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Venice Heat
By
Tressie Lockwood
Venice Heat
Copyright © June 2013, Tressie Lockwood
All rights reserved
Cover art designed by Mina Carter © June 2013
Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting
ISBN 978-1-627620-08-6
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Amira Press
Charlotte, NC
www.amirapress.com
Chapter One
Shae stood up and stretched her arms over her head. She’d come to her family home a few days ago after the fiasco with her sister in Juneau, Alaska, but she’d gotten little sleep since then. Aside from the fact that she worried about Shiya, her father’s home seemed to be Grand Central Station for everyone in their organization to drop by whenever the mood struck them. Add to this the arguing going late into the night, every muscle in her body ached, and her head pounded despite the pain pills she’d downed an hour ago.
Her bedroom door burst open with nary a knock, and she gritted her teeth in frustration for forgetting to lock it. “Shae, what are you doing here?” Kasen demanded, a scowl marring his face so like their dad’s.
Shae glared at him. “Um, I think it’s my room, genius.”
His nostrils flared, and if possible, his expression grew darker. “Watch your mouth. I’m on E. I haven’t had coffee, and Dad and I have been up all night debating what to do about getting someone to replace Shiya. I want to go back out there to Juneau and drag her ass home after I put a bullet in those bears. Dad wants to leave her there.”
“For once, I agree with you.” Shae stood and grabbed a robe to toss around her figure. Her brother had never respected her or her sisters’ right to privacy, and it didn’t look like he’d back out of the room with her just in a nightgown. She doubted the man fully recognized her as a woman. How the heck had he ever found a wife? “I want to go get her. They could be hurting her right now, or she could be…”
“Ain’t no sense in getting emotional over it,” he snapped. “What’s important is getting back online. I don’t like admitting it, but she knew her stuff. We’re wiped out, no addresses, no contacts, no leads. Everything we were working on, except for a possible in Paris, where Sakura is, and one iffy in Taiwan, is gone.”
Shae belted the tie on her robe. “So in other words, you don’t give a damn about our sister being safe. You just care that you don’t know where to find your next kill.”
Kasen was on her in a heartbeat, but she blocked the move he made to grab her arm. For her pains, the heel of her palm throbbed, and the ache shot straight up to her elbow. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her wince, but stared him down.
“I know you weren’t about to grab me. I’m not Sheila or my sister.”
His eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Read it the way you want.”
They glared at each other for a long moment until Shae sighed and turned away. Sometimes she thought her brother was evil and had no heart, but on rare occasions, he showed a softer side. Too bad he reserved that side of him for his son and no one else. Because of his attitude, the first chance she’d gotten, she’d moved out of the family home, so she didn’t have to see him often. Kasen lived with his wife, Sheila, and his son, Kasen the third, but he visited their father almost every day when he wasn’t out of town on a job.
Rather than stand around and argue senselessly with Kasen, she grabbed a couple of toiletry items and headed to her private bathroom. This time she did lock the door and turned on the shower, glad it and the radio she’d left in there drowned out her brother’s shouting voice. She didn’t worry he’d break the door down because of his growing anger issues. He wouldn’t dare damage anything in their father’s house.
After her shower, Shae dressed in a pair of denim short shorts and a halter top. She slipped her feet into flip-flops. Summer was in full force, and all she wanted was to be cool and comfortable.
Later, carrying a cup of coffee and an egg, cheese, and bacon sandwich, she walked down the hall on the first floor of the massive house. The Keiths never did things small. Their house was considered a mansion, with ten bedrooms, three living areas, and one formal and one casual dining room. She had loved the place growing up, but mostly because the halls echoed with her and her sisters’ laughter as they teased Kasen. They had never let him hear the end of it the year he favored lime-green pants, which he wanted to wear every day. Their mother had put her foot down, saying he would smell, but even then Kasen didn’t have a lot of respect for anyone but their dad. Of course, he would never sass their mother to her face, or Dad would skin him alive, but he’d pack the pants in his backpack and change at a friend’s house. Who would have thought he’d land his first girlfriend wearing those hideous things? Shae tried to remember his age at that time and thought it was twelve. Boys were stupid, she concluded, and shook her head.
A wave of sadness overtook her remembering, and she wished, not for the first time, that Shiya and Sakura were home—and safe. After the incident with Shiya, Sakura had called to say she would come back, but their dad forbade it. She needed to concentrate on her job. Shae wished he had allowed it, if only to sit in Shiya’s room with Sakura and cry it out together. Well, she would cry, and Sakura would try to cheer her up.
