Two Weddings and a Fugitive (The Chanel Series Book 4) (18 page)

‘Sizest,’ he muttered under his breath as we swapped spots.

‘Whatever.’ I reached up to push up the hatch and was swamped by a flashback. Las Vegas. Martine and I were escaping from the underground prison Boris and his mates had forced us into.

Panic forced its way into my brain and I froze with my hand on the handle.

‘Chanel.’ Nick pushed me in the back. ‘Come on already.’

‘Okay,’ I said, fighting to control the nausea. What I really needed was a little lie down with my legs in the air.

I took a few deep breaths as I fought to retake control of my limbs. Panic hadn’t helped us then, and it wouldn’t help us now.

‘Tick, tock,’ Nick said, but he put a hand on my back and said in a much lower tone, ‘You can do it.’

I turned my head and flashed him a smile. ‘Deuce Bigalow,’ I said, and then I threw open the hatch and raced up the stairs.

The first thing I noticed was that the sun was setting. Really? I’d been unconscious for that long? What the hell had that bastard given me?

The second thing was that both Boris and Alex were up top. That surprised me more. Why would they risk being seen like that? But then I noticed
what
they were doing. Preparing the boat to sail.

Nick and I had orchestrated our escape with only minutes to spare.

Both of them whipped their heads around as we burst onto the upper deck. Boris, one of his eyelids still swollen shut from the golf-ball incident, was between us and our escape onto the dock. Alex was up near the bow wrestling with a sail.

‘Get them,’ Boris roared, lumbering towards us.

Well, he appeared to be lumbering, his huge limbs moved slowly in comparison to Nick or me, but his enormous legs ate up the distance as we tried to dodge around him. Within a few seconds it was apparent we weren’t going to make it.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Boris reached one of his hands behind his back and pulled out a gun.

Oh crap. We were so dead.

Nick hurtled a coiled rope as he pulled a knife out of his sleeve and flicked it at Boris. Before the first one had even landed there were two more in the air. One after the other they smacked into Boris’s chest, the hilts shining in the light from the setting sun.

Boris lifted his hand, aiming the barrel of the gun at me. He took another step and I bent my knees, preparing to throw myself to the side. But then he stopped, and looked down, staring at the knives as if trying to work out how they had gotten there. Blood bubbled out of the wounds and he lifted his free hand up and touched the red liquid.

I ran at him, swinging my frying pan back behind my head like a bat. And then I unleashed all my anger, all my frustration, all my pain. With a scream I swung that frying pan around, crushing it into his face.

Blood spurted from his nose and he staggered backwards, the gun hanging from his hand. I wound up again, and this time the pan make a clanging sound as it connected with his skull.

He took another step backwards, tottering on the edge of the yacht. One hand moved drunkenly to his head, but he still clutched the gun with the other. He raised the barrel toward me again and I let out one more shriek.

‘Die bastard,’ I screamed as I whacked him.

His eyes rolled back in his head, the gun fell from his lifeless fingers and he pitched backwards off the side of the yacht.

‘Oh yeah,’ I yelled, fist pumping the air.

Of course in all the time it had taken me to neutralise Boris I had forgotten about Alex. That was a huge mistake.

Nick let out a squawk and I spun around to see Alex grab him with one hand. With his free hand he grabbed the hilt of a knife protruding from his leg and, letting out a low growl, wrenched it out and held it to Nick’s throat.

‘Very good Chanel,’ he said. ‘But what are you going to do now?’

My eyes twitched to the revolver Boris had dropped. It was so close and yet, so far away.

Ahhh, who am I kidding? It was practically sitting at my feet. The far-away part was the probability of my hitting Alex with it.

I bent and grabbed it, dropping the frying pan so I could aim it at Alex as I stood.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘It seems we have an impasse. I could kill the dwarf with a single twitch of my hand.’

Nick’s eyes bulged as Alex increased the pressure of the blade. A small dribble of blood escaped and trickled down his neck.

‘Let him go.’ I took a step closer.

‘Or what? You’ll shoot?’

‘Damn right.’

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘And do you really think you could hit me from there?’

‘Oh please,’ Nick said. ‘She’s only, what, ten metres away. How could she miss?’

He obviously hadn’t read my file like Alex had.

Nick’s eyes widened and he raised a hand toward his throat. Oh God. Alex was going to slit his throat while I watched.

‘I’m serious Alex.’ I tried to stop my hands from shaking. ‘I’ll shoot.’

‘No you won’t,’ he said. ‘You’re going to put the gun down and head right back down those stairs.’

‘Niké,’ Nick screamed. ‘Chanel, Niké.’

I could do this. I could. I came from a family of sharp shooters. What had Mum said? Just aim and shoot.

I sent up a prayer that I wasn’t about to kill my little friend, aimed the barrel of the gun at Alex’s forehead, and squeezed the trigger.

His head rocked back with the impact of the bullet entering his skull and he crumpled, dead before he hit the deck. Nick stepped away from his body and put his hands to his throat as if to reassure himself it was still in one piece.

‘I did it,’ I screeched. ‘Oh my God, I
got
him.’

‘Actually babe,’ Billy’s voice came from behind me, ‘
I
got him. However, you scared the crap out of that seagull over there.’

I spun around and there he was. My very own hero.

He leapt onto the back of the yacht and closed the distance between us in five steps. ‘This is getting to be a bit of a habit,’ he said, staring down into my eyes.

‘You saved us,’ I said.

‘You were doing a pretty good job yourselves.’ He took one final step and pulled me into his arms.

‘Yo, Billy,’ Nick said, holding up his hand for a high-five.

But for once Billy ignored the little man. Instead, he pulled back far enough to whisper in my ear, ‘I know.’

I looked back up into his eyes. ‘You know what?’

‘It’s what I was trying to tell you last night. I know that Harry’s not my biological father.’

‘Oh, and I thought you were trying to tell me you were hooking up with….’

He crushed me to him, taking my lips with his. A nuclear missile went off in my head and I wrapped my arms around him, clinging to him as if my life depended on it. Down, down, down I went, as I lost myself in Billy.

‘Oh,
euuuuwww,
’ Nick said. ‘You guys put kissing cousins to shame. I mean
seriously
.’

I could feel Billy’s lips pull back into a smile as he broke the kiss. I considered shooting Nick, but I probably would have missed. He was a rather small target.

‘We’re a close family.’ Billy shrugged his shoulders and I let out a laugh.

‘Billy.’ Sal’s voice called from across the Marina.

‘I found them,’ he yelled back.

I could hear the sound of shoes slapping the wood of the deck and then Salindra jogged into view. She held her revolver out in front of her with stiff arms. ‘You just ran off without telling me where you were going.’

He wrapped an arm around me. ‘Sorry. I found out who the owner of The Babushka was. There was no time to waste.’

‘But we already knew that. Aleksey Tolmachyor.’

‘Also known as Alex Thomas.’

‘That bastard.’ I stamped my foot. ‘He played us from the very beginning.’

‘I knew there was a reason I didn’t like him,’ Billy said.

‘Oh really?’ I let out a laugh. ‘So it wasn’t just because he was trying to hit on me?’

One side of his mouth quirked up. ‘That may have had something to do with it.’

Sal jumped onto The Babushka and strode over to Alex’s body. ‘I’d kick him,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want to disturb the crime scene.’ She looked around. ‘Don’t tell me Boris got away.’

‘Oh please.’ Nick walked over to Alex’s body and stared down at him. ‘Chanel and I sorted out Boris. He went over the edge with three knives in him and a serious case of concussion. He’ll have drowned for sure.’

‘Nice.’ She put her gun back into the halter on her side. ‘I’d better call this in and get the water police out. They’ll need to put divers in to look for Boris’s body.’

‘I’ll take Chanel and Nick back to the apartments. Send everybody there.’

She nodded her head, pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and punched in some numbers.

Nick waited till she was talking into her phone. ‘I’m not afraid to contaminate the crime scene.’ He walked over to Alex’s body and kicked the ribcage as hard as he could. ‘That’s for making me think you were my friend.’ He kicked him again. ‘And that’s for hitting me over the head.’

Billy stopped him as he pulled back his leg to kick him again.

‘But the next one is for Chanel,’ the little man said.

Billy stepped back and waved his hand at the body. ‘Be my guest.’

This time Nick took a run up, slamming his foot into Alex’s stomach. ‘That’s for drugging Chanel.’

‘He drugged you?’ Billy put a hand on the side of my face and stared into my eyes.

‘How else did you think he got me here?’

He looked at me for a second before shifting his gaze to his feet. ‘I thought maybe you had wanted to come.’

‘Oh puulleease. Like I’d want to be with another man while you were on this planet.’

‘Stop,’ Nick said. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

I let out a laugh and said, ‘We’re not related.’

‘You have the same father.’

I shook my head. ‘No. Harry’s not Billy’s biological father.’

Nick scratched his head while he thought about that. ‘Oh,’ he finally said. ‘Well I’d still appreciate it if you kept the mushy stuff to a minimum while I’m around. I have a weak stomach.’

‘Come on.’ Billy took my hand. ‘They’ll want a doctor to check you out and then I’m guessing both the local authorities and The Bureau will want to interview you. Sal,’ he looked back over his shoulder. ‘You got this?’

She nodded her head. ‘Yeah, they’re on their way. You guys head back to the apartment. I’ll meet you there.’

We climbed off the yacht and started the walk back to the car park.

I squeezed Billy’s hand and said, ‘How did you know?’

‘About Dad?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When I was nine I fell out of a tree. When I got home from hospital, Dad came to visit. I heard him talking to Mum. They thought I was asleep. He told her that he knew that he wasn’t my real dad. I didn’t understand the bit about our blood types till I was a lot older.’ He was silent for a couple of steps. ‘First I was scared, because I thought he wouldn’t want to see me anymore. But then he asked Mum if she would allow him to continue to be my Dad. I loved him more for that than if he
had
been my real father. I knew it meant that he wanted to be with me because he loved me, and not because he had to.’

‘Why didn’t you ever tell him you knew?’ Nick beat me to the question.

‘I didn’t think it was important,’ he said. ‘Until I met Chanel. And then I planned to, but he took off to Australia to be with Tess and I didn’t want to have that conversation over the phone. And then all this blew up and well…I thought we had enough to worry about.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘I know he told you at the airport.’

I stared up at him. ‘You followed us?’

‘I was worried about you.’ We were nearing the golf buggy. ‘I wanted to let Dad know I knew, but what with everything going on, there was never a right time. Then Alex came onto the scene and all of a sudden I had competition.’

I let out a laugh. ‘Oh and exactly how do you think I felt about you and Sal?’

‘Yeah man,’ Nick said. ‘You two were pretty full on.’

Billy stopped and looked at us. The setting sun lit up his face and his brown eyes seemed to glow. ‘But Nick, I thought
you
knew?’

‘Knew what?’ Nick jumped into the back of the buggy.

‘Sal’s gay.’ Billy let go of my hand and walked around to the driver’s side.

‘Gay?’ I shook my head and hopped into the front.

‘Oh man,’ Nick said. ‘What a waste.’ He looked down at his crutch. ‘Sorry man. Not going to happen.’

I was silent the whole way back to the apartments trying to integrate everything. Alex had been a mole from the very beginning. Billy had always known I wasn’t his sister. Boris was finally dead. Salindra was a lesbian. It had been a hectic hour.

It wasn’t till we were back in the apartment that I remembered something else. ‘Hey.’ I punched Billy in the shoulder. ‘What’s with hiring Nick to protect me?’ Didn’t you think I could look after myself?’

Billy and I were on the deck waiting for the entourage of people who were going to start arriving. Nick had commandeered the bathroom as soon as I had finished in it and hadn’t come back out yet.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But I wasn’t about to risk anything happening to the woman I want to be with.’

I could feel a shy smile creep onto my face. ‘So you want to be with me?’

He didn’t answer me with words. Instead he hooked an arm around my back and dragged me into his embrace. And then he let his lips do the talking.

For the briefest moment I worried about the FBI agents and detectives who were about to arrive on our doorstep, but as Billy moved me backwards and pressed me up against the balcony wall, all sane thoughts left my mind.

‘Yo. Love birds.’

I wasn’t sure how long Billy and I had been kissing when Nick broke us up.

‘The doctor’s here. He wants to take some of your blood,’ Nick said.

Billy growled and lowered his head to mine again. ‘Tell him we’ll be in in a minute.’

‘That’s just wrong,’ an American voice said. ‘Man, you
know
that’s your half-sister?’

Billy uttered an oath under his breath and looked up. I swivelled my head as well. Nick was standing in the doorway with a man I recognised as the wolf-whistling biker from Las Vegas. ‘