To Paris with Love: A Family Business Novel (The Family Business)

by Weber, Carl

  My head almost snapped back when she said that. Nadja knew I’d avoided going back home but she also sensed that it was personal and that I had some unfinished business back there to handle.

  “I just want to get back to work. It’ll be nice to be at the complex.” I smiled, showing her lots of teeth and forgiveness. She wasn’t wrong. I needed to get back to the task of handling my business. As much as I hated to admit it I could use a few days at the complex to recharge my batteries and get my head right. “But I need you to do me a favor.”

  “What?” She stared at me.

  I probably shouldn’t have asked but she had access that I needed. “I need you to find out everything you can about Paris. If that’s her real name. She says she’s from Queens. You know everything else that I do.”

  “I thought you were going to forget about her.”

  “Yes, I am, but I need to make sure she wasn’t some plant or that I’m not actually in danger.”

  “Just let it go, Niles.”

  “I can’t. You want me to get my head back into the game? Then I need you to do this for me.”

  “Fine. But after this I don’t ever want to hear her name again.”

  “Done,” I finished. Whatever this was with Paris I needed to know that my instincts weren’t that off. That I wasn’t part of some bullshit game she played on me. It didn’t escape me that in my line of work not having good instincts amounted to a one-way trip to the cemetery.

  We pulled up to the complex, which was an exclusive gated community of massive private estates. All the properties combined were about 1,000 acres, where God knows what the hell went on. For a former inner-city kid growing up in a concrete jungle this place could be mistaken for paradise, but even I didn’t notice it today. The guard at the gate nodded to both Nadja and I then hit a button to let us inside. I’d been there enough times for him to be familiar with me.

  We pulled up to the house and got out. Nadja had already had the caretaker buy all my favorite foods and drinks. Presumptuous ass, I thought as I unloaded my bag and case of weapons. She thought she knew me that well and I wasn’t that comfortable knowing she had played me.

  No sooner had Nadja driven off than I felt my phone vibrating in my left pocket.

  Well, one of my phones.

  One I’d kept on me despite my better judgment because I’d given the number to only one person.

  I’d been checking it periodically for calls since leaving my apartment.

  I answered it, but said nothing.

  Didn’t need to.

  “Want your blades back, Brooklyn?” Paris asked.

  Paris

  63

  I followed Niles’s instructions all the way to a long, unmarked road in the hilly countryside of southern France. I was near the picturesque town of Marly-le-Roi, worried I was heading in the wrong direction.

  The storybook look of this part of France made me think of the first time I’d been to this part of the world. My father took me on my first tour of southern France for my thirteenth birthday. Damn! Just thinking of him brought me back to Orlando and our next phone call which wasn’t gonna be nuthin’ nice.

  After driving about a mile, I arrived at a guard gate with a massive NO TRESPASSING sign displayed in French and English. I was familiar with this kind of life. Rich folk with little getaway properties they had for absolute privacy. We had a place similar to this in upstate New York. Course I’d heard about people having orgies and wife-swapping weekend parties at these places, too. I pulled up to the guard gate and gave him my name. Niles had instructed him to give me access. With a metallic, ringing click, the gate swung open, allowing me to continue.

  Another mile later, I came upon the address. The gate that had been left open for me. I wound my way past scenic rolling hills until I arrived at a picturesque farmhouse with a tan Camry out front.

  “Finally,” I muttered to myself with relief.

  I approached cautiously, turning down my radio while looking for any signs of trouble. Assuming I was at the right place, I parked down the road and walked cautiously the rest of the way up.

  Just as I stepped onto the porch, gunshots rang out from around back.

  I immediately scampered for cover, noticing a pallet on the porch’s edge loaded with enough ammo canisters and explosives to make a Michigan militiaman have an orgasm. I scrambled, hoping to find a gun or something lying around, but I came up empty. When I was certain the shots weren’t coming my way, I put my back to the wall and slowly, carefully inched my way around back with nothing but Niles’s blades on hand.

  At the end of my slinking about, I came upon Niles.

  The man I admitted I loved only a day earlier was all alone and engaging in some target practice. From behind a pair of clear goggles, he rapidly switched from silhouettes to cans to bottles, the muscles in his bare arm flexing with each shot he took. And from my observation, he didn’t miss.

  As a glass jug along the fence cracked and splintered, I called out his name, but he didn’t hear me over all the noise or with the headphones he wore like some kind of instructor.

  Feeling devilish, I picked up a loose piece of wood from off the ground and tossed it underhand toward him. Catching it out the corner of his eye, Niles swiveled and blasted it with a single shot from his matte black nine mil. His motion was fluid and free of distraction.

  When he noticed me clapping, he yanked his headphones off.

  “How long you been there, Queens?” he asked as he slipped the safety on and lowered his smoking weapon. On a table by the back deck were three more handguns of different calibers, an assault rifle, and a couple of throwing knives. And was that a grenade I saw?

  “Just got here, GI Joe,” I answered. “What the fuck is all this?”

  “A toy box,” he replied, grinning like a schoolboy in his camouflaged pants and black sleeveless T-shirt. Pretty boy looked sexy and rugged fo sho, but was absent the semi-casual vibe to which I was accustomed. Maybe I was to blame.

  “You on some shit now?” I joked, hoping to lighten the mood.

  “Got a new job coming up and not sure what I’m gonna use to do it. Just making sure I’m on my A-game,” he said as he came close.

  I tingled all over like none of the fucked-up shit had happened, but stood my ground. I told my family I would go along with the program from here on out and that meant giving him his shit and getting my ass on a plane back to Spain.

  And yet . . .

  “Here,” I said as I held out his karambit blades. “Sorry about accidentally taking them with me.”

  “Where’d you go when you left?” he asked, still not taking them.

  “Airport. Until I remembered what I had in my purse,” I remarked embarrassingly. “Knew you’d miss them.”

  Niles hesitated a moment longer, perhaps trying to find hidden meaning in my words.

  “That the only reason you came all the way out here?” he said as he took them from me, carefully surveying them. He didn’t wait for me to answer, probably giving me some food for thought. “Thanks,” he said finally.

  He had me hold his recently discharged nine, a Springfield XD, while he tested his precious babies. Doing moves I had yet to learn, he stabbed, jabbed, parried, and spun around at an imaginary target.

  He was totally ramped up; not lying about wanting to be on his A-game.

  While Niles engaged in his ceremonial dance of death, I decided to let off some steam of my own. From off his table, I switched out clips in the nina and proceeded to unload, hitting all but one of my targets. Guess I wasn’t used to the gun’s weight.

  “Why’d you come back?” he asked again and this time I knew he expected me to answer. “You could’ve left my blades somewhere for me to pick them up.”

  “Respect for a colleague,” I weakly offered as I placed the nine onto the table and walked away. “Wouldn’t want you alone in a cold, cold world without your good-luck charms.”

  “Which good-luck charms would those be? My bl
ades . . . or you?” Niles pressed, warming to me again and getting all up in my personal space to make his point. He tried to hug me; his musk was intoxicating. Made me want to bury my face in him. And maybe other parts even, but I couldn’t.

  “Easy. I didn’t come here for that,” I tried telling him, hoping I’d convinced myself. “I have to go.”

  “You have to be tired after the drive from the airport. Why can’t you stay?”

  “I just can’t,” I replied. “I have obligations, same as you.”

  Every step away I took was equally liberating and infuriating. I couldn’t remember ever wanting the opposite of my impulses as badly as I did at this moment.

  “What’s the real deal with you, Paris?” Niles called out. “Did you just come back to fuck with me? To show me that I’m nothing to you?”

  “What you see is what you get,” I said as I quickened my pace. But Niles followed, refusing to let me go.

  “Oh really?” he said with a slight chuckle, taunting me. “Is Paris even your real name? Bet you never lived in Queens a day in your life. Would explain why you were unable to tell me about your life back there.”

  “You don’t want to go there with me,” I threatened. “You’re playing ‘fish ’n’ chips’ with folk, you big fraud.”

  “What? You got some sugar daddy fronting your lifestyle? Some old-ass playa in the game who you belong to and I’m just a temporary distraction? Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll know all about you soon enough,” he threatened back, ignoring my barb.

  “How? Ooooh, that’s right. Nadja,” I said, stopping long enough to roll my eyes at him. “Your little work whore.”

  “Well . . . actually, yeah,” he boldly admitted. Something in the pit of my stomach said to kill him right then and there, but other parts of me were confused as fuck.

  “Fuck you. And fuck her,” I commented instead as I threw up double middle fingers behind me.

  “Paris . . . wait!” he called out. “I’m sorry about that. When I’m hurt I lash out. You can appreciate that, can’t you?”

  “Nah, nigga. I’m out. For good,” I said as I stomped down the road to my rental.

  “Stop!” His voice took on a more intense tone but I kept moving.

  As I walked to my car, a shot zipped past my head, startling the fuck outta me and eliciting a mild shriek. Niles had another handgun hidden underneath his shirt. But rather than trying to shoot me, he’d taken aim at my car.

  The hissing sound from the punctured tire was unmistakable.

  “I said ‘stop,’” Niles grunted like he’d found his nuts. “You ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

  Now, as I turned to face him standing on the porch of the cabin, all parts of me were in agreement about killing him.

  Nadja

  64

  “Madame, it is Jeremy at the compound gate. Mr. Boateng had a guest arrive.”

  “And is this guest a woman?”

  “Yes, a black woman named Paris.”

  “Thank you, Jeremy.” I hung up the phone and flung it across my hotel room. How dare this bitch keep showing up like some bad penny? And Niles didn’t seem to know how to keep away from her. I would have to take care of Paris once and for all. My father’s words rang out in my ears. Disobeying him would cost me everything I valued, the most important thing being his respect. I couldn’t actually kill the bitch, even though that would be the quickest way to end this problem. The one person that could help me figure out a plan had actually agreed with my father on this very issue.

  “Hello, it’s your boss.”

  “My ex-boss. You fired me, remember?” Navid sounded smug, like he actually thought talking to me like that was an option.

  “Yes, and I’ve decided to give you another chance.” I used my kind voice on him.

  “Nadja, working with you didn’t end well, and actually I’d like to use my powers for good. We hurt too many people and that’s not the life I want anymore,” he informed me, using one of our favorite phrases.

  “Yeah, well, we can’t always get what we want in this life.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that, Navid, I own you. All of the years you worked for me. Those secrets you shared with me about your sexual peccadilloes that your family would disown you if they knew? Well, unless you do exactly as I tell you then expect me to have a nice conversation with your family.”

  “Nadja, please, my family would die of shame and heartbreak.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be the one breaking their hearts.”

  “But I do not agree with you. And you were right. I betrayed your loyalty.”

  “That’s my fault, Navid. I didn’t fully explain to you that loyalty can be bought and exchanged or gotten through blackmail. Either way, I expect you to help me on my next assignment.”

  “I am afraid to ask what that may be.” He sounded all broken but I couldn’t say that I cared. I needed him to come through for me. To help me destroy Paris Duncan.

  “I need you to help me find a way to destroy that bitch!” I screamed into the receiver.

  “But your father? You cannot go against him.”

  “Oh, I’m not going to kill her but I am going to ruin her life and you are going to help me come up with a plan.”

  “No. I will not help you. It is wrong. We love who we love and nothing you do will change how Niles feels about her.” He tried to warn me but his words brought everything into sharper focus for me.

  “You’re right. I cannot change how he feels about her but I can change how she feels about him.” And as soon as the words left my mouth I knew I had gotten that much closer to a plan.

  “Nadja, please,” Navid begged. “You are better than this. You deserve a man that loves and chooses you. Not chasing some man who doesn’t really see you.”

  “No, I’m not better than this, and at least I’m being honest about it. And yes, there are many men that would love to be with me but I want the man I want. And I intend to have him. Nothing you or my father says is going to change that. So unless you can internally alter how I feel in my heart, then I suggest you shut the hell up and get on board. And I mean quick unless you want me to tell your parents everything . . . and I mean every single detail.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Then you have never been in love! It doesn’t need to make sense.”

  Niles

  65

  “You ain’t goin’ anywhere,” I crowed, either too dumb or stubborn to finish my statement and say all that I was thinking. Because I can’t bear to have you walk out of my life again, was what I left unsaid.

  Maybe if I’d spoken up, Paris would’ve understood.

  Maybe.

  Paris rushed toward me in a full-on Olympic sprint. I didn’t think Paris cared one lick for her safety, either. She screamed something, but I was fixated on the snarl on her face. My natural reaction would’ve been to raise my gun up, but I couldn’t. Not against her.

  I’d pointed a gun in the face of the girl I loved way too many times.

  Paris took a single step onto the porch before launching into a flying sidekick meant to take my head off and she almost succeeded. My forearms deflected some of the force, but the impact sent me tumbling backward onto my ass.

  I let my momentum carry me into a back roll so I could get back to my feet, but I crashed into the pallet of ammo. Paris had no such problems, instead landing on her feet like a cat. I was up to one knee when she caught me with a solid right hook to the jaw as if she were Laila Ali. I’m not going to lie, for I was straight-up seeing stars. It took that to give me a real appreciation for how good she really was in hand-to-hand. Whoever she was, Paris had to be much further along in her schooling than I’d given her credit for. I was right wobbly but got to my feet in time to block the overhand knife edge chop she delivered with her left hand. Switching martial arts styles in mid-flow, Paris flew upward and drove a vicious knee into my rib cage, which elicited a wince.

&nbs
p; “Stop!”

  She was caught off-guard as I caught her and wrapped her in a bear hug. When I didn’t let go, she went to bite me, but caught a head butt for her trouble.

  “Ow!” she cried out.

  While I had the enraged hellcat stunned, I head-butted her again, then swept her off her feet. She tried to block my move with her legs, but I slammed her onto the porch anyway, placing my full weight atop her.

  “Ugh . . . get off me!” she groaned as I barely gave her room to breathe, let alone move or wiggle free.

  “No!” I yelled back as I scrambled atop her before she could reach my gun or some other weapon. “Not until you calm down.”

  “You shot my tire then you . . . you head-butted me! Twice!”

  “I only shot your tire to stop you from leaving. And you attacked me first!”

  Her scowl faded, surprising me as I thought it a ruse to get me to drop my guard. “How’d I do?” she asked as she slipped into a big, cozy smile, her anger turned off like some switch.

  She was certifiable.

  And sexy.

  I was in love.

  And maybe . . . certifiable too.

  “Incredible. You are incredible, Paris,” I admitted, so proud of her despite my achy jaw and ribs. In their place, an ache of another sort began to blossom and grow in intensity. “How’d I do?” I asked back.

  “You weren’t too bad,” she replied with a smug grin.

  “Gee. Thanks,” I groaned. “I was defending myself. Didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Oooh. Sometimes a little hurtin’ can . . . be . . . good,” she uttered, acknowledging my growing presence pressing up against her.

  “So if I let you go, you promise you’ll behave?” I asked.

  Paris grasped my ass and pulled me even closer onto her, our bodies assuming a familiar rhythmic tempo of lust. “How’s this for behaving?” she teased. “You know what I want,” Paris moaned.

  “Yeah. I do,” I replied. “But let’s take it inside. Don’t want a spark setting off the ammo.”