by Rhys Ford
“Have you ever killed anyone you regretted killing?” They hadn’t ever talked about Kuro’s past, but Trey had questions, and in the soft glow of the living room’s dimmed lights with their bellies full of a good meal, it seemed like the perfect time to ask. “Because, Tatiana? I can totally see her shooting somebody in cold blood, but not you.”
“I’ve regretted everyone I’ve ever killed,” Kuro whispered, his hand coming to a rest on Trey’s hip. “I’m not an angel. I’m not even a saint. I can’t say that I’ve never killed an innocent person, because I’ve been in situations where people died and the higher-ups excused it as collateral damage. I don’t ever forget those moments, and when I got burned out of the life, they stayed with me.
“So, while I have regrets about some of the things that happened, I don’t have any remorse for any of the deaths I’ve caused over the last couple weeks. Everything I’ve done has been to protect you, and for the first time in my life, I’ve done the job for someone I care about.” His smile warmed Trey’s heart, and the kiss that followed stoked a fire in his belly Trey wasn’t sure he was ready for. “I’m sorry you got tangled in this. If Robert Mathers wasn’t already dead, I’d be happy to punch him in the face for him saying you’re his son.”
“It’s what drove Gilder to everything. Or that’s what the cops think happened. Gilder killed David because he was going to go to the police about Robert. Then when everyone started digging through the will, Robert saying I was his kid wiped out everything Gilder worked for.” He pursed his mouth, accepting a blown kiss from the still-roaming cat. Yuki made another pass, then finally decided to meat loaf on Kuro’s arm where it rested along Trey’s side. “Kimber thinks the guys Gilder hired to move Robert’s body stashed him someplace, so he couldn’t produce Robert’s DNA to deny the claim.”
“It all just came apart around him. He also couldn’t risk doing the DNA test. If it proved to be true, he was out millions. And when they dumped Mathers’s body in the trash, he knew he was in deep trouble he couldn’t fix. Not without killing you.” Kuro wiggled his fingers, obviously trying to dislodge the cat, but Yuki wasn’t having any of it. “He’d already murdered at least two people, what was a few more? His shitty luck you were the one person who’d seen Robert Mathers that night, but the universe hates lies.”
“Little did he know, the intrepid yet battered Trey Bishop had a secret weapon at his side,” Trey drawled. “His own personal protector, a mild-mannered ramen chef by day and a deadly assassin by night.”
“Okay, all assassins should be deadly or else they wouldn’t be assassins,” he corrected smugly. “And I’m not an assassin.”
“Really? Because I die a little bit inside every time I look at you when we’re someplace I can’t kiss you,” Trey said, shifting his weight forward. The cat grumbled, dislodged from her perch, and she stalked away, stiff-legged and tail up, but Trey knew she’d eventually be back. “So, you and I. What do we do here? Where do we go?”
“We go wherever life takes us,” Kuro replied, gathering Trey up in his arms and pulling him over until Trey straddled Kuro’s hips. “I like having you here with me. It feels good, especially now since people aren’t trying to kill us. I’d like to do some normal things. Go on a date. See a movie. Walk through a farmers’ market with you, or maybe even cruise the Book Festival in the spring. All of the normal things a couple of guys who have probably fallen in love with each other do.”
“Is that what this is?” The spark of something bright growing inside of Trey flared, and he could no longer ignore it. Working his fingers through Kuro’s black hair, he lowered his mouth to Kuro’s lips, kissing him until he was pretty sure they both saw stars. “You make me crazy, but with you around, everything seems sane. Even your naked cat seems normal.”
“Hey, Yuki is totally normal. She just needs sweaters.” Kuro returned the kiss, leaving Trey breathless and wanting more. “So, we’re going to do this? Us?”
“Yeah, we should,” Trey replied, then wrinkled his nose. “Maybe with a lot less trouble and murder.”
“Honey, I’ve got a really bad feeling,” Kuro muttered as he rolled Trey over onto his back, stretching them both out over the couch. “You’re always going to be trouble.”
More from Rhys Ford
Welcome to Dim Sum Asylum: a San Francisco where it’s a ho-hum kind of case when a cop has to chase down an enchanted two-foot-tall shrine god statue with an impressive Fu Manchu mustache that’s running around Chinatown, trolling sex magic and chaos in its wake.
Senior Inspector Roku MacCormick of the Chinatown Arcane Crimes Division faces a pile of challenges far beyond his human-faerie heritage, snarling dragons guarding C-Town’s multiple gates, and exploding noodle factories. After a case goes sideways, Roku is saddled with Trent Leonard, a new partner he can’t trust, to add to the crime syndicate family he doesn’t want and a spell-casting serial killer he desperately needs to find.
While Roku would rather stay home with Bob the Cat and whiskey himself to sleep, he puts on his badge and gun every day, determined to serve and protect the city he loves. When Chinatown’s dark mystical underworld makes his life hell and the case turns deadly, Trent guards Roku’s back and, if Trent can be believed, his heart… even if from what Roku can see, Trent is as dangerous as the monsters and criminals they’re sworn to bring down.
415 Ink: Book One
The hardest thing a rebel can do isn’t standing up for something—it’s standing up for himself.
Life takes delight in stabbing Gus Scott in the back when he least expects it. After Gus spends years running from his past, present, and the dismal future every social worker predicted for him, karma delivers the one thing Gus could never—would never—turn his back on: a son from a one-night stand he’d had after a devastating breakup a few years ago.
Returning to San Francisco and to 415 Ink, his family’s tattoo shop, gave him the perfect shelter to battle his personal demons and get himself together… until the firefighter who’d broken him walked back into Gus’s life.
For Rey Montenegro, tattoo artist Gus Scott was an elusive brass ring, a glittering prize he hadn’t the strength or flexibility to hold on to. Severing his relationship with the mercurial tattoo artist hurt, but Gus hadn’t wanted the kind of domestic life Rey craved, leaving Rey with an aching chasm in his soul.
When Gus’s life and world starts to unravel, Rey helps him pick up the pieces, and Gus wonders if that forever Rey wants is more than just a dream.
415 Ink: Book Two
A savior lies in the heart of every good man, but sometimes only love can awaken the man inside the savior.
The world’s had it out for San Francisco firefighter Mace Crawford from the moment he was born. Rescued from a horrific home life and dragged through an uncaring foster system, he’s dedicated his life to saving people, including the men he calls his brothers. As second-in-command of their knitted-together clan, Mace guides his younger siblings, helps out at 415 Ink, the family tattoo shop, and most of all, makes sure the brothers don’t discover his darkest secrets.
It’s a lonely life with one big problem—he’s sworn off love, and Rob Claussen, one of 415 Ink’s tattoo artists, has gotten under his skin in the worst way possible.
Mace’s world is too tight, too controlled to let Rob into his life, much less his heart, but the brash Filipino inker is there every time Mace turns around. He can’t let Rob in without shaking the foundations of the life he’s built, but when an evil from his past resurfaces, Mace is forced to choose between protecting his lies and saving the man he’s too scared to love.
Murder and Mayhem: Book One
Dead women tell no tales.
Former cat burglar Rook Stevens stole many a priceless thing in the past, but he’s never been accused of taking a life—until now. It was one thing to find a former associate inside Potter’s Field, his pop culture memorabilia shop, but quite another to stumble across her dead body.
Detective Dante M
ontoya thought he’d never see Rook Stevens again—not after his former partner falsified evidence to entrap the jewelry thief and Stevens walked off scot-free. So when he tackled a fleeing murder suspect, Dante was shocked to discover the blood-covered man was none other than the thief he’d fought to put in prison and who still makes his blood sing.
Rook is determined to shake loose the murder charge against him, even if it means putting distance between him and the rugged Cuban-Mexican detective who brought him down. If one dead con artist wasn’t bad enough, others soon follow, and as the bodies pile up around Rook’s feet, he’s forced to reach out to the last man he’d expect to believe in his innocence—and the only man who’s ever gotten under Rook’s skin.
Murder and Mayhem: Book Two
Whoever said blood was thicker than water never stood in a pool of it.
Retiring from stealing priceless treasures seemed like a surefire way for Rook Stevens to stay on the right side of the law. The only cop in his life should have been his probably-boyfriend, Los Angeles Detective Dante Montoya, but that’s not how life—his life—is turning out. Instead, Rook ends up not only standing in a puddle of his cousin Harold’s blood but also being accused of Harold’s murder… and sleeping with Harold’s wife.
For Dante, loving the former thief means his once-normal life is now a sea of chaos, especially since Rook seems incapable of staying out of trouble—or keeping trouble from following him home. When Rook is tagged as a murder suspect by a narrow-focused West LA detective, Dante steps in to pull his lover out of the quagmire Rook’s landed in.
When the complicated investigation twists around on them, the dead begin to stack up, forcing the lovers to work together. Time isn’t on their side, and if they don’t find the killer before another murder, Dante will be visiting Rook in his prison cell—or at his grave.
Readers love Rhys Ford
Savior
“I can always count on Rhys to give me well thought out characters and beautiful stories, and this one didn’t disappoint.”
—Jessie G Books
“…I absolutely adored this book. I couldn’t stop reading it once I started.”
—The Blogger Girls
Sin and Tonic
“As a longtime fan of this series and of Rhys in general, I want to say thank you for giving us such wonderful characters to know and love and feel as if they’ve been a part of our family for the past five years.”
—Diverse Reader
“Rhys Ford has with mere words created a magical, at times rambunctious, blue bleeding family that loves deeply and fully.”
—Love Bytes
Once Upon a Wolf
“As always, Ford’s writing is descriptive and evocative and these characters and their surroundings just leap off the page.”
—Joyfully Jay
“Once Upon a Wolf is a perfectly crafted novella that will have you riveted from the first page to its highly satisfying HEA.”
—Divine Magazine
RHYS FORD is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and is a two-time LAMBDA finalist with her Murder and Mayhem novels. She is also a 2017 Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Florida Authors and Publishers President’s Book Awards for her novels Ink and Shadows and Hanging the Stars. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.
She shares the house with Harley, a gray tuxedo with a flower on her face, Badger, a disgruntled alley cat who isn’t sure living inside is a step up the social ladder, as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep of a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.
Rhys can be found at the following locations:
Blog: www.rhysford.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author
Twitter: @Rhys_Ford
By Rhys Ford
RAMEN ASSASSIN
Ramen Assassin
415 INK
Rebel
Savior
Hellion (Coming Fall 2019)
MURDER AND MAYHEM
Murder and Mayhem
Tramps and Thieves
Cops and Comix
SINNERS SERIES
Sinner’s Gin
Whiskey and Wry
The Devil’s Brew
Tequila Mockingbird
Sloe Ride
Absinthe of Malice
Sin and Tonic
COLE MCGINNIS MYSTERIES
Dirty Kiss
Dirty Secret
Dirty Laundry
Dirty Deeds
Down and Dirty
Dirty Heart
Dirty Bites
HALF MOON BAY
Fish Stick Fridays
Hanging the Stars
Tutus and Tinsel
HELLSINGER
Fish and Ghosts
Duck Duck Ghost
WAYWARD WOLVES
Once Upon a Wolf
KAI GRACEN
Black Dog Blues
Mad Lizard Mambo
Jacked Cat Jive
There’s This Guy
Dim Sum Asylum
Ink and Shadows
Clockwork Tangerine
Creature Feature 2 with Poppy Dennison
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Ramen Assassin
© 2019 Rhys Ford
Cover Art
© 2019 Reece Notley
[email protected]
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64405-474-1
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64405-473-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932250
Digital published June 2019
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Blurb
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Epilogue
More from Rhys Ford
Readers love Rhys Ford
About the Author
By Rhys Ford
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