I don’t typically like to aggravate the people I’d like to get naked, but fuck, it’s as instinctual as breathing with him. He’s a delicious birthday cake of a man, and I’m a sugar-crazed one-year-old, just wanting to sink my hands into all his hidden layers and dive face-first into his destroyed remains.
Yeah, it’s fucked-up, but I want to keep flicking at him until he takes a swing at me. I want his hands around my neck, I want him to wrestle me for top, I want him to force me against the nearest flat surface and take all of his carefully hidden rage out on me.
And sure, none of that sounds sane, but the hands I use to kill people are the same ones I use to save them, and sanity was never something I aspired to.
2
Anders
Tonight’s mark is Michael Brickley, Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. He’s a shoo-in for the next United States Supreme Court nomination. More importantly, he’s a stain on the fabric of society.
He’s been using the cloak of power to hide his dirty deeds, and beyond that, he’s greedy. Not satisfied with terrorizing the young girls of Northwest Dallas, he comes into Austin every other month to meet up with his favorite human trafficker.
Parker, our logistics and planning expert, insisted on helping with this op, and she’s already lured him into the team’s waiting arms. He’s in the Portal to Nowhere, trussed up and waiting for me.
I’ll have a series of questions for the ol’ Chief Justice, and if he doesn’t give me the answers I need, he’s going to have a very, very bad night.
Now we’re going after the trafficker. I have a few questions for him as well.
I check my comms and smile in anticipation. Technically, this is my side job—my brother and I work for a black ops organization just outside of Austin in Wimberley. My function there is mostly medical; my function with the Guardians is mostly murder.
It’s a little thing I like to call balance.
Jake’s voice crackles through the line. “Have they noticed that the judge is missing?”
I scan the room, checking on Rafi as he carries around a tray of ridiculously expensive bubbly. “No, they’re too busy eating canapés and deciding which human being they’ll be buying tonight.”
“Sounds about right. We’ve got everyone in place, cameras are under my control. Do your thing.”
I pat my pocket, verifying the location of the syringes. “Ten-four.”
Rafi’s wearing what the rest of the servers are wearing: thigh-high boots, black silk boy shorts, and a white broadcloth shirt that’s unbuttoned and tied at the waist. His face is clean-shaven and beautifully made up, including a red lipstick that sets off his gorgeous brown skin and dark hair.
I almost made a comment about how sexy he looks on the ride over, but my good buddy Everett was in the transport, and I don’t have a death wish. I also have a helluva lot of respect for what Rafi’s doing tonight, especially since he’s usually half a mile away, looking through the scope of a sniper rifle.
Omar is accompanying me as my date, a distraction in a hand-tailored Armani suit, his ink-black hair styled in a sharp undercut. Having only ever seen the man in tactical gear and his Halloween costume, I didn’t realize he had this next level.
No one on our team is hurting financially, but I sometimes forget that Omar and Rafi are legitimately wealthy, due to inheriting a shedload of money from Rafi’s late husband. Neither of them is particularly ostentatious, but this suit? It’s a fucking flex, and he knows it.
I look down at what I’m wearing and am pretty happy with my sartorial choices as well. This summer I had a short op in London, and Jean-Pierre, NBA legend and Jake’s fiancé, insisted that I stop at Jonathan Kane for a fitting. Only a fashion icon like Jean-Pierre Sehene would have a bespoke men’s suit designer as a close personal friend. And I’ve got to say, it’s a nice suit.
Right now we’re standing in an enormous penthouse foyer with some very fancy-looking people, all of whom seem to be okay with the fact that one room over, there’s a cadre of young women and men who didn’t willingly choose to be sex workers. To be honest…I feel like the fancy people are ruining the specialness of my suit.
Omar sidles up next to me and slides his arm around me with all the sexual confidence of a dime-store mannequin, his fine-ass body strung up tight. Madame Tussaud herself would have a hard time deciding whether the man beside me was, in fact, a real live boy.
“Do you think you could relax a fraction? You look like you’re being held against your will.”
Omar’s jaw tightens ever so slightly, but he softens into the hold. It’s a weird sort of relaxation—perfectly measured, enough to fool the casual observer, but not so much that anyone paying close attention would believe it.
God, I wish I knew what was going on in that mind of his.
It’s the week before Thanksgiving, and we’ve never acknowledged our encounter on Halloween night. At the next crew meeting, he was as measured and bland as he always is, no sign of the loose-hipped dancer with the wandering hands and the vulnerable way of softening his body into mine.
Omar nudges my arm with his elbow, snapping me out of my reverie as he gestures to two painfully young men sitting at one of the open bars. He and I walk toward them and are immediately approached by a skeevy-looking guy in his fifties. This is the trafficker who has proven slippery to law enforcement. I’d love to remove his spleen while he’s still conscious, but DB, our boss, denied the request.
Even after I pouted.
Honestly, it makes me wonder if I’m losing my touch.
