Showdown

by Cindy Dees

  “We’ve always got room for you, Mr. Gigoni. Will a presidential suite be acceptable? If you need something larger or one of the penthouses, we can accommodate you in a few hours.”

  “A presidential will be fine.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  One thing people in this town did well was suck up to fat wallets. Secretly, it still gave him immense satisfaction to be perceived as suck-up-to-worthy. He tried damned hard to remember his roots and never become insufferable about his wealth, of course. But getting great service everywhere he went was definitely one of the best perks of success. Money did indeed buy convenience, even if it didn’t buy happiness.

  Interestingly enough, Zane seemed neither intimidated by his surroundings nor fazed by people staring at him. In a matter of seconds, a suite attendant came around the front desk with plastic room keys in hand and personally led them to the elevators.

  The attendant opened the suite’s door for them and handed over the keys, then backed out discreetly, closing the door behind him.

  Zane stopped in the entry and took in the palatial furnishings. “Holy overkill, Sebastian. I can’t afford this place.”

  “No worries. It’s on me.”

  “A place like this is way classier than I’m accustomed to.”

  “Really?” Sebastian blurted. “It’s the only kind of place I can picture you in.”

  “Aww, thanks, boo.” Zane gifted him with a smile so perfect it was almost too dazzlingly white and even to look at.

  Sebastian added dryly, “Think of it as a thank-you in advance for cooperating with me.”

  “Cooperating with what?”

  “Let’s open the suitcase and see what’s inside. If it becomes necessary, I’ll answer that question afterward.”

  “Let’s do it on the table,” Zane purred.

  Sebastian’s gaze snapped to the model’s. Smartass was smirking. He’d meant that double entendre. In response, Sebastian rolled his eyes. He never had been any good at casual flirtation, and he wasn’t interested in taking it up as a hobby at this late date.

  Zane lifted the suitcase onto the antique french dining room table. “Should I open it?”

  Sebastian shrugged. “It was already opened at the airport and nothing bad happened. I’d say you’re safe to pop the lid again.”

  Zane hesitated for a moment, exhaled hard, and opened it. He stepped back quickly, gesturing for Sebastian to have at the contents. “Feel free to blow yourself up. As for me, I’m going over here out of the blast zone.”

  “Technically, this entire suite is within the blast zone if there’s a bomb in there,” Sebastian corrected absently as he checked carefully for booby traps on the briefcase and spotted nothing. “What you want to be outside of is the kill zone.”

  “I don’t give a crap about dying, man, but I cannot afford to disfigure my face.”

  Sebastian snorted. Pretty boy.

  “Is there really a bomb in there?” Zane called from the vicinity of the kitchen.

  “Nah. This bag has been x-rayed and sniffed by bomb dogs in Milan and at JFK. There’s nothing explosive in here.”

  “You mean nothing that dogs have been trained to detect or that the machines have been programmed to detect.”

  “Bit of conspiracy theorist, are you?” he called. Although Zane did have a point. Not to mention long habits and an abundance of caution made Sebastian take all the precautions of checking for an explosive device.

  He carefully unbuckled the nylon straps holding down the briefcase. All clear. He lifted out the briefcase and set it on the table. Still no nasty surprises. It looked like a regular leather attaché case. Nice one, though. Fine leather, slim design. Very classy. He removed the suit next and held it up.

  “Nice suit. Armani couture. Spring season this year,” Zane announced from the dining room doorway.

  “How in the hell can you tell that?” Sebastian demanded. It was a dark suit. Made of… suit stuff. It had sleeves and lapels. The pants had legs and a zipper. As pants did.

  Zane snorted. “I can tell that’s Armani the same way you’d tell a Ford from a Chevy. By looking at it. The lapel shape, cut of the body, buttonhole and pocket placements—it’s obviously Armani.”

  “If you say so.” Sebastian lifted out a dress shirt made of cotton so fine even he could tell it was a top-end designer shirt. Same with the light gray silk tie. He knew silk because Special Forces types used a lot of it in ropes and fabrics. It was strong stuff. Light. Useful.

  He dug in the suitcase’s interior side pockets and found black dress socks and a pair of narrow, elegant dress shoes. Mr. Fashionista could probably name who’d made those too. All Sebastian could identify was that they were black and leather. Only thing the wearer of this suit would have to provide was boxers or briefs. Personally, he was a boxer guy. Zane, however, struck him as a leopard-print spandex thong type—

  Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna speculate on the possible smuggler’s underwear type.

  “Are you ever going to look in the damned briefcase, or am I going to have to do it?” Zane demanded.

  “Let me. It could be trapped.”

  “As in rigged to blow up?” Zane squawked. “I thought you said it was all x-rayed and sniffed!”

  “A booby trap doesn’t have to be that dramatic. But there could be, for example, an acid packet inside. It could be rigged to empty on the contents of the bag, or a small fire could break out that would burn up all the papers inside.”

  “How in the hell do you know about stuff like that? You’re not a cop, are you?”

  “I never said anything about who I am.”

  “Well, who are you, then?”

  “I already answered that. Don’t like to repeat myself.”

  “I don’t know whether to laugh at you or run screaming,” Zane declared, staring at him doubtfully.

  “I get that reaction a lot from people.”

  “Should I stand back while you open the briefcase?”

  “That might be a good idea.” Not because he seriously thought the thing was going to blow up, but because he didn’t necessarily want Zane to see the contents.

  Sebastian laid the slim briefcase on its side. The brown glove leather was smooth under his fingertips. Cautiously he snapped open the twin brass latches and lifted the lid a millimeter. Nothing. He opened it another two millimeters and poked in a nickel-size dental mirror on a long handle and had a look around the edges of the case. Still nothing. He opened the case all the way and looked down.

  It wasn’t empty. Far from it.

  He stared down at the contents in a combination of dismay, shock, and awe, and breathed, “Son of a bitch.”

  Chapter Three

  CURIOSITY KILLING him, Zane leaned around the doorjamb to peek into the briefcase. It was filled with a piece of gray foam. A pair of shallow cutouts in the foam cradled two pieces of wood cut in the shape of plaques. “Are you kidding me? Someone stole everything I own to get a pair of wall plaques into the country?”

  He stepped forward and looked at the metal plates screwed onto each piece of wood. “Annual sales awards for office products? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Sebastian grunted. “Don’t believe everything you see.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He watched as Sebastian pulled out a pocket knife and unfolded a small screwdriver head. He went to work unscrewing one of the thin metal plates that did indeed announce an annual sales award from the front of a plaque.

  “What are you doing?” Zane asked curiously.

  “Seeing if the tip we got from our informant was accurate.”

  “What tip? What informant? What the hell is going on? Do you mean to tell me I lost all my clothes for this crap?”

  No answer. Instead, Sebastian finished unscrewing the first plate and turned it over. He swore under his breath.

  “What is it?” Zane demanded. “I have a right to know. It was my bag it got here in. That technically makes whatever it is mine, r
ight? Possession is nine-tenths of the law and all that?”

  Sebastian laid the metal plate on the table and went to work on the second plaque.

  Zane looked down at the plate. At first, the shallow engraving didn’t make any sense. But then he tilted his head a little and saw exactly what was engraved on the plate. It was a reverse image of the front of a twenty-dollar bill.

  “What the hell is that?” he blurted. Surely it wasn’t what he thought it was.

  “Nothing.” Sebastian finished releasing the second plate and turned it over as well. When he laid it carefully on the table, Zane saw the back side of a twenty-dollar bill engraved on this plate.

  “This is a joke, right?”

  “Sure. Let’s go with that,” Sebastian replied grimly. “It’s all a big joke.”

  “Seriously, man. What are those? Where do they come from?”

  “Seriously, if I tell you, I could be putting your life in danger.”

  Zane frowned. “Given that some asshole chose my suitcase to put those in, I’d say I’m already in danger.”

  Sebastian scowled at him grumpily. Zane’s stomach flip-flopped at this big, intimidating man looking at him like he wanted to bend him over his knee and spank him. Not that Zane was particularly into kink.

  Down, boy, he mentally admonished his dick. No sex for you just yet. The mystery of the metal plates in his bag had to be solved first. And the level of threat to his life had yet to be determined.

  “Okay. So somebody changed out my clothes for those metal things. I bring them into the US, and then what? Somebody picks them up from me? Steals them back? Kills me and takes them?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Possibly to which one? I’m not loving the idea of being murdered, here.”

  “That’s a fair reaction,” Sebastian replied.

  Not helpful. The dude still hadn’t told him which option was the most likely. “Exactly how much danger am I in and from whom?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Because you don’t know or won’t tell me?”

  Sebastian’s scowl turned into something akin to thunderous frustration. The guy’s eyes burned, and his square jaw clenched hard enough to show the muscles beneath the bronze skin. His nostrils flared and his generous mouth tightened into a thin, hard line. Everything about him screamed fury, and yet the tiger was tightly leashed. An urge to provoke Sebastian until he lost control surged through Zane. To be taken by a man like that—so burly and strong, so demanding and in control…. He surreptitiously fanned himself a little.

  In his line of work, most of his boyfriends tended to be models like him—beautiful, charming, and a bit flaky. It made for a fun ride, but chaotic. Unpredictable and unreliable. What would it be like to be with a man like Sebastian?

  He came across as a bit of a control freak. He would definitely want to call the shots in bed. Although he could be in for a bit of a surprise in that department. Zane was perfectly happy taking control of the sex. He knew what he liked and wasn’t afraid to go after it.

  “Look. You owe me the truth,” Zane tried. “I ran out of JFK at your insistence, and I’m probably already on the no-fly list. My God, there’s probably an arrest warrant out on me. I can’t go to jail. You understand me? A pretty guy like me?” He shuddered. “I can’t even think about it.”

  “Then don’t,” Sebastian said matter-of-factly. As if it was no big deal to turn off his imagination, to set aside his fears and anxiety at the flip of a switch. If only.

  “I fled a Customs officer for you, and I came along nicely like you asked me to. And that’s my suitcase. But whoever put that stuff in it must know who I am, or at least know my name and have some way to find me. I’m telling you. I had nothing to do with putting those… money-printing thingies—”

  “Technically, they’re electroplated intaglio printing plates,” Sebastian inserted.

  “Money-printing thingies… I had nothing to do with putting them in my bag. But somebody knows they’re in my stuff and is going to come looking for me, right? They’re gonna want their printing plates back so they can make counterfeit twenties.”

  “I would say that’s a logical assumption.”

  “Don’t be so goddamned calm about it! We’re talking about criminals, here. Coming for me!”

  “Freaking out isn’t going to help the situation,” Sebastian intoned with admirable—and totally infuriating—calm.

  “Standing there as if nothing’s happened—not doing a damned thing—isn’t going to help either!” He heard the screech in his voice and didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything he could do to keep himself from squeaking like a doggie chew toy. He was fucking terrified.

  “Off the top of your head, do you know anyone who’s a smuggler or counterfeiter?” Sebastian asked, breaking the spiral of panic sucking Zane down into the mental abyss.

  “Counter—” He broke off. “Holy crap! Those are actual plates for printing money!” He’d sincerely hoped they were replicas or something, not real plates.

  Sebastian looked supremely annoyed.

  Ha. He was right! “It’s twenty-dollar bills, yes? American currency?”

  “As American as apple pie,” Sebastian answered. “Although, technically, pie was first made by ancient Egyptians. The Romans made them, and the word pye was in common usage in fourteenth-century England. Although most early pies were meat pies. Fruit-based tarts and pies became popular in Elizabethan England and came to America with early English colonists—”

  “Seriously?” Zane interrupted.

  Sebastian broke off, looking startled. Whether that was because he was unused to being interrupted when lecturing on the history of pie, for Chrissake, or because he’d actually been lost down the rabbit hole of his own trivia, Zane couldn’t tell.

  “What?” Sebastian mumbled.

  “I’m going to be murdered, and you’re telling me about the history of tarts. Focus, my dude. Focus.”

  Sebastian scowled. But at least he shut up about pies.

  Zane turned his attention back to the printing plates. “Damn. Too bad they aren’t hundreds, or maybe thousand-dollar bills. Those exist, right?”

  “Yes. They exist. But they would draw way too much attention if someone walked into a bank with a suitcase full of them. Even hundreds draw extra scrutiny. But twenties… no one looks twice at them. As an aside, it’s also the currency of the drug trade. They do everything in increments of five and twenty. That way the street dealers don’t have to do a lot of mental math, and all the deals can be done in five-dollar and twenty-dollar bills—”

  “Staahhpp,” he complained.

  “What?”

  “This isn’t a Trivial Pursuit game. It’s my fucking life.”

  “Fine.” Sebastian momentarily sulked, although to his credit, he got over his pout fast enough and said a bit defensively, “For what it’s worth, twenties are the currency of choice for counterfeiters too. A twenty is a small enough bill that people don’t look too closely at it, but large enough to have a little buying power.”

  “Umm, good to know?” Zane replied.

  “Criminals these days multitask. They don’t just deal drugs, or run guns, or sex traffic. They do it all.”

  “Including printing their own money?”

  “A few of the big outfits do.”

  “Why bother with the other crimes if you can just make cash for yourself? Seems a lot less dangerous and violent to just set up a printing press.”

  “In the first place, money’s got to get laundered and into the money supply somehow. Any decent counterfeiter also needs a way to launder cash, and a lot of it, quickly and without much risk. Hence the other criminal activities. In the second place, money’s not that easy to make. You have to get the right paper and ink, know how to wash it, embed holograms in the paper. It’s not easy to create passable fake cash. In the case of the syndicate who stuck those plates in your bag, I have reason to believe they’re desperate for money, or else they w
ouldn’t be trying to do it.”

  A whole criminal syndicate was behind his stolen clothes and smuggled printing plates? Oh, he didn’t like the sound of that. A crime organization big enough to print its own money sounded like the kind of gang that would have killers for hire on their speed dials. He stared at his suitcase. Who in the world had done this to him? While he might like to think he was famous, his fame didn’t extend beyond a tiny group of fashion insiders who bothered to learn the names of the top runway models. Female models were able to build name recognition and fan bases, but the male models—not so much.

  Aloud he asked, “So how is this supposed to work? Whoever stuck those plates in my suitcase will call me and tell me where and when to deliver them? And then I’m just supposed to do it?”

  “If all goes well, I would love to see the handoff go that smoothly,” Sebastian answered. “But until you get that call, I’m staying with you. I’ll go with you to the delivery and try to identify or apprehend the recipient—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought you said you’re not law enforcement.”

  Sebastian blinked. “I’m not.”

  “I’m sorry, but I want the police or the FBI or somebody official in on this. I want bulletproof vests and snipers and radios—all the cool toys—hell, I want a fucking SWAT team. My life is on the line here.”

  “That’s the last thing you should do.”

  “Why?” he demanded, irate.

  “In the first place, it would be way too obvious, and the bad guy would never, ever show up to make the handoff with law enforcement crawling all over the place.”

  “They can hide—”

  “Huge surveillance teams aren’t as easy to hide in real life as they are on TV,” Sebastian responded.

  Well, hell. Zane wanted to disagree with that, but since all of his knowledge of police did come from television shows, he couldn’t legitimately argue.

  “In the second place,” Sebastian continued, “whoever has enough clout to get these plates made and sent to the United States has enough clout to buy cops and feds.”