Free Caribbean Hustle (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) by R.J. Jagger, Jack Rain

tattered clothes pushing a two-wheeled bike that was too big for her. Her face and arms glistened with sweat. The sun played off a pink bow in her hair.
    “Where can I find her?”
    “You’re not hearing what I’m saying,” Modeste said.
    “No one will ever know,” he said. “I promise.”
    Modeste shook her head.
    “It’s for your own good,” she said. “Don’t be angry with me.”
    Teffinger took another look outside.
    The little girl was gone.
    An old man appeared from around a corner, hunched over from the weight of too many decades. Behind him, two men came into view, walking briskly past the old man to across the way and then looking up at Modeste’s apartment. Teffinger dropped back, motioned Modeste over to the edge of the window and said, “Friends of yours?”
    Her face contorted.
    She grabbed her purse and said, “Come on!”
    Ten seconds later they were out the back bedroom window and bounding down a rusty fire escape.
     
    A safe distance away, increasing that distance with every passing second and continuously looking over his shoulder, Teffinger said, “Who are they?”
    “I don’t know.”
    He stopped and grabbed her elbow.
    “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?”
    She broke free and kept going.
    “No.”
    He caught up.
    “You didn’t bring me home because you liked me. You brought me for protection.”
    “I brought you home for both,” she said. “I was going to give you sex either way, if it makes you feel any better.”
    “It doesn’t.”
    He didn’t really care.
    His suitcase was back at her place but his wallet and passport and cell phone were in his back pockets. There was nothing in the suitcase that he couldn’t live without or anything inside that could identify him. No, wait, there was—his plane ticket. It was one-way, he didn’t really need it any more, but it had his name on it.
     
    A high-revving motorcycle made Teffinger twist his head around. It was the two pitbulls, closing fast from behind, fixated on their targets. The one in back had a gun, trying to finalize his aim. Teffinger jerked Modeste behind a parked van just as the shot came. It passed so close that it actually flicked his hair.
    The brakes locked and the wheels squealed to a stop.
    “Run!” Teffinger said.
    Modeste stared at him, frozen.
    “Run I said!”
    She started but slowly.
    “Go!”
    She turned and ran with all her might.
     
    The bike was down, stopping too fast to control, and grinding to a stop on its side a hundred feet away. The two men muscled their bodies off the ground and turned in his direction. The passenger who shot at him, the one in the red shirt, had the gun back in hand now, gripped in a steel fist as he approached. The other one had a large knife, black and worn. A serrated edge flashed for just a second as the sun caught it.
    There was nowhere for Teffinger to run.
    They were too close.
    A shot came, louder than thunder and ripping through the van’s back panel with a terrible sound.
    Teffinger’s heart raced.
    He spotted a broken bottle at his feet and snatched it up.
    Then, as they got close enough, Teffinger swung around the edge of the van and whipped the bottle at the red shirt with every ounce of strength in his body.
    The man flinched at the last second but not fast enough.
    His finger pulled the trigger.
    A bullet ricocheted.
    The glass landed squarely in his face jags first and stuck.
    Blood splattered.
    A frantic hand reached up to pull it out but stopped working halfway up. The man fell to the ground with the bottle still in his face, twitched for a second and then stopped moving.
    The other man dived for the gun.
    Teffinger got a foot to it first and kicked it away.
    The man squared off, waving the knife back and forth with a deadly intensity.
    Then he turned and ran.
    Teffinger didn’t chase him.
    He watched as the man got to the bike, fired it up and fishtailed the back tire as he squealed off. He threw one wild look over his shoulder as