Fierce Justice

by Piper J. Drake

  She sighed and pulled her duffel close, reaching in and searching for a moment, then turning back to toss a neatly folded cloth at him. He raised his eyebrows at her and shook out the folds to figure out what it was. It might have been a pair of trousers but they were of very thin, lightweight cotton and the waist was huge.

  “You could fit in here with three of your best friends.” He peered around the side of the fabric he was holding up and caught her smiling again before she schooled her face to a more neutral expression. Ah, her mouth was a lot of fun to watch.

  “Those are kangkeng le. Thai-style pants used by fishermen, historically. They’re becoming more popular with people as casual loungewear, though. They’re one size fits most and these are specifically cut to be one size fits Westerners, even.” She gestured to the extra wide waist. “You step into them and wrap the extra material across the front, tie it off at the waist, and let the folded fabric fall over the top of the ties. I’ve been sleeping in them but they’ll probably fit you, at least until we can throw your clothes into a washing machine and dryer.”

  “I appreciate it.” He stood, taking his time as he did. With most other people, he moved slowly if he didn’t want to scare them. That wasn’t the concern with her. In her case, a fast move would push her into a defensive stance and then she wouldn’t be open to letting him help. He wanted her to keep her guard relaxed. It was too much to hope for her to drop it altogether.

  Instead, he strolled over to her, dared her to take a step back or push him away. She didn’t move but she did glare up at him as he walked right up to her. Toe to toe, she wasn’t about to give even the littlest bit of ground. He grinned. “I guess I’ll be spending the evening shirtless.”

  “I understand if you might feel too exposed.” She responded in a completely flat tone. “Feel free to keep your current shirt if you like.”

  He nodded, never taking his gaze away from hers. “Noted.”

  “Fun and games aside. You only told me the highlights earlier.” Her tone turned frosty.

  “I haven’t lied to you.”

  “Not directly, no.” Her lips pressed together and her dark eyes lost their brightness. “But omission is almost as dangerous.”

  He recognized that look. It happened to him, too. The humanity leached away, leaving behind only snap decisions. It was the void a person had to find in order to do what was necessary. Those things could be defined as evil by some, but mostly, they had to be done. There was no leeway for ambiguity.

  In this moment, if he wasn’t completely honest, there’d be no way to gain her trust ever.

  “I don’t do morals and ethics.” He searched for a way to explain. “I could give a shit about high concepts and ideals. None of those drive my decisions. I contract for work because I need income and I’m good enough at what I do to be paid very well. It’s all very straightforward. But when I saw what I was protecting back on Oahu, I was pissed. I’d been a part of this nightmare for these people. I hated myself for it. I wanted to set some of them free, if I could. Get them help. Make up for the part I’d had in it. It’s not saintly, and I’m not a drastically changed man with a cause now, but there it is. I thought I could do something by myself and I failed. So I’m here giving you everything I know about that shitty organization so your people can take it down and I can feel a little better. I’ll figure out what’s next afterward.”

  “That’s selfish.” Despite her statement, her shoulders relaxed subtly and she let her weight settle back on her heels a fraction.

  “Yes.” He leaned forward. “And there’s also you. You were there over six months ago at the plantation, doing the right thing. I’m sure you wouldn’t have let yourself end up in my position. Your team wouldn’t have contracted with a client like that. Since then I’ve been thinking a lot, off and on, about what you would do and what choices you’d make. I met you for a few minutes and you changed my entire perspective. I’m not saying I became altruistic in a heartbeat, but I’m different and it’s because of you. Here you are again and every minute I’m near you I want to prove to you I can be a better person.”

  She blinked, eyes widened. She was genuinely caught by surprise and her mouth dropped open.

  It was too much of an opportunity to resist. He leaned forward, quick as possible, and kissed her.

  Chapter Five

  She could’ve stopped him, could’ve dodged or stepped back, could’ve lashed out. She didn’t.

  His lips were warm against hers for a split second, then when she didn’t hit him, he pressed his mouth more firmly against hers and heat flared between them. Her entire body woke up in response. Her pulse quickened and damn it, even her nipples tightened. As she breathed in, she took in the spiciness of cinnamon and cloves threaded through the rich earthy smell of him. She couldn’t imagine how he managed to smell good after the day they’d had, but he did. She groaned, wanting more.

  He lifted his hand to her waist, starting to pull her against him and her brain caught up with the rest of her body. She placed her hand between them, flat on his chest, and pressed.

  He stopped.

  “This isn’t going to happen.” She said the words against his lips, killing herself as she did because she really liked the feel of their lips brushing against each other. It was painfully tempting. She wanted to open her mouth and let him drown them both in deep, carnal kisses. She wanted to feel his hands on her.

  But what she wanted wasn’t going to serve a purpose here and she didn’t need to cloud her judgment. She was too hungry to enjoy without regretting it later.

  A long moment passed in silence. He was the one to step back.

  “I’ll be quick.” He turned on his heel and went into the bathroom. The shower turned on and she shivered.

  Fine. She’d been enjoying the banter. The verbal sparring came easy with him and his sense of humor tickled her almost as much as it got under her skin. In holding her ground when he walked up to her, she’d been daring him to get closer. She’d left him the opening.

  She was massively attracted to him.

  Figuring out how far she could trust him and his intel should’ve been easier with a zing of chemistry to distract him. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d flirted to get more information out of a person than they’d intended to give her. But she’d been lucky through the course of her career. She hadn’t had to go past flirting and light foreplay to complete a mission. Intimacy, for her, was still personal. If she wasn’t careful, she could be every bit as likely to be distracted. She wasn’t willing to risk it right now.

  “What do you plan to do next?” His voice floated out with the steam from the shower. “Are you in a holding pattern or are you investigating something?”

  “I want to know what you know.” She didn’t bother to dissemble on that point. He was intelligent enough to figure it out. “And we’ll go over it until I’ve got the details I need, even if it’s information you didn’t remember you had.”

  “Fun.” The sarcasm was strong in his tone. “I’ll go over the intel I gathered to locate the farm and any information I had on other properties.”

  The water shut off and there was a rustle of fabric. She tried not to imagine what he’d look like all wet and toweling off. She failed. He stepped out of the bathroom a minute later, shirtless and in the process of tying off the waist of the kangkeng le she’d lent him.

  Ohh. Say. Can. You. See…

  He was glorious. She’d known he had an amazing build to begin with, but the muscle definition exposed by his current state of undress was mouth-watering. He was broad across the shoulders and heavily muscled through the back and lats with the kind of cut that made her want to run her hands all over him. And those abs…

  There was a saying popular in the Thai dramas her mother liked to watch: “chocolate abs.” Arin always cautioned her mother not to use the term, especially not in the US where it had a different connotation, but in those Thai dramas the phrase was intended to compare a man’s abs to t
he subdivided sections of a chocolate bar. Very tempting. Personally, Arin liked the idea of chocolate abs much better than a six-pack. She was a lot more likely to nibble and lick a chocolate bar than the outside of a six-pack of tin cans.

  He wore the kangkeng le low at his hips so she couldn’t help but appreciate her absolute favorite spot. He had the deep definition V, leading from high on his hips down below his waistband. The kangkeng le was very lightweight and if the extra fabric hadn’t been folded over where he’d tied the pants and lower, there wouldn’t have been much left to imagine.

  Heat rose in her cheeks as she realized she hadn’t taken all of him in during her usual split-second assessment. No. Her gaze had lingered, and considering she’d denied him only a few minutes before, she was being rude as hell. She lifted her gaze to meet his. “I’m sorry.”

  He crossed his arms. Not a positive sign as body language went. “For stopping us earlier? Have regrets?”

  “No.” This time she was the one to lift her hands, palms open in a sign of peace. “I shouldn’t have been rude just now.”

  His arms relaxed a bit, but remained crossed. “Appreciated. But you get that all the time, I’m betting.”

  She shrugged. “Not so much. I’m…off-putting.”

  It was true. She wore her attitude like dented plate armor and most didn’t dare look long enough for her to catch them at it.

  He grunted. “Why don’t you find yourself a seat. We’ll start this debrief, then we can figure out who is sleeping where.”

  Back to business and steadier ground. She nodded and sat on the end of the bed, cross-legged, leaving him the seat he’d chosen previously. He settled onto the chair, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

  “I’ll start from when I first met you and take you through to the last thing I remember before I got knocked out.”

  He started from their meeting at the plantation over six months prior and reviewed the same highlights he’d given her at the hospital with more detail; in particular, the intel he’d gathered right after the incident and in the weeks following. His former employer was exactly the kind of private contract company she wouldn’t consider working for if she could possibly help it. The client, the owner of the plantation and head of the human trafficking ring, had retired in shame and been replaced. One bad guy down, but the actual trafficking ring was still in operation, just under new management. Jason had several names of business owners on Oahu, Big Island, and a couple others. She made a mental note to have Pua research them back at headquarters to confirm the intel and put a watch on them. But for the most part, he’d told her the pertinent highlights at the hospital. The nitty gritty didn’t include any red flags for the team still searching Waipio Valley as far as she could tell.

  Once he’d finished, she waited for him to take a sip of his water bottle, then she slid off the bed. “I need to check in with my team. Then, if you’re up for it, I’d like to know more about this new management. Is this just one person? More? How much of a re-organization is this going to be?”

  She was betting Jason wouldn’t have had the chance to find out before he’d left, not with the way he’d protested, but he could give her team a few more leads specific to this line of investigation.

  For his part, he only shrugged and sat back in the chair. Some of his attitude was coming back but there were shadows under his eyes and his bravado was starting to fade. He was tired. He was recovering from a concussion. Frankly, he’d probably had better days. Maybe she should let him have the bed. She could make a nest of blankets and pillows on the floor and rest just fine. She didn’t plan to sleep anyway.

  She glanced at King, lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. “Blijf.”

  King raised his head, his ears lifting and forward as the dog watched her go to the glass doors at the back of the small room and slip out onto the lanai.

  Outside in the night, she listened. It was quiet to a certain extent, but what reassured her was the natural rustling and abrupt calls of nocturnal creatures. The rainforest wasn’t ever completely silent, especially at night. If it was, then she’d have been alerted to something out there that shouldn’t be.

  She turned on the satellite phone and contacted her team.

  “Bravo.”

  She scowled. It was late and Bravo, or Raul Sá, should be home. After all, his fan would be missing him. “Fan” was a Thai word for a significant other that was close to boyfriend or girlfriend, but Arin had learned it with a more committed connotation, like fiancée. Arin thought of Raul’s partner in the Thai term because his fan was also her little sister and Arin wanted to know he wasn’t choosing work over Mali without a good reason. “Bravo, this is Charlie.”

  “Good to hear from you. Status?” Raul sounded genuinely relieved.

  “I was a little slow getting out of the hospital. King and I are fine. Our guest is in one piece.” Ah damn, it might be her fault Raul was still working if he’d had to deal with the damage control after her precipitous departure from the hospital. She gave Raul a quick brief on the information she’d learned so far.

  Her small hideaway wasn’t soundproof. In fact, she liked it because she could hear so much of the surrounding rainforest. Jason was probably sitting inside listening to her relay exactly what he’d shared with her. She wasn’t going to add her personal thoughts yet. She only gave Raul the facts as she knew them through Jason.

  “I’ll work with Pua to start investigating those names.” Raul paused. “We got preliminary findings on the bodies from today.”

  She waited.

  “The dead were all either old or injured previous to their demise.” Raul sounded worried. “We’ve got teams at airports and potential harbors. There’s a possibility those killed weren’t worth transporting but the able-bodied are still out there awaiting transfer off the island.”

  “The boy, Huy—was he among the dead?” Hope flared. Raul knew about the promise she’d made.

  “No. Not as far as we could tell.” Raul gave the answer cautiously. “Arin, I know you promised Mali you’d do your best to help this kid’s sister. Mali will understand if you don’t find him.”

  She’d promised Mali she’d do her best. Her little sister and she had only rebuilt their relationship after long years apart, mostly because Arin had left home and hadn’t kept a promise to come back to Mali. A little over six months ago, a weird quirk in life had landed them both on the island of Oahu. They were only just getting close again and Arin didn’t intend to break any more promises. Ever.

  “I’ll see if our guest has any thoughts on likely modes of transport off the Big Island.”

  “Copy.” Raul sounded resigned. Well, he was being as good as he could to both her and Mali and that meant he was staying out of it to let them work their issues out with each other. “Check back in, Charlie. Do not do this solo. There could be more than one unit can handle.”

  She ended the call without acknowledging. What she’d do all depended on what situation might unfold next.

  “News?” Jason studied Arin’s face as she came back inside from the lanai.

  She had a pleasant expression on her face but it was frozen in place. It must be her version of a poker face. In the brief time he’d known her, he’d been fascinated by how animated she was in subtle ways. You’d have had to really watch her to notice. In this moment, her hint of a smile and slightly widened eyes had alarm bells ringing in his head.

  “Hmm.” She blinked. No change.

  “Maybe I have perspective on it?” He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t like being on the outside of her thoughts like this. He wanted her temper again, and the sharp-edged verbal sparring.

  Her lips pressed together in a line, breaking the amicable expression she’d been holding. “I thought you told me as much as you knew about the farm before you went there to get those people out.”

  He took his feet off the ottoman and placed them flat on the ground again. He liked verbal sparring with her, but he also
liked to be ready to dodge in case she made any sudden moves. She had that kind of dangerous feel about her and it was exciting, but it was also prudent to be ready for anything she could do. “I did, but new intel can always connect the dots where there wasn’t a relationship before.”

  She considered. “Fine. Sometimes we don’t know what’s relevant without added context. I get it. The sheds you identified did contain people, but they were all dead.”

  He winced as she delivered the news. He’d guessed but hadn’t asked her after they’d left the hospital. There’d been times when he’d walked among the bodies of innocent people in villages overseas. But this was in the US, and he’d been trying to get there in time to help those people. The bump on the back of his head ached and his joints creaked to underscore his failure as he leaned forward in his seat to rest his elbows on his knees.

  The line of her mouth softened and she moved to sit on the edge of the bed again. “The medical teams have only identified old and injured so far.”

  He lifted his head and met her gaze, the weird weight on his chest lifting. “There should’ve been young people, fresh workers. There were shipments as recently as the last several weeks.”

  She nodded. “We need to know everything you do about those shipments, or how to get more intel on them. Most immediately, are the shipments moving between islands by private plane or via ship?”

  “Almost all transport is by shipping containers. Has to be.” He thought furiously through everything he’d seen while he’d been on the job. “I was mostly on site at headquarters, but we had a few people at the docks in Oahu to protect shipping containers in the area. If the boss had an airstrip, we weren’t contracted to protect it, but I’m thinking it would’ve been too expensive to try to move so many people via air. You can’t fit enough of them on a small plane to make it worth the trip.”

  “Plus you’d have to move them onto and off of the plane to other types of transport.” Arin chewed her lower lip as she mulled over the possibilities. There was a red mark there already, turning a deeper purple. He wanted to kiss the hurt away. She was mean to herself and he wondered if she even noticed a small thing like that. But she was still thinking. “Shipping containers could come from overseas or go from island to island.”