Reckoning - Chapter 5

Mick Angel was the last passenger to disembark the ANA flight 217 from Los Angeles through gate 25. He was in no hurry, so he’d taken his time to say goodbye to the sexy little flight attendant.

Unfortunately for Noriko, who’d broken up with her pilot fiancé the moment Mick released her lips, he had forgotten both her and her name the moment he stepped inside the main terminal building.

“Hello, Japan,” he murmured and moved toward the exit and the line for the cabs, not bothering with baggage claim. He’s brought only a cabin bag; he wouldn’t be staying long.

Smuggling his semi-automatic Desert Eagle onto the plane and off it had been a piece of cake. Way too easy in this day and age, where there are terrorist threats everywhere. Shows how much airport security was really worth. One could smuggle a fucking bomb on board a plane if one knew what they were doing.

Mick smirked. He just might have to try it next time. Not to set it off, naturally, he wasn’t suicidal. But he might do it, just to prove a point.

But right now, he had other plans. Only one plan, in fact.

To kill his friend and former business partner.

He could admit to having a qualm or two about killing Saeba Ryo. The man was his friend; after all, they’d spent quite a long time working together, partying together, and chasing women together. Sometimes swapping, sometimes sharing.

Oh, the memories.

Saeba was also one of the best in the world. Not as good as Mick, of course, but one of the best. He had an instinct to sniff out trouble or people in trouble and help them get out of said trouble. Mostly by making said trouble disappear.

He had a code of honor he stuck by.

So did Mick.

Men who moved in the gray area between shadows and light, between rule of law and survival of the best, all had a code of honor.

One of the unspoken and unwritten rules of that code of honor among shady types was not to shit where you eat.

The other was not to kill your friends or allies.

But their line of work also comprised the old adage of kill or be killed. Or in this case, kill Saeba Ryo or die himself.

So Mick had no choice.

Also, the money was good.

Still, he’d feel really bad and burn an incense stick in Ryo’s memory.

After he seduced Ryo’s woman away from him. Or women, plural. Who knew? The intel was spotty. But that’s what recon was all about.

He’d approach Ryo, tell him he was there to kill him—Mick was many things, but never a liar, and he respected Ryo too much to keep it a secret; the man would know soon enough anyway—get to know the current woman in Ryo’s life, make her fall for him, and kill Ryo.

Simple, clean, and easy.

But there was no rush, he thought, as a tall, beautiful woman approached him with an easy smile. He might as well have some fun first. Ryo could wait.

Mick stopped to watch her. Eat her with his eyes, more likely. Undress her with his eyes, most definitely. Damn, she was gorgeous.

Infinite legs, made even longer by the skyscraper heels of her ankle boots, nipped-in waist, and a rack to make his eyes cross. A mouth made for long, drugging kisses, eyes two hazel pools he could feel himself drown in...The only thing marring the image of traditional beauty was her hair. Cropped short on the back and sides, longer on the top, with bangs falling on her forehead in an asymmetrical fringe, it should’ve given her a mannish appearance. Instead, the pixie crop accentuated her femininity, made her eyes appear even bigger, and the dark red of her hair highlighted her flawless, milky complexion.

Mick felt something shift near his heart. As if a long-missing puzzle piece clicked into place. He was both focused and discombobulated at the same time. He couldn’t look away, if he tried. She was mesmerizing.

Whatever this feeling inside him was, it wasn’t natural, and what wasn’t natural put Mick on edge.

And when Mick Angel was on edge, his baser instincts came out to play. His face seemed to liquefy, his eyes rounded, and a lecherous grin spread across his mouth, complete with a drop of drool in the corner.

The woman appeared unfazed. The smile was firmly in place; the look in her eyes didn’t change. She stopped in front of him, close enough to touch. In heels, she was as tall as him. He liked it. 

“Mick Angel?” she asked with just a hint of an accent.

He nodded stupidly, licked his lips, and lifted a hand to—

Before it could make contact, she had him in a wristlock. Her expression unchanged, she flipped him around, twisted his arm behind his back, kicked his feet from under him, and before he could muster a response, he was flat on his belly on the floor with her knee at the small of his back as she handcuffed him.

“Mick Angel, you’re under arrest for importing firearms, illegal possession of firearms, and attempted murder. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have an attorney at the trial...”

Mick cursed under his breath for letting himself fall for it like a rookie and rolled his eyes as he listened to her pleasant voice informing him of his rights. She sounded as if she was reading the weather report. No stress in her voice, she didn’t even sound winded. Her expression was probably still the same.

Pleasant smile and unreadable eyes. A perfectly bland mask.

No wonder the look in her eyes hadn’t changed earlier. They’d been blank from the very beginning.

X Y Z

The sexy lady, who’d arrested him at the airport, had half dragged, half carried him out of the terminal building. Not that he was resisting; he’d just refused to cooperate. She’d been undaunted, though, and stronger than she looked as she kept half-dragging and half-carrying him—in high heels, to boot—all the way to a nondescript Corolla with tinted windows that had seen much better days, and unceremoniously dumped him in the back, throwing his cabin bag in after him.

Crumpled as he was in the back, face pressed against the smelly, sticky back seat, wrists handcuffed behind his back, one leg on the car floor, the other bent at a painful angle, and with his bag on top of him, he hadn’t seen where she’d been taking him.

She’d been an incredibly careful and gentle driver, though. He had to give her that.

When the car had finally stopped—at first, Mick had tried to count to gauge the time it had taken them from point A to point B but grew bored—she’d once more grabbed him and dragged him out into a cavernous, yet empty, underground garage of some sort. Then into an elevator, down a long, taupe hallway, and into this interrogation room, where she’d promptly handcuffed him to the tiny, steel table and left without having spoken another word after informing him of his rights all the way back at the airport.

Not that Mick had been loquacious himself. She’d told him he had the right to remain silent, and he’d fully exercise that right. He’d keep his mouth shut. They had nothing on him either way. The charges were bogus; they were just fishing. They’d never find his gun, and his official record was so squeaky clean it would’ve made Sister Margaret, his fifth-grade homeroom teacher at St. Katherine’s school, proud.

Pity, the gorgeous Amazon had been just a messenger, sent to arrest him; he wouldn’t mind being interrogated by her. He’d love to make her mask slip, her eyes light up in frustration at not getting any info out of him. And draw more of her tantalizing scent into his lungs. She sure smelled pretty. Clean and fresh, with just a hint of floral. He’d have to seek her out afterward and ask her about her perfume.

Maybe ask her out on a date. Just a lunch first, to see if the strange shifting feeling inside his chest had been simple indigestion or something more. Not that he was in love. It didn’t happen that quickly, and Mick Angel didn’t do love. At least not of the sentimental variety. He wouldn’t mind exploring the possibilities of physical variety love with his auburn-haired Amazon, though.

He just knew she’d be amazing in bed. With her height and strength, she’d give as good as she got. And those long legs...It would feel amazing when she circled his hips with those legs as he pounded inside her and she moaned in his ear.

Hell, yeah.

His slacks had gone tight at the thought as his heartbeat sped up, but he’d quickly quashed his lecherous thoughts and arranged his features into a bland expression. There was no mirror on the wall—wasn’t there always a mirror?—and no visible cameras, but that didn’t mean everything wasn’t being recorded or that he wasn’t being watched. They were probably watching him like a bug under a microscope. There was no need to give them more than he had to, so he decided to stop thinking about his Amazon and smirked.

Let them see a foreigner not scared of the notorious Japanese interrogation tactics.

He’d leaned back in the hard chair, trying to make himself as comfortable as possible, crossed his legs, and smiled pleasantly.

Bring it on, suckers.

 

After what must’ve been hours spent in the gray, windowless shoebox-sized interrogation room, he was still where the Amazon had left him. Handcuffed to a table like a common criminal, alone in an empty room. No one had come, no one had bothered to bring him any food or drinks, and no one had offered him a phone call. Or, god forbid, a bathroom break.

No one was giving a fuck, it seemed.

If this was a tactic, he hated to admit it was working. He was getting pissed off. And pissed-off people tended to run their mouths.

Oh, they’re good.

He smirked again and tried to cross his arms over his chest. Thanks to the blasted handcuffs, he couldn’t. So he just rolled his eyes and shook his head. He had to give it to them. They were really, really good.

And he really needed to take a piss.

As if reading his bladder’s mind, there was the sound of a key turning in the lock, and, as if he’d conjured her, his Amazon appeared. Still all in black, but sans the thigh-length blazer she’d worn at the airport.

Mick licked his lips. Her black top was sleeveless, revealing shapely, toned arms, proving her milky complexion wasn’t due to make-up; it was her natural skin color. And her rack truly was spectacular.

With a quick look lower, he saw what the perfectly tailored blazer had hidden earlier. A golden badge, unlike any he’d seen before in Japan, clipped to her waistband, and a hip holster with a SIG.

He frowned. A SIG Sauer was an uncommon gun for a regular Japanese police officer, making his instincts tingle. What was going on?

“Hello, Mick,” she said pleasantly in Japanese. “I thought you might be thirsty.” And she placed a wide-neck bottle on the table before him. The contents looked like orange juice.

Then she reached behind her and pulled a Desert Eagle from her waistband at her back. His Desert Eagle. How did she find it? The false bottom in his bag wasn’t detectable even under X-rays. He made sure of it.

“I see you recognize it,” she said pleasantly.

He looked at her. He hadn’t said a thing. He had barely even moved.

She shrugged. “Microexpressions, Mick. Even you have them.” She smiled as she took a seat in his chair’s twin across the table, opposite him. “It’s innate.”

So she would be the one to interrogate him. He mirrored her smile, noticing her eyes weren’t blank. She was without her bland mask. He might as well enjoy this.

“You know my name.” She was being quite un-Japanese-like with it, forgoing honorifics, like they were old friends. Or lovers. “What is yours?”

Her smile turned into a grin. “That’s not how it works, Mick.”

He shrugged. “Well, I just thought the conversation would flow easier if I knew your name, gorgeous.”

“My name is irrelevant.”

“It isn’t to me,” he drawled, watching her eyes glint. It was too easy; she was no match for him.

“You’ll just have to remain disappointed.”

He cocked his head, reassessing her. She didn’t appear ruffled. She was having fun. That’s what the glint in her eyes was. She was baiting him, letting him talk, leading him...Where? He might have to rethink his strategy.

“Fine, how about my phone call?”

She chuckled. “You’re not allowed one.”

“Everybody is allowed one, darling.”

“You’re not in America anymore, sweetheart.”

Gone was the aloof, pleasant woman who’d arrested him. She was definitely having fun.

“How do I get in contact with the embassy, then?” he asked.

Palms flat on the table, elbows to the side, she entwined her fingers and leaned forward with a childlike glee. “Do you really want to involve the U.S. embassy in this, Mick?” She blinked rapidly, eyes wide, downright innocent. “They might get a whiff of your real record. The unofficial one. And then where would you be?”

He leaned forward as well, mirroring her pose, and grinned. They were almost nose to nose. What would she do if he kissed her? “You smell really good.”

“Thank you,” she acknowledged without missing a beat. “Couldn’t say the same about you.”

He shrugged, unable to shake the feeling she was still leading him somewhere. “It’s been a long day. I think I smell like the car you drove me here in.”

She shrugged, not even bothered with looking contrite. “It was the only one available on short notice.”

He was mesmerized by the way her lips moved as she formed words. What would she do if he kissed her? He just had to lean a little bit forward.

“What are you doing in Japan, Mick?”

With his addled brain otherwise engaged—her eyes were so warm, her lips looked so kissable, and she smelled so fucking good—the innate response kicked in. “I’m here on business.”

A satisfied smile spread on those kissable lips as she languidly leaned back in her chair. “Do you have a deadline to kill Saeba Ryo?”

Everything inside Mick went into high alert.

Gone was the pleasant smile, the fun-having glint in her eyes. But she wasn’t yet wearing the blank mask. Her features set in harsh lines, her eyes were hard and blazing with anger, her posture like a coiled snake ready to strike.

“Or did Kaibara leave the timetable to you?”

How did she know? What did she know? How much did she know?

“Who the fuck are you?”

She nodded. “The former, then.” She stood, staring down at him with contempt. “You have until he gets to Japan, I gather?”

He merely stared at her.

“Thought so.” She picked up his gun and turned it so the light glinted off the barrel. “This is one mission you won’t finish.”

“Wait!” he snapped when she was already at the door.

She turned, one eyebrow arched.

“You can’t keep me here!”

“Watch me,” she hissed.

He cocked his head. She looked pissed off. Properly pissed off. What was going on? “Who the fuck are you?” he repeated.

“Currently, I’m your worst nightmare, Angel.” And she turned toward the door again.

“Wait!” he snarled.

“What?” She sounded bored.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

She nodded toward the bottle he’d all but forgotten about. “Use that.”

He grinned. He couldn’t help himself. “The neck isn’t wide enough. I won’t fit.”

She snorted. “You wish.”

He just couldn’t get through. One last try. “Tell the truth. You just like to watch.”

She smirked. “There are no cameras, Angel. And no one knows you’re here.”

What? Was that even legal?

She winked at him. “Enjoy your stay.”