Hot-Blooded (24 page)

Half of him celebrated while the other half mourned.

Too late for feelings or second-guessing. Stay the course.

His phone buzzed. He answered. The valves in his heart squeezed when Jezzy gave him exactly the information he needed to launch a new life for him and for Scott. With heavy acceptance, he rubbed his chest, switched on the ignition, and headed toward Pāʻia.

At least you’ll get a raise out of this.

Right.

He dialed Scott’s number. “Hey, brah. I’ve got some shit to tell you.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“You both look so handsome,” Keahilani teased as she fluffed Kai’s thick raffia “hair” and smiled. Not that different from the ugly-ass dreadlocks hidden beneath. She swatted his arm.

The huge tiki heads were total overkill, and technically, not even Hawaiian as most people thought—Tiki was actually the first man in Māori myths. Regardless of the misnomer, the masks Kai and Manō wore as Pele’s Enforcers packed a hell of a visual punch.

A curtain of raffia spanned the sides and backs of the grotesquely large heads and framed slanted eyes, snarling mouths, and flared nostrils. Battery-operated red lights hid within the recesses of the masks, giving the faces a sinister glow. Her brothers’ natural height and bulk enhanced the fear factor. Their black designer suits and shoes topped off the look with a whiff of civilized decadence, but the clothes tamed the wild, primitive faces by only a fraction.

Personally, Keahilani adored the study in contrasts.

They’d been wearing the masks to meetings with dealers since their first one a couple years ago. What had begun as an in-joke had turned into both a tradition and an effective scare tactic against ballsy blowhards who needed to be taken down a notch. The masks dared
anyone
to fuck with them.

No one had ever taken Kai or Manō up on the offer.

Keahilani smoothed her short crimson skirt and straightened the red and black wig under her veil. Tonight’s meeting took place in an abandoned house on the outskirts of Pāʻia. Manō had scoped out several possibilities earlier and pegged this foreclosure as the easiest one to break into. The lack of electricity served their theatrical purposes well by creating a dark atmosphere rife with shadows and uncertainty. Throw in a few candles strategically placed in the back of the house in their “meeting” room, and there was just enough light to make out the harsh slashes on the masks and the bulky shapes of the brothers.

Lui deserved the very best from the Alana ‘ohana.
Aloha
and all that.

“So, nothing on Blake?” Keahilani slipped into her role as Pele and assumed an air of indifference, but she was anxious to know what had happened with her lover-turned-enemy after he’d pulled a Justin on her in the hotel.

“No. He probably left before I got to the airport.” The thick papier mâché muffled Manō’s voice, dulling it further.

“Who’s Blake?” Kai asked.

“A guy I shoulda left alone.” She paused. Kai deserved to know what Manō knew. “He works for a big dealer named Scott who’s trying to take over our operation from Oahu. I got a feeling he or his posse might be paying us a visit soon.”

Though she couldn’t see Kai’s face, she could tell by his tightened stance he was agitated. “For what? They don’t know where the farm is, do they?” He stepped closer. Pele met the tiki’s enormous orbs—no sign of her twin behind them—and shuddered. “Do they plan to take us by force?”

“No one’s taking anything from us.” Manō’s emotionless tone ironed the wrinkled tension in the air.

She turned back to Kai. “He’s right. If Scott does show up, we’ll protect our product and the ‘ohana. They have no idea where the farm or the warehouse is. Even if they get to our distributors, they’ll only have the product, not the means of production.”

Kai shook his big head slowly and folded his arms over his chest.

“Showtime,” Manō said, stepping away from the window and blending perfectly into shadow.

High beams from headlights rolled into view and illuminated the room. Kai positioned himself behind the door, pistol in hand, pointing at the ceiling. Pele secured a gun in the black garter hugging her thigh and checked to be sure the other two were still hidden—one in her trench coat pocket, and the other in a secret holster sewn into the lining in back.

The tires rolled to a stop behind the house. The engine shut off. Crunches of feet displacing rocks were interrupted by a sudden influx of mariachi music.

“What the fuck?” Kai’s disbelief reflected her own.

When the music sounded like it was right outside the door, Kai opened it, keeping away from the light, and lowered his gun to eye level. A jolly Hawaiian man wearing what appeared to be a skirt—hard to tell what color in the dark—danced his way through the portal with a boom box on his shoulder. Arms swinging, ass shaking, and feet stomping, he laughed as he lowered the oversized speakers to the floor and commenced a full-blown can-can with high kicks and swinging petticoat.

All three members of the ‘ohana faced Lui with bewilderment. The music didn’t match the dance, which didn’t match the man doing it. He didn’t seem to mind.

God, they were in so much trouble.

Pele swept down and fumbled with the controls until she found the off switch. The guitars stopped abruptly, and so did Lui.

“I was having such fun, you party pooper.” Breathless, the big man wiped his brow and skipped his gaze like a rock on the ocean over the three equally ridiculously dressed people in the room. Anyone peeking through the windows would have gotten an eyeful of weirdness, for sure.

“Lui, I take it?” Lowering her voice and adopting her mother’s thick Hawaiian accent, Pele brushed a wisp of hair from her face.

He bounced forward on tiptoes, ass punched out behind him, and offered a limp-wristed hand. “And you must be the unflappable Pele. Such a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, milady.”

She grasped his sweaty palm firmly, and he yanked her into his arms.

“Back it up,” came Kai’s gruff voice from behind her. No doubt, he had his gun trained on Lui’s face. Pele waved her brother off.

Resisting the urge to knee Lui’s nuts, she accepted his hug as graciously as she could and pulled away. This guy’s game was to throw them off. All they had to do was show they wouldn’t be deterred by his unconventional approach, and prove they were serious about working with him. Lui held all the power in this meeting despite being outnumbered.

But there was strength in silence.

She didn’t bother to introduce her brothers. Lui didn’t need to know her connection to them. “Let’s talk in back.” She led him down the hall to the room where they’d set up the candles and parked her feet between the two windows where the light would illuminate her in all the wrong places and shadow her in the right ones. No sunglasses tonight, so she had to keep her identity hidden. Kai and Manō flanked her on either side.

Lui slipped off his elbow-length gloves and swatted his leg with them. “Nice place you’ve got here. I’m positively famished. Got any appetizers? Crudité? Pasta bar?”

“I brought you here to propose a business arrangement.”

He clapped his chubby hands together and bounced again. “Ooh, I just
love
proposals. The answer is yes, I will go to prom with you, Pele. Now, how shall we coordinate my dress and your suit? I’m thinking the baby-blue tuxedo with matching cummerbund would look fab-u-lous with those hips, girlfriend. Though we’re definitely gonna have to do something with this hair.” He wove his fingers through and slid them down, admiring her black and red locks. She stopped herself from clenching her jaw.

He’s fucking with you. Don’t let him get under your skin.

The tension reverberating between Kai and her was palpable. He couldn’t stand holding his tongue, but at least he seemed to get the message that keeping calm was good. Manō was … well … Manō. Silent. Unmoving. Watching like a shark.

She gently pressed two fingers under Lui’s pudgy chin and lifted his head to meet her gaze. “I’m looking for a distributor, and I heard you were … efficient.” She looked down her nose at him with a blatant refusal to admit he had any power over her whatsoever.

“My dear lady, I only deal in the heavy shit, and you …,” he glanced to Manō beside her, “couldn’t possibly source the kinds of packages I deliver.” His gaze slithered to Manō’s crotch, and his pupils widened further in the dim light.

“Pāhoehoe isn’t typical. It takes users above and beyond any other weed out there. Our hybrid is highly concentrated, produces a sexual high like no other, and it doesn’t let go. Oh, and no munchies, so your buyers will thank us for saving them unwanted calories. The bottom line is they’ll just want to fuck. For hours. And then, they’ll come back to you for more.”

She stepped away and circled Lui in a lazy holding pattern. “We offer two options. Buy in bulk from us, pay a small one-time processing fee, set your own price, and do whatever you like with it. You have the option of coming back for more whenever you’re ready, or not at all. No contract. No monthly payments. No strings.

“Or, we can put you on our payroll, strike up a one-year contract wherein we sell you our product at a reduced rate, and you turn it around for whatever you want. Only stipulation is, you have to make payment to us on the first of every month, or we break your fucking legs.”

Manō burst forward like a bullet from a gun, so fast, he appeared superhuman, and clamped his thick hand around Lui’s throat. The lights inside his mask illuminated the swirling petroglyphs they’d painted on his wrist and hand earlier. Lui fought for breath as Kai took his time swinging his gun in a wide arc, pressing it to Lui’s temple. Pele smiled. She loved this portion of their program.

From behind, she leaned against the big man’s back and rested her chin on his shoulder. “What do you think, buttercup?” she cooed as she ran her hands over every inch of him, searching for the weapon she knew he had.

Heat swelled and pulsed from his skin, rippling into hers in small but growing waves. His eyes bulged like overfilled water balloons.
Cack … cack
was his only reply.

She slipped her hand between his legs and skimmed his balls and dick through his petticoat. Ah … there it was. At least one. She lifted the skirt and grabbed the gun strapped to his thigh, much like the one in her garter. She passed the .38 to Manō. “Got anything else under that petticoat I need to know about? I’m not afraid to conduct a panty raid, Lui.”

Manō loosened his grip, and Lui bent his head forward as he sucked in huge gasps of air. Hand to his throat, he coughed for several seconds. “Autoerotic asphyxiation. I love that. Just creamed my crinoline.” He coughed some more.

“Glad you got that out of the way. I need your answer. Deal or no deal?” Pele said.

Lui straightened and ran his hands over the boob stuffing falling from his bustier. He tucked himself in, pulled up his skirt, and dusted off his hands.

“I’m waiting.” Irritated by his stall tactic, she rolled her eyes, and in the process caught tiny orange and black movement above the door.

Shit.

The butterfly’s warning came a second too late. Two dark figures filled the doorway, and Pele’s pulse took off. She pulled out her gun.

“You’ll be waiting for a while, methinks.” Lui tittered. “I’m not interested in doing business with you, Mistress Pele. At least, not the kind you want. I would, however, be totally down with taking one or both of your
boys
”—he drew the word out—“home with me, though.” He tentatively touched Manō’s mask as if it were a delicate flower he feared crushing. “I really like this one.” He glanced to his backups. “What do you think? Big enough for me?”

The men nodded but didn’t speak.

“I’m disappointed you won’t reconsider,” Pele said.

Fuck. Just fuck.

“You’re lucky you’re Hawaiian and I like you, otherwise, the décor in this place would’ve just gotten a massive overhaul featuring human organ lampshades and soft tissue wall accents.” With a patronizing smile, he pinched her cheek and traipsed away, swinging his arm overhead like he owned the whole damn world. Because he did. “I’ll let you know if I change my mind, you hot little goddess,” he tossed over his shoulder while snapping his fingers at the bodyguards. “Come along, lovelies. Songs to sing, dances to dance, drugs to deal. Chop, chop, bitches.”

The two heavies followed his prancing ass out. The front door shut behind them moments later.

Pele stared at her two brothers in furious silence but didn’t speak until the roll of tires spraying rocks hit her ears. “What the hell are we gonna do?” She tossed her veil and wig to the carpet and rubbed the itchy spots on her head.

Manō removed his mask, then Kai did the same.

“Lui was our last chance.” Tears welled, but Keahilani blinked them away.

“If we have to go out on the streets and sell the pot ourselves, we will.” Kai was so naïve. They couldn’t do that. People knew them from the surf shop. If word got out that they were dealing, they’d end up in jail. How would Bane ever graduate from college without their money? They had to keep low profiles.