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“I take it you two have worked together in the past,” Kiana stated. “I mean, you all arrived on Maui at the same time, but you weren’t just a random group of guys showing up at the same time, were you?”
Dev chuckled. “We all served in various branches of the military in spec ops. Special Operations. We left the military for different reasons and signed on with a company that needed, in effect, military security for non-military personnel in foreign countries.”
Kiana cocked an eyebrow. “You were mercenaries?”
“Basically.” Dev held her door for her as she slipped into the passenger seat of the rental car. He rounded the car to the driver’s side.
“What brought you to Hawaii?” she asked, buckling her seatbelt.
“When the US pulled out of Afghanistan, the people we supported had to leave in a hurry. We left as well. There weren’t many gigs available to us. Fortunately, Hank Patterson heard we were looking for work and offered to bring our team on board with the newly established Hawaiian office of the Brotherhood Protectors.” He started the car and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. “Where to?”
“The escort agency.” Kiana keyed an address into the map application on her smartphone and hit GO.
Following the voice instructions from Kiana’s phone, Dev maneuvered through the busy streets of Honolulu. “You know my story. What’s yours? Especially in connection to your friends, Tish and Meredith.”
Kiana stared out the front windshield, her lips pressed into a tight line. “Tish, Meredith and I were products of the foster care system in Hawaii. At one point, the three of us landed in the same home. Because we had no other family we knew of, we relied on each other for emotional support. Most of our foster families were more interested in the money they were paid to foster children than the children themselves.”
“What happened to your parents?” Dev asked.
Kiana shrugged. “Tish is the only one of us who knew her mother and father. They were killed in a boating accident when she was six.”
“And yours?” Dev persisted.
Kiana’s lips twisted. “I don’t have any memories of my father or mother. From state records, my mother abandoned me at a fire station when I was a toddler. They turned me over to social services, and I was placed in foster care.”
“Where you met Tish and Meredith,” Dev concluded.
“Eventually,” Kiana said. “I’m two years older than Meredith and four years older than Tish. I was passed from home to home for a few years with nothing more than what I could stuff into a trash bag. Tish, Meredith and I landed in the same foster home when I was ten. All three of us had long brown hair, were thin and lanky and looked enough alike that we called ourselves sisters. Meredith and I had green eyes. Though Tish’s eyes were brown, it didn’t matter. She was our little sister, and we loved her. It was the happiest any of us had ever been. We were there for four years until we were shuffled again.”
“Why?” Dev asked.
Kiana’s lips twisted. “Our foster mom had to give us up when her sister was jailed for check fraud. When her sister, a single parent, went to jail, our foster mom had to take in her sister’s four children. Though she hated letting us go, she didn’t have room for the three of us. We were split up and sent to three different foster homes.”
Though Kiana spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, Dev sensed the underlying sadness she must have experienced being separated from the only family she’d known. “I’m sorry.”
Kiana shrugged. “We swore that when we turned eighteen, we’d get an apartment together and look out for each other.” She smiled tightly. “Since I was the oldest, I was first to get out. I rented a room over a garage that was barely big enough to call an apartment. It leaked when it rained. I worked two jobs to afford the rent and a scooter to get me back and forth to work.”
“How did you break into modeling?” Dev asked.
Kiana smiled. “I landed a job waiting tables at Dukes. The tips were good, and you never knew who would walk in. I was working a table one evening when a talent agent gave me his card. I called and went in for an interview. They were looking for someone tall with dark hair and dark skin who looked Hawaiian. There were other girls there with dark hair and dark skin. Most of them were shorter and had brown eyes. I think they liked that I had green eyes. I was just different enough to get their attention.”
Dev smiled. Kiana didn’t give herself enough credit. She was stunningly beautiful with her long, lithe body, lush, thick hair and those green eyes that seemed to look straight into your soul. The talent agent had seen her potential. He hadn’t been stupid.
“I was hired to model for a local advertising agency, doing a spread on Hawaiian tourism. The work paid well enough for me to get a bigger apartment. When Meredith turned eighteen, she moved in with me. I eventually got her on with the same agent modeling.”
Dev shot a glance toward her. “Did you like the work?”
Kiana stared out the side window. “I did. It was the first time in my life I didn’t feel like an inconvenience.”
Dev maneuvered through traffic without responding. What could he say? Having grown up with both parents who’d loved him unconditionally, he couldn’t imagine what it was like to go through childhood without that safety net.
“I learned quickly,” Kiana continued. “People liked that I wasn’t a diva, like some of the other models. When Tish came of age, she joined us and got into modeling as well. We did work for catalogs, swimwear, local fashion shows, and hotels. When there were big breaks between modeling jobs, we hired on with Aloha escorts, making it very clear to their management that we weren’t prostitutes, and sex wasn’t part of the job. We preferred to meet our clients at public places, getting our own transportation to and from.”
“That was smart,” Dev said. “Was it enough?”
“For the most part. We carried little cans of mace in our purses.”
“Did you ever use it?”
