Really big hands wrapped around her arms and jerked her upright. She found herself looking into the dark brown eyes of Tits, a bald-headed, bad-assed, mean-tempered son of a bitch. He liked to call himself a cross between an African American and a European mutt, whatever the hell that was.
He gave her an earpiece with a mic extending around to her mouth, and she grinned tiredly up at him as she put it in place. “Tits, love the earring, dude. When did you get it?”
He fingered the gold hoop dangling from his fleshy earlobe. “You like it? Did it myself.”
She tried not to shudder. “It’s you. Definitely you. Now what’s up with the meet and greet? Had no idea I rated such special treatment.”
He flashed his perfectly straight, disgustingly perfect white teeth at her in what looked more like a snarl than a smile. “And miss out on this story? Hell, girl, this will only get better when I get the call from Jonah asking me where the hell you are. That’s when the fun begins.”
She gave him a sour look. “Don’t egg him on. It’ll only make things worse for me.”
He patted a thick envelope on the seat beside him. “I got your stuff here, but you don’t get it until you spill.”
“Blackmailing bastard,” she muttered. With a resigned sigh, she gave him the much abbreviated version of the story behind her run-in with Eli Chance and her subsequent meeting with Esteban in Paris.
“And you trust this dude?” Tits asked incredulously. “I seriously gave you more credit for smarts, Ty. I might need to knock some sense into that pretty head of yours.”
She bared her teeth and snarled. “Don’t get condescending on me, ass**le. I don’t trust the dickhead further than I can throw him. He has his purpose, though. He can tell me where Eli Chance is.”
“You could find that out on your own,” Tits said calmly.
She nodded. “I could, but I’m on a tight timeline here. If I don’t already have Jonah hot on my ass, he’ll be there shortly. The less time I spend f**king around trying to find Eli, the better off I’ll be. I don’t believe for a minute that Esteban has shit that can help Damiano, but I do believe Eli does. He’s who I want, and if I have to go through Esteban to get to him then I will. I need him to think I’m working for him, though, because he’s made threats against Damiano I can’t ignore. When I’m done with Eli, I’ll take Esteban’s sorry ass out.”
Tits whistled. “That’s quite an agenda you got there, girl.”
She shrugged. “It’s nothing I haven’t done before.”
“You’ll be glad I brought this along, then,” he said as he stuck his hand under the seat and pulled out a bag.
She reached for it, the weight of it forcing her to rest it on her lap. When she looked in, she found a variety of weapons. All her favorites. She looked up at Tits and gave him a wicked grin. “You’re the shit, you know that?”
Tits laughed. “I really need to teach you better American slang. You sound ridiculous. Now do I get a kiss?”
She rolled her eyes, leaned forward and planted her lips against his. She tried to pull away just as fast, but he held her firm, deepening the kiss into a hot, lusty mix of lips and tongues.
She balled her fist and punched him in the gut. He broke away, laughing his fool ass off.
“Ein geiler Wicht,” she muttered.
“I love it when you curse at me in foreign languages. Gets me all hot and bothered.”
“Asshole.”
He grinned again. “Consider that payment for services rendered.”
She shot him a dark look and was tempted to punch him again, but damn, the man was built like a brick house and her hand hurt like hell from her last hit.
“When’s my flight to Paris?” she muttered. “And how the hell am I going to 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 ass**le,” 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 pu**y, 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 f**k 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.