by Weber, Carl
“Navid, I need you to get your ass back here,” I raged at that damn Judas.
“No.”
“Excuse me? What did you say to me?”
“I can’t come back and work with you. You’re not a good person.”
“How dare you judge me? And what do you think your parents will say?” I threatened.
“I don’t know. I’m going home to tell them myself. I won’t let you hurt anyone anymore.”
“Oh, grow the fuck up. This is real life and in real life people get hurt. Deal with it.”
“No. Not this time.”
“What did you say?” I growled, the wheels turning in my head.
“Nothing. Forget it,” Navid mumbled.
I slammed down the phone. I needed to check that nothing was getting in the way of my plan. Something did not sound right.
Paris
71
I rolled off of Niles, butt naked and thoroughly satisfied. This man knew my body as if we had always been together. God, I loved him.
“Where are you going?” Niles asked as I rose and started dressing.
“With you.”
“Paris . . .” he said cautiously.
Wiping my tears, I stifled a laugh. “No . . . no, no, no,” I said, sniffling. “I’m going to drive you to the airport. I think I deserve a sappy good-bye,” I lied. “Besides, I need to get my ass out of here and back to Spain. Left all my shit there.”
“Is this some ploy so you can go along?” He got up, revealing all the reasons I should just throw him back on the bed.
“If you were going to any other city, but I’m not tryin’a show up in New York.”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m gonna go jump in the shower. I would ask you to join me but we’ll never get out.” He laughed, grabbing me around the waist and planting a deep, wet kiss on me.
“I’m not showering. I want to smell you on me all day. Maybe I won’t shower at all until you come back.”
“That is so fuckin’ nasty and hot. You dirty girl,” he joked as he headed to the shower.
“Hey, since you fixed my tire we’ll take my car. I’ll transfer all your stuff into it,” I said.
He turned around and smiled at me, all teeth and cocky as hell. “See, this is why I’m keeping you. You’re like a sexy ninja girl scout.”
“Go! I don’t want you blaming me for being late.” I pointed him to the bathroom. As soon as I heard the shower turn on I got to work gathering everything I would need. Twenty minutes later we were headed out of the compound.
“You gonna turn on your phone?” Niles motioned to the phone I thought I had hidden so well.
“I’m not going to see you for a week. I’ll deal with it later.”
“Somebody likes living on the edge.”
“Well, somebody wouldn’t be with you if they didn’t.”
“So we’re together?” Niles’s voice took on a serious tone as his eyes bore into me.
“Yes, we are.” I wanted to turn and face him but I had to keep my eyes on the road so I pulled over to the side.
“Why you stopping?” He placed his hand on top of mine.
“What if you don’t come back?” I proposed.
“Then I will reflect on the wonderful moments that I’ve shared with you in way too short a time,” he said softly, caressing my face. “But the main thing I’m gonna do is my job. And do it effectively so we don’t have to worry about such things.”
As much as I needed to change his mind I knew that I couldn’t. The job was what he did and he would no more walk away from unfinished business than I could.
I grabbed his arm and held it tight, begging him with my eyes. I wanted to tell him the truth. But I just couldn’t bring myself to speak.
“Hey. I’ve got something for you,” he interrupted my thoughts. He reached into his waistband then extended his hand. One of his karambit blades rested in it. “It’s for you . . . until they’re reunited.”
“What . . . why?” I babbled before taking the blade from him.
“Tell you what,” he started. “When I get back. We’ll lay it all on the line, me and you, and see how things go. Paris, you make me nervous like a little schoolboy and I’m not used to feeling all open and shit. But I do believe fate brought us together back in Spain. I love you with all my heart, you crazy, sexy woman. And I’m ready to commit to you.”
I was stunned. On top of my frayed emotions, this left me speechless.
“Just something I needed to get off my chest . . . on the off chance that something does happen to me and I don’t return. Tomorrow’s never promised, but I need you to know that my love for you is . . .”
Niles kissed me tenderly. As he pivoted, I locked my grip on the single blade. Mad at myself for enjoying the kiss. When we finished neither of us spoke. I drove away from the side and let him direct me back to the private airstrip. I pulled my car up to the plane and let him out. God, I didn’t want to. I wanted him to stay here with me. He unloaded his bags and I watched him walk toward the plane. Then I pulled out my cell.
“Paris?” he answered, surprised by the suddenness of my call. He hadn’t even made it to the first step. He turned to look at me sitting in the car.
I hesitated at first, biting my lip. “You . . . you told me to tell you when I made my decision,” I mumbled.
“I recall saying that,” he said with a chuckle.
“Well . . . I did.”
“And? Are you all in, Paris?”
“Yeah. I am,” I solemnly said.
“Good. Because I know you looked inside the folder,” he stated, startling me. “Just wanted to show that I trust you with my business . . . no matter who says I shouldn’t. No secrets. I love you, ma,” he said, oblivious to who I really was.
Who I really am.
A Duncan.
The daughter of the man he was going to merc.
“I love you too,” I replied. “Always.”
“Then we’re the same.” Walking back over he gave me a quick kiss on the lips, holding me around the waist. As his hands fell away and he began to move away I grabbed his arm holding it firmly. At first he looked confused because my grip had intensity but when his eyes met mine they were soft, smiling.
“Do you trust me?” I fought back tears.
“Yes, and that’s not something that comes naturally to me,” he said, holding my gaze for a full minute.
“Then believe me when I say you can’t go. Call it a hunch or a feeling or a premonition but you have to walk away from this job.” I heard my voice catch from the emotional hell swirling deep down at the core of my heart.
“Bae, it’s gonna be all right. I’m not leaving you. Plus, I need to finish this job so that I can walk away from Nadja.”
“I don’t care. Do another job for her. I need you to stay with me.” I knew the begging wasn’t sexy but I couldn’t just let him go. He reached out and swooped me up in his arms and held me close. But by the time he put me down I knew he’d made his decision and nothing I said would deter him. I watched as he walked toward the plane and stepped up the ladder, disappearing into the G5. And just like that he was gone.
My hands trembling, I donned a pair of gloves I‘d hastily stowed in my pocket in anticipation of this moment. From the opposite pocket, I produced a wireless transmitter and removed the safety with a flick of my thumb. I waited until the plane had taken off. I imagined him there in the cockpit, thinking about me the way that I was here thinking about him.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and counted to three as I fought back tears.
But in the end, the outcome was predetermined from the moment I looked in that file.
Back in a cheap motel in Valencia, Niles once taught me a valuable lesson about having to make hard choices. When he wanted me to prove I was about this life.
Well, I am.
I opened my eyes . . .
And pressed the trigger.
And all I could say, “I love you, Niles.”
&nb
sp; Only when the sky erupted in a blaze of light was I convinced of my success.
Success was synonymous with misery right now as the transmitter fell from my open hand.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, but there was no one there to hear it. My chest heaving, I screamed again. But none of it diminished the hurt.
I drove out of the airstrip, the flames of the airplane lighting the sky and falling into pieces everywhere. As my car sped down the road, tears streaming down my face almost blinded me but I didn’t care. I couldn’t. The thought of crashing violently into something—a tree, another car, a brick wall—and turning my emotional pain physical filled me with relief. Or something resembling that but at the moment I wasn’t close to feeling okay. Especially when I could still smell him on me, and imagine him pressed against my body alive, his arms encircling me, him breathing, loving me. What choice did I have? I gripped the steering wheel, wrapping my free arm around my belly trying to alleviate my pain and regret. Just then I passed another car emerging from the opposite road. My body went cold as a blinding rage washed over me. It took everything I had left not to whip my car around and follow. She had done this.
Nadja. Her face a mask of hatred and shock as she rushed toward the aiport. Too late.
She stopped the car and got out. In my rearview mirror I saw her falling to the ground in grief. Seeing her mourning the man I loved, who loved me, the one she had sent to his death forced me to place both hands on the steering wheel as I slowed down to a mere crawl.
Why should she be able to live? Why shouldn’t she meet her demise with the pistol I’d placed in the glove compartment earlier? The more I thought about the devastation she had set in motion the angrier and more determined I became to avenge Niles’s death. She deserved to be shot down like the manipulative dirty dog she had shown herself to be. Maybe I wouldn’t need to use my gun. This car had the power to mow her down without me getting my hands dirty.
“Fuck it!” I started to U-turn just as I noticed another car speeding toward the airport. I quickly whipped a U and sped toward the airport. Within seconds the car behind me gunned its engine and sped past me, spinning around in the middle of the road and stopping. Pressing down on the brake I stopped a couple of car lengths from this new barrier. I had no idea who had come after me but they had picked the wrong day. There was nothing more dangerous than a person with nothing to lose and I had lost everything. Once I got rid of them I planned to place one bullet between Nadja’s eyes.
I grabbed my piece and exited the car. Slipping around to the rear for a better shot I raised the gun ready to put this motherfucker six feet under.
As a black man exited out the passenger side, I dropped to a knee and lined him up in my sights, ready for whatever. Wearing a suit and dark sunglasses, he moved in my direction.
I picked up on the familiar gait and body language, having seen that pompous-ass swagger one too many times.
“Orlando?” I gasped in disbelief as I moved my eye away from the sight. It was hard to believe, but true.
“Orlando!” I yelled as I stood up, dropping my gun and sprinting toward him. I knew for a fact that I was never happier to see that asshole in my life. Then the other car door opened and Rio jumped out, running to join us.
I ran into his arms and collapsed, nothing left to give.
“Easy. Easy,” he said, reminding me of Niles’s steady assurance so many times over the past week.
“I . . . I killed him, Orlando,” I said wearily as my brother just held me. “He was going to kill Daddy.”
“It’s all right. We know, sis,” he assured me. “We’ve known where you are every step of the way. When you broke your phone, we lost the signal. Thought something had happened to you, so I got here as fast as I could. We just radioed LC that we found you.”
“What . . . what do you mean? You knew about Niles?” I asked as I pushed away so as to look my brother in the eye. Rio rushed over to my car and grabbed all my stuff and stowed it in the trunk.
“That’s his name?” Orlando asked, flashing a smile as he watched the black smoke still rising from up the road. “Yeah. We got word about the Italians’ move and that a hit man outta Europe was gonna come gunning for LC, but weren’t sure about his identity. A lot of the info was sketchy. Why do you think we put you up at the hotel in Spain?”
“Are you serious?” I threw out, to which he smiled and nodded.
“And with the way you look, no one would see you coming. Of course, when you started bopping around all over the place, we became worried that maybe our intel was bad. But that hit in London we heard about told us you were probably with him, so we backed off to see how this was gonna play out. My calls nagging you were just my way of checking in. If your boy Niles had made it to the NYC, we had something waiting. But you took care of things, sis. Damn proud of you. Now let’s get you outta here before somebody comes nosing around.”
“No! I have one more thing to do!” I fumed. Nadja had to go down for her part in this tragedy. I walked over and got my gun. Orlando came after me.
“You can’t.” He opened his palm for me to relinquish my piece but he must have been insane if he thought I would walk away this easily.
“You don’t understand. I have to do this.” I felt the tears starting to form again.
“Paris, you can’t.”
“You can’t stop me, O. She can’t live.”
“She’s protected. If you kill Nadja there will be an international war and it’s one we are not in a position to win. Not yet.”
Orlando took the gun from me. He opened the door, exposing one of our bodyguards wielding a rifle. He moved aside to allow me to enter. As they belted me in, I sat there numb and processing what had just been revealed to me. My being in the same place as Niles wasn’t a fluke. I was supposed to be Niles’s downfall from the moment we met.
Everybody just pieces on a chessboard.
Pawns, really.
As we drove off I turned and could see the black cloud where Niles’s plane had been.
“Anything left in that Volvo?” Orlando asked me as we remained there.
“No. I don’t think so,” I mumbled. Niles had put the spare on this morning.
“If so, it won’t be for long,” my brother commented.
“You used C4?” Orlando asked, breaking me from my funk.
“Yeah. Remote detonation,” I remarked as if reciting from my training.
“You a natural, sis,” he commented, sounding oddly proud. Orlando never sounded proud over anything I did.
“Y’all sending me back to school now,” I wearily accepted, finally speaking. I was numbed by it all and perhaps welcoming Headmistress Madame Joan Marie’s discipline and her thick French accent.
“No, it’s time to go home,” Orlando spoke.
“Yeah, sis, we’re all going home,” Rio added.
“Home?” Just the word brought the avalanche of tears cascading down my face. Instead of feeling like a badass assassin I felt like a wounded five-year-old who needed her mother to hug her and assure her that it would all get better.
Rio reached over and undid the seat belt. He pulled me into his arms and let me completely empty out my emotional well all over his shirt. Then something hit me. I leaned up and stared at my twin.
“What about your job?” I couldn’t believe Rio had caved.
“Pop is letting me add club ownership to the family business,” he bragged, a huge smile on his face.
“Guess a few days at home will be good for me,” I said, holding back tears.
“Oh, as far as school is concerned you passed your final exam. Consider yourself graduated.” Orlando smiled at me. “Right now you need your family and, Paris, we need you to come home. We need you. It hasn’t been the same without you. Too damn quiet and predictable. And if you ever repeat that I said this I will deny it.” And suddenly through all the pain and grief I knew that he was right.
“You knew this was gonna happen?”
“I didn’t. But Pops did,” he finished.
“If there is one thing LC Duncan knows, it’s the Family Business.” Rio laughed and for the first time I felt relieved to be going home to my family . . . and the family business.
Urban Books, LLC
97 N18th Street
Wyandanch, NY 11798
To Paris with Love: A Family Business Novel
Copyright © 2013 Carl Weber
Copyright © 2013 Eric Pete
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-6228-6234-4
This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.
Distributed by Kensington Publishing Corp.
Submit Wholesale Orders to:
Kensington Publishing Corp.
C/O Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Attention: Order Processing
405 Murray Hill Parkway
East Rutherford, NJ 07073-2316
Phone: 1-800-526-0275
Fax: 1-800-227-9604
