DAVID JOHN JONES

The Enemy Within is a fast-paced thriller containing in the story: revenge, graphic language with no f-bombs, violence, adult sex and sexual activities, animal attacks and the threat of animal attack where no animals are injured or killed, hand-to-hand combat, affairs, torture, bankruptcy, betrayal, illegal imprisonment, kidnapping, home invasion, verbal and physical threats, human and animal bodily functions, abandonment, buried up to the neck, full and partial adult nudity, corruption, guns and guns being pointed at people, switch blades and knives, thrown overboard and abandoned at sea. Readers who may be sensitive to any of these points, please take note, and welcome to the world of Domini Parrino…
 

Chapter 1

A vicious summer heatwave had L.A. locked in its jaws with no end in sight. The mercury was on the wrong side of unbearable, and everyone was cursing the unrelenting heat.

I’d waited as late as possible to head out and do the weekly shop, or as I called it the shopping cart endurance race: The greatest motor race on earth, where the cars use no fuel and the winner gives their prize money to the store, at the end of the race, for the privilege of taking part.

The sun was kissing the horizon, but it was still as hot as hell.

I parked as close to the front entrance of the supermarket and the nearest shopping carts as I could. I then braved the inferno and rushed to grab a cart before making a beeline for the automatic doors that opened and welcomed me into the air-conditioned sanctuary. I stood for a few seconds to let the chill envelop me. And then steeled myself for the start of the race.

The one thing that I hated more than anything else: grocery shopping! The thought of battling my way around a supermarket, getting around people who stop in the middle of an aisle to chat with someone, and trying not to get run over by people distracted by their grocery lists, just filled me with dread.

Don’t racing cars get faster as they near the end of a race and burn off fuel? Yet as I neared the end of this week’s race, without a racing incident, I got slower and slower as my cart filled up, and the damn thing got harder to push.

I hit the checkout! My full-to-the-brim cart now thought it knew where it wanted to go better than I did. And it wanted to show me who called the shots as we crossed the finishing line.

Now with my temper fired up, I scooped armfuls of groceries onto the checkout belt, pushed the cart to the end of the checkout, and loaded it with bags of groceries. I found out that several of my coupons had expired, not helping my temper one bit, and I’d forgotten my loyalty card, so nothing extra off my shopping this week—wave bye-bye to my prize money!

With my temper primed, cart back to being awkward as hell, I braced myself as the automatic doors opened and the furnace outside welcomed me back into its suffocating embrace.

I paused for a few seconds as the heat pummeled me, located where I’d parked my black Range Rover in the fading twilight, and started out across the asphalt Sahara, praying the cart wouldn’t leave me stranded in no-man’s-land.

With several yards to go, the parking lot lights flickered in to life and the back wheels locked; as if the lights had startled the cart and it had nowhere to hide. I pushed, and it refused to budge. Covered in the sheen from my furnace induced exertion, I gave a sharp tug to the side and the back wheels surrendered—the victory was mine!

I reached the tailgate of my Range Rover, tugged the possessed cart to its last spot, and kicked one of the back wheels, letting it know I’d won the fight.

As the powered split tailgate opened, I took two steps back to avoid the wall of heat that came blasting straight out towards me. I didn’t step back far enough. The heat blast washed over me. If this heatwave keeps up, that lot of mine can get their own damn groceries next week!

I grabbed two bags from the cart and dumped them into the trunk. One bag tipped over and two coconuts rolled out. I shook my head and seized the offending coconuts—

“HELP! Somebody…please help!”

The shrill scream for help stopped me in my tracks. And with the hair on the back of my neck standing, I snapped upright, looking for the source of the scream. And through the heat haze of the black leather interior of my Range Rover, I identified it. Two people fighting over something.

I felt my blood rush to my head and my hands gripped the coconuts so hard that my knuckles turned white. This sure as hell isn’t happening on my watch!

I rushed along the side of my Range Rover and, free of its bulk, I saw the full picture. A Hispanic woman, plump and homely looking, with bags of groceries scattered at her feet, stood by the open trunk of a car. She had her hands locked around one end of a lady’s purse. The man, with dirty, scruffy hair, wearing filthy clothes, a University of Life drop out, had his hands locked around the opposite end of the purse. The strap looked ready to break.

As I cleared the front of my Range Rover, the man fixed me with a mean stare, his eyes full of anger. “Nothing for you, bitch, piss off!” the venom in his voice shocked me. His next action made me scared for the woman’s safety. Taking one hand off the purse, he reached around to the small of his back and produced a hunting knife. But it wasn’t for me. He had other plans.

In one quick movement, the blade cut through the strap of the purse. And with one last tug, he had it! He turned on a dime and rushed off with his prize.

The woman, putting her hands up to her face, screamed out, “MY MONEY! It’s all I’ve got!”

I reached the hysterical woman, fired up with anger. I shouted at the top of my lungs, “Hey! Barf bag!” the power of my voice as it boomed out across the parking lot surprised even me.

The man stopped in his tracks. His head snapped around, and he looked straight at me—his eyes intense and menacing. I took several steps towards him and he raised the knife, let out a snarl, and rushed straight towards me.

I had the coconuts, and he could have as many of them as he liked. He only made several strides before I launched my attack. “Piss this!” And I let the first coconut fly straight at his groin. The coconut hit. Stopping him in his tracks. He let out a terrible groan, dropped the purse and knife, and, clutching his groin, fell to his knees. Tears flowed down his cheeks as the pain kicked in, and he bowed his head, moaning to himself.

The woman latched herself onto me with a bear hug. “Thank you, thank you, it’s all I have until—”

I removed myself from the bear hug. “Wait here.” I marched over to the man, kicked the knife away, and picked up the lady’s purse. I turned and started back to her. Before I could reach her, a snarl from behind stopped me mid-stride.

“You bitch! I’ll—” he didn’t have time to get his words out. Snapping around to face him, I closed the distance between us in a few steps, grabbed his scruffy hair, lifted his head up, and placed my face inches from his. His smell assaulted my nostrils.

In the distance, I could hear a siren getting closer. I glanced up and noticed another woman on a cell phone. I nodded to her, and she returned my nod. Help was on the way.

I returned my attention to the robber. “Sounds like you’re gonna have a lot of explaining to do, you yutz!” As I let go, I threw his head forward with force. I turned, returned to the woman, and handed her back her purse.

“Look out!” The woman pointed behind me. Hearing a groan, I spun around and locked eyes on the man. The robber had two knives! He now had a knife with a smaller blade. After a few seconds, he got to his feet, with his other hand still on his groin and pain etched on his face, as he started towards me, taking comical baby steps.

This guy had tried my patience for the last time. I switched hands with the remaining coconut and launched it straight at the top of his head. It hit full force with a thud. His head rocked backwards as he dropped the knife and fell forward onto his front, out for the count.

A police cruiser, lights blazing, charged towards us across the parking lot.

The woman, who appeared to be in her mid-forties, the same as me, looked up from checking her purse. Her eyes now had tears of joy instead of sadness as she looked at me. “Thank you so much, it’s all I have until payday.” She beamed at me with a smile of gratitude. “My name’s Maria…Maria Espina,” she announced, getting her composure back.

“You’re welcome Maria, glad I could help. I’m Domini Parrino.” And I returned her warm smile and cupped my hands around hers. “After we’ve given our statements and tidied everything up, would you like to go for a coffee on me?”

“Thank you, Domini, that would be nice.”

Chapter 2

A portable air-conditioning unit sat in the backroom’s corner at my bar and grill, wheezing and panting like a drunken man trying to please a passionate woman.

I made a mental note to get the air-conditioning fixed in the morning and placed the thought on the back burner. My mind now focused on our weekly game.

I was sitting at a circular green baize table with a pile of poker chips in the middle. The chips coming from the kind generosity of the three poker stool pigeons sitting at the small bar on one side of the room, drowning their sorrows with liquor, while waiting to see which remaining titan would go home with their money tonight.

I glanced up across the small mountain of poker chips to see my final two opponents. Harry Kava, a stern-looking man in his late-sixties, but with an enormous heart and a huge zest for life, bubbled over with joy.

“I’ve never seen someone so happy to lose money. What the hell is it?” I fixed Harry with a stern stare.

Harry flashed his white dentures at me. “Our Domini’s a regular hero, saved a woman from a robber earlier this evening. So she did. It was on the news before I came out.”

A round of applause broke out.

I knew I should have shoved that stringer’s camera where the sun doesn’t shine!

I didn’t enjoy the attention and raised my hand to stop them. “It was nothing, right place, right time,” I replied. “Now, you playing poker or you gonna bore us to death with news?” I waited to see what Harry would say next.

He grinned at me. “Might do,” he said. “So, what happened to them? Didn’t catch that bit, wife changed the channel.”

“I wish you’d change the channel!” I just wanted to get on with the game. Harry was in one of his ‘twenty questions’ moods tonight.

“Well, the woman has a name, it’s Maria. She’s a single mother with two wonderful teenage boys. Her husband died two years back in a hunting accident. And for the yutz, it’s strike three. So he won’t be troubling anyone soon.”

My second opponent, Josh Crawford, was in his late twenties. I watched him tapping a chip on the table. I knew he had nervous energy, but this evening he was wound up like a mainspring ready to snap!

“Come on, get on with the game. I’m hot tonight!” And he rubbed his heavy stubble with his other hand.

“Careful what you wish for.” And I looked down at my cards and then fixed my two opponents with my best poker face. “Now where were we? Oh, yeah, showtime.”

Harry flipped over his cards. “A pair!” And his eyes scanned us to see if one of us would call next or fold our hand. As his dentures lit up the room.

Josh turned his cards over with such force the table jumped and the chips in the pot rattled. “All mine! Read them and weep. Three of a kind!” And Josh lunged across the table and dragged the chips towards him.

“Not so fast,” I said. Josh locked eyes with me and shook his head. I turned over my cards. “Four of a kind!”

Josh slumped back into his chair and banged the table with his fists. He glared at the chips and started shaking his head once more. After a few seconds, he stopped shaking his head and exploded from his chair, planting his fists on the table, and leaning over towards me. His arms, covered in tattoos of cards, chips and dice, shaking in anger.

“That’s my money! I won it fair, you cheating bitch!”

Harry and the guys at the bar rushed toward Josh. I raised my hand, and they stopped in their tracks.

I launched from my chair, my face contorted in anger, and I lent across the table. With our faces a few feet apart, I spat back at Josh, “What the hell, you calling me a cheat?”

“It’s your place you can cut the drinks and cheat at—”

I cut the legs from under him. “My mother taught me to run a bar and my father taught me poker. They taught me to play fair and fight fair. Who the hell—”

Josh now had fear written on his face, and he shook. “You wouldn’t know how to play or fight fair…screw you!”

Josh lunged at me across the table, catching everyone, including myself, off guard. I just stepped back far enough so he couldn’t get his hands on me. He moved so fast that he lost his balance, falling onto the pile of chips and scattering them across the table and onto the floor.

Josh looked up at me, fire in his eyes, and started pushing himself up off the table. I took a split second to react. I seized the plastic chip rack off the table. And with the remaining chips in the rack flying over my shoulder, I swung the chip rack, hitting the side of Josh’s head. He fell to the floor in a daze.

“You call that a fair fight?” Harry said, while gesturing towards Josh.

“Back in the old country, if you’re the last person standing, it was a fair fight!”

With a full head of steam, I grabbed a pitcher full of iced water off the side table and dumped it over Josh’s head. It brought Josh around from his malaise as he let out a cry from the shock of the icy water.

“I invite you to join our weekly game and this is—screw you! You’re barred for life!” I glared at the others. “Get this yutz out of my sight and off my property!”

Chapter 3

The gym pulsated with activity. Gym equipment echoed and clanged as people moaned and groaned their way through their workouts.

In one corner, an aerobics class belted out loud music. The music reverberated through the entire gym as the class endured the torture of the exercises they were being made to do. If that’s their idea of enjoyable exercise, they can shove it. I’d rather get cooked alive!

I preferred to exercise using the cross trainer. It allowed me to get my hands on something so I could work out my aggression and frustrations without ending up doing twenty-five to life! I pushed on with my exercise routine and increased the pace.

On the cross trainer next to me, my best friend, Benetta Lombardi, two years younger than me at forty-three, and also of Italian descent, kept up with me stride for stride. Keeping the toned and perfect bodies we had meant putting in the exercise to stay fit and sexy.

“He did what?”

“Lost it altogether after I’d won,” I said between breaths.

“That’s crackers. Why would he? This is the same Josh?” Benetta glanced over at me.

“Yes, after all these months, this is what he does.” And I returned her glance.

“The bastard!”

“He’s barred and old news,” I said as I upped the pace of my exercise and Benetta matched me stride for stride.

“So, changing the subject, what do you think of mint and strawberry flavor ice cream?”.

“We can’t sell that in our bakery,” I panted.

“Why the hell not? Other bakeries sell cakes and muffins with frosting. Selling ice cream will bring in more customers.”

“It doesn’t sound right to me, and besides—”

“You’re one great looking MILF,” a firm male voice announced from behind us.

I glanced over at Benetta and we both stopped our exercise and looked back. A bodybuilder with muscles upon muscles stood with his legs apart. He looked at me, and I felt his eyes undressing me. I hated it!

Benetta and I got off our cross trainers to deal with this annoyance of an interruption.

“You talking to me?” Benetta said.

“No, her.” And the bodybuilder pointed straight at me.

“What did you call me, milk?” And I fixed him with a stern stare.

“No, it was MILF,” Benetta corrected me.

“What’s a MILF?” And I looked quizzically at Benetta.

“Think it’s like a cougar, you know, like on that TV show.”

“Oh, okay.” And I returned to melting the bodybuilder with my stare. “I’m hot, sweaty, and—”

“Hot, real hot, and sexy. You want—”

Now this annoying boy in a man’s body was getting on the wrong side of my rapidly thinning patience. “To have a shower, you yutz!”

Then an idea came to me. I glanced at Benetta and winked. She smiled and raised her eyebrows. The game was on!

I put a finger to the corner of my mouth and seductively walked up to the bodybuilder. I looked up into his eyes and casually licked my lips. The bodybuilder’s eyes almost popped out of his head!

He was eating out of my hands. I was wearing a halter exercise top and pushed my sweaty cleavage out. He couldn’t resist.

“Wait…there’s something I’ve always wanted to know.” And I glanced back at Benetta. She needed all self-control to stop laughing.

I slid up to the bodybuilder and pressed my sweaty cleavage to his torso. I looked him straight in the eyes. And set the trap!

I grabbed his groin and squeezed hard. The bodybuilder’s eyes bulged as he emitted a high-pitched sound, and bent at his knees.

“Well, I never, it is true…nice bodywork, small engine!” I announced at the top of my voice so the small audience that had gathered around could hear me over the loud music from the aerobics class.

The audience laughed at the bodybuilder’s expense. I put the bodybuilder out of his misery by letting go of his groin. He couldn’t speak, he just mouthed the words “Thank you”, and stayed rooted to the spot with his hands on his groin.

I turned and walked back to Benetta. She wagged a finger at me like a mother chastising a child. We both burst out laughing like two teenage schoolgirls.

“Wanna go try this new ice cream?” Benetta blurted out in between giggles.

“Yeah, in the mood for some indulgence after getting shortchanged,” I said in a matter-of-fact way.

The giggling fit continued as we made our way to the changing rooms.