Challenges (Frank Kurns Stories of the UnknownWorld Book 4) Read online

  CHAPTER TWO

  “All right, come on.” Tabitha, now out of the four-star restaurant and back on the crowded streets, seemed to have returned to her normal self. She directed an impish grin at Gabrielle. “I’ll show you the best spots in the city.” She whistled. “Can’t believe I’m back here with a—um, with you,” she corrected herself hastily before she said “vampire” loudly in the middle of a crowded street.

  “I think that was some personal growth,” Gabrielle said with a grin. She shook her braid back over her shoulder and took in a deep breath. She loved the cities of South America. They truly lived, the way cities like Paris and Venice had at one time. They were a jumble of people and smells, everything wildly alight with color.

  The thought of modern-day Paris, now a city of fairly clean streets and landmarks restructured for tourists, just bummed her out.

  As they wound their way south Tabitha explained, “I don’t want to freak you out, but we’re going to Barracas.”

  “Different city?” Gabrielle raised an eyebrow.

  “No, just a neighborhood. Um, it doesn’t look like a great neighborhood maybe, but it’s actually safe. Safer than the rich areas.”

  Gabrielle bit back a guffaw. She was here as the muscle, after having spent years in some of the worst neighborhoods the world had ever seen, and here was a little girl telling her not to be scared about… Hmm, she was going to guess it was nothing more than some rundown buildings and a neighborhood drunk or two.

  But it was sweet that Tabitha didn’t want her to be scared.

  Gabrielle kept a close eye out as the buildings grew a bit dustier, their paint chipping and peeling, and the signs over the shop doors got less slick. Fruit and vegetable stands were being packed up while the sellers called out ever-lower prices. Mothers walked with children in tow, and there was the sweet smell of the evening bake coming from the panaderias.

  In the more upscale streets Gabrielle and Tabitha had been assessed as tourists. Between Tabitha’s piercings and tattoos, not very common here, and Gabrielle’s expensive clothes, they must have looked like rich foreigners.

  But as they walked confidently toward Barracas, Tabitha chattering in locally-accented Spanish, there was a different sort of assessment going on. Men in doorways watched the two women with a frown.

  Gabrielle returned those frowns with a picture-perfect smile that would turn any man’s blood to ice, and her smile grew smug when the men looked away hastily. They didn’t know what she was, but they knew enough to be scared.

  They knew they didn’t want her to notice them.

  Tabitha stopped dead at one of the intersections, sniffing. “Choripan! I smell it!” She looked down the streets, which radiated in all directions, and frowned. “Oh, that’s maddening. I swear I could smell it a second ago.” She gave Gabrielle a sad look. “Now my mouth is watering.”

  “You just had some of the best steak in the world and you’re upset that you can’t chase it with a sandwich?” Gabrielle put her hand over her heart in mock agony.

  “Right, thank you for dinner!” Tabitha waved her hands as she started south again.

  “Say thank you to the cow. It died for you!” Gabrielle drew upon centuries of theatrical training as she followed her. “Ungrateful child.”

  “You were probably an ungrateful child once.”

  “I was never an—”

  “Are you sure, because I heard Stephen say—”

  “This discussion is over,” Gabrielle said, with great dignity.

  “Uh-huh.” Tabitha wore the expression of someone who knew she had won the argument, but she started looking around with a frown. “Now where would he be?”

  “Who?” Gabrielle put her hands in her pockets as she strolled at Tabitha’s side. She’d chosen black high-heeled boots, faded and artfully ripped jeans, and a deep red tank top for the night’s activities.

  She could have dressed in slightly more robust clothing and perhaps hidden some guns and knives on her, but she had no worries about her ability to defend Tabitha. And, besides, it was better if the muscle didn’t look like the muscle.

  Not to mention, she loved these boots.

  “Howie,” Tabitha explained. “He always knew everything about everyone, and he used to sit around here. I hope nothing’s happened to him. He was so— Hey, Joaquin!”

  She took off, and Gabrielle followed at a speed most people wouldn’t be able to manage in high heels. She’d had a lot of practice, after all.

  She found Tabitha chattering excitedly to a cagey-looking man with brown hair and black eyes. He looked up as Gabrielle approached and his face flickered through a quick assessment: the expensive clothes, the lack of weapons. A faint frown of confusion creased his face.

  Gabrielle smiled at his expression. He was smart enough to realize that Gabrielle was a strange friend for an Argentine street kid, but he couldn’t figure out where the danger lay.

  “Gabrielle,” Tabitha gestured to the man, “this is Joaquin. He let me stay on his couch a lot after I left home.”

  “Nice to meet you, Joaquin.” Gabrielle kept her expression completely blank.

  “Uh-huh.” Joaquin was busy looking over his shoulder. “Look, Tabby, why are you here?”

  Tabitha frowned. “I came to see people. I wanted to make sure you were all doing okay. Why, what’s wrong? Is there trouble?”

  “I mean…” Joaquin shrugged his shoulders. “No. No, of course not.”

  Tabitha frowned. Joaquin had always feared the work she did on the dark net. He told her that she was getting in over her head and she might not be prepared for the consequences.

  At the time, as much as she’d thought he was being ridiculous, she had also appreciated his concern. She’d tried to stay with a lot of other friends, only to find out that they wanted things from her she wasn’t prepared to give. Some friends those were. Joaquin had seemed like an older brother—uncool, always worrying about stuff he shouldn’t, but someone who wasn’t going to take advantage.

  And of course, he’d been right about her getting in over her head.

  That was probably what he was worried about now. He saw Gabrielle, who looked well-off, and thought that Tabitha had gotten involved in another gang like Anton’s.

  She hastened to reassure him, “I’m doing fine, Joaquin. You were right about some of the jobs I pulled, but I’m doing much better now. I just wanted to…see everyone, you know? Make sure they were doing all right.”

  Joaquin stared at her for a long moment, then swallowed and looked away. It seemed he’d come to a decision.

  “Well, thanks. I’m still in touch with most people. I can tell you how they’re doing. Cup of coffee?” He jerked his head at a nearby café.

  “Sure!”

  Gabrielle frowned as the two of them walked off together. Tabitha was practically glowing with happiness to see her old friend, but something was definitely off about the way Joaquin was behaving.

  She smiled grimly a moment later. Joaquin had better hope he was on the level. If he was planning something with Tabitha, he was going to be very sorry.

  When she got to their table, she pulled up a chair and turned it around to sit on it backward, resting her arms on the back and directing a brilliant smile at Joaquin.

  “So you two go way back, huh?”

  “Yeah!” Tabitha smiled so happily that Gabrielle’s heart ached.

  She’d been that young and naïve once too. Come to think of it, she had hidden it behind fake worldliness the same way Tabitha did.

  “Tabitha was a good roommate,” Joaquin said, and produced a forced-looking smile. “She tried to give everyone everything she had—except those notebooks, of course. She was always scribbling in those.”

  “I know.” Tabitha gave a secretive little smile. Her research into Anton’s family had been in those notebooks, cleverly disguised with abbreviations and tons of little hearts. She knew that everyone from Joaquin to her employers had thought she was a stupid little girl.
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  She’d used their belief to shield herself from them.

  “What ever happened to all of those?” Joaquin asked. “I thought of you the other day and went looking for them, but they were gone.”

  “I took them with me.”

  “Important stuff in there, huh?”

  His tone was just a bit too casual, and his smile was strained. This man could not be throwing up more red flags if he tried, but Gabrielle knew that Tabitha hadn’t seen them yet.

  The poor girl was going to have a very unpleasant realization fairly soon.

  “Just private.” Tabitha’s habitual ingenuousness about her notebooks was there in full force. She knew how much some people would have paid to know what she knew, and she didn’t want Joaquin to have the first idea of what was in there. It would only be dangerous for him. “It was really just silly stuff. You didn’t tell anyone about the notebooks, did you?”

  She thought she saw a flicker of something in his eyes, but he laughed. “No, of course not. I mean, I might have told a mutual friend that you were a bit boy-crazy back in the day, always doodling lists of boyfriend names and coming up with their whole life stories…”

  “Who did you tell?” Tabitha’s voice was suddenly tight.

  “Tabby…” Joaquin reached out to cover her hand with his. “It’s all right.”

  “Yeah, but who did you tell?”

  “Emmi came around asking about you a bit ago, and we started reminiscing. She misses you.”

  The words were all wrong. Tabitha frowned. Joaquin had been weird since she’d gotten here, and now he was making a big deal about the notebooks.

  It could mean nothing, but if someone had figured out how much she had known...

  And she’d never liked Emmi anyway. The woman liked to play at being scared so she could weasel her way out of getting really involved in Anton’s gang. Tabitha could sympathize—she’d never wanted much to do with it, either—but she’d noticed that Emmi seemed to like the attention she got from Anton’s underlings.

  Emmi was stunning—tall, with curves in all the right places and reddish-brown hair—but that didn’t mean she tolerated any competition. Even tiny little Tabitha with her piercings and her chopped-off blonde hair, trying as hard as possible not to be attractive to anyone, was too much competition for Emmi.

  Emmi had made her life miserable. Why the hell did she care where Tabitha was now?

  “Tabby?” Joaquin was looking at her worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” Tabitha looked at Gabrielle for reassurance, and then back at Joaquin. “What is wrong? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Joaquin looked between her and Gabrielle and laughed awkwardly. “Everything’s fine. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, really?” Gabrielle leaned in. “So it’s not, for instance, that you sold Tabby out and now you’re feeling guilty?”

  “What?” Tabitha glanced between the two of them. “He didn’t...” Her voice trailed off and she looked down at her lap before looking up at Joaquin with eyes full of betrayal. “Did you?” Her voice was very small.

  Gabrielle’s heart ached. She hadn’t meant to interfere, but it had been hard to watch Joaquin toying with Tabitha, and she knew that the younger woman had been struggling to believe the evidence that was right in front of her eyes.

  Joaquin tried to laugh it off again, but finally he looked away with a sigh. His hand clenched.

  “Look, did you bring the notebooks?” He looked hopefully at Tabitha’s messenger bag. “If you have them here, you could just leave them and go.”

  Tabitha’s jaw set. “What. Did. You. Do?” She ground the words out.

  Gabrielle smiled proudly. Tabitha wasn’t going to be frightened into selling herself out.

  “I didn’t mean to!” Joaquin could not seem to stop shaking his head.

  “What did you do?” Tabitha pressed.

  He had to keep her here for just a few more seconds. Joaquin swallowed and tried to come up with something to say that would keep her in that chair. They’d be here soon, and his debt would be clear.

  Hell, he knew some people would pay handsomely for the tourist Tabitha had brought with her. She made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, but she’d be their problem once they had her.

  And then the tourist said sweetly, “Tell her what you did.”

  He hadn’t meant to, but he found himself telling the truth. How had she been able to make him do that?

  “I… They knew where my family was.” He bent his head, clenching his fingers around the cup of coffee. “I didn’t want to turn you in, Tabby, but when you were spotted earlier they sent me out to find you. They said to get those notebooks and, ah...”

  “And?” Gabrielle prompted. She was trailing her nails up and down his arm, lazy as a jungle cat ready to pounce.

  “And they said I had to keep you two here until they could—”

  The men appeared from the shadows around them with the distinctive dull clank of body armor and weapons.

  The street was suddenly empty, and no one stirred inside the café.

  “Until they could surround us,” Gabrielle said.

  Tabitha looked at Joaquin mutely, his betrayal bringing tears to her eyes.

  Gabrielle looked around at the circle of gang members, “Well, seems like things are finally going to get interesting.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “How could you do this?” Tabitha shook her head at Joaquin. “You could have told me to go. You could have just let me walk out of here, but—”

  “I didn’t have a choice!” Joaquin looked around himself wildly. “They know who I am. They know about my family. They said they’d do horrible things to them. I can’t take the chance. And this is all because you stayed with me!” He threw the accusation at her.

  “What? How did they even find you? Emmi didn’t know who you were. No one did. I made sure no one ever followed me home at night. If they found out I stayed with you, that’s on you.” Tabitha took refuge in the facts.

  There was a long silence, during which none of the men surrounding them spoke at all. They didn’t seem to care what happened, as long as Tabitha didn’t get away.

  “I needed more money, so I tried to get a job,” Joaquin said finally. “You’d told me some things about where you worked, so I went and found them.”

  Tabitha declared, “And then you had the cojones to turn around and try to blame this on me? You knew how dangerous they were! I warned you about them!”

  “I needed the money!”

  “So drive a fucking cab in your spare time!” Tabitha shot back.

  Gabrielle was trying to hold in her laughter. She wasn’t the least bit worried about the men surrounding them. They all seemed at ease with their weapons, but she knew that most of their experience with keeping the peace had actually just been posturing, showing up to make a visible statement of their employer’s strength.

  And they were human—she had checked every one of them. Not one of these people was going to have the time to react once she unleashed her fury.

  Since she didn’t have to worry about the impending fight, she was free to find humor in Tabitha utterly rejecting Joaquin’s bullshit. The man had tried to guilt her and frighten her and had told her that his predicament was her fault, and maybe Tabitha might have fallen for that if she were younger.

  But she’d grown up a lot since joining the Queen Bitch’s crew, even from the sidelines.

  “I came to stay with you,” Tabitha said quietly, “because they would have found my family otherwise and I couldn’t afford for that to happen. I took measures to keep you safe. I told them my landlord was a bastard who liked to hit me when he was drunk so they’d think I hated you. I never told them where I lived.”

  “Tabby—”

  “Don’t call me that! I did everything in my power to make sure that no one close to me got hurt just because I’d screwed up. But you? You weren’t just careless. You walked me in
to a trap.” She could feel the tears building in her eyes again. “That was low. I can’t believe you’d fucking do that.”

  Joaquin stared at her wretchedly. “It’s your fault,” he said again, sullenly. “If you hadn’t gotten mixed up in this in the first place I wouldn’t have either.”

  “Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”

  “All right.” The leader of the group surrounding them had apparently heard enough. “Let’s get moving. On your feet.”

  Gabrielle leaned forward slightly, raising her eyebrows at Tabitha.

  “I could get us out of this.” Her voice was smooth and low. It wasn’t the sort of sentiment to make the guards reach for their guns, but the offer was there. She was only too eager to start kicking some ass.

  Tabitha looked down at her hands.

  She could take Gabrielle’s offer. She could tell herself that it was useless to try going it alone, but...

  She didn’t want anyone to save her. She wanted to look whoever was doing this in the eye and figure out what they were up to. She didn’t want to be the scared little girl anymore, the one who kept getting in over her head and telling herself there was no way out.

  “No, let’s go.” She shook her head and stood up, avoiding Gabrielle’s eyes.

  “Good choice,” the leader said sarcastically. “Come on, Red, you’d better follow your friend’s example.”

  He’d been eyeing the way that red tank top clung to Gabrielle’s form, and he had some hopes of getting to see what was under it later. Thiago, their employer, was a generous man with people who did good work for him.

  But as the woman stood, she gave him a look so cold he felt his cock shrivel.

  Maybe he didn’t want to get tangled up with this one.

  They moved through the streets in silence. People closed their doors or turned their faces away. Everyone made very sure not to see the men with the guns. The implication was clear. When the police showed up, everyone would say they’d seen nothing.

  The gang’s rise to power must have been recent, Gabrielle thought. In neighborhoods riddled by violence the people in the streets had a wary look. Most of the men carried weapons, and there were always signs of strife: missing doors, broken windows, chips of paint where bullets had hit houses.