Mommy?

The woman in front of Calvin appeared much too young and fragile to be a mother. In her hip-hugging jeans, faded T-shirt, and hair scraped into a ponytail, she looked not far into her twenties, surely too young to be the mother of a child that old.

She was also much too attractive. Being a guy, he, of course, noted—and admired—her feminine attributes. How long since he’d been with a woman? Work had kept him busy of late.

It’s been too long.

But he wouldn’t break his streak with the neighbor next door. Cute or not, the hottie came with baggage. Calvin had two rules in life—don’t poach too close to home, and no single mothers. The life of a family man didn’t appeal at all. Not even if the mother was hot.

This one was hot and sobbing. Not loudly or noisily. Just big fat tears escaping blinking eyes and rolling down her ashen cheeks.

How could he properly chastise her about her parenting if she cried?

I can’t. He stiffened. So that’s her devious plan. She wouldn’t trick him so easily. What did she have to cry about? Calvin was the one who’d almost run over the damned child while pulling into his driveway. He’d had to abruptly brake because the little girl stood in the middle of it. He’d exited his vehicle with a frown on his face. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” The child had looked unabashed.

“Hi.” The little girl smiled and waved.

“Are you lost?” Should he call the pound for children?

Pigtails bounced as she shook her head. “Not lost.” She giggled and jabbed a finger in the direction of the house next door.

Just freaking great. A new neighbor was moving in. Pity. Calvin had quite enjoyed the peace since the last tenant moved out.

What a shame the landlord wouldn’t sell because now the game started over. Calvin would have his work cut out for him, convincing the new tenant of the merits of living elsewhere. He should also provide instruction on watching her kid. Some people just didn’t know how to parent.

You have to be firm with them. “Go back to your place.” He’d shooed the little girl. It seemed the most understandable gesture, and yet she blinked at him. “You can’t stand there.” He’d pointed at her house. “Go find your parents and insist they watch you more closely.”

The little tyke then smiled. A gap-toothed brilliant thing that could have blinded a weaker man. She blinked long lashes and lisped, “Will you take me to my mommy?”

“Uh…”

She dipped her chin, and her eyelids fluttered. Little freckles across her nose crinkled. “Please.”

Good God. The child was possessed by a dark force. Surely, she possessed some kind of insidious evil because Calvin had held out his hand and didn’t flinch when her sticky palm slid into his. Still under her dark spell, Calvin had said, “Come with me. I’ll take you home.”

Call a fucking priest!

And that was how he’d ended up on a concrete porch, looming over a tiny woman as she cried. It looked bad. Other neighbors might be watching and judging. Perhaps even calling the cops.

This shit is why I don’t get involved.

He took a step back, and still, the woman hiccupped. He clenched his hands lest they reach out to offer comfort. Why would he comfort her?

He needed to leave. “Bye.”

She sniffled and lifted her head. “I’m sorry for wailing like a wuss. I got scared when I couldn’t find her. Thanks for bringing her back. I swear I don’t know what got into her. She’s never wandered before.” Her teary-eyed stare then dropped to the child Calvin had returned. The woman wagged a finger and took on an expression Calvin recognized, the one that said, You are in so much shit. “Zoe Eleanor Fitzpatrick, you get your butt in here right now. You had me scared half to death.”

She should have been scared. Letting a little girl like that wander at will. Despite the mother’s frazzled appearance, it didn’t mean Calvin gave her any quarter. “You should keep a better eye on your kid.” The rebuke served to blanch her features.

It didn’t last long. Her shoulders went back, and her chin tilted. “I do keep an eye on her. But we’re new here, and she obviously forgot the rules about exploring without a parent.” She cast a stern gaze to the child, who chose to smile adorably instead of appearing chastised.

“I wanted to go see the colors. The man has flowers in front of his house.”

Not planted by him. He preferred just plain grass that needed only a little bit of mowing.

“You should have asked.”

“Sorry, Mommy. Can we go see outside? The man has a pretty car. I want to touch it.”

The thought of grubby fingers patting his pristine paint almost brought a shiver. Especially since, how could he prevent it? One did not shoot children in suburbia for touching cars. But a man could and should demand respect from his neighbors. “No touching the car.” He presented his best stern face.

The little girl batted incredibly thick, dark lashes, and her gaze siphoned part of his soul. “No touching.” Said with a lisp and smile.

Calvin got the feeling he’d be seeing little fingerprints soon.

Apparently, the mother recognized the truth, too. “No touching, Zoe. You are not to go over onto his property at all. As a matter of fact, you are not to leave this house or the yard without permission, little missy.” She rebuked the little girl, whose eyes began to well with tears. Her lower lip trembled.

It seemed rather harsh. The poor thing hadn’t really done anything wrong.

He should say something.

Say what?

Calvin frowned. He should applaud his new neighbor for reining in her obviously errant child. Instead, he wanted to say “don’t worry about it” and ask the mother out to dinner. Or they could skip right to dessert in his bed.

No point in denying that Calvin was attracted to his new neighbor. As a man, with ample testosterone, he noted her petite stature and curvy hips. Her full lips moved, and she gestured as she spoke. Her dark eyes flashed, and given her also darkly colored hair, he wondered if she had some fiery Italian in her.

She was not a great beauty, but there was a vivaciousness to her that rendered her quite fascinating.

The lips kept moving, and yet it took him a moment to realize that she spoke.

“…new.” The woman offered him an apologetic smile. “Sorry she bothered you. I will make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

And with that, she stepped into the house, child in tow, and shut the door.

Click.

Had she seriously just locked it?

Finally, she’d done something smart, so why did he feel so insulted?

He left her front step and returned to his home. He did his best to ignore the window overlooking the neighbor’s place. He cleaned his guns. He checked his email. He went to bed and got friendly with his hand.

The next morning, he spent a few minutes checking the paint on his car, buffing imaginary smudges while taking peeks next door. The old, plastic blinds didn’t twitch. A little girl didn’t come flying over to ask questions, nor did the hottie emerge in skimpy attire, looking for a newspaper. Perhaps that only happened in certain erotic movies?

Calvin stood there longer than needed, but never caught a glimpse of the mother or the child. The lollygagging meant he was late for his meeting.

It didn’t go unnoticed.

Sherry, manning the reception desk, her hair perfectly piled atop her head, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose, raised her head long enough to say, “They’re already in the boardroom.” Then she went back to micromanaging the office affairs. She and her long, red-lacquered nails did the job quite well, almost as well as she micromanaged Harry, her husband and the general manager of this place.

Given his tardiness, Calvin didn’t bother hitting his office first. He strode right into the meeting room. Everyone within abruptly stopped talking the moment he opened the glass door. From the outside, he couldn’t have said what was going on; the room was soundproofed.

He offered a wry grin. “Sorry I’m late. I was unavoidably detained.”

“Don’t let it happen again, or you’re fired.” Jerome wagged a finger at him before laughing. The man was always smiling, even though a football injury had left him with a bum leg. It didn’t stop the man from tossing barbs. Or playing pranks. Bad habits the academy they’d all attended never managed to completely eradicate.

Calvin preferred to toss knives and play Russian roulette. He’d aced his class in the first and had won every time in the second.

“What have I missed?” He took his seat and relaxed, knowing that, other than his house, this was probably the safest place to be. In this room, he could talk freely about his last job where the client had keeled over before he could kill him properly. The admission would never leave this room because, despite the fact that the sign said Bad Boy Inc.: Specialists in international realty, the truth was, they were much more than property dealers.

After graduating from Secundus Academy—an institute that taught more than just language and math—Calvin had faced two choices. The first involved hiring out as an independent contractor, which, in turn, meant working alone most of the time. It could be done; however, true success came with a proper team. Big jobs with big payoffs needed backup. Which was why he worked for Bad Boy Inc.—international problem solvers.

“Now that we’re all here, let’s focus on the important stuff. Right now, there’re slim pickings on the board,” Harry announced.

“Does this mean we’re getting time off for a few weeks?” Mason perked up. “I’ve been eyeing this golf course they just built out on the East Coast.”

“If you’re going to take vacation, then might as well do it now while there’s not much available.”

“What’s ‘not much?’” Calvin asked. He’d been eyeing a hot tub for the backyard.

Harry held up a tiny remote and clicked it. The image on the screen flicked to show an aerial view of an arid ranch property. Brown landscape dotted with a few darker blobs of bush and rock. “This is Ranchero Del Diablo. A non-original name just like the owner, who thinks he’s living some kind of seventies power trip. Parties, drugs, alcohol, and orgies, he’s the mafia lord for his region and a few others that he’s taken over.”

“So someone wants to put a bullet in him?”

Harry shook his head. “Not at this time. The job is to go undercover and ferret out information. It’s believed he’s got links to other organizations that aren’t so flashy about their business.”

Infiltration jobs paid well, but they were hard and dangerous work. Calvin didn’t need the funds that badly. “If it changes to termination, let me know, but I’m not going deep.” He’d planned to be done with the tiling in the master bath by next weekend if work didn’t get in the way.

“Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It might not be a bad gig. How much is he paying?” Declan questioned.

Mason shook his head as he tapped a finger on the table. “Does it matter how much? Those guys down south are trigger-happy. You’d have to cough up some serious bucks to take this job on.”

“A quick and easy way to get a man to talk is to lead him by his dick.” Jerome winked at Kacy.

In reply, Kacy held up her middle finger. The petite Latina wasn’t one to waste words.

“We are not whoring out our only female operative.” Pretending to be loose with morals for a night or two was one thing, but Harry ran a tight ship. Which meant that he didn’t bargain his employees’ lives or their bodies for money.

“How out of place would a white or black dude look working for this guy?” Calvin asked, turning the question into a more serious one. “Other than Kacy, all of us would stand out like a sore thumb if we went down there.”

“If we tried to blend, we would stick out, but what if the person was on an ocean-side vacation?” Declan interjected. “A tourist angle could work. I might do it in that case.”

“How about we see if it can be done before we accept the offer.” Harry clicked the remote button again, and the screen on the wall changed from an image of the arid walled compound to that of a beach, the white sand stretching along the edge of clear blue.

“I’ll do it.” Mason wagged his hand.

Harry turned to look at him. “I haven’t even said what it entails.”

“It’s in paradise. Who cares?”

“If you insist. I’ll submit a bid for you.”

“Sweet. Can’t wait. Light packing for me. Bathing suit. A few Hawaiian shirts. Sounds like a dream job. What’s it entail? Rich dude wanting to see if his wife is cheating? Hidden money on the island? Drug ring?”

“Shark fins.”

Mason’s happy smile froze. “Say what?”

“You’ll need to infiltrate the underground fish market for delicacies. Someone is flooding the market with shark fins, and you need to find out who. We’ll set you up as a fishmonger.”

“What’s that?” asked Calvin, doing his best to look innocent.

A scowl covered Mason’s face. “The guy who is covered in fish guts every day.”

Calvin hid a grin behind his hand. That would serve Mason right for not listening to all the facts. Even at the academy, he’d been prone to hotheaded tendencies in his choices.

More of the assignments being offered on the Dark Web—that sub-layer of Internet only available to those who knew how and where to look—were perused. Many were dismissed out of hand. Harry didn’t believe in needlessly wasting their time or endangering the lives of his operatives on impossible gigs.

What did surprise Calvin was the last thing Harry pulled up on the board. A newspaper headline.

Young Socialite Overdoses

The article went on to talk about the young lady in her third year of college being the fourth rich kid in as many months to die from an overdose.

“Is there a point to this article?” Calvin asked.

“It’s related to a job.”

“A job in our city?” Declan shook his head. “We don’t do those.”

“I have to agree with Declan. If this is about busting drug dealers, then let the local cops handle it,” Jerome said.

“The cops aren’t doing anything.” Harry shut off the screen and took a seat. “No one is.”

“If they’re not acting, there’s a reason.” This, from Benedict. He dated a lot of cops. He liked the fact that they weren’t wigged out when he asked them to use the handcuffs.

“Ben’s right.” Mason leaned forward with a frown. “If the cops aren’t doing anything, then that tells me we shouldn’t get involved.”

“Sergeant Kringle always did preach, ‘don’t shit in your bed.’” Jerome loved quoting the more colorful phrases.

Ah, yes, the good old sergeant. He’d retired to a quiet farm in Omaha. Calvin visited from time to time to drink and hear some of the stories.

“I know we usually steer clear of things close to home. But I am still going to insist we take this job.”

“I don’t like it. This kind of thing, so close to home…it feels like a trap.” Kacy finally chimed in with her usual suspicion.

Harry shook his head. “I can assure you, it’s not. I know the person offering the job.”

“A friend?” More than a few brows rose. “Since when do we cater favors?”

“We don’t. This friend is going to pay us big bucks to discreetly look into this.”

“Have you gotten Mason to vet him?” Mason being their current information retrieval specialist.

He took care of their tech needs. A geek at heart, Mason loved anything to do with computers. Just don’t call him a geek or nerd to his face. At six-foot-eight, the guy could crush a skull with his bare hands. Calvin had seen it firsthand on a mission. The memory kind of stuck with a man.

“No need, and besides, Mason’s going to the island to investigate shark fins.”

“I’ll dump the fish job to do it.” Mason waved his hand.

Harry didn’t quite manage to hide a smirk. “Very well. Mason will be looking into the digital aspects of the crime. We’ll want autopsy results, police reports. I want to know what exactly killed them and what the cops found.”

“I know someone over at the precinct working for the drug squad. I’ll see what he’s got to say,” Ben offered.

“Sounds good. Declan, you check out the clubs the kids hang at. I want to know who their local connection is. Who their friends are. Calvin, I want you to hit the clubs the kids’ daddies belong to. See if perhaps there’s a link there.”

“And, let me guess, the Latina girl should talk to her hombres to see what they have to say about the rich kids and their designer drugs.” Kacy rolled her eyes.

“Actually, I need you to go shopping for girly stuff because you’re going to be assigned to a special security detail starting next week.”

Her brows drew into a point. “I’m not a babysitter.”

“Are you sure about that? It pays more than your last two jobs combined.” Harry’s smile stretched with devious delight.

The struggle didn’t last long, and the acceptance, “Fine, I’ll do it,” emerged begrudgingly.

The protests followed right after. “How come she gets a gravy security detail job?” Declan interjected.

“Would you like to shave and dress as a hot chick so you can pretend to be this guy’s girlfriend while protecting him?”

Declan shrugged. “Depends on if I’ve got to put out.”

“The right question,” Ben said with a grin, “is the client hot? I’m in between boyfriends right now so I’d do it, but I might have a hard time passing as a girl.” Ben was not only a big man, he sprouted more hair on his body than any human should.

“The client is heterosexual and already has a male bodyguard, so Kacy will be the secret one hidden in plain sight.” Harry opened a folder and slid a black credit card across the table’s surface to Kacy. “Go out and buy whatever you need. High-end stuff. Our man moves in important circles, so you need to look the part.”

Lucky girl. Harry tended to be tight with the expenses.

The room emptied, but Calvin remained behind, as did Ben and Harry. They spoke idly of mundane items as the door opened to let the others out. Only when it sealed shut did Harry nod.

“Go ahead and ask.”

“Who is this friend, and why is he asking you to do this? What does he know about us?” In other words, had their cover been compromised? Calvin knew they had a good thing going here, but it would take only one misstep for the whole thing to crumble. If it happened, he, and the others in this group, would scatter and never look back. The academy had taught them to always have a backup plan.

“You don’t have to worry.”

“Famous last words, right up there with hold my beer.” Ben shook his head. “I don’t like this playing-at-home shit. Our cover depends on us staying out of the local cops’ way. Getting involved in a possible murder scheme isn’t staying out of the way.”

“You’re only ferreting information for now.”

“As soon as we start poking, someone will notice,” Calvin argued.

“If they do, then we’ll handle it.” By handle, Harry meant eliminate the problem. “But first, let’s see if there’s anything to find.”

“What are we doing with any information we find? Feeding it to the cops?” Ben asked.

“No cops. Because if the client is right, then the precinct is dirty. As in drugs are going missing from their lockup dirty. Rumor is they’re resurfacing on the street and might be the stuff that’s killing the kids.”

Calvin shook his head. “You mean this case might be about dirty cops? All the more reason to stay out of it.”

“Kids are dying.”

“Drug addicts are croaking.” Calvin spread his hands and gave a shrug. “Still don’t get it. Why are we risking ourselves for rich druggies with Mommy and Daddy issues?”

“Because we think whoever is doing this used to be with the academy.”

“That seems to be a pretty big leap, so you might want to explain.” Dealing in drugs wasn’t something the specialty school taught or condoned. The use of poisons wasn’t usually recommended, as they left a trace.

“The reason I know they’re related is because the drugs found on the kids all had this emblem on their packaging.”

Harry held up a hand and flashed his ring. It bore the symbol of the academy, the jewelry a sign they’d graduated from a school built around the concept of second chances. Harry understood, as did Calvin, that it was possible to copy the emblem. The academy was a renowned private teaching establishment on the surface. Renowned enough that if someone copied the emblem, they knew it would be linked back to the school.

Not on my watch. Calvin had made some of his best memories and friends there.

“All right, let’s nail this thing.” After all, the ten-year reunion fast approached, and Calvin would like to rub it in a certain school rival’s face.

And the added bonus of getting paid while remaining close enough to home to still work on his renovations kind of appealed.

Perhaps working from home wouldn’t be so bad. It would give him more time to keep an eye on his new next-door neighbor.