Chapter Six
“I already miss America,” Fallon grumbled, and shoved the last of his beef bacon into his mouth.
From the ugliest brown leather low-back chair I’d ever seen, Calista smiled. “At least you get to go back to the States.”
Pete was watching Calista balance a plate on her thighs while she cut into her waffle.
He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since we’d arrived at the suite.
Not that I blamed him. The woman was stunning even sleep deprived with purple shadows under her eyes, but that wasn’t why my friend was keeping an eye.
He was sizing her up, looking for anything that revealed what she was thinking, weaknesses, lies.
I didn’t need to look. I’d already found her tells. Her fingers lightly drummed the outside of her thigh when she was thinking. Her left eye twitched ever so slightly when she was annoyed and trying to conceal her irritation.
If she had more, I’d find them, but not by watching her eat.
She gave them freely when I pissed her off, and in some perverse place inside me, I enjoyed pushing her buttons.
I liked that she didn’t back down. I liked that she wasn’t afraid to shovel shit back at me.
She gave as good as she got and didn’t bend.
“About that,” Fallon ventured. “Those warrants are still valid.”
Calista’s smile broadened. “Checked up on me, eh?” She took no offense at the intrusion.
“What’s taking Tom so long getting the charges dropped?” Pete inquired.
“Tom does what Tom does.” Calista shrugged.
“His excuse is the DNA I left on the scene and the men I killed were power brokers in DC. You know the game; the story the media spun was a home invasion and triple homicide of three good men. The public is outraged and wants justice. Their allies want my head. Tom says he’s in a tight spot. ”
Calista had already served justice to the public and to her friend, who was being violated by three pieces of shit who’d died too quickly. Calista had shown mercy by simply ending their lives with a bullet. I would’ve taken my time and gotten creative.
“But . . .” I prompted.
“But Tom doesn’t want my name cleared. He wants me on my back foot, beholden to him. He likes holding the strings, forgetting I hold the scissors and cut them anytime I want.”
I don’t do teams.
I wasn’t lying when I told her I understood. With the people she surrounded herself with, teamwork would be impossible.
“Tom’s a douche,” Fallon rightly announced.
Pete set his empty plate on the coffee table in front of him. “Tom’s a necessary evil.”
My best friend wasn’t wrong.
The world needed Toms—men with no moral compass or compulsion to prioritize loyalty to a singular person. Men who did the unspeakable for the greater good. Men who lied, cheated, manipulated to maneuver the desired outcome. Men with no limits or lines not to be crossed.
I just didn’t like that Tom used Calista as a tool to achieve his goals while at the same time manipulating her.
“At least the man doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not,” Calista agreed.
I wondered if she was thinking about Atlanta. That particular betrayal had to have stung. If anyone I worked with went behind my back and did something as shady as pretending to be me, I’d cut them out after I made my displeasure known.
“He’s an authentic douche,” Fallon amended.
“That he is.” Calista once again smiled. This one almost looked genuine, but it lost some of its luster when she went on. “One could say he’s always on brand. He’ll do whatever he feels he needs to do for mission success. Even if the mission he’s selling is bullshit.”
“And you think this mission is bullshit?” Fallon pushed.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “And that’s not me being evasive, it’s the plain truth.
I know he wants the location of the auction.
I know he wanted confirmation Ahmad was home.
I know that he told me he’d send in a team to take down Amir and Ahmad and get the women.
But what he tells me and what he does are two different things. ”
“You think he’d leave the women behind?”
Calista’s gaze swung my way. The look on her face said it all, yet she still answered my question.
“He would do anything to further his agenda. Like say Atlanta gets her hands on the guest list and he finds a bigger target that could yield him intel on other HVTs. He’d leave those women behind to play the long game. ”
“If Tom doesn’t order the auction to be hit, we’ll pull in our team,” I told her, not bothering to run my declaration by Pete first.
There was no way in fuck we’d leave women behind to be sold.
“After the official invitations are extended, there will only be forty-eight hours before the auction,” Calista informed me.
There was anger and sadness in her tone, but it was the hope I heard that threw me. Did she really think we’d walk away before ensuring the women were safe?
Of course she did, and why wouldn’t she, given who she worked for—or with. I still didn’t fully understand their relationship. With effort, I refrained from rehashing old ground and reiterating what a piece of shit Tom was.
“Before I call the team to spin up, Shep called,” Pete announced.
Calista frowned, Fallon perked up, and my gut tightened.
Shep calling Pete could be anything from an update to a favor that could swing from taking out an enemy to helping overthrow a small government.
The guy was a wild card.
“What’d he want?” Fallon asked.
“He has a proposition.”
Pete’s ominous answer had me adding my half-eaten breakfast to the table next to his plate. “What kind of proposition?”
Pete’s gaze landed on Calista even though I’d been the one to ask the question.
“The mutually beneficial kind. He’s offering us use of a penthouse in downtown Dubai, which would help Calista’s cover and offer us more security.”
“I’d ask how he knows I need to be in Dubai today, but I can guess,” she grumbled.
“The catch?” Fallon challenged.
“There’s a woman—a senior girl in Bur Dubai who needs an exfil. Shep needs us to find her and make sure she makes her flight.”
A ‘senior girl’ was a prostitute who was in a slightly elevated position. She was in charge of watching the less-experienced girls and reporting back to her pimp if a girl stepped out of line.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Calista’s fingers were drumming on her thigh.
“Pure Shep,” Fallon mumbled. “Only he could manage to find a prostitute who just so happens to need safe transport in a city we haven’t even been in for twenty-four hours.”
Shepherd Drexel might’ve been the one man on the planet who gave me a shiver of fear.
If he wanted to, he could systematically ruin your life.
There’d be nowhere you could hide from him, no hole deep enough to keep you safe.
If he wanted your life—he’d take it. And he wouldn’t do something as easy as putting you in the ground; he’d keep you alive like a mouse to play with.
“Bur Dubai?” Calista inquired. “Is she a massage girl?”
You couldn’t walk the streets in that area without seeing hundreds of business cards littering the ground.
All of the cards were advertisements for ‘massages.’ Phone numbers you called to order a prostitute, in the sense the pimp would tell you what back alley or storefront to go to.
The prostitute would then take you to a nearby apartment, where you’d get off, then get robbed.
I couldn’t find it in me to feel bad for the men who were divested of their money and jewelry after they paid for sex with a woman who was there against her will. The women weren’t actually prostitutes. They’d been forced into sexual slavery.
Women who’d been lured to Dubai with promises of employment as maids, cooks, nannies, but when they arrived, they were in debt to the people who’d funded their visas and travel expenses.
The debt plus interest was worked off by taking as many johns a night as they could, and when the girls didn’t perform, that’s when the senior girl stepped in.
It was humanity at its worst.
“Yes. She was brought here from India. Her family wants her back.”
Calista eyed Pete skeptically, and I knew why. The unfortunate truth was, in most cultures, the woman would be ostracized. She’d be seen as used, filthy, unworthy. The woman would find no help healing from the trauma and abuse. No love and comfort.
“Shep spoke to her father. He’s promised she’s welcome and will be brought back into the family.”
Calista’s fingertips once again tapped. “And Shep’s sure the woman will be safe?”
“He wouldn’t send her home if he wasn’t positive,” Pete assured her.
“Where does she work?”
“Meena Bazaar.”
I picked up my phone off the coffee table and pulled up a map of the area. The Bur Dubai district was across the Dubai Creek, close to Port Rashid and north of Jumeirah. The area was mostly Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi.
“It would be a stretch Amir Bakir would step an Italian-loafered foot into that district, but he could have scouts or associates in the area. Us being seen there would be a risk, especially Calista,” I pointed out.
“Amir wouldn’t be caught dead in the red-light district. That’s below his station, and he thinks common prostitution is foul,” Calista returned. “But he does have people who notify him if a girl worthy of his attention is in play.”
The drumming started up again, but there were only a few taps before she leaned forward and dropped her plate on the table.
“I can wear a shayla to cover my hair and neck,” she decided. “Modest clothes will cover my body. I have brown contacts. I can’t do much with my face, but in the cover of darkness, I should be fine. When does Shepherd need this woman picked up?”
No hesitation, Calista was all in.
“Tonight. Shep has a helicopter on standby to get her out of the UAE as soon as we can get her to a helipad.”
Fallon let out a low whistle. “Doesn’t give us much time to plan.”
“We’ve had less,” Pete reminded him.
“True,” he agreed. “But that’s us. Not us with a strap.”
Calista’s left eye twitched, and I couldn’t hold back my chuckle.
That twitch turned into squinty eyes. “Something funny?”
“Yeah, you,” I told her.
Another twitch, and my smile couldn’t be helped either.
“What’s funny about me?”
Seriously, the woman was hot when she was pissed and going toe to toe with me.
“Just find it amusing Fallon called you a strap, and you immediately went into that pretty head of yours and started plotting murder. For the record, you need to leave him in one piece. He wants a casket and the whole nine yards. It’d help if Pete and I didn’t have to collect body parts when you’re done with him. ”
“Figures a guy dumb enough to piss off an assassin would want a funeral. Bet he wants ‘Amazing Grace’ played on the bagpipes while a roomful of mourners blow sunshine and tell stories about how kind and generous he was.”
I also found it hilarious she was talking about Fallon like he wasn’t in the room while staring me dead in the eye when she admitted she was a gun for hire.
No prevarication.
No hiding who she really was.
No using words like ‘allegedly.’
No shame.
No bullshit.
No games.
All things I respected.
All the more reason to get this job done and get the hell away from her before my control slipped.
“Yes on the bagpipes, no on ‘Amazing Grace.’ And I am a kind, generous person,” Fallon returned with a smile.
He was kind and generous unless you crossed him or someone he cared about, then Fallon Harris was ruthless and demonic.
“What else would bagpipers play? ‘Scotland the Brave’?” Calista quipped.
“‘Thunderstruck.’”
Of all the topics Calista could’ve possibly hit on, she had to stumble onto one that would lead to me wanting to poke my eardrums with ice picks.
“What are the chances?” Pete muttered, mirroring my thoughts.
“There’s this hot chick on YouTube who does rock ’n’ roll covers. I’ve set money aside to have her flown to my funeral,” Fallon said while pulling his phone out of his pocket.
Here we go.
Calista looked at me and asked, “Is he serious?”
“About the money? No clue. About the hot chick who plays covers, yes. And now you get to sit with him for the next hour and watch video after video. Good luck, sweetness.” I stood and snatched the plates off the table.
“To save my hearing, I’m going to take a shower. Be back so we can plan tonight.”
I didn’t miss Fallon and Pete staring at me. Further, I didn’t miss how their eyes followed me into the suite’s full kitchen, and I only lost their attention when I stepped into the bedroom.
I was hoping a nice long, hot shower would get my head straight.
If not, I was fucked.