Fierce Justice

by Piper J. Drake

  Well, there was what she’d done with Jason. That wasn’t happening again no matter how much the memories had tried to pop up at the most random moments throughout the morning. But she had no idea what would come next. She kept expecting him to leave and he hadn’t.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Jason sat in the courtyard, watching Arin’s shadow in the window. At least he was pretty sure it was her. The bright daylight outside and the concrete framework made it hard to see into the windows from the ground. It was a smart design for an office building and a good choice for a private contract organization like Search and Protect. Good security started with basic considerations in architecture and layout. It was enough to deter the casual observer or amateur investigator.

  Still, he had a good idea of which floor the Search and Protect offices were on and she’d worn a light yellow shirt into the office this morning. The silhouette in the window had been there a while and seemed to be wearing yellow.

  He had a duffel with gear and clothes back on the Big Island, complete with a small set of binoculars. They’d have come in handy right about now. He’d also look like a creeper out here if anyone saw him using them, but it wouldn’t have taken more than a moment to confirm it was Arin he was looking at. Then at least he’d have been able to settle the nervous twitch he had from being left here for who knew how long it’d be.

  But his duffel was lost somewhere back near the taro farm on Big Island and he didn’t have access to any of his stuff. He didn’t like losing the identification and money he’d had in there, but they could be replaced, as could his clothes and gear. For now, though, he was stuck with the tourist T-shirt and canvas pants Arin had bought him at the airport this morning. Great.

  He didn’t have to wait here. In fact, he’d had every intention of flying back to the mainland once he’d gotten those people out of the taro farm on Big Island. He’d figured a bunch of them showing up at the local police station would’ve caused a big enough fuss for him to get to the airport and off the island before anyone actively mobilized to look for him. Nothing had gone the way he’d envisioned. All things considered, he was lucky to be alive.

  He glanced up at the window yet again, then scanned the courtyard and all potential entries to the area. He probably wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for Arin and her team. She had some uncanny timing when it came to life-changing moments.

  Besides, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. His palms heated as he remembered the impossible softness of her skin under his hands. Her pleased sighs whispered through his mind. It had been a one-night thing, a glorious encounter. He’d guessed they’d be good together. Hell, he’d entertained more than a few fantasies in the months before they’d run into each other again. But being with her had been beyond good, and any fantasies paled in contrast to the vivid reality of her.

  So yeah, he was glad to have the chance to go after this new boss at the head of the human trafficking ring. He also wasn’t ready to leave when he’d only just gotten to know her. Everything about Arin Siri made him curious. Physically, she was amazing to be with, both in bed and in action. Her confidence was inspiring, born of years of experience and excellent competence. She had a contrary streak and a quick temper. He’d learned those things in the space of a day or so. How much more would he discover about her if he stuck around for one more day? It’d be worth it to find out.

  A shadow shifted near one of the corner entrances to the courtyard and Jason frowned. “Been looking for me long, Moz?”

  The other man stayed back in the breezeway area, approaching only close enough to have a talk without either of them raising their voices above a conversational volume. “Nah. We’ve had eyes on this place since they hit the taro farm on Big Island. Heard you were here and came out to have a talk. Our new client doesn’t like the way these people have been making problems for him. What’s this company called? Lost and Found? Suits you.”

  Jason chuckled, remaining as outwardly relaxed as possible. Still, he kept watch for more ex-teammates at the other entrances and in the windows of the buildings creating the courtyard. He didn’t think his old contract organization still wanted to eliminate him; otherwise Moz wouldn’t have confronted him directly. They’d just make the hit and leave the premises. “Clever. Have you been waiting to say that to me? Next up is a crack about lost and found being where unwanted things get left, isn’t it?”

  “Relax, man. If you were supposed to be dead, you would be. No one is paying us for the hit, so you get to stay alive. This time, you’re the messenger.” Moz held up a photo between his middle and forefingers, then tossed it at Jason’s feet. “This is our next target if the Search and Protect team doesn’t back off. You let your new lady friend know. Maybe she’ll believe you don’t have anything to do with it, but I wouldn’t risk it if I were you. She’s frigid, from what I hear. It’d be better if you delivered the message and left.”

  Jason left the photo where it was. Instead, he kept his gaze steadily locked with Moz’s. The other man had a lighter build and thinner face, with eyes set far back into the hollows of his skull. As Jason continued to stare, Moz paled. Jason let his lips spread in a wide, mirthless grin. “I’m not afraid to pass on the message. But whether I leave or stay, you might not want to meet me in the middle of a mission. We’re not on the same team anymore.”

  Considering Moz’s choice to stay, because the money was better than being a fucking human being, Jason doubted he’d ever be on the same team as Moz again. Jason made it a personal policy not to say never, of course. But it was extremely unlikely.

  “Whatever.” Moz backed away too quickly for it to be anything but a retreat. “Make sure the bitch gets this pic.”

  Jason waited a solid count of ten after Moz had gone and the courtyard was quiet again before he bent to retrieve the picture. He lifted it gingerly, making sure to handle it by the edges. They might need forensic evidence from the photo or something. He had no idea, but he sure as hell didn’t want to mishandle anything. Once he got a good look at the picture, he scowled. This was not going to go well.

  The person in the picture was a woman, maybe in her late twenties. She had golden skin toasted by long hours in the sun and a sweet smile highlighting a round face with dark eyes. In the background, Arin stood in the shade of a tree with her dog looking at the main subject of the photo with the softest expression of caring he’d ever seen from the normally sharp-tempered woman. This was a recent photo, presumably taken with a telephoto lens if Arin hadn’t spotted the photographer and King hadn’t alerted them either. The woman featured front and center in the picture was her little sister.

  Mali Siri was a target again.

  Chapter Ten

  Arin emerged from the building in the breezeway, scanning the area in an arc from the parking lots on one end to the courtyard where Jason still sat waiting. She hadn’t seen anyone else from her vantage point, but his posture had changed a few minutes ago. Then he’d started talking to someone. It’d taken a minute or two for her to reach the elevator and get to the ground floor. Whoever it was seemed to have left before she’d gotten outside.

  She paused in the breezeway for a moment, wondering if she’d made a mistake in her split-second decision to leave King upstairs. Her canine partner was an extension of her, but she didn’t like to become too reliant on him. They would be an even more skilled pair if she continued to challenge her own situational awareness, rather than allowing his to become a crutch for her. Besides, this was a brief check. She didn’t expect to engage in an actual altercation. For all she knew, someone had brought their dog to the office and taken it downstairs to relieve itself in the courtyard, pausing to talk to Jason.

  Instead of going directly to him, she lingered and extended her senses. She listened for footsteps, voices in conversation outside the normal cadence of lunchtime chatter or sounds that didn’t belong. She also paid attention to any odd silences, checking for the absence of birdcalls and songs in t
he presence of a predator. The scents of plumeria and tuberose filled the air from the courtyard, but there were no odd hints of smoke or gunpowder. If there’d been someone strange here, she couldn’t catch a hint of whoever it was.

  So she walked down the breezeway and into the courtyard, taking her time so she could continue to take in every available visual. Jason remained where she’d left him, outwardly relaxed with his hands resting on the tops of his thighs.

  Her heart rate kicked up as she looked at him. He appeared to be just fine, no signs of injuries, not even a rumpled shirt or mussed hair to hint at any kind of scuffle with anyone. In fact, his hair was the perfect kind of stylishly disheveled she liked to run her fingers through. He gave every appearance of a man taking advantage of the peaceful courtyard for a quiet break. She wasn’t sure why she’d been worried about him.

  His gaze rose to meet hers as she approached and locked on with an almost tangible impact for a full second before breaking contact. She had to force herself to maintain her awareness of their peripheral space as she continued toward him instead of continuing to stare at only him. At a distance, he was a striking figure. Close up, he was breathtaking. But his expression remained bland. This was new and she wondered what was behind the carefully neutral look on his face.

  “I had a visitor just now.” He didn’t waste any time, but he kept his voice low and pleasant, as if he was just telling her about some random, friendly thing. “An old teammate decided to drop by and pay me a visit.”

  She came to a stop outside of arm’s reach and within the shelter of an office building so she wouldn’t be as visible to anyone looking down into the courtyard. Jason’s visitor had to have done the same. “Interesting. How did your friend know how to find you?”

  “He wasn’t a friend.” Jason delivered the clarification with a chillingly nice tone.

  Ah, she should take note. She really liked the effect his tone had and would try to strike a similar note in a future conversation. She kept her own voice sweet. “Question still stands.”

  Jason tapped the edge of what looked like a photograph against the top of his knee. “It was more of a coincidence. They’re keeping watch on the office building because your team has been actively clashing with one of their clients. They spotted me and took advantage of the instance to come have a chat with me.”

  “Well, you’re still alive. Not that I’m disappointed or anything, but why did they not try to kill you? Or are you here because you’re still working with them and they want you here?” She could dance around an obvious point with the best of them but she preferred to put things out there and handle them directly. And she was not alarmed over his well-being. Not at all.

  Liar. She’d just rushed down here why? Because something had been off, amiss, not right. She hadn’t known what it was, but it’d been concern for him that’d rushed her.

  He didn’t need to know all that. Not yet.

  He stopped sweeping the courtyard and met her gaze for a long moment. “I’m here because I want to be. We can talk about why again if you want, but there’s a more urgent issue. I am not here to sabotage you and I am not trying to infiltrate to learn some piece of information. I really did leave my prior contract and I am a free agent. Right now, I have some intel that’s of real value to you and I want to help. What’ll it be? Are you going to trust me enough to bring me in, sit down, and address the situation I’ve got to tell you about, or are you going to shut me out? If it’s the second option, I’ll leave. No hard feelings.”

  His gaze held hers and the connection sizzled. She parted her lips to sip cool air in through her mouth, wishing for the hot pressure of his lips on hers. Every fiber of her being was responding to him, and not in a strictly business kind of way. This was a tightly focused, serious facet of him, and she was caught up in the urgency he projected. It wasn’t panic; it was a need for immediate, decisive action.

  That, she could do. She shoved thoughts of kissing way to the back of her mind before she let on to him how much she wanted more of him. “Come with me.”

  She took him into the building and up the elevator. He said nothing along the way, keeping the photograph facing away from her. When they exited the elevator, she patted him down before they entered the Search and Protect headquarters. He didn’t protest. It might’ve been uncalled for but he had admitted to meeting with one of his former teammates and she hadn’t been keeping eyes on him every second. It was a real possibility that he had acquired a firearm, and she wouldn’t be responsible for letting him into their offices with one.

  “My office is over here.” She gestured to one side and King was visible in the doorway like a confirmation of her statement. She’d left him on a command to stay, anticipating she’d only be gone a few minutes, so he was exactly where she’d placed him. At the sight of Jason, King’s ears perked in a minute increase of alertness.

  Jason didn’t respond, only entered her office and waited, standing in front of her desk. His presence filled the small space and she tried not to acknowledge how very aware of him she was. It was a combination of his intensity and the physical attraction she still had for him. Damn, they’d enjoyed each other last night, and he was still in her system.

  She let him wait another minute as she texted Raul to come join her and texted Pua to remain in her office with the door closed. When Raul emerged from his office a door down from hers, Taz at his side, she jerked her head to indicate her space.

  She stepped into her office and released King with a murmured command, pausing to give him a brief scratch around the ears as she praised him. Raul and Taz came in behind her, making her usually generous office space a little on the crowded side. The square footage of the room could accommodate them all, but every one of them had a big personality. She opted to lean her hip on the end of her desk rather than sit behind it. She wanted to keep this collaborative; putting a desk between her and Jason wouldn’t lend to that.

  “Have a seat on the couch if you want.” She lifted her chin to indicate the seating. “Or the chairs, but they’re not as comfortable.”

  Jason opted for one of the chairs. Personally, she’d have done the same. People sank into the couch and struggled to climb out of it. The chairs offered an informal seating option without leaving a person floundering to get back to their feet.

  Raul sat in the other chair facing her desk. Once all three humans were relatively seated, Taz and King settled at their respective handlers’ feet. The two dogs were used to each other and well versed in working together. Even though they had lain down, their heads were up and their ears forward, indicating they were ready if their handler gave a command.

  “All right, you’re here. This is Raul Sá, one of my teammates.” She tended to be concise with introductions and there was no need for Jason to know about Raul’s current attachment to the task force put together specifically to combat human trafficking in Hawaii. Jason had been gathering intel on the Search and Protect team, so if he didn’t already know the information, he didn’t deserve to have it handed to him.

  Jason appeared to recognize Raul’s name, though. Jason leaned forward and offered a hand. “Good to meet you, I’m Jason Landon.”

  Raul took the offered hand and gave it a brief shake. “Not sure I can say the same. It seems you’ve stirred up things here.”

  Jason didn’t take offense. “Looks like. It wasn’t my intention, though. My former team is still on contract for private security with the trafficking operation you all blew up. They’ve got to compensate the client for the breach. In some cases, they take offensive measures to safeguard the interests of their clients.”

  Arin narrowed her eyes, focusing on the photograph still in his hand. “They want us to back off, so who are they threatening?”

  It could be Pua or any of them…

  Jason placed the photo on the desk where both she and Raul could see it. “I believe this is Mali Siri, your sister.”

  Arin didn’t see red the way some people did. Inst
ead, the world took on crystalline clarity and a cold calm settled over her as she embraced her growing rage. “I’ll kill them first.”

  Jason had expected death threats from Arin. He didn’t expect to hear the sentiment echoed by her colleague, Raul. Jason was confident Arin wouldn’t actually shoot the messenger, but he didn’t know Raul well enough.

  “Where is Mali now?” It’d be best to get them both focused on actionable tasks so they didn’t do anything too decisive or drastic.

  “She’s actually on her way here.” Raul ground out the answer as he pulled out his phone. “She was going to pick me and Taz up for lunch.”

  Arin remained silent. An interesting range of expressions had crossed her face in the courtyard but the minute he’d put her sister’s photo on the desk, she’d shut down. He didn’t blame her, but he very much wanted to get back to whatever had been going through her mind downstairs at some point. There’d been heat in her eyes and her lips had parted in a way that would’ve had him on his feet and pulling her in for a mind-blowing kiss if he hadn’t had urgent news to tell her about her sister.

  Damn it.

  Apparently, she had no issue with her teammate going out with her younger sister. Jason was unsure how to proceed. It wasn’t his business, but he wondered how Arin felt about it. Family stuff got complicated, especially when family got mixed up with work. Maybe the Search and Protect team was more closely bonded than just people drawing a paycheck from the same company.

  “Hey.” Raul had his phone to his ear. “Where are you?”

  There was a pause. The phone’s volume wasn’t turned up enough to overhear anything. Whatever the answer was, Raul visibly relaxed. “Good. No worries. See you soon.”

  Raul ended the call and got to his feet, his dog following suit. “She just walked into the lobby. She’s literally here. I’ll go meet her at the elevator and hustle her into the offices.”