Gina Takes Bangkok (The Femme Vendettas)

by S. M. Stelmack

  Kannon removed his cigarette and held the burning tip close to one of his prisoner’s eyes. “Where is he?”

  Jarun clamped his mouth shut, as he struggled at his bonds.

  Kannon growled. “You think you know how to torture? Compared to me you’re an amateur. By the time I’m done with this cancer stick you’ll curse your father for not pulling out of that ten-baht whore you call a mother. Now. For the last time. Where is—?”

  His cell buzzed. Not breaking eye contact with Jarun, he pulled it from his suit jacket. “You better pray this is good news.”

  He stepped away to take the call.

  “Kannon?”

  Tasanee. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Los Angeles. I got away from the apartment like you told me to, then somehow Wakai’s men still found me. They would have had me for sure except Gina saved me. She killed them, and we’re at this workshop, and—”

  “Slow down. What did you say? Who killed them?”

  He heard the phone being handed to another person. “Hi, Kannon. Remember me?”

  Part of what made him such an expert manhunter was that he rarely forgot a face. Or a voice. And though it had been three years since their last run-in, the receptionist he’d completely failed to intimidate was fixed in his memory. “The pink-haired woman.”

  Of all the people in the world, she was Vincenzo Zaffini’s daughter?

  “Actually, my hair’s black-and-purple now, but it’s awful sweet of you to remember. We’re at the same place you blew up on your last visit,” she rattled on. “I couldn’t believe it when Tasanee told me who she was, and who Alak had hired as muscle. You really should step up your security, y’know? Next time I might not be around to do your job for you.”

  Her squirrel chattering grated. “Put Tasanee back on.”

  “Fine,” she said, “only don’t expect me to bail you out again with that attitude.” A moment later, Tasanee was back.

  “Kannon, I’m at this place called—”

  “I know where you are. The people there are...associates of mine.” He looked at his watch and scowled. “I’ll be there tomorrow night. Stay where you are and who you’re with.” He added what he knew the girl needed to hear. “You’re safe now.”

  “That’s what Gina keeps saying.”

  Gratitude mixed with his irritation, and the two didn’t sit well. “She’s right. Don’t call anyone else.”

  “Kannon? Is…is my dad okay?”

  No way was he saying otherwise when he couldn’t be there for her. “He’s good. Don’t worry.”

  Her breath blew out. “Thank you, Kannon. Thank you so much.”

  His jaw tensed with emotion, though he kept his voice even. “I’ll be there soon.”

  Kannon slid away his phone, and withdrawing his silenced pistol, strolled over to his captive. “Tasanee’s safe. Seems like you’re getting less useful all the time.”

  “I don’t want to die,” the man said, his body dripping blood and sweat. “But I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

  Kannon pressed the gun up against Jarun’s chin. “What’s the access number for your voice mail?”

  Jarun let it go. “3579.”

  In one lightning stroke, Kannon pistol-whipped the man, knocking him out. He wouldn’t kill him. Not yet, at least. He was an old friend of Wakai’s, and might still be of some use. Ryota retrieved Jarun’s voice mail, and with the click of a button, played the message on speaker.

  “Jarun.” It was Wakai. “I need you to come and talk to Montri. Victoria screwed up the job and I have to get as much information as I can on who’s protecting his daughter. I’ll send someone around first thing tomorrow to pick you up. He’ll be there at seven.” The man who’d betrayed his boss, the man Kannon had bowed to as a superior, softened his voice. “Jarun. I know what you think of all this, but I know you’ll stand by me. I know I can count on you.”

  Kannon regarded Jarun’s slumped form. “Ryota, if they get Tasanee everything’s lost, so I have to fetch her. Keep Jarun alive, and when that driver comes by in the morning, take him, too.”

  “Couldn’t he lead us back to where they’re keeping the boss?”

  Ryota was twenty-four, young enough to be Kannon’s son. A good man. An excellent student. If Kannon did his job well, he’d turn Ryota into a hard, calculating killer. Someone who recognized the naiveté of that question.

  “Not without Jarun,” Kannon explained. “Even if he did, we’re not equipped to stage a rescue. Besides, Wakai will move our boss as soon as the chauffeur doesn’t return. No. You hold them. Once I’m back with Tasanee, we’ll pick up from here.”

  “So…she’s okay?” Ryota asked tentatively, and Kannon realized he’d not told him. “Yes. In Los Angeles. She’s with Mr. Zaffini’s daughter.”

  His assistant’s eyes widened with surprise. “Gina Zaffini? What does she know about what’s going on here? Can we trust her? What if it’s a trap?”

  Kannon remembered a pair of light brown eyes, fearless and full of life. “This is no trap.”

  It was past midnight when Kannon pulled up at the special effects company, the full moon shining down on the building. The lobby was lit, and another room on the same level. Outside security lights at the corners showed nothing. Good. Maybe this visit would go smoother than his last one. Back then, he’d been hunting the woman he’d believed to be another killer, though as it had turned out she was merely a thief wrongly accused of murder. That said, the place was an unwelcome reminder of the only time he’d been bested. Delta Fox had not only got him flat on his back, but taken his gun. Had she been a real killer, his story would have been over. It seemed fate had decided that he’d come knocking here again.

  He didn’t get the chance. As he reached for the buzzer, the door swung wide and he was confronted by a thin older woman in a severe gray suit, her countenance like a constipated drill sergeant’s.

  “So,” she said in a heavy Austrian accent, inspecting him like he was a new recruit, “you’re the one responsible for the explosion.”

  Kannon looked beyond her as he entered. Leaning against the receptionist’s desk with smirks on their faces was the little blonde thief, Delta Fox, and judging by their matching wedding rings, her husband, Brian Chanse. They looked like your ordinary, genial California couple. Until you crossed them. The gray suit shoved a sheet of paper in his face.

  It was a bill for all the damage Kannon had caused when one of his bullets had missed Fox and instead, hit a locker full of explosives. The blast had trashed the company’s back bay, and according to the bottom line, bolded and underlined, caused a high five figures in damage.

  Kannon looked to Chanse. “No insurance?”

  “It’s the principle of the matter,” the female commandant answered before her boss could. “If you were any kind of man, you’d take responsibility.”

  He brought the full weight of his regard on the woman, the same look that made most slink away. She sucked in her breath, her face flushed, and stood her ground. With employees like this, Chanse could set up his own enforcement racket. Chanse cleared his throat. “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t have Ursula charge you for my car. I figure I had a hand in it getting damaged, seeing as I’m the one that ran you off the road.”

  Although Kannon had a distinct memory of his boot connecting with a tender part of Chanse’s anatomy, he didn’t care to continue the conversation, especially since he couldn’t see Tasanee anywhere. Or the Zaffini woman, for that matter.

  “Funny,” Kannon responded, his tone making it clear that it wasn’t. “Where’s the girl?”

  Fox pointed down the hallway. “This way. In Brian’s office. Tasanee was lucky Gina was there. She had to kill two men.” She pinned him with her bright blue eyes. “So far no cops have come calling. You owe her, Kannon.”

  He knew that. Two women, two lectures. And two more females to go yet. He needed a cigarette.

  Tasanee sat on a chair getting her long black hair brai
ded. Gina, frowning and smiling, in concentration and pride, had the same look his wife had had when fixing their daughter’s hair so many years ago. Tasanee rushed into his arms. He returned her hug, then brushed the hair from the bandage on her forehead. “You said you were okay.”

  “A bit of storefront came through the windshield when she crashed,” Gina explained, perching on top of her boss’s desk. Her long legs dangled down forever, and Kannon had to force his eyes upwards. She wore tall white boots with platform heels, a short dress splotchy with pink and yellow blossoms. It was to this flower child that he was forced to say, “I’m indebted to you, Miss Zaffini.”

  Fox, Chanse and Ursula had all filed in behind him, and Fox made a surprised noise. “Hang on. Zaffini? I knew that was your last name, but Gina, after what you did today—are you one of the Miami Zaffinis?”

  Gina shrugged. “Yeah. My father was a made man. I kind of took a different path in life.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” said Chanse, leaning against the office wall. “Who are they?”

  “Italian mafia,” Fox supplied. “One of the last traditional crime families.”

  “And here I assumed she was as harmless as she is incompetent,” Ursula said.

  Gina brightened under the insult. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. Menopausal women often experience lapses in judgment.” The older woman made choking noises, and Gina carried on to the room at large, “We liked to think of ourselves as the American mafia. Sounded more patriotic that way. Not that there’s really any of the family left. My dad’s about the only one who’s not dead or serving a life sentence, and that’s because he took off for Thailand.”

  “Thailand?” asked Fox. “So what’s the connection there?”

  Gina played with a red hair clip, snapping it open and shut like jaws. “Well, after my mom died, he got together with a Thai hooker, and when the FBI got too close they took me to live in Bangkok. Anyway, my dad met Tasanee’s dad there and the two became friends. Only now it looks like there’s been some trouble.” She looked squarely at Kannon.

  No point denying it. He turned to Tasanee, taking her by the shoulders. She was his daughter’s friend, a young woman he’d come to care for. And now he had to dump fear and worry on her. He glanced at Gina Zaffini. And just like that, she slipped off the desk and stood close, so close she could’ve touched them both. She didn’t, of course. Still, for whatever reason, it made what he had to say easier. “Tasanee, I’m afraid there’s more than trouble. Your father has been kidnapped. He’s being held hostage.”

  Tasanee froze. Only her lips moved. “What...how? When?”

  “One of your father’s bodyguards managed to get a call off to me saying they were under attack. That’s when I phoned and told you to get out of your apartment. To find Gina. Your father’s advisors weren’t so lucky—his inner circle were all assassinated.”

  Tasanee went pale and under his hands, he felt her slump. He realized his mistake. “All except Ryota and me, of course.”

  It was as if he’d pumped air into her. She straightened, expanded and concentrated. “Who could have done something like that?”

  “It was your father’s top lieutenant, John Wakai. He betrayed us, and now he’s trying to control the city. That’s why he wants you. He knows your safety is the only thing that could ever make your father bend, and if your father bends then so will the gangs who follow him.”

  Tasanee was nineteen, still a girl in many ways, but she was also the daughter of a major crime lord. She bit hard on her lip and gave a quick nod. “I see.”

  Kannon released her. “Don’t worry. I’ll get him back. Right now I have to make some arrangements with our…friends here, okay?”

  With Ursula left to tend to Tasanee, the rest of them stepped out into the hall.

  “You’re not in any position to protect her if Wakai’s men track her here,” Kannon said. “I’m taking her back to Bangkok.”

  “I’m going too,” said Gina.

  There was a difference between owing her and being owned by her. “No, you’re not.”

  Gina crossed her arms over her chest. “First of all, Tasanee’s my god-sister. That makes her part of my family, and that makes this personal. Everybody in Bangkok knows Alak Montri and my dad are best friends, so if this douchebag takes over his organization, the first thing he’ll do is strip my father of everything he owns. It doesn’t matter that you’re tough as nails, Kannon, you need some serious backing and you don’t have time to screw around. Kun pôot paa-săa tai bpen măi?”

  “What?” he replied, irritated.

  “I asked if you spoke Thai, and you just answered my question. How do you expect to track down this guy quickly without some help?”

  “I’ve got people.”

  “People you can trust?” she shot back. “With Wakai in charge, don’t you think at least some of your guys might switch sides?”

  Kannon made a deliberate pass over her appearance. “I don’t think you’re cut out for the kind of work that needs doing.”

  “I knocked off the two killers they sent after her.” She said it like a statement of fact but he saw the way her eyes widened, the tensing of her jaw. Killing them had shook her. He had a sudden idiotic urge to take her by the shoulders and tell her, as he’d told Tasanee, that everything was going to be okay.

  He stiffened. Not his place. And not a place he wanted, either.

  Those clothes, that hair, that attitude. She didn’t take her job as a receptionist seriously because she didn’t need to—she came from a world of privilege, even if it was an underworld. There she stood, like a purple-haired cat that had eaten his canary, and he had to take it.

  She poked him in the chest. “Give me all the dirty looks you want. I’m the one that saved Tasanee’s life, and I’ve got the connections to rescue your boss. I know Bangkok, speak fluent Thai, and with that bastard threatening my family, this fight is as much mine as yours. I’m coming to help you, and that’s that. You owe me and this is what I want as payback.”

  The happily married couple had silently listened to the exchange, arms looped around each other. Now Fox contributed. “I don’t think that’s how debts work. You’re supposed to get something in return.”

  “I do. A trip to Thailand with my own personal bodyguard who scares the skin off everybody.” Gina glanced around. “Present company excepted.”

  Kannon grimaced. Fox and Chanse had both got the better of him at some point, the Witch of Finance couldn’t be cowed, and Gina, being a Zaffini, had probably never feared anyone in her life. Other than the days he had with his daughter, it had been a long, long time since he’d been in a place where no one was terrified of him.

  A pair of honey brown eyes was fixed on him in bratty defiance.

  He sighed. “Call your father and let him know we’re coming.”

  She blinked. “I already did.”

  Chanse snorted. “Man, welcome to my world. Women ask permission, then do whatever the hell they want.”

  Kannon knew it only too well, but played it out anyway. “It’s your father’s decision. He heads the organization. If he says so, you go back to Los Angeles. Agreed?”

  “Kao jai láew.”

  That was it. He was getting language lessons. “Which means?”

  “We’ve got a deal. Now if you’ll all excuse me, I’m off to pack.” She cut away, back down the hall to the lobby. “Wish me luck,” she called over her shoulder. “Too many clothes, too little room. I’ll be a mess before it’s done.”

  Kannon observed the swing of her body and knew it was all talk.

  GINA HAD A crick in her neck from all the times she’d twisted it around the privacy screen in the first class cabin to see if Kannon was awake.

  He was as he’d been twelve minutes ago, stretched on his back under his airplane issue blanket. He was so tall his feet poked out. His socks were smooth, unrumpled, probably the ones with the special elastic at the top, the kind Ursula had gotten Brian for Christmas. H
is suit jacket was hung on a padded hanger, his tie loosened, his hands folded across his chest, his shoes, black and polished under his fully reclined seat. He’d been in that exact position for the past eight and a half hours.

  There was at least another eleven hours left in the flight. Tasanee was sleeping, finally. The two of them had seen all the movies worth seeing. She’d showed Tasanee the scenes Brian and his stunt crew were in. She should be sleeping herself, except she was restless and bored.

  Bored. Bored, bored, bored.

  She flicked open her phone and played a game based on the Periodic Table. She beat her old time. Again. Somebody needed to discover some new elements. She glanced at the flight monitor and—surprise, surprise—the plane was still a dot on the Pacific Ocean.

  Everything was quiet in the cabin. The attendants were off doing whatever they did between the feedings. Not even any headwinds to buck the cabin. Nothing to wake up somebody in a sound sleep. Gina tucked her phone into the seat pouch and stealth-walked to Kannon. He was a gorgeous man. He must be pushing forty from the lines around his eyes, his body wide and thick and strong. And his hands…she wanted those hands on her.

  Hmmm…had she found a way to beat back her boredom? She was pretty sure he would go for it. She’d become something of an expert about whether or not a man was into her, and Kannon had fulfilled all the requirements on her checklist. She went to his feet and drew her finger along a sole.

  It only took the one touch.

  His eyes snapped open and he was up on his elbows. He shot her a look. Then one at Tasanee. Gina rushed to his side and whispered, “It’s okay. Nothing’s wrong.”

  Those dark-as-night eyes honed in on her and narrowed.

  “Oh, come on.” She wiggled her butt to claim a portion of his seat and bumped up against his hip. She felt him stiffen. Hopefully there were other places he was stiffening, too.