Sweet Seduction Sayonara Read online

  And here I am having a sneaky smoke outside.

  I flick ash off the end of my cigarette and contemplate my life. I’m professionally successful. I’m fit and active. I have a fantastic bunch of mates.

  And if I could trade it all tomorrow for a white picket fence and all that entails, I would do it in a heartbeat.

  I blow a ring of smoke out and stare up at the twilight sky. The smoke drifts away on the breeze, disappearing before I’ve even inhaled again.

  It’s time for a change. It’s time to man up and shake off the gummy.

  I walk over to the trash bin and stub out my cigarette on the side, my gaze caught on movement at the end of the street. A shadow darting around the corner, and slipping into the alcove of a high end fashion store, long since closed for the night.

  For a moment, I think nothing of it, but then the figure slips out of the shadows, dark hood pulled low over their face, hiding their features, and I know they’re up to no good.

  Sweet Seduction is my second home. Genevieve like a sister to me. High Street is my community. There is no way I’m going to let some punk kid graffiti the storefronts in my hood.

  “Hey!” I shout, taking a step across the street toward them.

  Just as a dark van pulls to a stop a few feet away from the figure and throws open a side door like some scene out of an action movie.

  The hooded figure is looking toward me, distracted by my shout, so doesn’t react in time when the bulky, but surprisingly quick, man in the rear of the van reaches out and snags onto their cloak.

  It all happens a little too quickly then. I realise the figure’s not up to no good, but trying to escape it. And I’m running and shouting as the front window of the van rolls down and a fucking gun is aimed at my head, and the cloak is pulled off the figure, and a small frame darts away to the side, offering a sideways kick to the brute’s head.

  Which is deflected by a thuggish arm, a snarl now on the bulky attempted kidnapper’s face, and the gun fires.

  I’m still running, so momentum more than any martial instinct has me rolling out of the way, the hard concrete of High Street biting into my shoulder, but adrenaline keeps the pain at bay. I come up onto my feet, still moving forward, when I see the small figure, now noticeably dressed inappropriately for such an undertaking, is in hand to hand combat with the brute from the rear of the van.

  The one in the front can no longer get a bead on me, but I hear his driver’s door open on the other side of the vehicle and I know any second he’ll be around the grille aiming that gun back at me.

  I’ve got seconds and I’m unarmed, but too much inaction of late has me moving inexorably onward. As though risking my life for a stranger is the sanest thing to do. The small figure, a woman I abstractly notice - maybe it’s the fact she’s wearing a tight fitting red silk dress with a high split in the thigh that tells me that little fact - is holding her own with the brute from the back. So I crouch low at the left front of the van, unsure what my next move is, but hyped up on go-go juice.

  I can hear the woman grunting, a soft burst of air as she strikes out, but I don’t look back. Reaching up slowly, I test the door handle of the van, finding it unlocked, and open it. I see a shoe, highly polished and definitely high end, under the bumper, and then he’s around the front of the vehicle and I’m swinging the door with all of my might.

  And it cracks him on the head.

  He goes down like a thousand year old kauri. I wince slightly when his skull connects with concrete.

  Spinning back around I find the woman and the last man moving at a speed that boggles the mind. One arm up, deflecting, the other out, connecting, a leg, a torso shift, a spin and high kick, and back to an arm, hand, knee, elbow, fingers, hand, arm, elbow, foot. All in such rapid succession I’m stunned immobile for a brief moment, and then I glimpse a bat on the floor of the van.

  Reaching in I consider the implications of what I’m about to do. As a lawyer, I’m well versed in self-defence legalities and arguments. And using a bat against a foe who is only using his fists is not as defensible as one might think.

  But then my eyes dart to the still open door, the dent on its surface, and the out-cold guy on the ground. His gun resting beside him.

  Yeah, we passed defensible arguments five minutes ago.

  I swing the bat and connect with the head of the brute still flinging punches at the woman.

  He goes down like a thousand year old kauri, too, and all that breaks the stunned silence of the moment is the crack of his skull on pavement and the woman’s soft, rapid breaths.

  I might be panting a little from adrenaline, too. But I suck it up and hold her flinty stare.

  “I had him,” she says, straightening up out of a crouch of her own. The split on the oriental material of her dress has torn slightly, showing even more long, slender, tanned skin. She narrows almond shaped eyes at me, they darken further when I just offer a grin.

  “You’re welcome,” I reply, chucking the bat back into the van. Then consider retrieving it and wiping my fingerprints off the damn thing.

  Since when did my life become an action movie? A ninja fucking action movie, I suddenly realise, when I see the nunchucks on the ground the woman must have managed to liberate from her attacker.

  “Who are they?” I ask, taking in their black attire, similar tanned skin as the woman, and dark hair.

  I have a very bad feeling about this.

  “It’s better you don’t know,” she advises, reaching down and lifting her cloak up off the ground to dust clean.

  “Considering I just took out two of them, I think I have a right to know.”

  “Took out two of them?” she queries. That might be a snort I hear at the end of that question.

  Or outright laughter.

  “Well, they’re both unconscious because of me,” I point out.

  “A very good reason for you not to hang around.”

  “And you are?” I ask. “Hanging around?”

  She glances down High Street. The only light on inside any of the stores now is at Sweet Seduction. The warm glow so inviting, all of a sudden, that I almost take a step toward the sanctuary. But the woman has moved to the van and is peering inside. She pulls back with rope and duct-tape in hand, and snarls.

  It’s quite impressive and entirely out of place while wearing that dress.

  Who kicks butt when wearing a slinky dress?

  “Why were they after you?” I ask instead.

  Clearly they had nefarious plans for this petite woman.

  “I pissed someone off,” she surprises me by saying. “And if they know you were here, you will have pissed them off too.”

  “Not good being on their pissed off list, huh?”

  She tips her head and stares at me. For a second, I think I see some sort of recognition there. But if she knows me, I certainly do not know her.

  “No,” she says softly. “Not good at all.”

  She takes the rope and starts to tie up the brutes.

  “Is that wise?” I ask, watching.

  “Leaving them here is hardly intelligent either,” she argues.

  Oh, I thought we’d, you know, call the police, like normal law abiding citizens. More fool me.

  She finishes tying them up and taping their mouths shut and stands back to admire her work.

  “If they were pissed off before,” I note, “they’ll be ropable now.”

  I smirk. She just stares at me as if I’ve got two heads.

  Not everyone gets my humour.

  Before I can stop her, she’s attempting to lift the brute at the side door into the back of the van. She’s tiny. Like almost pixie petite. But those pins off hers can pack a punch. For a second, I consider just watching; this is the most entertainment I’ve had in months. Plus, I don’t particularly want to get more involved in this than I already have.

  I recognise, now, the tattoo on the side of that guy’s neck. I’ve been in court when some of these guys have been rem
anded. I’ve never represented one, though. Not many of the 14K Triad require family lawyers. But I know all about them.

  Who doesn’t?

  I glance up at the woman still trying to manoeuvre the brute into the van and then back at his tattoo. She’s Asian, but not Chinese.

  With a jolt, I realise she looks an awful lot like Koki.

  Damn it. I reach forward and help her lift the last of his body into the van, and then move to the driver, doing the same thing. In seconds, we’ve got them ensconced in the vehicle, and only then do I realise this would have all been captured on the CCTV system used by the police.

  I stare up at one of the cameras now, the woman’s gaze following mine and then she sighs, loudly.

  Pulling a cell phone out of god alone knows where - that dress doesn’t make for handy hideaway locations - she thumbs it on and then puts it to her ear.

  When it’s answered, she speaks in Japanese. But I’m pretty sure she mentions me somewhere in there.

  “You should go,” she says, once she disconnects the call.

  “Why?” I challenge. I’m as much involved in this as her.

  She holds my gaze for a long moment and then smiles. It’s stunning.

  And suddenly there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

  Chapter 2

  I’m Thirsty

  Finn

  Golden light spills out of Sweet Seduction, the sound of laughter and music wafting on the chilled air. I flick my gaze off the woman before me to see who’s finally come out of the café to help. ASI is normally more on to it than this, but maybe Ben and Abi’s news this evening has everyone letting down their guard.

  Everyone except Koki Tanaka, I notice.

  A sound to the side grabs my attention, or perhaps just the woman herself, it’s hard to tell. She’s bending down and picking up the nunchucks. And I watch, mesmerised, as she slips them away into a hidden pocket on her figure hugging dress.

  It takes a second for me to realise the nunchucks are hers not the Triads’.

  Idiot. Nunchucks originated in Japan.

  “Momoko,” Koki says. His voice is hard and unyielding. Then he spurts out a torrent of words in Japanese.

  The woman, Momoko, snaps back at him in an equal flurry of harsh sounding vowels and consonants. For a second, I wonder if I should just back away and let them have at it. They clearly know each other, and going by the obvious resemblance between the two, they’re related in some way. Getting between Koki and his object of ire is never a sound idea.

  But I find myself shifting closer to Momoko, offering silent support, even if just in my continued presence.

  For her part, Momoko doesn’t even spare me a glance.

  But she does switch to English.

  “It has been handled,” she says.

  “Handled?” Koki replies, also humouring the non-Japanese speaker in their midst. “You call this handled?” He waves at the van, then the spots of blood drops on the ground I hadn’t noticed, and then sums it all up with a dismissive sweep of his hand to indicate me. He offers a sneer afterwards.

  I’ve never really understood Koki. He’s dedicated to ASI and Nick Anscombe, who owns the security and investigation firm. And even more loyal to Brook Osborne, the firm’s medic. But he’s bristly and anti-social. More inclined to snarl when conversing than talk like a normal human being.

  Oh, I’ve heard him joking with Brook and the ASI team, but never with the Sweet Seduction gang or ADK. He tolerates Dominic, because Dom often helps out the firm in ways I’d rather not, as his business partner and friend, know about. But the rest of us are wasted space as far as Tanaka believes.

  My eyes shift to Momoko, to see what her reaction to all of this is. She’s cleaning her nails and not even looking at Koki. For all intents and purposes, she’s bored.

  “What are doing here, anyway?” he finally says, a softening in his voice that seems incongruous.

  “I couldn’t lead them home.”

  Koki sighs and moves toward the van, opening up the side door and peering inside. He says something in Japanese, which I’d bet my left nut is a swearword. And then slams the door shut again.

  “I’ll get rid of them,” he offers, moving toward the front of the vehicle.

  “We need to knock this on the head,” Momoko says, looking at Koki now and not her nails.

  I assume, like Koki, she was born here. Her accent is kiwi and her colloquialisms are too perfect to have been learned at an older age. She’s been raised in New Zealand, but clearly has strong ties to Japan.

  “This is not something Father expects you to be involved in,” Koki says, and I try not to cringe.

  I’d been denying it, but it’s obvious. They’re siblings.

  Momoko Tanaka. Her name slips through my mind on repeat for several seconds. As long as it takes Momoko to reply.

  “I was involved the minute they followed me home from the shop.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Koki snaps at his sister.

  “You? As in you and ASI? Or you and Papa? You know if he lifts a finger all hell will break loose. This is exactly why it needs to be handled quietly.”

  “And this is quietly, Momo? With a civilian witness outside of Sweet Seduction?”

  She looks chagrined for a split second, and then lifts her chin and glares at her brother.

  “I didn’t invite him to join in. And besides, where else was I to go? You’re always here with your buddies on a Friday. Everyone knows it. Huang Fu probably knows it, too.”

  Who’s Huang Fu?

  Koki runs a hand through his hair and then walks back toward his sister. His eyes flick to me momentarily, and I wonder if I should have made myself scarce already. I get the distinct impression Koki thinks I should have. He grasps her shoulders and dips his head down to look in her eyes. She’s much shorter than him, and Koki was never tall to begin with, but he does have several inches on his sister.

  “Go home, Momo,” he murmurs quietly. And the change in tone has me feeling uncomfortable. Should I leave? But if I leave now, it’ll seem strange. I’ve stood by and watched all of this so far, I might as well stay until the end.

  Maybe I’ll be the one who gets rid of the bodies.

  What the fuck am I doing here?

  “Tadashi will not like to hear of this,” Koki says softly. I have no idea who Tadashi is, but Momoko bristles.

  She shakes off her brother’s hands and scowls up at him. Defiance written all over her delicate features.

  “Tadashi can go to hell. And so can you, Koki. I came here because I thought you’d understand.”

  “I understand you’re disobeying Father’s orders,” Koki snaps back.

  “I didn’t plan this,” she growls.

  She’s feisty, and I can’t help watching her, studying her. Her diminutive size is in stark contradiction to her martial skills and now her strength of character; standing up to her clearly older brother, has me intrigued beyond measure, as well.

  “You never do, Momo,” Koki says, and it’s the first time I’ve heard that tone of voice from him before; frustrated and saddened. “But somehow trouble always finds you. This is a family problem, and will be handled by the family. Tadashi is practically family now, so Father will involve him.”

  “We’re not married yet,” she hisses. And for some reason her eyes dart to my face.

  She sees me watching her and immediately looks away. But for a moment, I wonder if she’s not quite as immune to my charms - or presence - as I’d thought.

  “It’s a foregone conclusion and you know it.”

  “Koki,” she whines, and suddenly I can see her younger age. Late twenties at a guess.

  “Momo,” he says back, this time with force. “Go home. Or I will call Father.”

  Momoko makes a frustrated sound of her own, stamping her foot in an impressive display of sibling anger. She storms over to the van and kicks it, denting the fender impressively. Then a rapid fire of words in Japanese spew from her mouth
as she practically beats the living shit out of the thing.

  Koki watches her for a second and then shrugs his shoulders, turning to walk to the front of the van.

  He stops and looks back at me, and yes, I should have left already going by the frown marring his features.

  “Finn,” he says. I’m not sure he’s ever said my name to me before. “Thank you for assisting my sister. But we can take it from here.”

  He doesn’t wait for a reply, just spins on his heel and heads to the driver’s side door. The van rocks as he gets into it and Momoko takes that as her signal to stop acting like a spoiled brat. The vehicle starts and then rolls away, with Momoko’s narrowed eyes watching it.

  “Quite the little actress, aren’t you?” I say, because clearly I want to be kicked in the shins like she just did the van.

  A small smirk graces her lips. “It usually works with him,” she says quietly.

  “Older brothers can be obnoxious,” I offer.

  “You have an older brother?”

  “Four.”

  She winces.

  “Koki has always taken his role of protector to heart,” she explains. “But he’s failed to realise that I grew up years ago, before I even hit my thirties.”

  “You’re in your thirties?” I blurt.

  She smiles up at me, a knowing look on her face. “You thought I was still in nappies?”

  “Well,” I say. “That little tantrum was quite spectacular.”

  The smile vanishes, and I wish to God I hadn’t said anything.

  “He treats me like a baby, so sometimes I give him what he expects.”

  “Even in front of strangers?”

  “You’re not a stranger. You just took out two of my attackers.” I like the way she uses my words back on me. And with such a straight face.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I did. We’re practically best friends now.”