Ramen Assassin

by Rhys Ford

  She was also Trey’s sister, and Kuro bit the inside of his cheek to avoid asking her how he was doing. He shouldn’t have cared. Shouldn’t have let his focus wander off to the haunted shadows in Trey’s wary eyes or the suspicion on his handsome face when he’d looked over at Kuro. For all he knew, those kicked-in-the-nuts and waiting-for-another-one expressions came from a life lived in front of a camera, with his every move captured and then dissected for public consumption, a fugu buffet prepped and served up by a score of incompetent chefs.

  Kuro was also surprised to discover he wanted a taste of that particular dish, something much more shocking to his system than having to kill a man at seventy miles an hour. He’d given up on having anything more than a physical release with another man. Before his spectacular crash-and-burn on the international stage, he’d lived his life in the shadows, keeping his profile and his relationships as shallow as possible. It’d been the smart thing to do. His life hadn’t been his own. He wasn’t meant to have an ivy-covered cottage and white picket fence. God even doubled down on Kuro not living the suburbia dream by cranking his volume for other men up to eleven. There’d been no way in hell Kuro imagined he’d ever wake up next to another man, planning their Saturday afternoon over dim sum and hot tea, but there he sat in an ugly LAPD shakedown room, contemplating how to fit a very complicated Trey Bishop into his extremely simplistic life.

  When Garrett started in on him again, Kuro stopped the man with a quiet whisper. “Either charge me with something or let me go. Just whatever it is, make up your mind, because the next thing I’m going to say to you is to ask for a phone call. And you’re not going to like what happens after that.”

  “Are you threatening me, Jenkins?” The cop’s nostrils flared, exposing a forest of close-cropped slightly ginger nose hairs hidden in each cavern. “Because to me, that sounds like a threat.”

  “Take it any way you like, Captain, but you need to shit or get off the pot. If you want to book me for something, I’m sitting right here. Instead, you’re poking at me like you think you’re going to get something else out of me.” He leaned forward slowly, resting on his forearms, but the shift of his weight startled Garrett, who jerked his head back, his hand dropping to hover near his sidearm. “My story isn’t going to change. Man fired on me and I maneuvered out of the way, returning fire. It was the second time this particular gentleman has tried to kill me, because even if he was after Trey Bishop the other night, he was aiming at me. Third time’s the charm, Captain, and I wasn’t going to let him have that third chance.”

  “I don’t like you, Jenkins,” Garrett spat, his words a rapid-fire stream he punctuated with a stab of his finger at Kuro’s face. Kuro held steady, waiting to see if the cop would cross the line and strike him.

  “Feeling’s a bit mutual at this point,” he replied. Someone was moving behind the mirrored partition set into the wall opposite of his seat, their shadow cutting through a bit of light coming from the hall. Garrett left the room a bit too dim for the reflective surface to catch fully, but up until a few seconds ago, Kuro would have sworn the observation niche was empty. “My associate called in the incident and I waited for the police to arrive, my hands on the hood of my car and my weapon stashed in the trunk. I informed the responding officers of its location and then did not resist them when they cuffed me. I’ve answered all of your questions, sitting here without a break or water for about six hours. At no point in this have I asked for a lawyer or not cooperated. So, Captain, ball’s in your court. There’s nothing else I can do or give you.”

  “I’ve got a dead man and a shootout in the middle of K-Town to explain to my boss, but I’ve got not a single damned thing to go on. You can answer one question for me.” The cop straightened his cuffs, taking a step back from the table. “You can tell me why when I push for information about you, I get told it’s none of my business. That you’re not my problem.”

  “I’m not,” Kuro conceded. “Not yet anyway. And I probably never will be. I’m the least of your worries right now. You’ve got a man on a slab, and somewhere out there, his partner’s lurking doing God knows what. You’ve got a witness to a possible homicide who was shot at the other night, a witness I defended, and instead, you’re in here trying to get me to admit I know more than I do. I don’t know the man I killed today. First time I saw him was the other night when I came out of my shop and found him and another man shooting at one of my customers. Today, that man followed me and tried to kill me. So I tried to kill him right back. I just was better at it than he was. End of story. Again. Still. Now, are we going to head to a cell so I can be booked for whatever you want to cook up to keep me here, or are you going to let me go?”

  Garrett opened his mouth to respond when a knock landed on the room’s heavy door. Narrowing his eyes, he pointed at Kuro, gesturing him to continue to sit. Ambling over to the door, the man stuck his head out and Kuro caught a bit of heated whispering, then Trey Bishop’s name being dropped into the middle of the conversation like a smoking match into a dumpster filled with dynamite.

  “I’m not done—” The cop was cut off by more whispering. Then a deep voice boomed through the crack in the door.

  “You’re done, Garrett. Cut him loose before he asks for a lifeline, because I’m not stepping into that field of shit with you. I’m cutting Bishop loose too. Wrap up anything you need to put this to bed, but understand this, it goes to bed.” The man’s rolling voice dropped, a feathery brush of words barely audible above the clatter of the bullpen beyond the short hall. “We can’t lock horns here. Man did all he was supposed to and a little bit beyond that. Have him sign for his effects and let him go. We know where to find him if we need him again.”

  “Sir—” Garrett protested.

  “Sir, nothing. Cut him loose. You caught a wolf in that cat trap you laid out, and it’s about to tear through that wire and eat your face. Be smart. Let it go.”

  Kuro said nothing when Garrett turned back around and closed the door behind him. The captain shuffled closer, much like a child caught cheating on a test. From the sounds of things, Holly’d been working behind the scenes, prying her way through LAPD’s upper ranks and strong-arming people into doing what she wanted. He wondered how far she’d pushed, and a moment later, he got his answer.

  “You can pick up your Glock later this month. Forensics is going to rush it through.” Garrett barely parted his teeth to let his words out. “We’re going to release you, but just so you know, I’m watching you, Jenkins. Don’t leave the city without letting me know, and keep your nose clean, because the next time I find you in this kind of situation, I don’t care who’s holding that skeleton key, I’m dragging you right into a cell and slamming the door behind you.”

  LOS ANGELES was never ever truly dark. Its pulse beat in erratic flashes of traffic lights and passing cars, stealing the black from the sky. The cop house was lit up enough for him to stumble out of the front doors and immediately stop short at the edge of the sidewalk, struck speechless by the lean, handsome man resting his hip against a broad, low-slung black car. He was dressed from head to toe in the same ebony as the muscle car he stood against, much of his face lost in the smoky haze of shadows falling across his face.

  No matter how far man evolved away from the animal he’d been once, some primal tickle of fear remained, a coded alarm set off by a person’s nervous system, warning them of immense danger. The cook he’d watched dredge noodles through hot water was gone, replaced by a sleek jaguar of a man with glittering eyes and a faint smile with a whisper of teeth, a peek of white past his beautiful mouth heavy with the promise to bite if provoked.

  And by the expression on his face, the ramen shop owner was beyond provoked. Trey mumbled a quick hello and wondered if he shouldn’t bolt back inside and take up his sister’s offer to drive him home. That thought faded away into dust when the ramen guy growled out Trey’s name.

  “Um, yeah?” He’d been hungry and tired when he’d stepped through the doo
rs, but now his hunger lay in ashes someplace in his stomach and his throat was suddenly coated in thick sand, making it impossible for him to speak.

  “Get in. I’ll take you home.” The man’s growl deepened, unspooling a molten sensuality in its velvet folds. “And then you and I are going to have a very long fucking talk.”

  Six

  “YOU WANT me to get into your car?” Trey backed up a few steps, mostly to give himself room to breathe. “So you can what? Kill me?”

  “I’ve had you facedown and between my legs a night or so ago. If I wanted you dead, I’d have shot you then,” he pointed out. “Now get in the damned Challenger and I’ll take you home. I’ve already spent a couple of hours getting my windshields replaced. I’m tired of waiting.”

  “You don’t even know where I live.” The man rattled off his address, and Trey felt the blood drain out of his face. “How the hell do you know where I live?”

  “You signed up for our newsletter and mail coupons. How many Trey Bishops do you think are out there who come into my place for ramen?” He glanced at his watch. “Tell me you have coffee at your place. The drive-thru near us is going to close in ten minutes. I’m going to need some bean juice. Something tells me we’re going to be at this for a while.”

  “I don’t think I even really know your name.”

  “Kuro Jenkins. Don’t bother looking me up. I’m not that interesting.” He sighed, rubbing at a spot above his nose. “I’ve also made you how many bowls of noodles? I’ve had plenty of opportunity to kill you, but here we are, standing in a parking lot while I’m trying to take you home and get some kind of sense of what the hell’s going on here.”

  “Give me one good reason I should get into that car.”

  “Other than a free ride home?” Kuro countered. “Because I killed a man today. One of the guys who shot at you. He followed me up into the hills and tried to murder me, but it didn’t turn out exactly as he planned. I want to know what’s going on, and my gut tells me you’re in the middle of it. First they shoot at you, now one’s come for me. I want to know why.”

  “The cops don’t believe I saw those guys trying to put a dead man into the back of their van. Even my own sister thinks I just pissed off a couple of drug dealers, but they’ve got it wrong. I’ve been clean since my last run in rehab.” A couple of uniformed cops came out of the front door, chatting about food. Neither one of them glanced at Trey or the deadly man he’d somehow tangled with. “Wait, did you just say you killed that guy? The one they brought me in to ID?”

  “Did you know him?” He tilted his head, studying Trey. “Because if you do—”

  “No, I didn’t know him. How many times do I have to say that before someone freaking believes me?” Exasperated, Trey paced closer, his simmering anger finally coming to a boil. It probably wasn’t smart to tangle with a guy who’d just admitted to murdering someone a few hours ago, but Trey’d given up on common sense. Nothing he said appeared to matter, and he was tired of feeling helpless. “Those two guys wanted me dead, and not because I didn’t pay them for drugs—which no one found on me, right? If I didn’t see them doing something shitty, then why were they trying to shoot me?”

  “Because you’re annoying?”

  As hot as the guy was, he was also beginning to get on Trey’s nerves. Shaking his head, he said, “Give me one good reason why I should go with you.”

  His smile was slow, but it changed his face. He’d been handsome before, a sculpted god of a man dressed in black, as if he were Death coming to reap Trey’s soul. With a smile—a damned peek-of-white-teeth smile—Kuro Jenkins was stunning, and Trey’s heart tried to crawl out of his chest to get to the man, a resounding thump-thump-thump beginning under his rib cage.

  “Because I believe you and the cops don’t.” Kuro pushed off of the car and Trey got a whiff of his cologne, a nerve-tingling blend of citrus and green tea with a heady kiss of masculine skin beneath it. “And since they don’t, the only way you and I are going to get people to stop trying to kill us is if we figure out who’s behind this… and stop them. So get in the car, Bishop. Sooner we get started on this, the sooner we can get started on other things that are a hell of a lot more interesting.”

  DESPITE THE late hour, getting across town was a nightmare. Friday night on the edge of Koreatown meant sitting in long streams of stereo-thumping cars and overloaded buses. Thousands were fighting to get home while even more were battling to go out, eager to shed the stress of a long work week with a little bit of play and debauchery.

  Or a good bowl of ramen, Kuro reminded himself. Something they could pick up at the Tako Shop until two in the morning when his night crew would lock the place down and scrub it clean for the next shift. His stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since chewing a handful of bean sprouts that morning after prepping twenty pounds of char siu. Lunch hadn’t happened. Water barely happened, and Kuro’s hunger was making itself known, gnawing on the edges of his stomach.

  Glancing over at the man sitting quietly in the seat next to him, Kuro cleared his throat. “Tell me you’ve got food in your fridge I can use to whip something up for us. If not, I can stop at the store before we get there. Didn’t get any food today, and from what I can see, you need a bit in you too.”

  “I can’t believe you can eat right now,” Trey muttered under his breath. “And I can’t believe I’m riding in a car with a guy who killed someone today. This can’t be real. All of this. I probably ODed. Probably never even made it to rehab. I’m lying in some hospital bed, drooling, with my ass hanging out of a hospital gown so some sick perv orderly can wank off on me during his shift.”

  “You been storing up that little fantasy for a while, have you?” Kuro teased, not sure how Trey would take it. “Because that sounds particularly… specific.”

  “Nope. Just off the top of my head. Stick around. I’m sure I can come up with all kinds of shit just like that.” Trey blinked slowly, leaning his temple against the Challenger’s window. “And yeah, there’s food. Sera fills the fridge every week hoping I’ll get off my ass and cook something, but the joke’s on her. I can barely boil water to make a Cup O’Noodles.”

  “Pretty sure I can make you something better than that.” Kuro winced, shuddering at the memory of instant ramen on his tongue. “Even if it’s just an omelet. If you’ve got eggs.”

  “Oh yeah, eggs I’ve got.” He blinked again, his lashes throwing spiky shadows over his cheek. “It’s common sense that I’m missing.”

  Traffic brought them to another standstill, idling through streams of steel and lights. Ahead a mobile road warning flashed arrows to the left, warning drivers they were coming up on a closed lane. As if Kuro needed reminding. There was a cascade of turn signals blinking in the blue-shadow-washed street, light-up salmons trying to jump the falls to safety.

  Kuro took another peek at the man sitting next to him. He’d spent his life learning to read people, having to make split-second decisions on what their next action would be based on nothing more than a nose twitch or a blink. But he didn’t need years of experience to read Trey Bishop. The dirty blond slumped into the Challenger’s low-slung seat, molding his compactly muscled body into the leather curve. He sat with the stillness of a man burdened with fatigue and despair, and incredible sadness tugging down the corners of a mouth Kuro longed to kiss. He’d seen a smile on those lips, but it’d been wan, a distilled watercolor of fake delight laced with a generous helping of disdain.

  Despite the tired expression on Trey’s face, he looked young, the kind of young Kuro avoided like the plague. From what Aoki told him, there shouldn’t have been any innocence on Trey Bishop’s face, but it was there. Sitting firm alongside a blush of youth Kuro never remembered possessing himself. Trey Bishop had the kind of face handsome enough to clench at a man’s balls, nearly androgynous with enough masculine strength to his features to be considered ugly on a woman but breathtaking on a man. There was an erotic rumpled air about the former child
star, and Kuro’s mind drifted to naughtier things than driving through Los Angeles. He wasn’t one for fantasizing. He’d spent too much of his life in the reality of the world and its disgusting nature, but his brain obviously was tired of staying the course.

  The man looked good on black leather. It didn’t take much to imagine him stretched out on black satin, his thick gold-streaked hair spread out on musky sheets, eyes hooded with satisfaction and his long, slightly tanned body damp with sweat. Kuro could almost taste the heady salt he would pull up after following the length of Trey’s ribs with his tongue. His imagination couldn’t scrape up the sounds Trey would make when Kuro’s mouth closed over him, but he was more than willing to get into a position where he could find out.

  Problem was, Trey Bishop was trouble. He didn’t need to retire from a dangerous lifetime of scary situations and even more frightening politics only to lose his head and life by getting involved with a man like Trey Bishop. Or at least that’s what his common sense said.

  The rest of him didn’t agree.

  “You said you believed me. Was this before or after that guy tried to kill you? Because I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t sure I believed what I saw after everyone told me I was crazy. I don’t have the greatest track records. Shit, there’s a lot of times when people tell me I’ve done something in the past and I don’t remember a damned thing about it,” Trey murmured as someone in the line of cars began to honk, impatient with the slow-moving traffic. “And, as much as I hate to admit it, there’s a couple of times my brain went down the rabbit-hole thing I took or drank, and what my mind cooked up seemed so real but it wasn’t. You got no reason to believe me. I don’t have reason to believe myself. So why are you throwing in with me on this? It’s just bad news for you all around.”