“Fine.”
“I’m so glad we agree.” Wakefield turns to the door, then pauses. “There are plenty of bad people to kill, Mr. Bash. Choose someone else.”
That cure for leukemia, along with all of their “side projects,” as Wakefield calls them, save more lives than taking out Preston Whitaker ever could. Anders, for once in his life, keeps his mouth shut.
16
TRUETT
Fuck.Yes.
I needed this, I think as I put my fist through this pimp’s nose. I like the white-hat stuff in the digital space, but sometimes you need to get up close and personal with the problem. Smell the blood in the air, if you will. And now that I’m not babysitting my social media prince, I have some catching up to do.
Sex work has been mostly decriminalized in Texas, and while that is generally a better situation, the pimps who were put out of business simply set their sights lower.
Or younger, as the case may be.
I work with a group of sex workers who are trying to reduce the violence against people in this line of work, and have, on occasion, put a guy in his place when it was called for.
Man, Ireallyneeded this.
I break this asshole’s jaw and orbital bone for good measure, hoping that’ll take him off the streets long enough for him to reconsider his business model. If not, Detective Hitchens has, rather persistently, asked that I share any information I come across that he’d be able to act on. I’ve begrudgingly agreed to this, if only because some things are above my pay grade.
By the way, I’m pretty sure booneyruney819, the newest member of our WhiteHat group, is Hitchens. I shared my suspicions with spürsfan_2020, who has promised to keep an eye on him.
“That’s for trying to pimp out underage kids,” I growl into the asshole’s ear. “If I see you out here again, I won’t be so nice the next time.”
He spits out a tooth, then reaches for his gun. “Fuck y?—”
It takes me a moment to process what’s happened. He wasn’t able to complete his sentence because half of his head disappeared in a silent, dim flash. I look down, searching for any parts of me that might be missing.
“Don’t worry, Valentine,” says a voice with a hauntingly familiar accent. Omar appears over my left shoulder. He points to the open field by the side of the road and taps his ear. A reflective flash in the tree line at the back of the field tells me there’s a shooter. A damned good one on this windy, overcast night. “My friend hits everything he aims for.”
“What kind of weapon makes body parts just disappear like that?” I whisper, feeling a little woozy.
“The advanced kind,” Anders answers, grinning from ear to ear as he approaches from the right with a large black tarp in hand.
“Uh,” I say, my heart racing.
This is where I die.
Omar helps Anders snap open the plasticky material, laying it down in front of me. Fuck. I’m going to be in a million pieces by the end of this.
Only…they grab for the practically headless man, take a few seconds to position him, and then roll him up like a Mexican abuela rolls a fucking taquito.
Okay, maybe the tarp wasn’t for me.
A large white Dooley appears a few minutes later, and a familiar tattooed silver fox along with his very handsome, veryshort husband hop out. Wordlessly, Everett and Rafi set about helping Omar and Anders move the body into the covered bed.
They’ve all clearly done this before.
“W-wait,” I stutter. “Why are you taking his body?Whereare you taking his body?”
“We want to run some tests on him,” Rafi says, as if that’s not a horrifying prospect. He sticks out his hand. “By the way, I’m Rafi. The shooter.”
“And I’m Everett, his husband,” says the silver fox. He leans in and whispers, “Though you might know me asDaddy.”
Oh God.Don’t remind me.
