get all this shit on my flight?”
“I’m the shit, remember?” he said with a cocky grin. “Private jet. Only the best for you, Ty baby.”
She briefly considered giving him another kiss, but he looked too damn hopeful.
“I don’t suppose you thought to bring me any clothes, did you?” she asked, pissed that she hadn’t put it on her list of required items.
He grinned again and shoved a pair of jeans and a T-shirt at her. “As long as I get to watch you peel out of that wetsuit, I’ll even throw in a pair of boots.”
“Casse-toi.”
“Oooh, French now. My life’s ambition is to get you to curse at me in Russian while we make love.”
She laughed. Honest to God, how could you do anything else around this irreverent bastard.
“My Russian is rusty. I’d probably just end up telling you what a small dick you have.”
He looked affronted. “Hey now, no need to get all personal on me.”
“Besides, my tits aren’t big enough for you, tit-man.” Tits had gotten his nickname way back when for his affinity for big-busted women. His type had little in the brains department. Tyana was convinced that smart women scared him. It made no sense to her that a guy as intelligent as Tits would be so terrified of a woman with a brain, but then men were a mystery to her. One she didn’t have any real interest in solving.
“For you, I’d make a sacrifice.”
“I’d have to dumb down too much for you,” she said sweetly. “Now turn your head while I turn my back so I can get out of this damn wetsuit.”
She swiveled around, knowing full well he wouldn’t do the same, but the most he’d see was her ass, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t saved it enough. She figured he deserved a glimpse.
He proved her right by whistling when she wiggled out of the wetsuit. She shook her head and thrust her legs into the pants and then pulled the T-shirt over her head. When she turned around, she threw the wetsuit at him, smacking him on the chest.
He grinned, tossed it aside then shoved a pair of boots toward her, complete with a pair of socks. There was a reason he did so much work for Falcon. He never missed the details.
“You realize this is going to put you into hot water with Jonah,” she said as she pulled on the socks and proceeded to lace up her boots.
He leaned back, adopting a casual slouch look that fit him perfectly. “Nah. He’ll be pissed. Ain’t no doubt about that. He’ll threaten to kick my ass. I’ll threaten to kick his. We’ll scratch our balls, but at the end of the day he knows he needs me.”
Her shoulders shook with silent laughter. For all the hilarity, it was a pretty accurate description of what would happen. Jonah would be furious, and he’d threaten all sorts of things, and with anyone else, he’d totally carry them out. But Tits? No way Jonah was going to bite the hand that had fed them on too many occasions.
“Well, thanks. I would have had a hell of a time getting off the island without your help.”
His expression darkened, and the light teasing was gone in a second. “I’m only doing this because I want to help D. If you think I’d let you put that pretty ass of yours in this kind of danger for any other reason, you’re short a few brain cells that I’ve always attributed to you. You’re a big girl. You can take care of business, ain’t no doubt, but I don’t like it. I don’t blame Jonah a bit for shutting your ass down. But D and I are tight, and I’ll do anything to help my brother out.”
“You and me both,” Tyana whispered.
He held out a beefy fist, and she balled her own fingers into a fist and bumped it against his.
“You holler if you get into any trouble, you hear?”
“Yeah, I hear. Don’t worry. I’m hoping this doesn’t take more than a few days at most. Then I can go back so Jonah can toss me out of FMG, and I can come to work for you.”
“You’d have to have bigger tits,” he said with a slow perusal of her chest.
“You are such an asshole,” she muttered.
Chapter Eleven
When Tyana touched down in Paris, she immediately called Esteban to set up a meeting. He didn’t sound surprised to hear from her, but then he thought he held all the cards.
She checked into a hostel with the fake passport Tits had arranged and took a hasty shower to wash the sea grime from her body. She was starving, but she’d take care of that problem after she met with Esteban.
She shoved her stash of weapons under the bed but armed herself with the knife Mad Dog had given her, something she never went anywhere without. Deciding a couple more wouldn’t hurt, she slipped two into the sleeves of her boots.
Hastily pulling her hair into a ponytail, she then donned a light jacket over her muscle shirt and headed out to her meeting with Esteban. Dusk wasn’t too far off, though there was still plenty of light for her to stay aware of her surroundings.
She hated hotel meetings. Too closed in. Not open or public enough for her tastes. But Esteban had given her instructions to meet him in his suite at a swank hotel near Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Pretentious bastard.
She made a careful sweep of the area as she left the hostel and began walking casually down the street. She pulled a backpack over one arm, giving the appearance of just another college kid hiking across Europe.
After three blocks her neck prickled, and she fought the urge to do the clichéd stop and check. She didn’t want to give away her suspicions, but she was certain she’d picked up a tail.
When she crossed the street at the next intersection, she glanced right to observe the sidewalk she’d just come from. Nothing immediately jumped out at her, but then a man wearing a leather coat, expensive Italian loafers and what looked to be tailor-made slacks made eye contact with her.
She grinned flirtatiously and gave him an appreciative look, but he didn’t respond. No acknowledgement. Just a cold stare, straight through her.
The question was, who did he work for? Esteban? Eli Chance? Someone else entirely? It so wasn’t Jonah’s style to hire a henchman. No, he’d come after her himself and haul her ass back to the island.
For that matter Eli didn’t strike her as the type to hire others to do his dirty work, either. He’d looked her up personally after the deal in Singapore.
That only left Esteban, and maybe he was making sure she hadn’t set him up. She’d find out soon enough.
She didn’t want to take the impending confrontation too public, so she veered off the main stretch and ducked into the narrow alleyways lining the back streets. It was quieter back here, though certainly not noiseless.
She kept her stance casual as she rounded the next corner, but as soon as she was out of sight, she flattened herself against the building and waited.
Suave Guy turned the corner a few seconds later, and she lashed out with a kick to his midsection. He doubled over and stumbled back. She launched herself at him, but he recovered quickly, landing a fist to her mouth.
Her head flew back in pain as her lip split. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. She spit, and it spattered on the street.
“At least you don’t hit like a pussy, despite appearances to the contrary,” she taunted.
His eyes flashed at the insult, and he swung again, but this time she was prepared. She blocked his fist, planted her boot in his balls, and when he folded over with a bellow of pain, she slugged him and sent him sprawling to the pavement.
She wrenched her knife from the inside of her jacket and followed him down, pressing the blade against the crotch of those nice, expensive slacks. She rotated her wrist in one of those flashy moves Mad Dog had taught her that was more for intimidation than anything else.
“Unless you want to lose the jewels, you tell me who the fuck you are and what you want.”
His eyes betrayed him. His gaze skittered beyond her face, and she saw a glint of satisfaction.
She reacted solely on instinct, whirling and thrusting with her knife. It collided with a muscular arm, and she lost her grip on the handle as the blade slipped deep.
A hand snaked around her ankle and yanked. She fell forward, scraping her palms on the jagged cobblestones. She rolled and arched upward, snapping back to her feet.
She faced not one, but two pissed-off men, desire for her blood burning bright in their eyes.
She backed cautiously away. “Not that the knife doesn’t look good on you, but I’m rather attached to it. It was a gift. So I’d like it back if you don’t mind.”
The second attacker calmly reached up and gripped the handle and yanked the knife out of his arm in one clean motion. She winced. That had to hurt.
She reached down to slide the two knives from her boots. She rose gracefully, twirling the handles expertly in her palms, letting the smooth leather dance between her fingers.
They circled each other, the unarmed man taking refuge behind the man with the knife.
He swiped first, testing her. She easily leaped away. He pressed in closer, trying to box her in. She kept a wary eye on Mr. GQ as he sidled over to the left.
When he reached down for a piece of metal pipe lying in the alley, she threw one of the knives. It landed with deadly precision right in the side of his neck.
He went down like a rock, blood spewing like a geyser from his carotid.
“That leaves just you and me,” she said calmly as she sidestepped to keep a safe distance between her and the remaining man.
He grunted in response and whipped the knife in an intricate pattern in the air.
“Is that supposed to scare me?” she asked. “Come on, slick. You’ll have to do better than that.”
To his credit, he refused to let her bait him. He continued to stalk her, and Tyana knew she needed to end things quickly before they were discovered.
The man rushed her. She felt the slick steel cut through her skin as his knife slashed through her upper arm. Refusing to allow the pain or surprise to make her falter, she dropped to one knee and rammed her fist into his balls at the same time she slashed at the hand that held the knife.
Her blade met bone, and she heard the clatter as the knife fell from his hand. She dropped and rolled, reaching for the other knife. She lunged to her feet a few yards away, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and the overwhelming odor of blood.
She tensed, prepared for another attack, but the man merely glared at her then turned and sprinted down the alleyway, blood dripping from his arm.
She didn’t waste any time herself. She yanked the knife from the neck of the dead man and wiped it clean on his pants. She looked down at herself, and apart from the blood smeared on her jacket, she wasn’t too much of a mess.
She slipped the jacket off, put her knives back in her boots and covered the remaining knife with her jacket. At the end of the alleyway, she found a bucket of dirty water and rinsed the blood off her boots so she wouldn’t track it out of the alleyway.
Her arm hurt like hell, but a quick glance told her it wasn’t too bad. The blade had just glanced off her skin, cutting a shallow gash about two inches long. It could have been a hell of a lot worse.
She hurried on to the hotel and snarled at the doorman when he took one look at her, turned his nose up and wouldn’t admit her. She gave him Esteban’s name and waited with ill-disguised impatience as he called up to verify her identity.
A few moments later, he uneasily escorted her to the elevator and ushered her in. The lift opened into a penthouse where she was met by two men who looked like poster children for steroid use.
When they tried to pat her down, she yanked the blade out from under the jacket and pointed it under the chin of the one with his hand on her shoulder.
“I suggest you back the fuck off,” she hissed. “I’ve had about all I can take this afternoon. You touch me one more goddamn time, and you’ll lose that hand.”
“Jorge, let her go.”
Tyana looked up to see Esteban standing across the room, an amused smirk on his face. Then she saw the man who’d cut her in the alley standing just beyond Esteban.
She stalked over to Esteban.
“You sleazy motherfucker. What’s your game? You want to hire me, I say yes, and then you try to kill me?”
She pulled back to punch him but a hand gripped her wrist and squeezed painfully. She turned to gut the son of a bitch when again Esteban barked a command for his man to back off.
“Leave us,” Esteban ordered.
The three men complied, and she was left alone with Esteban.
“Come, sit down,” he said as he walked into the lavish sitting room.
She followed but opted to remain standing so she could see every entrance to the room.
“Why’d you try to kill me?”
“I wasn’t very successful,” he said pointedly.
“Your men are inept and fight like damn pussies,” she sneered.
Esteban chuckled. “Which is why I hired you to go after Eli Chance instead of sending them. You impress me. Maybe I just wanted to see what kind of muscle I was hiring. I’d say you passed with flying colors.”
“You gave up one of your men for a test?”
He shrugged. “He was expendable.”
“Nice,” she drawled.
“Enough about him,” Esteban said with a wave of his hand. He sat and crossed one leg over the other as he extended his arm along the back of the couch. “We have other matters to discuss. Like Eli Chance.”
She nodded. “Eli Chance in exchange for the anecdote or cure or whatever you want to call it for my brother.”
“Alive,” Esteban said. “He must be alive or the deal is off.”
“I think you made yourself perfectly clear when we spoke before. Now tell me where to find him.”
Chapter Twelve
Jonah surveyed Tyana’s empty room and barked a directive into his radio. One by one his security team checked in. No one had seen Tyana or knew her current location.
He let out a vicious curse and turned and stalked down the hallway toward Mad Dog’s room. He flung open the door, and Mad Dog, never one to sleep much or very deeply, rolled out of bed, silver glinting in his hand.
“What the fuck?”
“Tyana’s gone. Any idea where she is?”
A flash of fear speared Mad Dog’s blue eyes. “She’s not on the island?”
Jonah shook his head. “Last time she was seen was last night around ten when she went up to see D before heading to bed.”
Mad Dog got up from the floor and tossed his knife back onto the pillow. Then he reached for his pants and yanked them on. He turned back to Jonah. “Let’s go see if D knows anything.”
Jonah hesitated. “It might not be a good idea to upset him.”
Mad Dog swore. “If she’s gone, he’s going to know it soon enough. Those two are attached at the hip. You can’t protect them from everything, Jonah.”
Jonah nodded curtly and walked into the hall. Mad Dog was right, and he wished he could stop the knot that was growing in his stomach. Ever since Damiano had taken the Americans into Adharji, things had slowly spiraled out of control. And now Jonah feared he was no longer able to protect his team. His family. Just as he hadn’t been able to protect so many others from his father all those years ago.
He and Mad Dog walked past the guards at Damiano’s door and entered quietly. D was awake, standing at the window, staring unseeingly over the water. His hand dangled at his side, a piece of paper held between his fingers.
He turned slowly to look at Jonah and Mad Dog, dullness edging his dark brown eyes.
“She’s gone,” he said simply and held the paper up.
Jonah yanked it away and read the short note written in Tyana’s neat scrawl.
We’re going to beat this, D. Believe that. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself, and this time I’m going to take care of you. Be back soon. Ty.
Jonah balled the paper in his fist and sent it flying across the room. Mad Dog, who’d been reading over his shoulder, cursed and ran a hand through his shaggy hair.
“How can she be so stupid?” Jonah gritted out. “She’s going to get herself killed. How does that help any of us?”
Raw helplessness seeped into his chest and paralyzed him.
“You don’t understand,” Damiano said, and he sounded as helpless as Jonah felt. “Ty feels like she owes me. She’s always felt like she’s owed me. No matter what I say or what I do to try and make her understand, she looks at where we were and everything I did to protect her, and she feels guilty. But God, how could I not? She was a child. A tiny little thing too young and innocent for the hell we lived in. I was all she had, but she was all I had until you and Mad Dog.
“As crazy as it makes me for her to feel the way she does, I understand it, because if the positions were reversed, I’d do whatever I could to help her, fuck you and anyone else in my way.”
Jonah saw the pain, the uncertainty in Damiano’s eyes. He knew that he and Tyana had been through hell before they’d struck out on their own. After two scraggly kids attempted to pick his and Mad Dog’s pockets on the streets of Prague, Jonah hadn’t ever stopped to examine the reasons why he took them in.
Running from his own past and mistakes, Jonah had teamed with Mad Dog under the patronage of Burkett, a wealthy businessman with more shadows than dusk. With Burkett’s money and Jonah’s determination, he’d turned two misfits into honed fighters. Later they formed Falcon Mercenary Group, first only doing work for Burkett, but as their reputation grew, they expanded beyond Burkett’s umbrella and became independent.
Still, they owed him a lot, which was the only damn reason Jonah allowed Esteban on his island. He needed to glean what information he could from Burkett about Esteban and his connection to Eli Chance, but first he was going to give Tits a call.
“We’ll find her, D,” Jonah said quietly. “And I’m going to haul her ass back here where it belongs. After I’m done with her, she won’t have much of an ass left, but at least it’ll be here where she’s safe.”
“I want in,” Damiano said in a determined voice.
Mad Dog muttered a no even as Jonah was shaking his head.
“I know how important Ty is to you,” Jonah said. “But we can’t afford any distractions. The best thing you can do for her and us is to stay here and concentrate on beating this thing.”
Damiano’s face twisted in a sneer. “Don’t fucking patronize me, Jonah. I know what I’m dealing with here. There isn’t a cure, no matter what Tyana wants to believe. No serum, no anecdote. I’m stuck like this. I have to learn to deal with it. That’s on me. No one can do it for me. For Ty I can do whatever it takes. You’re not leaving me in the dark. Not when it comes to her.”
Jonah and Mad Dog exchanged frustrated glances. It was obvious that if they left him, he’d pull a Tyana and go off on his own. And that wasn’t an option. The last thing they needed was an unstable wild shifter on the loose. He’d get his ass killed.
Goddamn, but there were times when Jonah wished to hell he’d never laid eyes on those two gangly kids.
Mad Dog shrugged. “He’s a big boy, Jonah. Time to cut the apron strings.”
“Hey, fuck you,” Damiano growled. But a glint of humor lit his eyes, the first sign of the old Damiano Jonah had seen in a long time.
In that moment, he realized that maybe this was what D needed. Not to be treated like a freak. To give him back his position on the team and ride his ass just like Jonah had always done.
They’d all been so wrapped up in their worry that they’d started treating him like he was damaged. Less than human. An animal.
Tyana’s accusing eyes and her furious words flashed back to Jonah. She was right. He’d treated D like an animal.
He glanced sharply up at Damiano. “You’ve got a half hour to get your act together and meet us downstairs. I’m going to be on the horn with Tits because I know that bastard was the one who helped Tyana off the island.”
He turned to Mad Dog. “I want all the intel you’ve collected on Eli Chance, and get the chopper out here pronto. If we can get to Chance before Tyana then we can eliminate the threat and be there when she shows up.”