by Finn, Emilia
Aguilar stares for a moment, grinds his thick jaw, then his light eyes come back to mine. He shrugs. “That motherfucker hasn’t reported to work in days. Take this to the cops; it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“He’s not your man?”
He flashes a wide grin and pulls in another draw from his cigar. “Never seen him before in my life. Next.”
“Alright. Next.” Chuckling, I scroll to the right and find the next image. “How about this guy. You know him?”
Pete’s eyes come back to my phone, to an image of the very man waiting outside this door, as he snorts a line of cocaine off a prominent politician’s daughter’s tits. “Cocaine is bad for you, Pete. You really shouldn’t encourage your soldiers to use. And you should definitely make sure he’s not using it with the senator’s daughter when some motherfucker has a cellphone nearby.”
“I can’t control the actions of my men in their downtime.” I haven’t cracked him yet, but he’s nervous. His pulse thrums heavily against his throat, and a line of sweat beads on his forehead. “I can only have a word with my man about what’s appropriate. She’s smiling, Bishop. She’s there because she wants to be.”
“Right, but see the rug just by his feet?” I turn my phone again to give him another view. “That’s your rug, no?” I arch my neck and take in the shit ugly thing on the floor. “You had blow and that girl in this office. You think you’re gonna survive that?”
Nervously, he reaches up and loosens his tie. “Like I said, I’ll talk to my man about what’s appropriate and what’s not. If you’re done, knock on the door and have my men escort you out.”
“Ah, unfortunately, I’m not done.” One last move to play: the king moves one space and takes check. I scroll to the final image in Ace’s email and spin my phone back. “Is that…” I lean a little closer. “Is that you, Pete?”
As soon as his brain registers the image of him fucking the senator’s daughter, I know I’ve won this game. His hand whips to the gun on his ankle, but I’m faster, I’m better. Sliding behind him and yanking his head back with a fist full of his hair, I bring Kane’s blade to his throat. “Don’t squeal, Pete. These images were sent to me by someone else, which means killing me won’t make this go away.”
“What do you want from me?” He grunts as I pull his head back. “What do you need to fix this and make sure my wife never finds out?”
His wife?
I was coming in to threaten this fucker with senator issues, but instead, Pete’s worried about his wife. I’ll accept it. I’ll take his concession and run with it. “I have an email teed up with your wife’s address typed in. The email is on a timer, so whether I live or die in this room, the email goes out. If you wanna make this go away, then you need to talk to me. Who were you bringing those girls in for?”
“I’m sent orders to get girls.” His hands hold a gun and a cigar, but he’s useless because my blade is one swipe away from ending the life he’s too comfortable to risk. “Big guys higher up send out an order. They want girls; they give us a brief: say they want ten girls between ages fourteen and seventeen; they gotta be fit, pretty, and Caucasian. That’s the order, so that’s what I deliver.”
I fuckin’ hate these people. “How do you receive your orders?”
“Text. It’s a group text, a competition of sorts; I’m not the only guy who gets the text. The first guy to deliver gets the cash and rewards. The other guys are punished.”
“Punished how?”
“Bullet in the brain. Stolen women. They hurt our families. Destroyed clubs. Sometimes they turn off supply of coke or whatever. They punish us however they think will hurt us the most. You cut off supply of women or coke, and our business crumbles.”
I swipe the phone off his desk and slide it into my pocket. Yanking his head back again, I enjoy the soft cry that crawls up his throat. I wish we had privacy; I wish I could drag it out and make him hurt even a fraction of the pain his business inflicts on those girls. “What’s his name? Your contact’s name?”
“Trenton. He’s in my cell under Trenton, but listen, Bishop – you take that cell and make contact, I’m a dead man. You’ll be responsible for killing my wife. They’ll probably gut my fucking dog. You want that on your conscience?”
“Nope.” I slide the blade along his throat and let his blood run over my hand. “That’s on your conscience, and it’s something you can answer for when you get to the Gates.” Stepping away, I snag the hanky from his breast pocket and clean the blood from my brother’s knife. “Fuck you for making me take you out, you dirty fucking prick. Sell your drugs and guns. That’s already bad enough, but you had to go and sell girls too.”
With a new phone in my pocket and a dead man slumped at his desk, I cast a fast glance around the room for anything else that might be important. I snatch up Pete’s planner just in case Ace can extrapolate something useful, then I stomp out the cigar that lies on the floor before it can catch the rug on fire and burn the hundreds of people downstairs to death.
I’ve been in the fire already. I bear the scars.
I won’t put more people through that shit.
Stepping to the wide window over the liquor cart, I dig my fingertips into the lip between window and wall, and silently slide it open. Frigid breeze pushes in and rattles the liquor bottles until sweat beads beneath my beanie.
I watch over my shoulder and wait for Pete’s men to storm in. I wait for another bullet in my back, but it doesn’t come… yet. Pushing the cart three feet to the right, I hitch myself up to the window and glance outside: grass and snow. Fuck.
“Boss?” Pete’s men knock. “Yo, Boss? Comms ain’t workin’?”
I throw my legs over the windowsill and breathe through the potential of two broken legs once I land. If I fuck it up, I’ll be a sitting duck outside while they figure out what happened. If I break my legs, I’m a dead man, and the contract remains on Kane’s head.
So I don’t fuck it up.
The door opens just as I push off the sill. Freezing wind pushes against me as I fall, and as soon as my feet touch down on the frozen grass, I tuck and roll. My clothes soak through instantly; my jeans stick to my legs and freeze my skin, but I pull out of my roll and round the corner just as Pete’s men send bullets zinging out the club window.
My breath races through still sore lungs. Fog runs ahead of me in puffs, but I run straight for a busy street and lose myself in the crowd. I have no blood on my coat, no visible weapons. Nothing but Pete’s planner in my jacket and weapons tucked away in easily reachable places.
The cold bites at my skin, freezes the meat on my legs, and burns the tips of my fingers, but I move fast. I slide between groups of people and step into some to use them as camouflage. I’m just a dude in jeans and a coat, with a cap pulled low on a cold night in February.
Pete’s phone vibrates in my pocket, reminding me they could track me just as easily as Ace tracks them when I hand information over. Reaching into my pocket, I power the phone down and run toward our usual drop point.
Ace always sends me toward the same set of lockers in the same gym on the same street. It’s a twenty-four hour chain gym that lights up the night sky from all the electricity they run through the place.
My curious side always says I’ll stake the place out and finally get a view of who Ace is. Put a face to the person with whom I share that locker. But I’ve tried, and my hunger tends to win when Ace bides his time and makes me wait too long. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tracks my moves. If he knows I’m watching, he won’t come out and show his face.
His secrecy makes me wonder if I already know him. And if not, his reasons for staying hidden.
Moving through the front doors and past a wall of mirrors, I jog straight into the long hall full of lockers and find #384. I enter the code Ace has fed me, and drop the planner and phone in. Closing it up and making sure it’s locked, I walk away again and lose myself in the crowd outside.
Packs of women laugh togeth
er. They fuck around in the street with giggles and tight pants. And then there’s always that one idiot in ten-inch snow and a mini-skirt. They make themselves easy targets for men like Cole and Pete, but lucky for them, most of them are over twenty, and therefore, not in the age range these clubs are looking for these days.
Twenty minutes after closing the locker door, I jog up the stairs of my apartment complex and strip the frozen clothes from my skin. My fingers fumble with my buttons. They can barely hold my keys as I unlock the front door, and my teeth chatter as I enter an apartment no warmer than the fucking air outside. Kicking my boots off, I head straight for my bed and flip the electric blanket on, then I finish my trek to the bathroom and toss my clothes into a pile.
Flipping the taps on, freezing water comes out first, then warm, which feels like scalding on my frozen limbs. I stand beneath the spray with my hands on the wall and the shower cascading over my head to thaw out.
“Fuck…” Blowing out a breath, I shake my head and add a new face that’ll always be mine. For the rest of my life, Pete Aguilar is another face that’ll visit me in my dreams.
My end goal matters.
The people I hurt are bad motherfuckers, and they have my brother in their sights. I’m not hurting innocents. In fact, I’m helping innocents by taking the fucking vermin off the streets. But I was a cop once; I swore an oath to help and not hurt, but here I am playing judge, jury, and executioner, with no thought to how I’ll be able to continue my life once this is all done.
Someone has to answer for these deaths eventually, and I’m not a protected agent anymore. According to nationwide databases, Jay doesn’t exist. But John does, and John is a civilian they may label a serial killer. I have enough specialized training for the state to declare me a weapon, so not only will they lock me up, but they’ll probably send me to a state that still allows capital punishment.
I won’t allow that until Kane’s safe.
From now until then, Jay stays dead, and John gets shit done.
After that, I’ll walk toward the wall of bullets with my hands up and my eyes closed.
Whatever happens, happens.
4
Touching Base
Ace
Jay Bishop slams the building doors open and steamrolls up the stairs. I have surveillance set up in every nook of the entire complex, so I see his pale face as he jogs; I see the rage in his eyes and the despair beneath the rage. I see his chattering teeth and consider setting aside a hefty chunk of my budget to have heating installed in his apartment.
It would cost a fortune to heat the place, but it comes under basic human necessities at some point, right?
Jay begins stripping in the hall: his coat, his beanie, his shirt. He hangs each piece over his arm and goes to work unsnapping his jeans. My eyes naturally stray to the scar high on his forehead, the star-like shape where a bullet passed through in November and provided me the perfect opportunity to dispose of Jay Bishop and keep that same man, with the same skillset, but with a whole new identity so I could use him in the shadows.
He knows what I’ve done. He agrees with my choices. And he has every opportunity to go back and reclaim his old life – but he won’t. He wants to work with me, because we have the same objective in the end.
Jay wants whoever sits at the top of the empire taken down.
And I want the same person, for an eerily similar reason.
It’s too late for me; I’m here to exact revenge for what they did to mine, but Jay still has time. His brother is still alive and under the protection of the Feds. Jay’s trying to prevent a death, and I can help him. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t work together.
As soon as he hits the fourth floor, he pushes his apartment door open and powers up the motion-sensor cameras I installed inside his apartment.
I see every move he makes.
Every moment he spends awake at night, planning, plotting, walking laps across the floor, I watch on my monitors. Every time I tell him I see him, he walks to the windows and takes out his binoculars.
I don’t see him through his windows, and I’m kind of disappointed he hasn’t figured it out yet. He’s been trained to be the best of the best, but he’s yet to find the cameras I had installed before he moved in.
Unobservant at best. Straight up fucking careless at worst.
Stripping off as soon as he slams and locks his front door, he makes his way across the room, then into the bathroom. Once the shower goes on, I flip the feed off and sit back at my desk.
Clasping my hands together and resting my fingertips on my bottom lip, I consider our next move.
I’ll await his email to let me know what he’s found. And when I have a new name, I’ll track them down until they feel me breathing on the backs of their necks.
They’ll know we’re coming.
They’ll fear us and spend their last minutes alive hiding from us.
I collect the data. I hack databases and find out every last scrap of information until I have kindergarten reports and child support owed. I’ll have essentially buried each target with just the stroke of my fingertips, and when it’s collated, I pass my data to Bishop, who acts as my sword.
Find the next clue. Find the next target.
We repeat the process until eventually, the clues stop coming. That’s the day I can look into the eyes of the man responsible for hurting those I love.
Up until this point, my partnership with Jay Bishop has been perfect. He’s fast, smart, and savage with the way he lays down punishments on my behalf. He’s had women in the last two years since we started communications. He’s had his fun, but he’s always done the job.
I sure hope Sophia Solomon doesn’t become an issue for us, because nothing will stand in my way of collecting on what I’ve been working toward for years.
Not a girl.
Not a fun time.
Not a romance.
Not a damn thing.
5
Bass In The Ceiling
Jay
I’m not saying I’ve gone out of my way to hang out in the diner more than usual the past week, but I definitely didn’t not spend extra time smashing down burgers and hoping Sophia might come down with her appetite.
She may be a little mad that the barbarian from downstairs knocked on her door late in the evening, because I haven’t seen her in a week, and until right this minute, I haven’t heard her, either.
She’s probably spooked.
The thug sees her when she so obviously wants to remain invisible, and now he probably wants to take her away and steal her innocence.
So she stays low and pretends to be the dead neighbor until I forget her existence.
It won’t work.
I’ve spent the last week hanging out at the diner and watching the door, or lying on my bed and staring up at my ceiling in hopes she’ll make her move.
She’s beautiful, and I have spare time while Ace tracks down Trenton. Why am I the bad guy for considering spending my time with her? I don’t have another job. I don’t sell fridges in my free time or commute somewhere for two hours each morning and night.
My only job is to track down those who want to hurt me and mine, so while Ace is doing his thing and has nothing to report back, I sit here and twiddle my thumbs. I work out. I run in the mornings. I eat too much – but at the same time, not enough. My injuries, while mostly healed, are still tender. The bruising on my back not long ago faded, and my shaking hands still tremble when I’m still for too long.
I’m an addict who craves a hit. I was able to beat it and walk away, but my body still knows what it craves, and wanting to feed that hunger leads me toward temptation every chance it gets.
Cocaine. Cigarettes. Women.
The first two are bad for my health, and the third is upstairs and doesn’t want me to notice her.
So I lie here and eat gummy worms like I might die if I don’t. I lie here and let my heart sync to the beat of whatever music she has pounding through m
y ceiling, and I imagine her dancing for me. My windows rattle, because she listens to music that is a little bit rap, and a little bit choir. For the first time since I’ve lived here, I hear my upstairs neighbor, and the thought of her being up there right now makes me smile.
Sophia is beautiful, so why the fuck shouldn’t I look and hope for a moment of her time? I’m so fucking strung out, my cock wants to break through my jeans. I’m used to visiting women whenever I want to, however often I need to, and no one ever says no… in fact, more often than not, they come to me and offer.
But since officially meeting my neighbor, I kinda don’t want to.
I’m like a pressure cooker waiting to burst. I’ve held the lid on, so to speak. I haven’t let any of the steam out in what is literally my longest dry spell ever, all because the pretty brunette kinda intrigues me.
I don’t want to spend my time with random faceless, nameless women. I have a craving for this one particular chick who eats like a cow, doesn’t share very well, and wields a steak knife like a pro.
I crave the woman who has a dancer’s body but an investigator’s brain – she knows I don’t sell fridges at ten at night.
Shoving a handful of gummies in my mouth, I lie with one hand behind my head and stare at my ceiling. I don’t hear her, so it’s not like she’s stomping around or cleaning anything too noisily. But I hear her music, and with that beat in mind, I make up fantasies about her bopping around in her pyjama shorts while she scrubs the toilet. I imagine long hair cascading over her narrow shoulders and tickling the middle of her back. I imagine all sorts of dirty ways to pull her hair and fuck her with her shorts dropped low around her ankles.
