There were three men with Southwood this time, and they all looked like
muscle, no lawyer in the bunch. They filed into the hotel room in Rome,
all of them looking pissed. Janna hoped they weren't in the mood for a
fight. It wouldn't be the first time that a contractor had decided that
they didn't want to give them the other half of the money and try to get
away with the goods. They thought that two women couldn't do a thing, and
that the one man was outnumbered. They had a lot to learn. Janna wasn't
as strong as her cousins, but she was very quick and had learned self-
defense with the rest of them. There were only three of them? She'd just
have to stay out of Cam and Liz's way.
"Jaqui," Southwood greeted curtly. The dapper Englishman was gone, and there was just a British thug in his place. And the accent wasn't as good as it had been before. She wasn't in the mood for accents either, but she wasn't about to break her role. She shot a glance at the twins, and the concern on their faces said they weren't comfortable with the situation either.
"Monsieur Southwood," she greeted as pleasantly as she had when they made the deal. "It is good to see you again. Would you care for a drink?"
He glared at her. For a man that was about to get his hands on a necklace that had been guarded by an unstoppable security system, he wasn't a happy camper. That was not a good sign. Didn't make sense at all. Men. They were just put on Earth to be a bother to women.
"No thank you," he replied gruffly. Liz's eyes were riveted on the short, but extremely muscled man of Southwood's entourage. He looked like the type that a painting of Satan would be modeled after with his dark complexion and hair and virulent hate in his eyes. What did he hate? Probably the fact that he had to share the planet with other human beings. Seeing her and Cam on edge was not helping Janna maintain Jaqui. She still kept her pleasant smile and relaxed attitude.
"Very well," she said. "I suppose you would like to take care of business immediately?" She motioned him to the laptop that was set up on the desk at the side of the room. "As soon as you authorize the final transfer, then your property can be returned to you."
"All of it?" he snarled through gritted teeth.
She blinked. "You will receive what you contracted for Monsieur. I have never cheated a client before," she said, piqued that he would insinuate that he wasn't going to get what he paid for. They did not cheat clients.
"I was under the impression that your clients didn't get greedy," he snapped. "That's why you were hired. Your people don't get greedy, right? Then why was there a statue missing as well?"
One elegant eyebrow rose. "Would you prefer that everything get returned to the original owners? If I am not mistaken, you contracted for one necklace. The delivery is ready to be made. This upsets you exactly how?"
Southwood came up to her menacingly, glaring down at her. She didn't flinch. One of the twins would know if he was going to hit her before he could swing. "My people know not to disobey me," he growled. She understood the threat.
"My people are not trained animals," she replied airily. "And how do you know that it wasn't a maid that took the statue? My clients are requisitions, not sales. Since I don't have it to sell, then one could assume that neither do they. Now are we going to complete the contracted transaction, or shall I have this item placed on the Internet for sale?"
He sneered at her, his left hand by his pant leg opening to signal one of his men to grab her. Before he could make it, the girl that was guarding Jaqui was suddenly in the middle of them. He stumbled back a step away from the fray as she tore into his men easily.
Liz couldn't hear Southwood's thoughts all that well, but when one of his brutes started looking at his hand, and the thought was easy to pick up on then. Southwood was about to tell him to attack Jaqui. She had gone into action immediately, grabbing the man that was about to attack by the wrist, jerking him forward and slamming her knee into his solar plexus hard enough to crack bone. Her fist made contact with his nose, blood squirting out as they heard the bone and cartilage crunching.
The second man tried to pull out a gun, but he couldn't get his hand out from his jacket before a hand of iron clamped around his wrist, flexing, and snapping the bones. His breath sucked in sharply, some part of his mind wondering how the man got across the room so fast. In another instant, all went black as Cam's second blow knocked him out cold.
The third bodyguard, the dark one, was standing in front of Southwood, with his gun already out, and aimed at Jaqui. Her eyes widened as she realized that there was a silencer already attached. Bastard had come prepared for this. A cruel smirk twisted his lips as his finger caressed the trigger. Liz still had her hands on the man she had gone after and reflexively threw him directly into the arm that was holding the gun. The shot that was supposed to hit Jaqui rang out, hitting the wall to her left.
He didn't have the chance to get another shot off. Cameron was already on him, and in a matter of a second and a few punches, he too was slumped on the ground, completely unconscious. Southwood was backing away from them, sweat breaking out on his forehead. It was very, very rare that he miscalculated a potential threat. He hadn't seen it coming from these two, and he had a sudden sick feeling that they would do to him whatever Jaqui said. He thought about the gun under his jacket. Jaqui was directly in front of him, approaching him with eyes filled with rage. He might be able to get her, but the other two would make him pay.
The second Southwood let the thought of the gun leak, Cameron moved. He tried not to move at full speed in front of others, but this was a special circumstance. The look on Southwood's face was almost worth it when Cam was suddenly beside him, roughly yanking the gun from under the jacket and tossing it to Liz.
"You, you…" Jaqui spat out, unable to express her fury. How dare he! "T'es un maudit rat de nous poignarder dans le dos comme ça!" she shouted at him. "We do not do well with those that try and betray us. You see, we let those kind live," her words were more of a threat than a reassurance. As Southwood knew from orders he had dished out before, there were far worse things than death.
Liz and Cam shot each other a slightly worried glance. They didn't mind stealing from those who could well afford it, and they had no problems with protecting themselves, but the thought of torture was slightly nauseating to them both. Without needing to communicate, they both had decided that they couldn't do it. It was time to call the loss and just get out of there.
Janna could tell that her cousins were on the edge of just taking off, and forgetting the rest of it. As Jaqui, she could talk tough, but unless he was fuzzy and had a bushy tail, Janna knew she couldn't kill him. Not like this at any rate. It was slightly frustrating because beating him to death with a shovel sounded like a good idea just then. She smiled coldly.
"Well, monsieur, since you know seem to be a rather captive audience, it is now time to finish our deal." She indicated the laptop. "Just because you have no honor, does not mean that I and my clients do not as well." She paused, as if contemplating something, and then added, "However, the fees had to increase to do extra problems that were encountered. You will add, let's see, twenty-five percent to the fee to cover them. Either pay in money, or we shall find another way to deal with it." She glanced at her cousins. They seemed satisfied with the arrangements. Southwood didn't.
"That…that's…" he sputtered.
"I believe the correct term in English is highway robbery," Jaqui supplied with a wicked little smile. She shrugged. "I contract thefts, monsieur. What else could you possible expect?" She glanced at Cameron, and nodded to the computer. He shoved Southwood over to it.
"You have five minutes to make the transaction," he growled as menacingly as he could, picking up a German accent. After a childhood growing up surrounded by genetically engineered killing machines, as Uncle Logan had coined the X-series, he knew how to sound dangerous.
Southwood seemed to be debating something for a moment, and then sneered before turning to the computer and typed in his password to access his account. Even from across the room, Janna could easily see the screen. She had filters installed on that machine so any tracers that were activated would be diverted. She didn't like Southwood's look. It wasn't resigned. It was more "I'll get you later". Like he could. In a few minutes they were going to be gone, and Jaqui would be gone from the world for a few months. Hopefully by then he would be on to killing some police informants and not thinking about them.
The computer beeped, and their account showed the money had been transferred. Cam nodded at Janna. Janna nodded at Liz before going to the laptop and closing it down, slipping it into a case. Liz grabbed a cushion from the couch and unzipped it, reaching in and pulling out a flat leather case. She would rather remove it's contents and beat the hell out of Southwood with it, but a deal was a deal, and they had made more than enough to make up for the extra trouble. This was even worth the squirrel. She went to Southwood and shoved the case at him. "Open it," she snapped in the same thick German accent her brother had used.
He unsnapped the catch and opened it. The necklace glittered at him from the velvet that it was resting on. "There," Jaqui said pleasantly enough. "Contract filled. It was a pleasure Monsieur Southwood. Do tell your friends if they need any little property issues solved that we are always happy to help." She gave him one more sarcastic smile, and the trio left the room. The second the door shut, they were at a dead run to get the hell out of there before round two commenced.
They got to the garage quickly, tires squealing as they tore out of there and into the busy streets. Janna drove in silence for several minutes, getting them well lost in traffic. The hotel disappeared behind them and all three of them started to relax. Janna started to giggle.
"Did you see his face when all of his guys were dropped?"
The twins started laughing with her. "They'll be wondering for months how we knew they were going to attack before they even twitched," Cam laughed.
"I thought he was going to pee in his pants when you added the extra money to the fee," Liz snickered. "We should have really pissed him off and kept the necklace anyways."
Janna shrugged. "I don't feel like sneaking it out of the country, do you?" They had to concede that would be a bigger headache than what it was worth.
"Nah," Liz replied. "Better to just go home and pack and head to New York in a couple of weeks."
Janna sighed, a little exasperated. "You two are going to go now! I said I would be fine on my own. It's not like I'm going to be doing any business while you're gone."
Janna had told her parents she was taking an art class that fall. It had seemed like a good lie at the time since they were starting to bug her about what she was doing and where she was going with her life. So, she had found out about the class and said she was in it. The problem was that it didn't end quite yet, and they would ask questions if she left right before it was over. The twins wanted to go home now, but they didn't want to leave her. It wasn't like she needed babysitters. As a matter of fact, it would be nice to have a couple of weeks to herself to do some painting. She hadn't been able to in the last few weeks, and she was getting that restless feeling that she got when she couldn't be creative.
"Janna, it's not…" Cameron started, but she cut him off.
"You two need to go home. You have a sister to congratulate. Go be young and rich in New York and scope out the cool places for us to pick up people and leave them emotionally drained husks of their former selves." Liz and Cam laughed at that.
"Are you sure?" Liz asked. She did want to go home and see the whole family. Heather was actually taking time off of work, Daniel was going to be home and she couldn't wait to see Tanya again. She was the cutest little girl in the entire world. Liz normally believed that small children were Satan's little lapdogs, but there was something just too precious about Tanya.
Janna glared at her playfully for a moment. "I am going to be fine," she insisted. "We're talking less than two weeks. What's going to happen?"
Liz looked at Cam who shrugged. It was less than two weeks. Janna wasn't incapable of living on her own or anything. Less than two weeks. And she needed some time alone every now and then. She said that having people around her sometimes stifled her creativity. What the hell. It wouldn't hurt anyone.
They sped on, leaving Rome behind them and steadily heading north. A few minor clean up chores were left in Italy, and then it was back to their comfy little warehouse at the Riviera. They would pop the traditional bottle of champagne to celebrate a job well done, and then it was off to New York, and just getting to be Cam and Liz and Janna again. And that sounded like the best holiday of them all.
"Jaqui," Southwood greeted curtly. The dapper Englishman was gone, and there was just a British thug in his place. And the accent wasn't as good as it had been before. She wasn't in the mood for accents either, but she wasn't about to break her role. She shot a glance at the twins, and the concern on their faces said they weren't comfortable with the situation either.
"Monsieur Southwood," she greeted as pleasantly as she had when they made the deal. "It is good to see you again. Would you care for a drink?"
He glared at her. For a man that was about to get his hands on a necklace that had been guarded by an unstoppable security system, he wasn't a happy camper. That was not a good sign. Didn't make sense at all. Men. They were just put on Earth to be a bother to women.
"No thank you," he replied gruffly. Liz's eyes were riveted on the short, but extremely muscled man of Southwood's entourage. He looked like the type that a painting of Satan would be modeled after with his dark complexion and hair and virulent hate in his eyes. What did he hate? Probably the fact that he had to share the planet with other human beings. Seeing her and Cam on edge was not helping Janna maintain Jaqui. She still kept her pleasant smile and relaxed attitude.
"Very well," she said. "I suppose you would like to take care of business immediately?" She motioned him to the laptop that was set up on the desk at the side of the room. "As soon as you authorize the final transfer, then your property can be returned to you."
"All of it?" he snarled through gritted teeth.
She blinked. "You will receive what you contracted for Monsieur. I have never cheated a client before," she said, piqued that he would insinuate that he wasn't going to get what he paid for. They did not cheat clients.
"I was under the impression that your clients didn't get greedy," he snapped. "That's why you were hired. Your people don't get greedy, right? Then why was there a statue missing as well?"
One elegant eyebrow rose. "Would you prefer that everything get returned to the original owners? If I am not mistaken, you contracted for one necklace. The delivery is ready to be made. This upsets you exactly how?"
Southwood came up to her menacingly, glaring down at her. She didn't flinch. One of the twins would know if he was going to hit her before he could swing. "My people know not to disobey me," he growled. She understood the threat.
"My people are not trained animals," she replied airily. "And how do you know that it wasn't a maid that took the statue? My clients are requisitions, not sales. Since I don't have it to sell, then one could assume that neither do they. Now are we going to complete the contracted transaction, or shall I have this item placed on the Internet for sale?"
He sneered at her, his left hand by his pant leg opening to signal one of his men to grab her. Before he could make it, the girl that was guarding Jaqui was suddenly in the middle of them. He stumbled back a step away from the fray as she tore into his men easily.
Liz couldn't hear Southwood's thoughts all that well, but when one of his brutes started looking at his hand, and the thought was easy to pick up on then. Southwood was about to tell him to attack Jaqui. She had gone into action immediately, grabbing the man that was about to attack by the wrist, jerking him forward and slamming her knee into his solar plexus hard enough to crack bone. Her fist made contact with his nose, blood squirting out as they heard the bone and cartilage crunching.
The second man tried to pull out a gun, but he couldn't get his hand out from his jacket before a hand of iron clamped around his wrist, flexing, and snapping the bones. His breath sucked in sharply, some part of his mind wondering how the man got across the room so fast. In another instant, all went black as Cam's second blow knocked him out cold.
The third bodyguard, the dark one, was standing in front of Southwood, with his gun already out, and aimed at Jaqui. Her eyes widened as she realized that there was a silencer already attached. Bastard had come prepared for this. A cruel smirk twisted his lips as his finger caressed the trigger. Liz still had her hands on the man she had gone after and reflexively threw him directly into the arm that was holding the gun. The shot that was supposed to hit Jaqui rang out, hitting the wall to her left.
He didn't have the chance to get another shot off. Cameron was already on him, and in a matter of a second and a few punches, he too was slumped on the ground, completely unconscious. Southwood was backing away from them, sweat breaking out on his forehead. It was very, very rare that he miscalculated a potential threat. He hadn't seen it coming from these two, and he had a sudden sick feeling that they would do to him whatever Jaqui said. He thought about the gun under his jacket. Jaqui was directly in front of him, approaching him with eyes filled with rage. He might be able to get her, but the other two would make him pay.
The second Southwood let the thought of the gun leak, Cameron moved. He tried not to move at full speed in front of others, but this was a special circumstance. The look on Southwood's face was almost worth it when Cam was suddenly beside him, roughly yanking the gun from under the jacket and tossing it to Liz.
"You, you…" Jaqui spat out, unable to express her fury. How dare he! "T'es un maudit rat de nous poignarder dans le dos comme ça!" she shouted at him. "We do not do well with those that try and betray us. You see, we let those kind live," her words were more of a threat than a reassurance. As Southwood knew from orders he had dished out before, there were far worse things than death.
Liz and Cam shot each other a slightly worried glance. They didn't mind stealing from those who could well afford it, and they had no problems with protecting themselves, but the thought of torture was slightly nauseating to them both. Without needing to communicate, they both had decided that they couldn't do it. It was time to call the loss and just get out of there.
Janna could tell that her cousins were on the edge of just taking off, and forgetting the rest of it. As Jaqui, she could talk tough, but unless he was fuzzy and had a bushy tail, Janna knew she couldn't kill him. Not like this at any rate. It was slightly frustrating because beating him to death with a shovel sounded like a good idea just then. She smiled coldly.
"Well, monsieur, since you know seem to be a rather captive audience, it is now time to finish our deal." She indicated the laptop. "Just because you have no honor, does not mean that I and my clients do not as well." She paused, as if contemplating something, and then added, "However, the fees had to increase to do extra problems that were encountered. You will add, let's see, twenty-five percent to the fee to cover them. Either pay in money, or we shall find another way to deal with it." She glanced at her cousins. They seemed satisfied with the arrangements. Southwood didn't.
"That…that's…" he sputtered.
"I believe the correct term in English is highway robbery," Jaqui supplied with a wicked little smile. She shrugged. "I contract thefts, monsieur. What else could you possible expect?" She glanced at Cameron, and nodded to the computer. He shoved Southwood over to it.
"You have five minutes to make the transaction," he growled as menacingly as he could, picking up a German accent. After a childhood growing up surrounded by genetically engineered killing machines, as Uncle Logan had coined the X-series, he knew how to sound dangerous.
Southwood seemed to be debating something for a moment, and then sneered before turning to the computer and typed in his password to access his account. Even from across the room, Janna could easily see the screen. She had filters installed on that machine so any tracers that were activated would be diverted. She didn't like Southwood's look. It wasn't resigned. It was more "I'll get you later". Like he could. In a few minutes they were going to be gone, and Jaqui would be gone from the world for a few months. Hopefully by then he would be on to killing some police informants and not thinking about them.
The computer beeped, and their account showed the money had been transferred. Cam nodded at Janna. Janna nodded at Liz before going to the laptop and closing it down, slipping it into a case. Liz grabbed a cushion from the couch and unzipped it, reaching in and pulling out a flat leather case. She would rather remove it's contents and beat the hell out of Southwood with it, but a deal was a deal, and they had made more than enough to make up for the extra trouble. This was even worth the squirrel. She went to Southwood and shoved the case at him. "Open it," she snapped in the same thick German accent her brother had used.
He unsnapped the catch and opened it. The necklace glittered at him from the velvet that it was resting on. "There," Jaqui said pleasantly enough. "Contract filled. It was a pleasure Monsieur Southwood. Do tell your friends if they need any little property issues solved that we are always happy to help." She gave him one more sarcastic smile, and the trio left the room. The second the door shut, they were at a dead run to get the hell out of there before round two commenced.
They got to the garage quickly, tires squealing as they tore out of there and into the busy streets. Janna drove in silence for several minutes, getting them well lost in traffic. The hotel disappeared behind them and all three of them started to relax. Janna started to giggle.
"Did you see his face when all of his guys were dropped?"
The twins started laughing with her. "They'll be wondering for months how we knew they were going to attack before they even twitched," Cam laughed.
"I thought he was going to pee in his pants when you added the extra money to the fee," Liz snickered. "We should have really pissed him off and kept the necklace anyways."
Janna shrugged. "I don't feel like sneaking it out of the country, do you?" They had to concede that would be a bigger headache than what it was worth.
"Nah," Liz replied. "Better to just go home and pack and head to New York in a couple of weeks."
Janna sighed, a little exasperated. "You two are going to go now! I said I would be fine on my own. It's not like I'm going to be doing any business while you're gone."
Janna had told her parents she was taking an art class that fall. It had seemed like a good lie at the time since they were starting to bug her about what she was doing and where she was going with her life. So, she had found out about the class and said she was in it. The problem was that it didn't end quite yet, and they would ask questions if she left right before it was over. The twins wanted to go home now, but they didn't want to leave her. It wasn't like she needed babysitters. As a matter of fact, it would be nice to have a couple of weeks to herself to do some painting. She hadn't been able to in the last few weeks, and she was getting that restless feeling that she got when she couldn't be creative.
"Janna, it's not…" Cameron started, but she cut him off.
"You two need to go home. You have a sister to congratulate. Go be young and rich in New York and scope out the cool places for us to pick up people and leave them emotionally drained husks of their former selves." Liz and Cam laughed at that.
"Are you sure?" Liz asked. She did want to go home and see the whole family. Heather was actually taking time off of work, Daniel was going to be home and she couldn't wait to see Tanya again. She was the cutest little girl in the entire world. Liz normally believed that small children were Satan's little lapdogs, but there was something just too precious about Tanya.
Janna glared at her playfully for a moment. "I am going to be fine," she insisted. "We're talking less than two weeks. What's going to happen?"
Liz looked at Cam who shrugged. It was less than two weeks. Janna wasn't incapable of living on her own or anything. Less than two weeks. And she needed some time alone every now and then. She said that having people around her sometimes stifled her creativity. What the hell. It wouldn't hurt anyone.
They sped on, leaving Rome behind them and steadily heading north. A few minor clean up chores were left in Italy, and then it was back to their comfy little warehouse at the Riviera. They would pop the traditional bottle of champagne to celebrate a job well done, and then it was off to New York, and just getting to be Cam and Liz and Janna again. And that sounded like the best holiday of them all.
