-sticked Martini for their boss. A fourth chair at their table stood empty.

"She's not gonna show", said the man on the left, swallowing a mouthful of his beer and wiping the foam from his upper lip with the back of his hand, "musta had a tip-off 'bout what we got planned tonight, and figured she'd back out on the deal".

“Goddamn stuck up English bitch", grumbled the man on the right, "and here I was lookin' forward to gettin' a good close-up and personal look at those famous titties of hers".

"Not to mention that ass", said the man on the left, almost wistfully, "damn, I bet you could bounce a penny off those buns".

"Gentleman,", the man in the middle interrupted, “patience is a virtue. She'll be here. Overlooking for a moment our belated guest’s cavalier attitude towards matters of social etiquette, I’ll say one thing in her favour: she's a woman who knows what she wants, and how to get it. Now, she knows that we have what she wants, she knows where to find us, and she knows what will happen if she doesn’t show. So, she'll be here. And when she does..."

The man's speech trailed off and his eyes took on a predatory glint. A woman had just walked into the restaurant.

The two other men followed their boss's gaze.

“Now that’s...”, said the man on the right.

“...what I'm talkin’ about”, finished the man on the left.

It wasn’t hard to see why the woman had caught their attention. She was wearing a long black trench coat untied and it billowed open as she strode past the maitre-de, revealing beneath it a cut-down version of a familiar attire. Her ample 36-D breasts strained against a strapless aqua top that clung to her chest like a second skin. The thin rubbery material started a couple of inches below her armpits and barely stretched down far enough to cover the undersides of her breasts, displaying the subtle curves of her toned abdominal muscles to the appreciative gaze of every male in the restaurant, many of whom were following her progress between the tables with great interest, if not outright gaping. Her shorts were made of a dark khaki cotton-like material and were cut so high on her thighs and rode so low on her hips that they were more like hot pants. Her long, beautifully toned legs stretched down below them, a pair of knee-high antiqued leather biker boots somehow managing to accentuate the smoothness of her flawless skin. She was carrying a shiny black motorcycle helmet under one arm, and despite the fact that it was dark out, her eyes were hidden behind a stylish pair of mirrored sunglasses. Her hair, a shade or two darker than chestnut brown, was pulled back and arranged immaculately in a glossy French braid, with a few loose shoulder-length bangs framing the serious expression on her beautiful face. She was clearly here for business, not pleasure.

She reached the table at which the three suits were sat and dropped her helmet in the middle of the tablecloth, almost spilling their drinks in the process, then slid into the empty chair. She crossed her legs demurely, and the three men watched as her honey-hued thighs emerged from beneath the parted material of her trench coat.

The middle suit regained his game face first. “Ms Croft”, he said, leaning in to the table and speaking in hushed tones, “I thought we agreed to be discreet”.

“Indeed, Mr Gambini, we did”, replied Lara, “hence my trench coat”.

Gambini bristled at the Englishwoman’s flippant tone.

“You’re late”, he said.

“I’m here”, she replied, “Now, can we get down to business please. As much as this may disappoint you and your associates, Mr Gambini”--she took off her sunglasses, leaned back in her chair and fixed him with a cool supercilious gaze--“I’m not terribly interested in chit-chatting with middle men such as yourselves. Waiter”, she snapped her fingers. Three busboys immediately appeared out of nowhere, almost colliding with each other as they rushed to take the drop-dead gorgeous woman’s drink order.

“Redcoat”, she said, “straight up, double the vodka”. The three young men scribbled furiously on their pads and hurried off towards the bar. They looked like they had a mission in life now. Lara affected nonchalance, inspecting her manicure like a Parisian socialite, but secretly she was pleased by the stir her arrival had caused. It had certainly had the desired effect: distracting Gambini and his men, and drawing the other diners’ attention to their table. So even if Gambini did decide to double-cross her, he would have to think twice before pulling a gun on her. In Lara’s line of work, it always paid to be fashionably late.

“Very well, Ms Croft”, said Gambini, “Business it is. The Axis of Tantalus. My client wants it. You say you can get it for him”. He slid a thick manilla envelope across the table. Lara picked it up and examined the contents. She pulled out a few sheets of paper, architectural blueprints and design schematics, perused them briefly, then flipped through some glossy black and white photographs of the outside of a five-story building.

“Auction house perimeter. Security systems. Vent work. Vaults”, Lara went through a mental checklist, “I commend your attention to detail, Mr Gambini. These will do nicely”.

Gambini felt his blood starting to boil as he took in Lara’s attitude. Just who the fuck did she think she was? He’d met some arrogant women in his line of work before--mafia don’s mols were infamous for the contempt with which they’d treat their sugar daddy’s underlings--but right away he could tell this Croft bitch was in a league of her own when it came to ball-busting feminist bullshit.

Still, business was business. Pleasure would have to wait.

A waitress set Lara’s drink in front of her then paused for a moment, seeming to sense the tension surrounding the table. While Lara was engrossed in the photographs Gambini gave the girl an almost imperceptible nod and she walked away.

“Now, as I recall Ms Croft, we’d already agreed on a rather substantial fee to be transferred into your bank account, on delivery of the axis”.

“Ah, yes. Our agreement”, Lara looked up. She slipped the sheets back into the envelope and tucked it inside her trench coat. “Well I’m afraid there’s been a slight change of plans on that front. You see, I need the Axis of Tantalus for my own private collection. I’m keeping it”.

“We had a deal”, growled Gambini, “I get you the recon and you get me the Axis. That was the deal. Are you telling me you want to back out now?”. His hand inched towards the inside of his jacket as he spoke.

“Quid pro quo, Mr Gambini”, smiled Lara, “I’ll be the one risking my neck for the axis, so I think it’s only fitting that I receive an appropriate compensation. And in case you haven’t noticed”, she picked up her drink, swallowed it in a single gulp, and slipped on her sunglasses, “I’m already quite rich”.

“No deal, Croft”, said Gambini. He pulled a gun fitted with a silencer-barrel out from under his jacket. Taking care to keep it concealed behind an open menu he aimed it towards Lara's abdomen.

“That’s a shame”, Lara shrugged, “still, as an employer, you’ll have to give me at least partial credit for integrity. I mean, I am giving you a rather sporting chance to try and stop me”.

“As an employee, Ms Croft”, replied Gambini, “you can consider this your severance payment”. His finger tightened on the trigger, but suddenly he stopped, perplexed. Lara seemed very slowly to be moving away from him. Too late he noticed she was tilting back in her chair. The subtle movement shifted her centre of gravity past the point at which the back legs supported her weight, and, falling backwards--CRASH!--she kicked the table up into the three men’s faces. Half-empty beers and an untouched martini flew through the air, drenching the men’s suits. They stumbled from their chairs. Lara extended both her arms above her head, arched her back, and swung her legs through one-hundred-and-eighty degrees; working with her body’s natural momentum, she pushed her hands hard against the polished wooden floorboards behind her and executed an elegant backflip just as her chair toppled over. She tumbled and cart-wheeled, landing on her feet a few yards away with all the poise of an olympic gymnast, spun on the ball of her foot and sprinted for the exit, her black trench-coat billowing out behind her like a cape.

“You double crossing bitch!”, Gambini yelled after her. He tried to draw a bead on her as she dodged and weaved her way between the tables, but thought better of it. Hitting one of the diners in a place like this would have been a headache.

As she exited the restaurant Lara glanced back at Gambini with a smile that said ‘better luck next time’. Then she disappeared through the double doors and out into the night.

Gambini stood in the middle of the restaurant, his brow contacted down between his eyes in anger. His designer suit dripped Martini. A hundred or so of New York’s richest and most famous stared at him in disbelief. The place was almost silent. He waited until he heard Lara’s motorbike speed off into the distance, then slipped his gun back inside the shoulder holster underneath his jacket.

Slowly his face relaxed. He shook his head and grinned cooly. Paying no attention to the effete protests of an irate maitre-de and the dirty looks his fellow diners were giving him, he pulled out a mobile phone and speed-dialed a number, getting a pickup almost immediately.

“Everything went according to plan,” he said, “She has the location, and the blueprints. She took the bait hook, line, and sinker... No sir, you were not misinformed. She is every bit as attractive as you described. In fact, having encountered her in the flesh, so to speak, I feel compelled to make a small request. If it's not too much of an imposition, I would very much appreciate some--how shall I put this?--private time with the package before it is delivered”. He listened to the voice at the end of the line for a moment, then his grin widened: “You are truly a generous man, Mr Steele ”.

He hung up and signalled for his companions to follow him.

The three men strode out of the restaurant as though nothing had happened, eagerly anticipating their next encounter with Lara Croft.

---

Bloody amateurs.

A minute later Lara was already more than a mile away, swerving through gridlocked traffic on her sleek, custom-built Triumph Daytona sports bike. She was heading downtown to the location specified in Gambini’s intel, the passage she carved between the columns of slow moving cars so narrow that the black fabric of her trench coat flicked against their side windows and wing mirrors.

Lara had no time for men like Gambini. She’d met his type a dozen times in her line of work, and she knew exactly how to deal with them. In fact, he and his lackeys were the inspiration for tonight’s unusually risqué outfit. Despite her cool and impassive exterior, Lara was well aware of how men were affected by her stunning good looks. She knew that all she had to do was flash a little skin, add a teasing sway to her hips as she walked, maybe pout her lips a little more than usual, and no matter how good a shot they were, no matter how many men they’d killed or how much of a bad-ass, no-nonsense reputation they had, with her they’d always be off their guards, just a second slower in their reaction time. And that second was all she ever needed.

Up ahead she spotted an off-ramp. She was just itching for an opportunity to pull back on the bike’s powerful throttle and burn some rubber, so she cut across two lanes of traffic, eliciting a string of angry horn blasts from the motorists caught up in the jam. Scarcely even slowing down as she approached the toll booth, she flipped some change into the coin slot, ducked her head underneath the rising barrier and shot through the gates.

The three open lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike stretched out ahead of her. Grinning inside her helmet, Lara gunned the bike’s engine and roared off into the night.

She’d had her eye on the Axis of Tantalus for almost three months now. It was an ancient Grecian artefact dating back to around 600 BC which, according to Lara’s research, was an integral part of the last known ritual murders to have been carried out in Athens. Contemporary folklore had it that the Axis was imbued with various magical powers, among them the ability to control the physical movements of potential human sacrifices. Allegedly, the artefact could force unsuspecting victims to offer themselves up to the gods.

Of course Lara didn’t put much faith in such superstitious nonsense. She wasn’t interested in the Axis for its supposed mystical properties. She wanted it because it was priceless, one of a kind, and, besides, its old-world craftsmanship went well with her trophy-room décor. She just had to have it.

So she’d tracked down the location of the Axis to Rhodes and earlier this year had organised an expedition there, only to discover an empty and derelict tomb strewn with the telltale signs of smash-and-grab treasure hunters. In other words, someone had beaten her to it. And whoever it was had now decided to auction off the Axis at the Manhattan branch of Sotheby’s.

Unless I manage to nick off with it first, Lara smirked. Harsh florescent lights flashed across the mirrored visor of her motorcycle helmet as she sped through Lincoln Tunnel at an even eighty miles per hour, then she hung a left onto FDR Drive. But it was a cold winter’s night and the fast-moving air whipped against her exposed skin, goose-pimpling her arms and making her whole body shiver beneath the billowing fabric of her trench coat. So she leaned down to the bike’s gas tank and flattened her belly against the hot vibrating metal until it took away the chill. Off in the distance she could just about make out the floodlit tree line of Central Park. She was almost there. With some reluctance she eased back on the throttle and cruised the last few hundred metres, screeching to a halt outside the rather grand art-deco façade of the auction house.

According to Gambini’s information, the Axis was being kept in the building’s high-security vault which was located on the fifth floor. Lara ran her eyes over the front wall; she was pretty confident in her ability to scale it. There were certainly enough hand-grips and ledges, her bread and butter. But it was too exposed. Even at this time of night the street was a fairly busy thoroughfare, and there was always the chance that a cop car might cruise by at any moment. Lara didn’t want to have to shoot her way out of an attempted auction house break-in. That kind of thing could quite ruin a girl’s reputation.

So she parked her bike in an out of the way spot, taking some essential supplies and gadgets from a secret compartment she’d had built into the chassis. When she was sure no one was watching she climbed over a chain-link fence and made her way around to the back of the building.

Now this is more my cup of tea. Lara looked up at the sheer surface of the auction house’s back wall. Her grapple-gun hissed out compressed gas for a second and a rope whipped its way skywards, the metallic clink of the three-pronged hook sounding out a moment later, assuring Lara that her aim had been spot-on. She gave the rope a couple of cursory tugs, then wall-walked her way up to the roof. Once there she quickly located the building’s central ventilation exhaust outlet and removed the grill.

She savoured a few last lungfuls of the crisp evening air, feeling the same wicked shiver of anticipation she’d always feel running down her spine when she was about to enter a potentially life-threatening situation. But for Lara this was the only way to live. It was like an addiction, and it drove her to her limits to fulfil it. The anticipation, the danger, the thrill of the chase; Lara needed these things to make her feel alive. In the back of her mind she knew that someday her addiction had to catch up with her, that someday she’d overstep the razor-thin line that separated peril from disaster. But not tonight, not to a dime-a-dozen low-rent thug like Gambini. If he was the worst this job had to offer, she had nothing to worry about.

She closed her eyes and touched her fingertips to her left shoulder then her right shoulder then her chest and then her solar-plexus, and said a silent prayer before slipping inside the claustrophobic maze of air vents.

---

In a spacious and luxuriously decorated office Vincent Steele relaxed in a leather recliner and scanned an entire wall’s worth of CCTV screens. Steele was a well-preserved man in his early fifties with shoulder-length silver hair, dressed in a tailored mid-grey suit that cost as much as a car. A carved mahogany desk stood behind him, immaculately neat, with stacks of papers, solid gold pens and a humidor, all arranged in perfect symmetry. There were pictures on the walls, black and white nudes of women’s bodies posed like writhing portraits, fragmented and anonymous, all curves and smooth moist skin, dimpled smalls of backs and down-whispered backs of necks, toned calves above slender ankles above feet arched in shiny high-heeled shoes. The dimmers were turned down almost to pitch-blackness and the only light in the room emanated palely from the screens.

He watched with the ghost of a smile as the tomb raider crossed herself and squeezed her attractive rump though an exhaust outlet and into his auction house. She was walking straight into the trap he’d been arranging for the past three months. He had provided the anonymous tip which had led Lara to Rhodes in the first place. And once she was there, he’d ensured she’d find a trail of clues which would lead her, via Gambini, to an uptown auction house in the middle of an American winter. And he still had a few surprises up his sleeve which he planned to spring on the unsuspecting heiress before the evening was out. But for now he relaxed back in his chair, perused close-ups of Lara’s voluptuous figure as she crawled through the building’s ventilation shafts, and enjoyed a long, slow blow job from his body guard, personal sex-slave, and right hand woman, a beautiful black-haired asian girl named Kaede Shizura.

The girl was wearing a two piece outfit in blood red consisting of skin-tight leather trousers and a lacy satin bustier. She wore leather ankle boots with stiletto heels, and two lengths of red satin were wrapped around her forearms and wrists like stylised bandages. Twin Sai daggers, elegant but deadly blades with long thin hilts and sharpened prongs projecting from the handles, were sheathed in an X behind her back. Her hair was perfectly straight and as black as liquid onyx; it cascaded down the sides of her face and was draped like sheets of silk over Steele’s naked thighs, complimenting her fervent oral action on his cock with a cool and feather-soft sensation on his legs that almost tickled. Her eyes, soulful and jade-green, stared up at her master, reading the shifting expressions on his face as she slowly worked her mouth back and forth along the length of his cock.

She worked him like a pro, sometimes holding just the head in her mouth, her lips clasped tightly around the impressive girth as she sucked until her cheeks hollowed out and she tasted drops of her master’s salty precum on her tongue; sometimes relaxing her throat-muscles and taking the entire length into her mouth until her nose was buried in his pubic hair, holding it there as she worked her oesophagus methodically over the sensitive head, before sliding inch-by-inch back up towards the tip and repeating the process over and over again until she almost choked on his thick meat and had to come up for air. Then she softly pumped the shaft with one hand, squeezing and fondling his balls gently with her other hand, exploring every crevice, vein and artery in his sensitive member with the soft wet flesh of her tongue, working it under his foreskin, licking every tube and sinew in his steel-hard cock, occasionally even prodding the pink tip tenderly into his piss-hole, impatient for the cum that boiled in his balls.

Given the amount of effort she was putting into her oral endeavours, the girl was slightly disappointed when she noticed that Steele seemed more interested in the gold-plated pocket watch that he held in his hand. He was looking at the watch with a stern expression that shifted to displeasure as the seconds ticked by.

On one of the monitors in front of him Lara had stopped at a junction in the ventilation system. She checked Gambini’s blueprints for a moment, wiped the sweat from her brow, then continued her on her way. Steele knew she’d almost reached the vault where the Axis was being kept. That was fine, all part of his plan. He actually wanted her to find the artefact. The only problem was that she was early. And Gambini was late.

He speed dialled a number on his cellphone and started talking before his henchman could even say hello: “Mr. Gambini, I need two pieces of information from you at this moment, and nothing more: location and ETA. Speak”.

“Ah, y-yes sir”, answered Gambini, sounding as though he’d been dreading this call, “I’m sorry about this but the traffic down here is murder. There’s a goddamn tailback reaching all the way from...”

“Mr. Gambini”, interrupted Steele, “I’m not a man accustomed to repeating myself”. Despite the immediacy of the situation Steele’s voice remained smooth and even, almost friendly. But Gambini seemed to get the message.

“We’re in the Lincoln Tunnel, sir, stuck in traffic. ETA, twenty minutes”, he said.

Steele’s face darkened for a second. The girl noticed the change in her master’s expression and started to lift her head up from his lap, clearly about to make a suggestion. Before she could do so Steele grabbed a handful of her hair and angrily pushed her back down, forcing her to take every inch of his cock down her throat.

“When I want your opinion, Ms Shizura, I will ask for it. Until then, just stick to what you’re best at”. The girl was unprepared for the sudden obstruction in her throat and gagged in obvious discomfort as the thick shaft stretched out her oesophagus, cutting off her air supply. Tears welled up in her eyes. Through them she tried to communicate something to the man above her, who, unfortunately for her, ignored her pleas and continued his discussion with Gambini, all the while maintaining a firm hold on the back of her head, forcing her lower lip up against his ball sack and keeping it there as she retched and strained against his hand.

“Do you know how long I’ve been planning tonight’s events, Mr Gambini?”, asked Steele, “Are you aware of just how many people, how many important, rich and, indeed, dangerous people, are relying on the success of tonight’s project?”

“Yes sir, b-but if you’ll just...”

“And do you have any comprehension of the repercussions to which I, and by extension you, will be exposed should our plans fail?”, he interrupted his lackey, his voice still calm enough, although a hint of disquiet now creased his brow.

“Yes sir, b-but surely you can’t hold me responsible for the...”.

“You know as well as I do, Mr Gambini, that tonight’s events must run as smooth as clockwork, that the only the way to capture someone in possession of Ms. Croft’s considerable talents is to eliminate all possible avenues of escape, to immure her within a confluence of inexorable circumstances”.

“Yes sir, I understand, but...”

“And that your inability to fulfil the duties assigned to you therein will not only result in your dismissal from my employ and the forfeiture of any monetary recompense to which you may consider yourself entitled, but may well also lead to your untimely and might I add unpleasant demise”.

“Of course, sir, I understand completely, it’s just that I...”

“That’s enough, Mr. Gambini”, said Steele.

He’d finally noticed the expression in the girl’s eyes. He looked down at her for a few seconds, probing the pale green orbs that flickered and winced before his gaze, and a telepathic message seemed to pass between the two.

“Excellent”, he smiled. He opened the humidor on his desk and unwrapped a thick Cuban Corona Grande. He sliced off the tip with a solid gold guillotine then rolled the other end in the flaring flame of a long cigar match. Swirling clouds of smoke issued from his mouth and unribboned in the air.

“Sir?”, asked Gambini, unnerved by the silence at the other end of the line, “Do you have... a plan?”.

“I have a plan”, confirmed Steele, finally releasing his hold on the the girl’s head. She jerked back from his cock, coughing and spluttering as she struggled to catch her breath. But the visible signs of her discomfort lasted for only a few seconds. She quickly regained her composure and, staring up into her master’s eyes, dutifully wiped his cock clean of her saliva and slid it back into his boxers. Her expression remained inscrutable, her lips curved in a polite and innocent smile as, without a word of protest, she pulled his trousers up, buttoned them, rezipped his fly and buckled his belt. Then she knelt down in front of him, placed her palms on the floor, forming a perfect triangle between her index fingers and thumbs, and bowed down until her forehead grazed the carpet. Steele sat back and blew smoke rings.

“You can finish me off after you’ve dealt with her”, he grinned, gesturing with his chin at one of the screens, where Lara Croft could be seen dropping down from a hole in a ventilation shaft that traversed the ceiling of a large metal room.

“Hai”, was the girl’s only response, spoken in soft and deferential tones.

“But remember, Kaede”, warned Steele, “we need her alive, with no visible injuries. Ms. Croft has to look her best for tonight’s big show. So none of your usual... antics. Understand?”

“Hai”, repeated the girl, her expression still polite and submissive.

As she stood up and walked out of the room however, the whisper of a wicked smile curled at the corner of her mouth.

End of Part 2