The elevator dinged.
The bodyguard walked out into a sitting room, the entire far wall was a large mirror.
Kenny moved his hands to Maya’s waist and squeezed gently to reassure her.
If she was nervous, she hid it well. She was doing more than her part and he wasn’t going to let her down.
“Mr. Mehmeti is ready to see you,” the bodyguard said, opening a door to their right.
Just as he said that, the first bodyguard they’d met came out of the door to their left. Kenny turned his head and caught a brief glimpse beyond the guy’s insanely broad shoulders and his breathing settled. A large oak desk cluttered with papers and a computer monitor atop it.
He turned his head and followed Maya into Mehmeti’s bedroom, not at all shocked at its close proximity to his office. It was finally show time.
***
It’s funny the things Maya had been totally fine with up until now. Best friend works for spies? Okay. European arms dealer in her chatroom? Believable. Sex club in an old factory across the Bay from her hometown? Ah gentrification. Arms dealer wants to pay her to have sex with hot spy of her dreams? Hello savings!
She’d rolled with all of that with ease. But there was something about stepping into Joseph Mehmeti’s bedroom that made her completely freak out. Maybe it was the fact that they were in a room with a guard out front, and more guards throughout the building, that tipped the scales from plausible to too much. Or maybe, she thought to herself, it was the fact that Mehmeti’s large four-poster bed was covered in sheer drapes and velvet pillows. The over-the-top décor had worked for her downstairs, but not up here. In Mehmeti’s private room the gaudy furnishings only reminded her how absurd this entire situation was. Irrationally, she was also freaking out that the first time she and Kenny would have sex would be in front of this creepy, shorter than she expected, criminal. Also, she amended with a tilt of her head, the fact that there was a throne, like a large, gaudy, golden throne set at the foot of the bed, didn’t help her nerves. Because who the fuck has a throne in their bedroom?
She hoped she survived long enough to tell Kierra that the throne was the thing that sent her over the edge.
“Please,” Mehmeti said, gesturing toward the bed. “Sit.”
Maya wanted to shake her head and run, but Kenny squeezed her waist again. The small gesture helped to calm her a bit while also making her legs turn to jelly. He stayed close to her side as they walked to the bed and sat. She put her purse next to her and tried to regulate her breathing.
“Would you like some champagne?” Mehmeti asked, like this was all so normal. Maybe because it was.
Kenny shook his head.
“I don’t drink while I work,” she said and then took a deep breath. She smiled and batted her eyelashes. “In fact, that glass of champagne downstairs went straight to my head.” She giggled.
She was completely clearheaded, but the words had the desired effect. She saw Mehmeti’s hand tighten on the glass of dark liquid he held and his pants slowly tented as he stared at her. Maya was still freaked the fuck out, especially when he lowered himself into the throne, but she started to regain control of herself in that moment. As she’d told Kenny downstairs, her job was to keep his attention on her, to distract him. That she could do. And according to the daily ratings on ChatBot, she could do it better than thousands of other cam models on the site.
“So,” she said, licking her lips. Mehmeti’s eyes followed the movement before his gaze slid down Maya’s body. She moved her hand to rest on Kenny’s thigh. Mehmeti grunted. “How does this work?”
Mehmeti kept his eyes on Maya’s hand and Kenny’s leg. “I like to watch.”
Maya had to force herself not to roll her eyes. Duh, she wanted to say, she paid her rent on just that reality. She began to move her thumb in circles. “What would you like to watch us do?”
Mehmeti set his glass down on the table next to him and began to undo the knot of his tie. “Strip.”
Maya squeezed Kenny’s thigh and stood. “Before I take this off,” she whispered in a sultry tone, “Don’t you want to admire the way your dress looks on me?”
Mehmeti grunted. His eyes devoured her body, his gaze clouded in lust. He grunted again as he followed her hands to the straps of her dress. She hooked her thumbs underneath them. He gasped.
Maya wasn’t certain if he noticed Kenny stand from the bed. But just in case he did, she slid her dress straps over her shoulders. Mehmeti leaned forward to focus on Maya. The dress gaped at her chest and Mehmeti stood.
She wanted to stop him, remind him that he hadn’t paid to touch her. But he was so focused on her that he seemed not to have noticed that Kenny was reaching toward his back. Mehmeti stepped closer to Maya, his eyes trained on the slowly bared flesh of her chest. His breathing was labored. He took another step forward. Her nipples were almost in view.
His eyes opened in shock as Kenny pressed the muzzle of the gun to Mehmeti’s head.
“If you move or scream, I’ll kill you where you stand,” Kenny said in a hard tone that Maya tried not to focus on too much because it kind of turned her on. “Maya, move to the other side of the bed.”
She didn’t need to be told twice. She righted her dress, grabbed her purse and stepped away from Mehmeti, whose eyes were now slitted in anger. He glared at her.
“How did you get these weapons in my club?” Mehmeti whispered.
“Hate to break it to you, but security in this place is garbage.”
“What do you want? Money?”
“Stop talking,” Kenny said.
“I will make sure they torture you before they put a bullet in your head,” Mehmeti hissed at her.
Kenny pushed the barrel of the gun harder against Mehmeti’s skull. “Threaten her again.” Mehmeti pressed his lips shut.
Kenny moved his free hand to his ear. “We’re in.”
Maya knew Kenny was talking to the other spies so she kept her eyes on Mehmeti. When the mobster looked as if he was about to make a move on Kenny, she opened her purse and pulled out the small pistol she’d packed there. She aimed it at Mehmeti, whose hands stilled.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
Kenny put his gun back into his waist holster and pulled out a set of zip ties. “Hands,” he said.
Mehmeti moved his hands to his back. Kenny restrained him quickly. Maya kept her gun on Mehmeti as Kenny patted him down, pulling a number of knives from various parts of his body. Kenny threw the weapons onto the throne, pulled more zip ties from his jacket pocket and then restrained Mehmeti’s ankles.
Only then did Maya realize that Mehmeti was oddly calm.
“You won’t get out of here alive,” he said and laughed mockingly.
Kenny put his hands on his hips and looked down at Mehmeti, “You don’t want to know who we are?”
“I know who you are,” Mehmeti spat. “An internet whore and her boyfriend trying to make it rich. You have taken me for a pathetic mark.”
Kenny rolled his eyes, “Joseph Mehmeti. Youngest and dumbest son of the Albanian mob. Does your father know what you’re doing with your spare time?”
As he spoke, Kenny nodded his head at Maya to move behind him, out of the line of sight from the bedroom door. He motioned with his hand for her to squat down. Belatedly, she wished she’d taken her shoes off. What if she had to run?
Once again Maya saw surprise wash over Mehmeti’s face as he processed what Kenny was saying. “Who are you?”
Kenny pulled his gun from the waistband of his pants, “You should have asked that before you threatened my girlfriend. I might have told you.” And then he shot Mehmeti twice in the shoulder.
Maya jumped and yelped at the loud blast.
Mehmeti screamed and fell back onto the bed, writhing in agony.
Kenny spun away from Mehmeti and was ready when the guard rushed stupidly through the door. He barely made it into the room before Kenny took him down with a headshot.
They wai
ted for a beat, Maya crouched in the corner, Mehmeti whimpering on the bed, and Kenny’s gun trained on the door. The hallway was silent, but still they waited. The elevator dinged and they heard the doors open. Maya clutched the gun tighter in her hands. She had no idea how to shoot it, but she reminded herself of Kenny’s advice not to put her finger on the trigger until she was ready to use it.
They heard footsteps in the hallway. Cautious. And then a whistle.
“We’re here,” Kenny said, finally relaxing his arm.
“Clear,” Lane called.
Kenny moved to the door and kicked the gun near the bodyguard’s hand away. He used his foot to turn him over.
“Who’s that doing all that crying?” Lane asked as he stepped into the room.
“Mehmeti,” Kenny said. He was moving around the room opening the door to the closet, his gun in one hand. “Clear.” He moved to the only other door, the bathroom Maya guessed. “Clear,” he said again.
“You shot him?” Lane breathed as he leaned over Mehmeti, who’d gone mostly quiet. Maya saw his body wracking with pain or sobs. “The mission was to capture him unharmed.”
“No,” Kenny corrected. “We’re supposed to bring him in alive. He won’t die.”
Lane stared at Kenny and then he turned to see Maya, still crouching in the corner. “You okay there, honey?”
She frowned at Lane and turned the gun in her hands toward him, “I told you not to call me anything but my government name.”
Lane laughed, “God, you’re great.”
Kenny walked across the room toward her. He gently took the gun from her hands and placed it onto the dresser next to him. He offered his hands to help her stand and gripped her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
She took a deep breath, her eyes darting around the room, settling on Mehmeti and then the dead bodyguard. He moved his hands over her shoulders, up her neck and stroked her jaw. She could smell something like smoke. She wasn’t sure if she was going to scream, but she thought she might.
“Maya,” he said her name in a soft whisper.
When her eyes settled on his he took a deep breath and she mirrored him. They inhaled and exhaled together a few times.
“Maya, are you okay?” He whispered.
She kept her eyes on his and considered the question. It took her brain a second to kickstart. She nodded. “Does this mean I get hazard pay?” She whispered.
The left side of Kenny’s mouth lifted and the sound of Lane’s laughter filled the room.
“We’re almost done,” Kenny said. “Just do what I say and stay close.”
“Okay,” she said. “Kiss me.” She expected Kenny to say that they didn’t have time for this. That this moment was life or death. But he didn’t. He pulled her face to his and crushed their mouths together.
Maya’s brain came fully back online with that kiss. It was all a lot. The feel of his tongue, the lingering taste of champagne and her sex. The slightly metallic smell of Mehmeti’s blood in the air as it mingled with the smell of gunfire.
Lane coughed.
Maya and Kenny broke their kiss slowly. They opened their eyes and smiled at each other.
Lane coughed again. “Far be it from me to stop this really touching moment, but we do have a job to complete.”
“Almost done,” Kenny whispered to her. He turned to Lane, but his right hand moved to grasp hers. He snatched her gun from the dresser and led her toward the bedroom door, through the hallway and across the hall.
Maya made a mental note to ask Kierra about that kiss. Was it the adrenaline? Endorphins? Dysfunction? Were butterflies in her stomach after Kenny shot a man in the shoulder for threatening her supposed to feel good?
Because they did.
Kenny and Lane cleared the office while Maya shuffled from one foot to the other at the threshold, wary eyes on the elevator. Mehmeti moaned pathetically on the ground at her feet.
“Clear,” Lane said.
Maya jumped over Mehmeti and moved to the couch. She put her foot onto the coffee table and began to unbuckle her shoes.
The sound of snapping fingers caught her attention.
She looked up and found Kenny glaring at Lane.
“Let’s stay focused,” Lane said around a laugh.
Kenny looked as if he was seriously considering shooting Lane, but his ears were also red. He blushed when he turned back to Maya. She smiled, her entire body heating.
Lane chuckled again, ruining the heated moment between them. “Okay, I think I get why people are annoyed by us.”
Kenny turned to the desk and tapped the computer keyboard.
“Chanté,” he said and then he went quiet; listening. “It’s locked.”
Maya watched as he straightened and reached into his pocket. He pulled out what looked like a USB stick and put it into the computer. And then they waited, Kenny and Lane staring at the computer.
Maya unbuckled her shoes and stretched her toes. She padded across the room and moved behind the desk.
“Oh,” she whispered as she looked at the computer screen. A bar in the middle of the screen indicated that Chanté was already downloading Mehmeti’s entire hard drive.
“Yeah,” Lane said. “She’s good.”
“She’s great,” Kenny said. And then he sighed. “Shut up or I’m never complimenting you again.” He was talking to Chanté.
Maya found herself smiling at him, lost in the way annoyance looked on his beautiful face.
Lane’s whisper in her ear startled her, “I’m gonna tell Kierra about this.”
She turned to him with a glare and then frowned. “Where is my miniature bestie?”
Lane smiled as he spoke into his own ear piece. “We’re downloading the hard drive now. Clear a path.” And then he smiled down at Maya, “Doing what she does best.”
Maya’s frown deepened, “Wearing very little clothing?”
Lane laughed, “Yeah, exactly that actually.”
They all stilled when the elevator dinged and they heard the doors slide open.
the honeypot
For the second time today Kierra was giving some very serious consideration to becoming a field agent. She wondered if she’d have to handle a gun. She wondered if she’d be allowed to train under Monica and Lane. Oh, and then her brain just drifted off at the thought of that. All of a sudden the crush of people she’d been pushing through disappeared and there was her mark.
Agent Travis Keeler, the third Setter brother that no one had known about until Lane had gone to Ohio, was sitting like a king on his throne in a booth at the edge of the dance floor, surrounded by a group of women who were clearly enjoying the bottle service. There was a bottle of some dark liquor that looked expensive on the table in front of him. It looked like the kind of liquor that you were supposed to sip slowly. But Keeler was throwing it back in shots. Kierra wanted to shake her head and frown because one of Monica’s bedrock rules was to never get drunk on the job. When you worked with people who used guns as a negotiating tactic, the workday was Russian roulette at the best of times. Add in alcohol or any drug and your chances of survival dropped precipitously.
So either Keeler was not as meticulous about his job as Monica was about hers or he was just a fucking idiot. Or both. Kierra watched as he threw another shot of liquor down his throat. But instead of swallowing it, he grabbed the girl next to him, tipped her head back and dribbled the liquid in his mouth down her throat.
Kierra gagged and turned away, plunging back into the dancing crowd. “Nope. Nuh-uh. Can’t do it.”
“Kierra.” Monica’s voice came to her through her ear piece.
She shook her head harder. “Absolutely not. Did you just see that sick shit?”
“What happened?” Asif said.
“It was gross,” another voice said, she assumed it was Lamont.
“Tell me,” Asif whined.
“Shut up,” Monica demanded.
“You’re not going to convince me to go over there,” Kierra cut in.
“I don’t care what you say. We have no intel on his oral hygiene so I’m assuming the worst. That was rank.”
“Kierra.” Monica’s voice was hard. “I know that was off-putting.”
Kierra scoffed.
“But, I need you to do this, sweet girl. We need to give Lane and Maya a way out.”
Kierra’s mouth fell open at Monica trying to guilt her into this so brazenly.
“You don’t have to touch him,” Monica continued. “Just distract him and his bodyguards.”
“And what will I get for this? It’s not technically part of my job.”
“Shake her down,” Asif whispered.
“What do you want?” Monica asked. “And before you tell me, I want to remind you that you have maxed out all possible bonuses for this quarter. Anymore and The Agency will be on our asses.”
Kierra smiled wickedly, “Don’t worry, I don’t want another bonus.”
“Then what do you want?”
“A vacation.”
She could hear the confusion in Monica’s voice. “You have lots of vacation time. You can take it whenever you want.”
“No,” Kierra said. “I want the three of us to go on a vacation. No guns. No ear pieces. No cheesy European sex clubs. I want us to sleep in in the morning, no technology and classy sex clubs.” Kierra’s eyes caught on a figure at the edge of the dance floor across the room from Keeler. A body she would recognize anywhere because she knew every plane of it by touch and taste.
When their eyes met, Monica’s tongue darted out and she licked her lips. Kierra raised one eyebrow and waited.
When she spoke again, Monica’s voice was thick with lust and emotion, “Anything you want, sweet girl.”
The smile that spread across her face was dirty and triumphant.
“I would have asked for a new car,” Asif said. “You need it.”
“Shut up,” Kierra and Monica said at the same time.
Kierra took a deep breath to gather her strength and turned on her very tall heels back through the crowd. When she made it to the other side of the room, she felt powerful and without inhibition. She could see why Monica didn’t drink on the job. Why bother with alcohol when the heady rush of adrenaline was such a better high?
Private Eye Page 28