A scream startled me from outside the bedroom.
Nursing a bottle of water, I squeezed it a little too hard and soaked myself.
Three heavy thuds came to the door.
“Ez.” It could’ve been a dream, it might’ve been. I stood, my body vibrating.
“I’m in here.”
“Step back,” he said.
I wasn’t in front of the door anyway, but away I stepped.
A thickwhackand the door folded inward, obscuring his body. I saw his face, and then I could relax.
Another heavy thud sounded on the ground. “Step away from the door, Mr. Harlan.” Agent Dina’s voice.
As the door hinge gave way, I saw him with a gun in one hand and Mr. Thimble in his other. I ran right to him, as if I was about to make my father proud and become a linebacker in my late twenties. He didn’t move as I tackled him with a hug.
“You came for me,” I said, turning slightly to see Dina with a gun pointing at him—now us.
The door opposite us finally opened. Another agent appeared. I assumed that’s who he was, from what I’d been told at least, and his shirt was partially untucked. “Sorry, boss, I was—”
“I don’t care,” she grumbled, lowering her gun. “Looks like we need to take you somewhere else.” She shook her head and gestured for us to go into my room, still shaking her head like she needed to wake up an idea.
Jacques wrapped his arm around me and squeezed. “He’s not going anywhere without me,” he grumbled. “You know what he’s been through?”
“I’m well aware of the situation surrounding Mr. Cross,” Agent Dina said, looking at the door and sighing. “It was open. You could’ve tried the handle at the very least.”
Glancing up at Jacques, I knew he didn’t care. I think at any opportunity, he just wanted to kick a door in—and I was in awe of him. He actually reminded me of the line backers I’d been imitating with my tackling hug, the guys who constantly made eyes at me, DL guys who wanted some action under the bleachers. Something... maybe it was biological like Jacques’s pheromones that put me back in a place where I was either a teen or just starting college, full of hormones and excitement, except this time the DL jock was fightingforme instead of fighting his feelings against me.
“So, we’re at an impasse,” Agent Dina said. “I can’t let you take him, he’s got to be in our custody until the trial starts. And that could take months.”
Jacques chuckled, and the vibration of it against my body tickled. He pressed the teddy into my chest. “No,” he said. “You see, I don’t trust you, and you don’t trust me. I’m here to protect him—not for your use, but to make sure he stays alive because I love him.”
I squealed. It came right out of me. “Wha—”
“I love you,” he said.
Before we could even have a moment, Agent Dina snapped her fingers like she was bursting the bubble we were in. “I would love for this to happen, but I’m not letting Mr. Cross leave with you,especiallynot you. And Ezra—Mr. Cross—do you know how many people this man has killed?”
I looked up into his eyes and that smile hiding inside his thick facial hair, waiting for my lips to meet his lips, like they would lock in this magical future we were about to have together. There was something magical about him—maybe this was what unconditional love felt like?
“Do I get a say in this?” I asked.
“Did you hear my question?” she asked. “Do you know what Mr. Harlan does for work? How many people he’s killed?”
I nodded. “He told me on our first date.” Another giggle escaped, and I was swinging on his arms all smitten. “And I think he’d double that number for me. It’s why I know he’s got my back.”
“I don’t know what happened that seems to have trauma bonded the two of you,” she said, gesturing with both hands. “But our first recorded contact between the two of you was three weeks ago, and there was a period of ten days where he wasn’t in the picture. Listen, he might even be doing a job right now.”
Jacques still had his gun out. It appeared near me as he hugged me close. “I’m not working a job,” he said.
“You know they call him Reaper?” Dina said. “That’s not the name of a man you want in your life, especially when you’re trying to get some evil men put away.”
Jacques chuckled again, and it held me tight within it’s vibration. “You know as well as I do, they’re not going behind bars,” he said. “Men like Victor Pemberton end up paying a couple of hundred million, starting a charitable venture, and killing off anyone trying to expose them.”
Dina scoffed. “And I guess you’d know that because it’s people like you who kill people like—”
