Page 1 of Kristoff

CHAPTER ONE

Kristoff

Despite the broken beer bottles, the chair swinging over someone’s head, and the guy with the machete, a chill runs down my back when I see what’s at the door.

The man fills the doorway like night incarnate, dressed in black from head to foot. Two ball bearings hewn from the depths of a morgue scan the room from behind the balaclava covering his face.

“Ho-ly shit,” Harlan says from beside me, as he shoves a shell into his shotgun.

“Pops always said you were the bright one,” I toss over my shoulder.

I play it safe and point the shotgun in the air. We don’t need his kind of trouble on top of everything else going on.

I blink, and he turns to the group fighting in the far corner.

A laser-guided punch smashes one’s throat, and he turns his head, marking his next target, before delivering a sweeping back kick to the other’s knee. In the same movement, he rights himself, squaring off and facing the downed, struggling man. His right leg is raised parallel to his body before he drives his heel like a hammer into the diaphragm. Two of the threats are on the floor coughing or gasping for air.

The guy with the machete finally reacts, charging in with the blade overhead. The man in black flicks his eyes from the floor to the new threat and, in one bound, closes the gap between them. As the machete comes down, he intercepts, catching the guy at the wrist with his right hand then pivots on his left foot, torques the wrist down, and pushes the guy’s head into a table.

The man in black pulls the weapon from the limp hand. He palms the handle, studying the blade then runs the tip along the attacker’s jawline. The room goes silent.

“You were going to kill me with this?” he asks, as if he’s surprised the guy’s got thecojonesto try.

Silence stretches out until they start shuffling their feet. Will there be blood, or anything else, on the floor? These guys can be aggressive, and tempers flare with little provocation. Some of them work in the jungle, so we’ve had to deal with more than one machete fight.

“I asked you a question.” He takes two menacing steps forward until he’s in the shorter man’s face. The blade is still dangerously close to the guy’s neck.

“N-no.” The smaller man retreats. “I was trying to defend myself. Thought you was one o’ them.” He nods towards a couple of guys passing through town in a large transport truck. “The mouthy one started trouble, but when his partner jumped in, all hell broke loose.”

“Get out.” The man in black drops the machete to the floor. “Oh, and sharpen your tool”—he moves to the others—“before you give someone tetanus. You two—clean this shit up and get the fuck out of here.” He nods to a guy holding his throat, still coughing and gagging.

The men jump, struggling to follow his instructions.

Looks like I may not need to use the shotgun. Which means I won’t be fixing the damn ceiling, avoiding having to explain our two smuggled guns to anyone who walks in—especially our “lawman.”

“How the hell…” Harlan’s mouth drops open.

Wish I knew, and wish I had his presence. But we came here, to a spot on a road through the rain forest, to hide from the world. Guyana certainly isn’t what Pops described. And holy hell, we’ve come to regret it.

The man in black opens and closes his coat and moves his neck and shoulders before folding his arms, supervising the man straightening the furniture while the other two head for the door. I lay the shotgun across the bar, waiting to see what happens next.

“Well I’m glad to see everyone’s alive and well,” a new man says from the door.

An American. Who else would have the audacity to be running around in this heat, wearing a clearly tailor-made suit? What’s worse, the guy hasn’t even broken a sweat.

“Another one?” Harlan mutters. While he’s great with numbers, his book smarts have yet to teach him to keep his mouth under control.

I put a hand to the barrel of his shotgun, making sure to point it away from the brawl. The last thing we need is to shed blood after everything the man in black did to deescalate the situation.

The suit approaches us, with a self-assured step. Pulling off expensive sunglasses, he comes straight to me, reaching out a hand. “Dante.”

I don’t take his hand immediately. My mind is racing. What’s he doing here? Is he coming for Harlan? Or for me, for helping my brother?

But Dante doesn’t pull his hand back. In fact, the corner of his mouth pulls into a smile, enough to set one at ease. It’s a good tactic, something I learned during the short time I was a lawyer. That, along with using silence. Most people will start talking because they don’t like an uncomfortable silence. Sometimes the problem is getting them to stop. They feel the need to say something, anything, and spill their guts in the process. If only some of my clients had listened.

Saliva’s pooling around my tongue. What the hell, better to know than to live with uncertainty. I reach out and take Dante’s hand. “Kristoff,” I reply.

Dante’s handshake is firm and sure. My guess is he’s a businessman, though I haven’t a clue what the term means now. We’re in the rain forest, in a village without even a single cross street. The suit he’s wearing probably cost more than what I paid for the bar.

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