Up in Smoke (Kisses and Crimes Book 2)

by Natalie E. Wrye

  I laughed, backing up a step.

  “If you had the chance…? When would that have been? When you were on your knees, begging me not to knock your brain into your cock?”

  I balled my fists together, preparing myself as the loud-mouthed Brit took another wild swing, his body nearly falling as he lunged forward with the entire right side of his body (shoulder, fist and all)… and missed.

  I circled him, smiling.

  “Not that you have much of either—the brain or the cock. If you did, you’d know that you’re no fucking match for me…” I aimed to drive the dagger home. I sneered the words. “Punk.”

  He went for me. Just as I knew he would.

  And when he did, I let him have it, slamming an elbow to his throat, letting his head snap back before I swept a foot at his ankles, bringing him down hard once more.

  He landed flat on his back, and I placed the sole of my black shoe on top of his cheek, pressing. The Brit grunted into the grooves of my Ferragamo shoe, and I leaned in viciously.

  I wanted him to hear every word.

  “Give me your shit. All of it.”

  He reached in his wet pockets, handing over his phone, his wallet… and a junior-sized condom that wouldn’t even fit my pinky.

  I sneered at the contents, flicking the collar of Little Dick’s jacket. I wasn’t playing games with this goon.

  “All of it,” I emphasized. Kiddie Cock’s eyes went wide—he could tell what I meant—and my smile grew snide.

  I kept talking.

  “So… you want to tell me where your boss is… or do you want to lose what little cock and brain you do have?”

  ***

  The Lexington hotel in Manhattan was not the type of hotel I expected the senator to patronize.

  It was quaint, sophisticated in an old-school fashioned kind of way, and it had none of the overblown pomp and circumstance I knew the senator was used to. None of the “How-big-can-I-make-people-think-my-dick-is” showiness that I’d seen him become accustomed to.

  Gaudiness was part of his cultural upbringing; vanity and nepotism was as much a part of him as the blue blood pumping through his privileged veins. His type had a code—a way of living. And they followed it to a fucking T.

  The rules were simple.

  Money first. Morals later.

  And I was willing to bet that the senator’s little hotel rendezvous would have something to do with the former.

  I parked my Audi around the corner from the hotel, schlepping my soaked ass through the still-beating rain, and just as I was heading to the lobby, the man of the hour was leaving it…

  With an unknown, tight-bodied, little blonde in tow.

  I hesitated as the two came waltzing down the steps—umbrellas up, business attire on… and a new stalker in the form of me walking swiftly in their wake.

  I cursed myself, turning around, retracing my own steps quickly as the stern-looking twosome entered a black towncar waiting curbside outside of the hotel.

  Tucking themselves into the car, they disappeared behind its black, dimmed windows, and I found myself doing something similar, jogging through the downpour before slipping back into my driver’s seat, where I put the car in gear.

  The town car pulled off. And I took off after it, peeling out of my parking space to edge my Audi into the lane behind it.

  With anxiety beating beneath my breast like a marching band’s drummer, I followed the sleek car, noticing no additional security in tow. I watched my back and kept one eye on my rearview in case another one of the senator’s guards wanted to join the fray.

  Luckily, they didn’t.

  My vigilant watching tapered into an occasional glance at my mirrors as the towncar finally slowed. Its passengers slid out.

  And that’s when I slipped in.

  I parked across the street, gripping my grey coat across the collar as I walked casually through the chilled rain showers.

  Once inside the hotel, I settled in, removing my coat and draping it over one arm as I approached the hotel front desk and the young hotel clerk standing behind it.

  I gave her my finest smile.

  “Excuse me, Miss.”

  Her eyes met mine.

  “Did you happen to see a well-dressed couple walking by just now? A slender woman with blonde hair? A tall man with grey hair in ‘I’m-a-rich-dickhead’ suit?”

  Her green eyes went bright with humor as I raised an eyebrow knowingly. Then she pointed in the direction in which they walked and I shook her hand.

  As a PI, it was best to make friends in all sorts of places for later use. So when she slipped a business card with her phone number on the back in my hand, I took it without hesitation.

  I nodded politely and headed in the direction the clerk had jutted her dainty, nail-polished finger.

  I knew I’d hit the jackpot the second I saw the maître d’.

  He looked at me, letting his haughty gaze run up and down my soaked shirt and slacks before his eyes returned to my face. I’m sure he was unsure what to do with me, but he didn’t falter.

  His glare remained impassive. And he gave me a smile that was both tight and polite. He barely managed to blink.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “Yes, actually. I’d like a table, please,” I answered warmly.

  “I see, sir.” He glanced quickly behind him. His eyes met with a waiter, standing in the background, and he motioned towards him.

  The maître d’ beckoned towards me from behind his tiny desk and when he went to approach, he almost stepped into a puddle.

  A puddle that was me.

  The coat draped over my forearm was dripping onto the floor, and every orifice on my body seemed to be dripping with it.

  I was a walking human waterfall, and I tried to smile despite the discomfort of the hotel restaurant’s host. I flashed him a winning grin, and, uncomfortable or not, he allowed the waiter to usher me in.

  I stopped the poor, unsuspecting young staffer as soon as the senator’s table was within eye-shot. I plopped down into a booth that put the politician right into my line of sight.

  I slipped the waiter a sopping hundred.

  “Thanks, kid. I’ll sit here, if you don’t mind.” I leaned in from where I sat. “And if the grey-haired man at that side table over there makes a move from that seat, I want to know about it. I’ve decided to make you my personal waiter today, and if the maître d’ has anything to say about it, send him over for a chat.”

  The nervous waiter looked over his shoulder, and I waved another Franklin in his face.

  “There’s another hundred in it if you tell ‘Mr. Host’ over there to ‘fuck off.’”

  The young man nodded on a nervous laugh, and then took off. I settled back into my seat, tossing my coat aside, and when I was sure no one was looking, I inched my way to the booth’s outer edge.

  From the edge of the cushioned bench, I watched the senator’s severe-looking side profile.

  Dick Tracy in a business suit.

  His face was serious. The thick set of his jaw coincided perfectly with the wideness of his neck, and the senator, for all his wealth and power, still gave me the impression of a linebacker carefully suited in Giorgio Armani.

  All straight lines. No curves.

  He was built for a man of his age, and even now as he motioned relentlessly with his hands next to his younger acquaintance, there was a smoothness to his demeanor.

  His commanding presence was half-finesse, half-imposing will—the sheer size of his body giving him a larger-than-life persona that was hard to ignore, hard to resist.

  The younger blonde was hanging onto his every word.

  It appeared to be a business meeting. The clothes, the briefcases, even the open dockets on their white table-clothed tabletop.

  But I knew how to read between the lines.

  I knew that the gestures—the prolonged hand touches, the open stares, and the slight brushes of the pretty blonde’s crossed legs against his ow
n—were more than what they seemed.

  The senator was having an affair.

  And as I processed this information, the anxious waiter made his way back to my table, setting a glass of water and dishware on the open table space in front of me, as I practically salivated at this knowledge.

  I was sure the white-collared youngster mistook my drool for hunger.

  “Ahh, I see you are anxious for your food already, sir. What can I get for you from the menu?”

  “Jack straight,” I almost barked without looking.

  “Would you like some ic—?”

  Still heavily engrossed, I added.

  “No ice. No coke. No water. Just the Jack.”

  He bobbed his head up and down like a cork, trying to appease me. “Yes. Yes, of course, sir.”

  He disappeared from my side, and my eyes narrowed as the fair-haired woman at the senator’s table nearly collided with the retreating waiter.

  Her chair scooting back suddenly, she rose from the senator’s table, her expression hardened, her movements huffy as she clutched her purse and made a beeline for the exits.

  She had my full attention now.

  And because of her quick exit… I noticed things I hadn’t noticed before. Like her eyes…

  They had a twinkle in them when I first saw them. Her hair was curlier then, wild and tousled in a way that made her the dirtiest-looking, white angel I’d ever seen. When she winked at me, her lashes long and reaching for the sky beneath a white fuzzy halo, I’d been surprised.

  It hadn’t been enough to keep my attention—my Harley Quinn had all of that—but it had been enough to distract me.

  And now, seeing her again, having the full opportunity to look indulgently into her face as she walked in my direction, I could see what I hadn’t seen twenty minutes earlier.

  The businesswoman with the senator was the white angel from the Halloween party—the one who’d helped me out with the drunken Velma.

  She was stomping past my booth with no regard to anything else but her anger, and as my gaze followed her, it found itself staring at the word “Restrooms.”

  Amidst a thickening lunch crowd entering the hotel restaurant, I mentally excused myself from my solitary table and, with a quick glance back at the self-absorbed senator, entered the men’s restroom door.

  The one located adjacent to hers.

  I closed the door and thought twice about locking it before leaving it open. I braced my hands against the sink. My head sunk between my forearms as I struggled to organize the facts swimming around in my obstinate head.

  What the fuck was going on?

  Was I supposed to catch the senator cheating? Is this what the mystery caller hired me for, and if so, why give me an invitation to Fletcher’s costume party?

  Why have his mistress “accidentally” bump into me at some crowded, “trust-fund babies” ball at the senator’s own house?

  Who was this woman—this mistress?

  And was that “twinkle” in her eyes, that flirty look she’d thrown me at that Halloween shindig in that sexy angel outfit, a casual come-on…?

  Or was it something more?

  I needed to find out.

  My head still hanging, I rubbed my palm across the wet strands that trickled rainwater into the porcelain men’s room sink. With a huff and a damp hand running along my nape, I finally raised my head.

  And when I did, I caught my own eyes in the mirror… and the eyes of an unknown face, staring at my reflection directly behind me.

  The assailant was on me before I could take another breath.

  His forearm hooked around my throat. Alarm slid into panic as the man standing behind me in the restroom nestled my neck into the inside of his elbow.

  He head-locked me with the crushing weight of the Jaws of Life and the unexpected fury of a madman. His eyes wild in the reflection in the mirror above the sink, he grimaced wickedly at my pain, his mouth sliding into a sadistic grin as he attempted to choke the life out of me.

  He dragged me backwards, pulling with all of his weight as he crushed my lowered head and neck against his heaving chest.

  I gasped, desperate for air as the man tightened his hold, stepping backwards, reveling in my defeat as my sopping wet shoes struggled to maintain a foothold on the slippery linoleum.

  I could feel the life inside slipping away from me… and I tried to grab onto it with both hands. I threw my head back, pushing my body into the unknown assailant’s until his own went crashing against the wall.

  We nearly fell.

  And yet the attacker never let up, despite my heaves and twisting. My slippery limbs couldn’t stay upright in his arms, and though I’d tired him, I knew he would hold out.

  I was the one who was at the disadvantage, and from this vantage point, even I could see that he would be the winner.

  The crazy fucker was going to outlast me.

  Pulling, scraping, clawing at every piece of him I could grasp, I tried to gauge his eyes out with my thumbs, almost succeeding amidst his screams until my slippery foot slid from under me. Again.

  It was all I had left. I was finished.

  And the last thing I could think of before realizing I was going to pass out was Penelope’s face.

  I thought about a kiss we’d never share, her blue eyes. I thought about a life I’d never live.

  I thought about it all… and then I dropped to my knees.

  I pretended to concede.

  And then I pulled on the ambushing prick with everything I had. Grabbing his arm, I twisted his body over my head towards the sink.

  I sent him smashing against the white porcelain and enamel, shattering the silence in the air into two—cracking the quietude (as well as his fucking head) into pieces as I found the strength I’d forgotten I had, and knocked the intruder’s ass unconscious.

  I fell, feeling broken, as bits of the mirror’s glass came flying overhead. Spent, I slumped towards the finely tiled floor and landed with a nauseating thump.

  I rolled over on my back.

  Thirty-three years of cracking dudes’ skulls, and it was clear.

  I was getting too old for this shit.

  With my cheekbone rubbing against the flat surface, I took a breath that was ragged and rough. That breath stopped short as soon as I saw who was standing over me.

  Jeff.

  And he was reaching down for me with an open-faced expression… and an opened palm. I took his hand before I could think twice about it. He pulled me roughly to my feet.

  “Holy fuck, man,” he exhaled, his eyes wide. “You alright?”

  He was wheezing almost as hard as I was, and I couldn’t even think as I braced a hand against the bathroom wall. I inhaled, sucking in hungry breaths. I inhaled so hard I thought the oxygen might choke in my throat.

  I coughed into the air.

  “H-how…?” I looked down at the glass around our feet. “What the hell are you doing here, Rookie?”

  Jeff pointed to the ground; normally jovial, my junior associate’s face grew harder than I’d ever seen it. His voice was even more severe.

  “The ‘who’ part is easier to answer than the ‘what.’”

  He pulled on the rumpled heap at his feet. And as he did, the face of the senator’s second bodyguard, Mr. Greasy Head from the bar, lay upwards for us to see.

  His slickened black hair lay limp over a cut beneath his brow. Shards of glass, sprinkled in his thinning hair, gave him the appearance of wearing a jagged crown, and at that moment, I’d realized “what” was happening.

  Jeff, the incompetent ass, was covering my own.

  He had only been in my employ for a short amount of time, but already the rookie was playing “hero” to my ass with increasing frequency.

  I would never have given the youngin a chance had Bishop not referred him to me, and as I stared at the unconscious guard, I sent a silent fist-bump to my best friend for his seemingly fucked-up recommendation.

  Because despite Jeff never
doing what the hell you told him to… the kid was a breath of fresh air. And frankly? I needed as much as I could fucking get.

  I took a deep breath, finding some sense of cool before speaking. I kicked the unconscious bastard at my feet. He didn’t stir.

  I exhaled. “Shit. I guess… that’s two for two, then,” I rasped.

  “Two for two?” Jeff looked around. “Well, where the hell is ‘one’?”

  At his question, I found a grin somewhere deep inside. I let it spread across my face, although it hurt like hell.

  My cheekbone felt like it was about to explode. I motioned towards the door.

  “Number one is in Harlem. He shouldn’t too be hard to find.” I finally found the energy to laugh. “Just look for the stark-ass naked man on 125th.” I slapped a hand over my neck, feeling the tension. “Fuck, my skills are soft.”

  Jeff slapped my shoulder with a reassuring hand.

  “Don’t worry, Jax; I’m sure your skills are… hard.” He winced at the wording. “And hey, old man, if you do decide to retire early, can I have your desk?”

  He grinned with wild abandon, and I realized that Jeff had been following me... simply waiting.

  This was a game for him, a method of playing, and though I appreciated his help—Hell, my skills as an FBI agent now belonged in the Museum of Natural History—I wasn’t exactly sure I liked being passed off as a pawn in this little game of his.

  If Jeff was here, then he was still eavesdropping on my office and calls. I grabbed his collar so I could make sure he understood me.

  I breathed into his face.

  “Look, don’t sign me up for AARP yet. We’ve got a lot of work to do…”

  “Well, hell, boss. I mean, it was a joke…”

  I grabbed him tighter. “No, it isn’t,” I cut in. “The senator’s goons trying to kill me is no joke. And if we treat it like one, we’ll be laughing all the way to the grave.” He gaped, and I continued. “Now, we’re not going to play this stalker game anymore. Got it? Where I go, you go. No sneaking around. No making power-moves behind my back.”

  I inhaled. Harshly.

  “It’s upfront or nothing at all. Understand?”

  “Understood.”

  “Now, I could use your help cleaning up this mess.” I nudged the passed out guard on the ground. “And by this mess, I mean him. I don’t have a lot of time…”