I see that Brody, Ethan, and Chris have joined Nico. They’re smiling at each other, jamming, playing off the energy of the crowd. Standing in front of everyone else gathered around the fire truck are A.J., Chloe, their nanny, and Kat. They’ve all got their arms around each other, and are singing. Off to one side of the crowd, under a tree, Marcus and Rihanna are making out. Four of the talent agents from CAA are passed out in the shrubs on the side of the driveway. The other two pass a joint back and forth, sitting cross-legged on the grass.
I keep moving, my feet carrying me forward.
A woman breaks away from the group and moves toward me. It’s Heather. She’s headed inside, maybe to the bathroom. She blows me a kiss as she passes, murmuring, “You take care now, mystery man.”
She’s gone before I can form a reply.
A rumble momentarily drowns out the guitars as the fire truck parked farthest down the driveway starts its engines. It begins to lumber away, shuddering, coughing clouds of diesel. I’m caught for a moment, undecided, then my feet are moving without a conscious decision on my part.
I hop onto the back of the truck, catching hold of a metal grab bar and swinging myself up onto the bumper.
It’s time for my Irish goodbye.
The truck picks up speed as it heads down the long driveway toward the street. I watch the band play, listening to a song I’ve heard a thousand times, feeling melancholy but grateful. So grateful. For all the years of friendship. For all the memories. For the privilege of knowing such good people, and being part of their lives for so long.
Just before the truck crests the hill, Nico spots me. I lift a hand in the air in a silent farewell, and he does the same, smiling.
He disappears from view, along with the crowd and the house, until all that’s left is sky.
I lower my hand, blow out a breath, and say to no one, “Okay, Evalina Ivanov. Ready or not, here I come.”
A flash of color catches my eye.
I look down just in time to see a dragonfly alight on my arm. It hovers there for a moment, silent and beautiful, then takes off in an instant, its wings an iridescent blur of blue and green under the evening stars.
Excerpt from Dangerous Beauty
Read an excerpt from Dangerous Beauty, the electrifying spin-off of the Bad Habit series!
As an ex-cop, a former Special Ops member, and a bodyguard for the world famous rock band Bad Habit, Barney is an expert at all things security and protection. His reputation as a badass is well deserved, but underneath his tough exterior, Barney’s nursing a broken heart he believes can never be healed. Careful not to connect too closely with anyone, he’s content living the way he has for years: alone. Until his first assignment in his new job with a high-profile private security firm changes everything.
Evalina is beautiful, intelligent, and completely off limits. The spoiled wife of a Russian billionaire, she’s vacationing alone on a small island off the coast of Mexico. Hired to simply observe from afar and report on what her husband claims is another of her impulsive adventures, Barney’s mission has only one iron-clad rule: no contact with Evalina.
But when danger threatens, he doesn’t hesitate to break the rules to protect her…and sets in motion an explosive attraction that will become the real danger to them both.
Turn the page to start reading!
One
Eva
Having been followed by men for as long as I can remember, I’ve developed a sixth sense for it.
A crackle of electricity on the skin. A few pricked hairs on the arms. Animal awareness that brings my surroundings into sudden taut focus, the way a lover’s teeth pressed gently against the neck can make the nipples grow hard.
Someone is watching me.
Someone close by.
I don’t outwardly acknowledge the fact, though my pulse skyrockets and it becomes impossible to catch a breath. I simply continue browsing through the display of peaches in the wooden stand until I find one perfectly ripe and unblemished, then stash it in the canvas bag slung over my arm, pay the fruit vendor, and continue on my way through the shade-dappled outdoor market.
I force myself not to hurry. Against my hip, the small revolver concealed in the pocket of my full skirt is a cold, reassuring weight.
I knew this day would come. Dimitri never lets me go for long. But this time, I’m not going back.
This time the only way he’ll get me back is in a body bag.
Oranges. Mangoes. Loquat and cherimoya, both slightly bruised from their trip over from the mainland, but edible. A few vegetables, then a piece of yellowfin from the fish monger, and my shopping is finished.
The market is busy, as it always is on a Saturday when the cruise ships dock in the port. Laughing children chase each other over worn cobblestones. Tourists admire overpriced trinkets in a jewelry stall. Swaying in the ocean breeze, hand dyed scarves hang from a line, as colorful as exotic birds.
I nod hello to a few familiar faces but stop to speak to no one. I have to deal with the tail quickly. My voice would betray my fear, anyway. Turning high and strained whenever I’m afraid, it’s the one thing I’ve never been able to train myself to control.
Fortunately I don’t need my voice to take care of the man following me. All I need are my hands, which are steady, a deserted alleyway, and the weapon hidden in the folds of my skirt.
Like the rest of Mexico, Cozumel suffers from its share of violent crimes. A dead man in an alley will hardly raise an eyebrow.
But he isn’t dead yet. My shadow is careful. He keeps an invisible distance as I wind through the maze of fruit stands, flower vendors and T-shirt stalls, the sun hot on my head and my pulse pounding.
Passing the pickups with trunk beds full of watermelons and pepino amarillo lined along the sidewalk outside the market, I quicken my pace. My apartment overlooks the ocean, but I head the opposite direction, farther into town. My destination is a street notorious for its drug trade, where tourists can buy anything they desire from dead-eyed thugs who’ll rob them for their trouble afterward.
Sweating from humidity and adrenaline, I turn a corner, then another, then another. I feel my watcher’s steady presence behind me, cold and creeping, like a fog.
A skinny stray dog noses through a pile of trash in the gutter. An old man smoking in the shade of a palm tree squints at me with watery eyes. Pigeons burst into sudden squawking flight from the dirt when I round the next corner, and I start, sucking in a hard breath.
Keep cool. Get it done, then get the bug-out bag and disappear. You’ve trained for this. You’re prepared!
I’ve never killed a man before, though. I have no illusions that my time spent shooting at trees in the woods will prepare me for the devastation I’ll feel after that. And the blood—
I curse under my breath and cut off the thought before it can go further. This is no time to get sentimental. Whatever the identity of the man following me, one thing is for certain: he’s a mercenary. Dimitri only hires hardened men—ruthless men—and this one will be no exception.
It’s him or me. I’ll let God decide the degree of my guilt later.
He alone knows my reasons.
I find myself in a narrow alley between two abandoned buildings. The stink of piss and rotting trash sours the air. Flattening myself against the rough brick wall, I drop the canvas bag and draw the gun from my pocket.
Then I wait, holding my breath.
If you want me, come and get me. I’ve got a surprise for you, friend.
A bead of sweat rolls down my temple. In the stillness of the hot afternoon, my heartbeat sounds like gunfire. I hear the quiet shuffle of feet approaching and raise the pistol.
I nearly shoot the old man in the head.
“Dinero?” he says in a wheezy voice, holding out an arthritic hand.
“My God!” I shout, swaying with horror. “I almost killed you!”
He squints at me again, unconcerned by the gun. “Dinero?”
“Go away! Vámono
s!” I hiss it at him, waving the gun for emphasis.
He sucks his yellowed teeth for a moment, considering me, then wanders off.
I sag against the wall, my hands clammy and my knees shaking, and wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
When the sun dips low in the sky and the shadows on the wall above me grow long and slanted, I decide there are only two reasons my stalker hasn’t appeared. Either I’ve lost him—which seems unlikely, I walked slowly and wasn’t evasive—or he was too smart to follow me into an alley. Which means he guessed what I planned to do.
Which means he’s still somewhere out there.
I can’t risk him following me to where I’ve hidden my emergency stash of money and new identity papers, nor do I want to risk returning to my apartment on the off chance he doesn’t know yet where I live. So, gritting my jaw, I decide on a third option.
If this son of a bitch won’t bring the fight to me, I’ll bring it to him.
I step out of the alley onto the street.
But it isn’t Dimitri’s man I encounter.
As I move from the shade of the buildings into the last dying rays of the sun, it’s a drug dealer with gang tattoos from wrist to shoulder who turns to look at me with flat black eyes. He stands across the street with four other men, all of whom stop their conversation and turn to follow his gaze.
The one with the black eyes grins, revealing a mouthful of rotted teeth. “You lost, chica bonita?” Radiating menace, he takes a step forward. So do the others.
All the blood drains from my face as my predicament becomes terribly clear.
My revolver holds six bullets.
I can only miss once.
Two
Naz
“It’ll be simple,” they said. “Just observe and report,” they said. Your first op, Naz, will be a walk in the park. Get a tan while you’re down there. Drink some beer. Make some easy money by spying on the Russian oligarch’s spoiled runaway wife.
Easy. Sure. Except apparently everyone including her husband underestimated this broad to a laughable fucking degree.
Like something out of a Tarantino movie, she strolls out of the shadows of the alley with her chin in the air and a .38 special in her hand. A beautiful woman with crazy pinwheeling eyes, out for blood. I can almost hear the dramatic Flamenco guitar in the background.
I shoulda stayed in the celebrity bodyguard business.
“I don’t want any trouble.”
Her voice is surprisingly tremulous for a woman with such a steady grip on her weapon. Such furious, murderous eyes.
Hmm. Maybe she’s not as tough as she’s trying to look.
My new bestie Diego-the-drug-dealer is thinking the same thing.
He assesses her with the swift cagey look of a guy used to staring down the barrel of a gun at least twice before lunch every day. Just a bit of opening banter to establish the pecking order, see who comes out on top. His ugly grin grows wider as he discounts her as a real threat.
He takes another step forward. The scumbag on my left snickers. The one on my right mutters something nasty under his breath.
I sigh. Here we go.
“One more step and you’ll be singing falsetto, amigo,” says Evalina, lowering her gun slightly so it’s pointed at Diego’s crotch.
“Shut up you dumb bitch.”
His step doesn’t falter. I imagine he probably gets threats to his family jewels on the regular. Must be on account of all that irrepressible charm.
“I’m serious,” she says, her voice growing higher. “Don’t make me shoot!”
“Are we gonna do this deal or what, man?”
Diego stops in the middle of the street. He looks at me over his shoulder like he can’t decide which one of us he should kill first, her or me.
“No disrespect. But we’re doing business. You can play with your new toy after I get what I came for.” I withdraw a fat wad of cash from the pocket of my shorts and wave it at him like a dare.
Evalina is staring at me like I’m outta my mind. Those big brown eyes, whew. They’re even more stunning up close than through my camera lens. I can see why her husband wants her back so bad.
I wish she’d take her finger off that trigger, though. I have a feeling if she hears any sudden loud noises we’re all dead.
“Okay, my man. Business first.” Diego cracks another ugly grin.
For someone with a mouth full of decay, he sure likes to smile.
He shoots a glance to his friend on my left, jerking his chin back toward Evalina like take care of that. Then he strolls back toward me while the others make a beeline for her.
Then it all happens fast.
As soon as Diego’s within reach, my fist makes acquaintance with his nose. It crumbles like a cracker. Blood sprays everywhere. He bellows and crashes to a knee. His friends wheel around to see what the commotion is. I yank the gun from the waistband of Diego’s jeans, kick him in the chest so he topples onto his back, and take aim at the four men standing there gaping at me.
In Spanish I tell them to fuck off or eat lead.
They wisely choose the first option.
They back up slowly with their hands in the air. “You’re a dead man,” says one of them softly, staring at me with glittering eyes.
“I get that a lot,” I say, then kick Diego in the ribs to get him going.
He’s groaning and cursing, staggering to his feet and cradling his nose like it’s a baby. “You broke my nose, man! My fuckin’ nose!”
“Boo hoo. I’ll break the rest of your face if you don’t move faster. Go join your friends, it’s time to say bye-bye.”
He sends me a hard, dangerous stare. “I’ll remember your face, gringo,” he promises, backing away.
“You do that, Diego. And I’ll remember yours. Won’t be hard, it’s the ugliest I’ve seen. Visit a dentist, you fucking degenerate, that shit is disgusting.”
He lowers his hands from his face and bares his teeth like an animal. His nose is smashed to a pulp. His black eyes are murderous slits. Blood has stained the top half of his white undershirt red.
Truly, I’ve seen better looking roadkill.
Diego and his compatriots retreat to the nearest corner, then they disappear around it at a run.
I pick up my cash from where it fell on the sidewalk and stuff Diego’s semi-auto into the back of my cargo shorts and pull my shirt over it. Then I glance at Evalina, still standing across the street with her own gun half raised, looking like she’s just been electrocuted.
“They’ll be back in a few minutes. This time they’ll all have weapons.”
I let her fill in the blanks, then start off down the street in the opposite direction Diego and his friends disappeared.
It kills me not to, but I don’t look back. She can’t think I was there for her. I’m just a dude trying to buy some pot who happens to have some experience handling scumbags, not the guy her husband hired to spy on her. The last thing I want is for her to disappear again, under my watch.
Wouldn’t be a great way to start my first gig at my new job.
She catches up to me two blocks later.
“Hey. Hey!”
Flushed and out of breath, she runs up beside me. Glancing down, I’m treated to a spectacular view of tanned cleavage revealed by the neckline of her flowered sun dress. Her tits are high and full. Holy shit, her husband is one lucky man.
Stop looking, idiot.
I keep walking. She has to lengthen her stride to keep up.
“What was that back there?”
Oh just me saving your ass, sweetheart. Let’s not make it a regular thing. “I was trying to score some pot and you were doing a shitty impression of Annie Oakley. Friendly word of advice—don’t point a gun at a bad guy unless you’re ready to pull the trigger. It generally just pisses ’em off.”
“How do you know that?”
I decide to tell her the truth. I’m crap at lying anyway, but in this case my work
history will conveniently explain what just happened. “Used to be a cop.”
“A cop,” she repeats, sliding a doubtful gaze over the tattoos on the inside of my arms that my T-shirt isn’t covering.
“Yup.”
“Used to be? So you weren’t on the job? That wasn’t a sting?”
“Nope.”
“Guess you missed that day in academy when they taught you not to do drugs, huh?”
“As soon as you’re done criticizing me, smartass, you can thank me for saving your life. What the hell were you doing in that alley, anyway?” I take another look at her cleavage. “Oh. Waiting for your pimp?”
She stops dead in her tracks and shouts, “What?”
“I’m not judging you, sweetheart,” I say over my shoulder. “Everyone’s gotta make a living. Have a nice life.” I lift my hand, wave, and keep walking.
She catches up to me again after another half block. “I’m not a prostitute!”
“Sure. You just hang out in alleys in the shitty part of town for fun.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I thought someone was following me. I was trying to lose him.”
Christ. That’s why she wandered into this neighborhood? My stealth skills are rusty.
I shrug. “Okay. Whatever. Not my business.”
“Not your business?” She’s incredulous, staring at my profile with heat. “You just made enemies of four drug dealers.”
I shoot her a sour look. “You complaining?”
When she flushes, she looks younger and not quite so sure of herself. “No. Thank you. I appreciate what you did. If you hadn’t been there…” She looks away and chews on her lower lip.
I chuckle. “If I hadn’t been there, Diego and his buddies would be full of bullet holes. You woulda been fine.”
Hot As Sin: A Bad Habit Novella (Bad Habit Book 4) Page 7
