Seth
Oh, he wanted Asher. Like he’d never wanted anything before. But he didn’t want to be another one of Asher’s casual fucks. And he didn’t want to make another mistake like he had with Dennis. He believed he had loved Dennis. He’d been wrong. One thing was clear, though, his choice of men was skewed. He couldn’t trust his judgement. Then, of course, there was the matter of Asher and his playboy reputation.
He toyed for a moment with the idea of something casual with Asher. But he knew in his heart he wasn’t made for short term. He was made for the long run and he didn’t think that long run was in Asher’s DNA. The man had noncommittal written all over him.
“Asher, I just…” He shook his head, fisting his fingers in Asher’s shirt before gently easing his grip. For a moment, his gaze hung on Asher’s wide shoulders before he held the man’s gaze. I don’t think you’re the right man for me.
“Need more time.” Those weren’t the words he planned on saying, but Asher was nodding his head and stepping back. Then Asher closed one warm hand over his where it lay against the man’s chest.
“I’ve got loads of time,” Asher rumbled.
“It’s just that…I thought he loved me.” Seth drew in a deep breath and released it slowly.
“I know.” Asher’s large, warm palm settled on his upper arm, sending shivers across his skin as it slid gently up and down.
“How could I have been such an idiot?”
“You trusted him.”
“I did,” he agreed tightly, fisting his free hand. “Maybe I need to be more like you. Not get involved, tangled up.”
Asher gave him a crooked smile and brushed the hair back from his face. “Maybe.”
His breath caught at the touch, his anger over what had happened dimmed and yearning took its place as he searched Asher’s face.
“Oh, Asher…”
The words died when Reggie bounced into the room. “Hey, you guys, order some food when you…” The techie’s voice trailed off. And just like that, the intimacy was gone and Asher was stepping away.
Seth dropped his hand and turned. Smiling at Reggie, he walked around the guy and left the room. Striding into the other room, he plopped down on the sofa.
Reggie followed, giving him an apologetic look.
He gave a half smile and pretended not to follow Asher with his peripheral vision when the operative entered the room. But it was hard not to watch Asher’s firm, muscled body as the man stalked to the window to glance through a slit in the blinds.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just made the biggest mistake of his life. Asher freaking Grayson had hit on him and he’d turned the guy down. He must be fucking mental. A soft sigh escaped and he swallowed it back before letting his eyes furtively seek out and follow Asher as the man paced the room.
The house stood quiet. Only four of them remained. Asher, Roscoe, Reggie and him. Noah had been pulled to help Allison on another lead. Roscoe stood near Reggie, listening with a mic. The towering man leaned closer and murmured to the techie about needing Marco Jennings. Screw Marco Jennings. Seth wanted Yakov. Taking down Yakov would ensure the Lakhonin dynasty was forever dead.
Asher watched him, but Seth didn’t dare look over. The guy was all kinds of intense and had grown broody. He would bet not many people had put the brakes on with Asher. The man constantly tracked him, and Seth’s dick noticed every heated look. Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I need coffee,” Asher grumbled and left the room.
“I’ll get you guys a cup,” Roscoe offered and disappeared after Asher.
If not for Roscoe and Reggie being there, Seth might have said to hell with it and made a pass at Asher, screw the consequences. He would pick up the pieces of his heart later, much later.
The house across the street lit up brightly and yanked him from his fantasy. Suddenly, a car pulled up out front, pulling his mind away from Asher and back onto the job where it belonged. Five men got out of the car and entered the house. It was too dark for him to get a good look at any of them, damn it.
Seth quickly approached Reggie and lifted one of the small ear buds to listen in on the house surveillance.
“Hey, man,” a deep voice said.
The connection was lost for a moment when the mic crackled with white noise, then the voices came in clear.
“I told you to lay low,” another voice was saying.
“I did, man!”
Neither of the voices were Yakov’s, but Seth had Reggie mark it for later investigation. One voice might be this Marco Jennings guy.
“And you don’t think that anyone followed you here?”
“No, I took every public transportation I could find. I’m good.”
“You stupid idiot. Then why do they have this place wired for sound and surveillance in a house down the street?” There was a sudden snick, snick. The sound of a gun with a silencer firing twice.
His stomach lurched and he gripped the back of Reggie’s shirt.
“Get the fuck out!” he yelled, and yanked Reggie up and pushed the techie toward the door. The guy dropped the mic and ran.
Asher and Roscoe came barreling into the room from the kitchen.
“Get out!” Seth shouted, catching Asher’s gaze.
Asher pivoted, shoving at Roscoe, and they all raced down the narrow hallway toward the back door.
He didn’t know what to expect, but the thought that someone might have rigged the house to explode had him counting the seconds to the back door. Expecting a boom to come and the subsequent explosion at any time, Seth held his breath. Reggie yanked the back door open and stumbled out onto the back porch.
“Wait!” Asher snapped and grabbed at the guy.
Pop, pop, pop!
Bullets pinged along the house and walkway, kicking up dirt and sending stucco flying. Reggie screamed. Shit!
“Reggie!” Seth whispered harshly.
Roscoe having gone out the door low, whirled and lifted Reggie and shoved the techie closer to the protection of the house.
Crouching, Seth shot out the back porch light and then stopped dead still in the sudden dark.
“See anything?” Asher whispered.
“No,” Seth answered back just as quietly, and a moment later, Asher settled at his side, guarding his flank.
They crouched like that, side by side, facing opposite directions, covering each other. The darkness gave way beneath the nearby street lights and Seth was quickly able to make out objects. He aimed at a lurking shadow and pulled the trigger. Someone scrambled with a loud crash through the underbrush of the neighboring bushes.
Asher’s silencer made a quiet snick, snick in the opposite direction. Seth continued aiming, silently swiveling, straining to see through the dimness. A voice shouted in the distance and then all went silent.
Satisfied they’d scared off the attackers for the moment, Seth turned to where Roscoe was kneeling by Reggie. The techie had fallen and it looked like he’d sliced his knee open and banged up his wrist. Not shot after all. That was a relief. Asher wrapped a piece of shirt around Reggie’s knee.
“I called it in,” a voice said.
Seth whirled, raised his gun, and then dropped it when Storm materialized out of the shadows like some avenging demon.
“A warning next time, Storm,” he gritted out.
Roscoe lifted his gun and Seth gently placed a hand on the man’s arm. “You remember Storm? From Noah and Mac’s party.”
Roscoe narrowed his gaze. “Oh yeah. The guy that stayed two seconds, then split.” Roscoe waved a dismissing hand and tucked away his gun.
Storm’s brow turned like a thunder cloud, a storm on the horizon, one of the reasons for the man’s code name.
“Fuck you, Roscoe. I’m not the one who just ran out of the house like a little girl.”
“There could have been a bomb in there, you idiot,” Roscoe snapped.
Storm’s arms flexed and he took an advancing step forward. Clearly, the sniper wasn’t going to take Roscoe’s lip lightly. Roscoe squared off, flexing his hands.
“Would you both just shut the fuck up?” Exasperated, Seth blew out a hard breath.
“Yeah, come on, guys. We have bigger shit to deal with without you two going at it,” Asher whispered harshly.
Storm paused and gave a short nod. Roscoe shrugged and turned away.
Satisfied the two alpha men weren’t going to brawl, Seth assessed the area. They were sequestered up against a metal shed with spare tires stacked against the wall, and on the other side were several wooden pallets stacked in a pile. It was where the trash cans were stored and the smell of rotting food clung to the damp air.
“I’m going out,” he said, inching forward. “You stay here,” he told them all. Not sure they’d listen to him, but right at that moment, he didn’t care.
“I’ll take care of Reggie,” Roscoe said. Reggie had attached himself to the big guy.
“Yeah, and I’ll take care of everyone.” Storm smirked and Roscoe glowered.
Seth sighed and pushed to his feet. A hand on his arm drew his attention.
“We go together,” Asher ordered, and Seth didn’t argue. Asher wouldn’t take no for an answer and really, Seth wanted Asher along; staying in pairs made them twice as deadly.
Moving through the darkness, he headed along a row of bushes that led to the front of the house. Distant sirens filled the night air. They only had a few seconds to get at least one of the bad guys before the cops showed up. That was if the suspects were still in the house.
He examined the area, but there was no sign of life. Approaching the target house, Asher went toward the front while he moved around back. Feeling someone approach from behind, Seth whirled around with his gun aimed.
“Damn it,” he hissed, lowering his gun when he saw it was Roscoe and Storm.
“The sheriffs have Reggie. I told them there were four plain clothes searching. They are canvasing the area,” Roscoe whispered quietly.
Seth nodded. He heard Asher kick in the front door and Storm disappeared in that direction.
Stepping up on the back porch, a suspect came barreling through the back door and Seth stuck out his foot. The guy tripped and then tumbled off the porch.
Out of his reach, the suspect sprung upward but wasn’t prepared for the size of Roscoe, who easily put the guy in the dirt. The man fought like a crazy thing and Roscoe cursed.
“Let me go, you motherfucker!”
“Quit struggling,” Roscoe snarled, and the guy actually spit at the agent. Roscoe flipped the suspect onto his stomach. While Roscoe pulled the man’s arms behind his back, Seth jumped from the porch and snapped zip-ties around the guy’s wrists. Roscoe pulled the suspect up.
Seth got a look at the guy. A mop of bright hair fell into the guy’s eyes. Spitting mad the guy started in with a string of profanity.
“Shut up!” Roscoe roared, and the young man finally took a gulping swallow and shut up.
“What’s your name?” Roscoe growled.
“Jagger Miller.” The guy glared.
“How old are you?”
“What’s it to you, fucking copper?” Miller spat.
“I’m not a cop, I’m FBI,” Roscoe said, frowning.
“So?” the young man scowled.
“The house is clear,” Asher said from the back porch.
Gazing up, Seth’s eyes drifted over Asher; massive, menacing, and beefy. He wanted to feel those arms around him again. Except this time, he wanted to press his lips to Asher’s and not be interrupted for a long time.
Storm came out of the house. “Nobody’s left in there. It’s weird. They fucking scattered like the wind. I’ll call the unit and start a discreet search,” the sniper finished and pulled out his phone.
“We’ll fill in Stefano and the chief after we wrap up here,” Seth said, pulling his gaze from Asher.
Frost
The suspects were on the run. Only one remained in custody, Jagger Miller. The guy that Hans Grover had bailed out was nowhere to be found. Asher played the recording again. The echo of gunfire was clearly audible on the wiretap, yet there had been nobody in the house.
None of the voices on the recording matched Jagger Miller, and the man wasn’t talking. Miller had been questioned and set to be released.
“This is beyond fucked up!” Roscoe accused, getting in the sheriff’s face. “We went to all this trouble and you’re just going to let that little fucker go?” The agent threw up his hands.
The sheriff’s mouth tightened. From where Frost stood, the sheriff wasn’t happy about his decisions being questioned. The fucked up part was that Kane Quintana, Roscoe’s boss, agreed with the sheriff. They had no evidence to hold Miller past seventy-two hours, and Kane had told them he didn’t want to waste the resources keeping the guy in custody.
“We don’t have anything to hold him on, Agent Burns,” the sheriff said stiffly. “Just like I told your boss, the house is clean and Miller doesn’t have a record.”
“No traces of blood?” Roscoe’s eyes narrowed.
“No.” The sheriff bared his teeth.
“We heard gunfire coming from that house. Someone is dead,” Roscoe charged. “Accessory to fucking murder. There’s a dead guy somewhere. Or at the very least, wounded,” he amended.
“There’s no body.” The CSI tech approached and stood next to the sheriff. “We can’t find traces of blood anywhere,” the man said, shaking his head.
“Jagger Miller is somehow connected to a fucking kingpin who is suspected of having dealings in sex trafficking children!” Roscoe bellowed. “How the hell does Jagger Miller not have a record?”
“Hey.” Frost placed a hand on Roscoe’s shoulder to keep the agent from yanking Miller from them.
“You’re working for a man that abuses children.” Roscoe glared at Miller. “Do the right thing, man.”
Miller’s lip curled and he gave Roscoe and him a two fingered salute that turned into one finger in the universal sign for fuck off.
“Fuck you very much, officers.” The punk smiled and walked away.
Wild, who had arrived a few minutes prior, came out of the house and stepped over the yellow tape that surrounded the roped off area. “They used plastic,” the tracker said, and none of Phoenix questioned his findings. If Wild said the suspects used plastic, then they used plastic.
“Son of a bitch,” Roscoe hissed between his teeth.
“We’ll get him another way,” Frost promised.