[11: THAT STRIPS MY CONSCIENCE BARE]

MALCOLM LEANED BACK IN HIS desk chair and listened to the silence, punctuated only by the sound of Seong-Jae’s typing from across the room.

Other than the Captain, practically permanently embedded in her office, he and Seong-Jae were the only ones left in the homicide bullpen. That seemed the norm, lately. Everyone filtering out to leave them alone, looking anywhere but at each other, the starkness of the distance between them highlighted in bright white overhead fluorescents that seemed too stark against the inky squares of night pressed up to the windows.

Tonight, though, the silence was different. Tonight the silence felt like tension waiting to break, and a denial of those quiet moments when Seong-Jae had whispered Come here.

For some reason, the second they had stepped back into the office…

Everything had changed, the walls snapping up again.

Across the room, Seong-Jae remained intently focused on his screen, fingers rattling across the keyboard in assault-rifle patters of sound. Even when Malcolm turned his head and looked directly at him, Seong-Jae didn’t look up—yet Malcolm knew damned well Seong-Jae was aware of him, when his typing slowed and his gaze stopped moving across the screen, the light from the monitor reflecting in his eyes in broken white-on-black shards.

Every day, this song and dance.

Every goddamned day, yet somehow it was worse now, as if the other night had never happened—although it had left its indelible and permanent imprint on Malcolm.

And Malcolm didn’t know how long he was going to let it go on, now that he knew how it felt for Seong-Jae to let him in.

Now that he’d had a taste of something more.

For now, though, he tore his gaze away from Seong-Jae and lingered, instead, on the darkened entrance to Sade’s lair. Even the little spider was gone, the Christmas lights shut off and only the faint glow of a few blinking server lights haunting the place with ghostly halos. Malcolm hadn’t seen them leave; he’d just looked up from his computer one moment and they were gone some time after everyone else had clocked out, leaving Malcolm worrying and wondering if he really should have said anything at all.

Especially with the way Sade had looked at him.

How do you know Huang, Sade?

Work.

What the fuck kind of work are you doing that yo—

Stop it, Mal. Just stop. I can’t tell you some things. If I could, I would. I promise you that.

Sade…

Closed eyes, pain flitting across that delicate face that seemed made for brightness and laughter and whimsical wickedness, this melancholy sitting all wrong like an ill-fitted mask. Please don’t ask me any more questions I can’t answer. Please.

I think you can answer whether or not I can trust you. It had hurt wretchedly to even say, to cast that doubt between them. You said not to trust Seong-Jae, but you’re the one keeping things from me.

It’s not either-or, Mal. And you have no idea what he’s keeping from you. Lashes lifting upward, tawny eyes staring down at angular hands frozen on the keyboard. Or what I’m keeping from you. Maybe you shouldn’t trust me. You don’t even know me.

…how can you say that?

Because you don’t. Eyes flashing, hardening, a near-desperate glare, soft mouth tightening from trembling hurt to cutting anger. You just decided one day when I started working here that you were going to protect me. Protect the little kid.

You were seventeen and a minor—

And I didn’t need protection! I didn’t ask you to do that. Just because you decided you wanted to pull the big brother act with me doesn’t mean you know me, or that we’ve ever been friends.

No words. None. Just a heavy, sick sense of betrayal, and of his own ignorance. His own bullheaded willfulness, that he’d seen one thing when the reality had been so entirely different; that he’d assumed so much and been so wrong.

I guess you’re right, then. I guess I really don’t know you.

I have work to do.

I’m sorry for getting in the way. Yoon’s waiting for me.

Yeah. He is.

Malcolm steepled his fingertips together, then shook his head and pushed to his feet with a sigh. He might as well get out of here. But first…

He shrugged his suit coat on, settling it over his shoulders and adjusting his cuffs before he crossed the room to Anjulie’s office. He could feel Seong-Jae watching him while pretending not to watch him, but this time it was his turn not to notice it. He was still reeling from one blow to the gut, still healing from a hit to the face, and he didn’t need another one.

He tongued the split in his lower lip, then shifted to prop his shoulder in the doorway and rapped lightly on the frame. “Hey,” he said, as she looked up. “You got a minute?”

^

SEONG-JAE WAITED UNTIL THE Captain’s door had closed behind Malcolm before he wiped his search history, locked his desktop computer, and rose, crossing to the far side of the empty bullpen as he fished his phone from his pocket and hit the third number on his speed dial.

The phone did not even ring once before it picked up. He did not know how SSA Joshi always managed to do that, as if he had known Seong-Jae would call before Seong-Jae himself did, but he was given little time to wonder as the agent’s low, silkily purring voice drifted over the phone.

“I knew you’d call one day.”

Seong-Jae rolled his eyes, leaning his shoulder against the wall and looking out the window. The darkness outside was hazed with evening dew, forming a shimmering, smoke-like mist that could not seem to decide if it wanted to become rain or wanted to become smoke, and so it remained as a curtained cloud turning the reflected light of street lamps into walls of quiet starlight. “I have a case to report, and need information on someone.”

Aanga Joshi sounded almost as though he was pouting. “Any time you call, it’s strictly business.”

“You seem to be under the illusion of some personal relationship between us.”

“I’ve seen you naked,” Joshi murmured, an undercurrent of dry laughter in his voice. “I’ve fucked you.”

“Once, it was a mistake, we only dated for a week, and if I still worked there this would be sexual harassment by a direct superior,” Seong-Jae said flatly. “Let me know when you are done entertaining yourself.”

“You never let me enjoy these little moments.”

“I have not hung up yet.”

“Only because you need something.” But Joshi was already dropping that silky, taunting purr, the playact stripping aside to leave a calm, businesslike tone, edges sharp and crisp. “What am I looking for?”

“First, I will be forwarding you information on a case that should be escalated to FBI collaboration with Interpol,” Seong-Jae said. “We have arrested one Nicolas Madsen and his employers Vanden and Alicia Chambers in connection with a number of snuff films posted to the dark web, but do not have a lead on who is operating the streaming servers, or where they might be.”

“And you’re calling this in to tip me off instead of waiting for it to go through official channels?”

“Consider it my payment.”

The sound of typing rattled from the other end of the line; Seong-Jae could picture Aanga Joshi, slim and lithe in a perfectly pressed suit, sitting stiffly upright in his desk chair, the light of the screen reflecting off his glasses and his sienna-brown face. “For what information?”

“I need to know if you’ve found anything on Sila.”

Joshi sighed. “I don’t have anything. You know that.”

“Fifteen years and no trace?”

“He doesn’t exist, Seong-Jae,” Joshi said with an exasperated sound. “He never has. He’s a ghost. Not one mark in the system. Nothing. Sila isn’t even a real name.”

“He is here. I know he is.” Seong-Jae glanced back toward the Captain’s office, but the door was still closed, Malcolm and the Captain leaning together in quiet conversation. Nonetheless, he dropped his voice as he murmured, “He left me a message.”

“What did it say?”

“‘Love me.’ Written in letters of blood at multiple crime scenes.”

Joshi sucked in a soft, whistling breath. “That’s a creepy fucking message. It mean anything to you?”

“Just a memory.” Seong-Jae folded his arms over his chest, drumming his fingers tightly against his inner elbow, the phone propped between his shoulder and ear. “I think he was involved in those cases. In several of the homicide cases I have worked since transferring.”

“Involved how? As in he’s killing people?”

“No.” Seong-Jae hesitated, then continued, “I cannot explain it. It would be one thing if he were contaminating the scenes after the fact with his messages, but I think it is…more. I can feel his touch as if he were standing over my shoulder.”

“I’m still not even sure this Sila person exists.”

“He does.”

“Send me what you have. I’ll do what I can.” Typing again, rapid-fire, Joshi’s voice distracted. “You need anything else?”

“No,” Seong-Jae said, then stopped, hesitating. “…yes.”

A bitter snort drifted over the line. “I don’t know why I even help you anymore,” Joshi said, voice cracking subtly at the edges. “You don’t even ask how I’m doing.”

“Aanga…” Seong-Jae sighed, closing his eyes. The guilt should not ache so much after so many years, but it did. “Please. I need this to be professional. What we did once was inappropriate and out of line, and these lingering feelings you have are unwarranted.”

“That wasn’t what you said then.”

“I was trying to…” Opening his eyes, Seong-Jae pressed his palm to the pane of cool glass. Somehow the mist had become rain, and droplets streaked against the window; he could imagine he felt them soaking into his skin every time they struck the glass with a faint plimp sound. “Trying to figure myself out.”

Joshi’s voice softened, a touch of warmth, a smile audible in his words. “You and those demi sprinkles, huh?”

Seong-Jae smiled as well, even if it felt like a ghost thing, haunting his mouth. “Yes.”

“You broke my heart, you know,” Joshi murmured. “Just like that. Cut me off. Called me an ‘error in judgment’ and apologized for your professional indiscretion just as coldly as you do everything. And then you call me whenever you need a favor.”

“I…” Seong-Jae’s breath hitched. “I am sorry.”

“I actually feel sorry for the guy you end up loving for real.”

Unbidden, as if he could not control himself, his gaze drifted to the glass-fronted wall of the Captain’s office. Malcolm’s broad-shouldered frame, the easy grace with which he carried his bulk, that quiet patience that he wore like a worn and tattered cloak.

“So do I,” he murmured. “Aanga…”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Aanga grumbled. “Fuck. I hate that I’m still so weak for you.”

“I honestly do not understand how you have managed to attain and keep such a senior position.”

“Asshole,” Joshi flung back, but he was laughing, at least. “Okay, okay. Hit me.”

 “Thank you,” Seong-Jae murmured, then asked, “What can you tell me about a known cocaine distributor by the name of Jason Huang?”

^

MALCOLM CLOSED THE DOOR BEHIND him and settled to sit on the edge of Anjulie’s desk. She was pale, he thought. And that was worrisome. He was supposed to keep a line of professional detachment, but it was hard to forget that Anjulie had been his friend and a large part of his life.

Fuck. She’d given Gabrielle away at their wedding, when her parents had refused to attend.

“Hey,” he said, when she didn’t even look up at him, her flinty eyes locked on her computer screen. “You don’t look good. And that’s saying a lot.”

“I can’t remember the last time I slept,” she murmured bitterly, then rattled her fingers across her keyboard. “More paperwork than I know what to do with, and you and Yoon just keep handing me more. Why can’t you ever bring in the simple cases?”

“Because there’s no such thing as simple cases anymore.”

She smiled grimly. “Do you ever miss that? Thug shoots someone in an alley. Guy gets mad and shoots his boss. Isolated incidents. Open and shut.”

“I can’t say I miss anything about any kind of death, but it would be nice to have a case that wasn’t connected to a drug ring, borderline serial, tied to a possible international incident, or buried in layers of crypto tech.”

She snorted. “Wouldn’t that be the day.” It seemed to take physical effort for her to pull her gaze from the screen to look at him. “What do you need?”

“I…” He sighed, folding his hands against his thigh. “It’s about Sade.”

Her shoulders tightened subtly. She leaned back in her chair, lacing her fingers together, and eyed him. “What about Sade?”

“Do you know anything about…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I just wonder if, when they take off for a few weeks for family or whatever, that’s where they’re really going.”

“What makes you think that?” she asked—carefully. Too carefully.

And Malcolm couldn’t answer.

Even after those harsh words Sade had spat at him, he couldn’t answer. He couldn’t pry this way, couldn’t violate Sade’s trust…and if Anjulie knew something, he wouldn’t put her in the position of having to lie to him when it could well be a security matter above his pay grade.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

But he forced a smile, shrugging. “Nothing. Nevermind. How’s the Romeo case going?”

That careful, neutral look immediately crumpled into a grimace. “Dead-ending,” she muttered, and mussed her short black hair up with raking fingers. Abruptly, though, she diverted the subject, gaze flicking past him. “Things any better with you two?”

Malcolm glanced over his shoulder, through the glass. Seong-Jae had migrated to the far corner, standing against the wall and looking out the window, phone pressed to his ear. Malcolm had never seen that expression on his face before—lost, guilty, almost pleading.

Who was he talking to?

“We’re…spiky,” he said carefully.

“And how is that any different from normal?”

“Exactly.”

She grunted, before the sudden rattle of the casters on her chair dragged his attention back in time to watch her push back from her desk and stand, swinging into her long khaki coat. “I’m heading out.”

“Before midnight, for once?”

“Meeting up with Gabi.” With a smirk, she flicked her knuckles against his shoulder as she squeezed past him in the cramped space. “I’ll get her home before she turns into a pumpkin.”

He held his hands up. “Not my business.”

She stopped, her hand on the door handle, and gave him a long, meaningful look. “No…it’s really not.” Then she pulled the door open, lifting a hand in a wave. “‘night, Mal,” she tossed out, before pitching her voice across the room as she stepped onto the main floor. “Go home, Yoon.”

Seong-Jae glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrowing as he lowered his phone, tapping its screen and blacking it out. “No.”

Anjulie only laughed humorlessly, her long, loose steps taking her toward the door. Malcolm drifted over to his desk; he should really pack up and get going himself, but it felt like…

Like something was hanging unfinished in the air, filling the space between him and Seong-Jae now that they were alone.

He shifted to lean against his desk, crossing his legs at the ankles and folding his arms over his chest. “It’s really hard to talk to you when you’re way over there,” he said dryly. “Calling home to the folks?”

“Calling my former senior agent at the BAU.” Seong-Jae tucked his phone into his pocket and turned to face Malcolm, leaning against the windowsill and bracing his hands to either side of his hips. “I needed to know some things…and I think we need to talk.”

Malcolm gestured toward his desk with one hand. “This is the only invitation you’ll actually get to use my desk with permission.”

Seong-Jae’s lips twitched wanly. “One day you will figure out that the only person your humor amuses is yourself.”

But he pushed away from the window, his graceful, free-flowing stride making him look like a slim black crane, drifting across the room. He snagged a chair from another desk as he passed, dragging it around and turning it so its back faced Malcolm, before settling down straddling it with lean, taut-muscled thighs spread wide.

He folded his arms over the back of the chair, rested his chin atop his crossed hands, and asked, blunt and without preamble, “Did you know that Min Zhe Jason Huang is employed by the DEA?”

If Malcolm hadn’t already been leaning against the desk, he might have fallen against it. Of all the things he’d expected Seong-Jae to say… He stared at him, a sick wave rolling over him. “What?”

“I checked in with a few of my connections,” Seong-Jae said softly. “Huang is—was an undercover agent.”

“How?” The headache that hit Malcolm was swift and sharp, throbbing in his temples, a thing like his brain was trying to squeeze through a space too small for it. In some ways it was, or at least he was trying to squeeze in information his brain was actively rejecting, the square peg and round hole battling it out to leave his skull pounding. He winced, pulling his hair loose to at least try to ease some of the tension, rifling his fingers through the loose strands just to give his suddenly-restless hands something to do. “Fuck. I don’t—he’s—fuck, he’s been in the market longer than I’ve been a cop.”

“He went rogue,” Seong-Jae said. “And became what he is now. Something about how he moved when you sparred struck me as familiar, and I realized he had likely had combat training with some law enforcement agency. So I asked.”

“God damn it.” Malcolm tugged a little harder at his hair, trying to center himself, but then just stopped. He felt so old and drained, all of a sudden, the full weight of his body trying to drag him down into a heap of nothing on the floor. “What else did you find out?”

But Seong-Jae didn’t answer at first—and when he finally spoke, he sounded almost apologetic, words slow and carefully chosen. “Over twenty years ago, Huang was inserted into the local drug market as an undercover operative. The objective was for him to infiltrate, gather information on the cartel leaders at the time, and report back for extraction after two or three years.” Seong-Jae shifted to prop his chin in his palm, dark eyes regarding Malcolm thoughtfully. “Instead he rose to power…and at some point the cartel leaders he had been gathering information on simply disappeared, leaving a power vacuum.”

“One he stepped in to fill,” Malcolm concluded. “I…fuck, I need to sit down.” And he did, tilting around his desk until he fumbled down into his chair, his legs suddenly numb. Leaning forward, he buried his face into his hands. Shock, he discovered, was a strange thing that made him feel like he was lifting out of his body, experiencing everything at one remove, slowing his ability to cope down to a crawl even as his mind raced in tripwire stumbling circles with realization after realization after realization striking him like weapons fire. He practically moaned into his palms. “Every fucking dead end, every roadblock, every time he was tipped off before we could get him…”

“Inside work from an outside agency.”

“And this information was right there at your contact’s fingertips,” Malcolm spat bitterly. “One phone call, and you know…and yet no one else has…”

“Which would imply that this information is known, and perhaps particular persons of interest have not wanted to make use of it.”

Malcolm just stared at Seong-Jae. Seong-Jae looked back at him coolly, but not without a certain…Malcolm didn’t know how to explain it. Delicacy, almost, as if he was well aware exactly how Malcolm must be feeling and was giving him room to—to—he didn’t know. Rage? Struggle with comprehension? Grieve? He didn’t even know what he’d be grieving for, yet it tugged at him with insistent fingers. Anger was easier. Anger was hot and bright and cleansing, centering, making him feel anchored to the world and real instead of fuzzy and distant and lost.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he shot back. “Just ignore him now because he used to be on our side?”

“I do not know. But since you seem to bear some bizarre fondness for him despite his crimes…” With a sigh, Seong-Jae shook his head. “I thought you should know.”

“Yeah. That’s a real favor.” Slumping back, Malcolm knocked his head against the back of his chair, glaring up at the ceiling, clenching his fists helplessly. “It makes sense now, though. What he said to me.”

“What was that?”

“He told me…” Even now, Malcolm struggled with the betrayal of a confidante’s trust. With telling things that weren’t his to tell. But if he was going to confide in anyone, it had to be Seong-Jae…and this was bigger, now, than secrets between so-called friends. “He told me to tell Sade he can’t see them for a while,” he whispered. “And he told me to keep them safe.”

Seong-Jae sucked in a sharp breath. “How is Sade involved with Huang?”

“I don’t know,” Malcolm said grimly. “And I’m not sure I want to.”

^

IT FELT STRANGE, TO GABRIELLE, to step back into life in Baltimore as if she’d never left. As if the city was a quilt made up of patchwork squares, and she’d just stitched herself back into place as if she hadn’t unraveled her threads and slipped away to leave a hole behind where she had been.

The Rag Room was one such patchwork square, an old hotel bar that had somehow stayed open even when the hotel above it had shut down and been converted into apartment spaces. She’d been a regular here, once, laughing over drinks with Malcolm and Anjulie to terrible college cover bands, avoiding midterms herself and stealing little brushes of fingertip to fingertip under the bar while Anjulie pretended not to notice she and Malcolm were more soaked in each other than soaked in gin.

But as she stood on the sidewalk outside the bar, looking through the front window at how the dim golden light reflected and refracted off glass fixtures and aged brass, she wondered if she could really call herself a square in the city’s quilt at all.

When honestly, she felt as though no one had really noticed she was missing.

That was okay, she thought, smoothing her dress and patting her hair into place. It was a lonely feeling, not being missed.

But it was something she could live with, as she lived with so many other things.

When she stepped inside, Anjulie was already there, one of a few lone mid-evening patrons when at this time of night on a weeknight, anyone who had someone to go home to was already there, meeting up with their loved ones over dinner. She’d shucked her coat and rolled up the sleeves of her slim-tailored white button-down, her collar loosened and framing the sharp lines of her jaw; a martini glass sat in front of her, olive swimming at the bottom of it—but it looked entirely untouched, while Anjulie stared into it like it was some kind of divining mirror, her eyes haggard and dark. In the intimate shadows, she was all edges of gold and smoke and night, the darkness turning her shimmer-soft. Gabrielle lingered in the doorway, taking this one moment to watch Anjulie while she was unguarded and unaware, before that bristling, aggressive energy came out in an ever-shifting carousel of razor blade defenses.

Gabrielle didn’t think Anjulie would like knowing that she wore her vulnerabilities and her emotions far closer to the surface than she thought, this woman on fire and always burning with frustrations, ambitions, resentments, pains, the overwhelming sense of duty she placed on herself. That didn’t seem to have changed in all these years, Gabrielle thought.

What had changed, though, seemed to be Anjulie’s capacity to handle it.

If she was a glass vessel, filled with chaos and burning stars…

Some part of her had drained out, since the last time Gabrielle had seen her—leaving her carrying less of herself inside that slim container, and more of a pressing and entropic emptiness that would eventually swallow all.

She crossed the room, and packaged up her heartache the way she packaged everything else, tucking it away and compartmentalizing it so she could smile as she slid onto the stool at Anjulie’s side and bumped her with her hip.

“Hey.”

Anjulie jerked, pulling from her trance and lifting her head. She eyed Gabrielle keenly; her entire weight was slumped forward, hanging between her bony shoulders like she was a jacket hanging from the coathangers of her collarbones.

“Hey,” she said, and gave Gabrielle a thorough once-over. “Are you okay?”

“Are you?”

“If you’re asking me like that, I must look like shit.” With a self-mocking snort that shook her entire body, Anjulie plucked the olive from her martini with the end of a toothpick and toyed it against her teeth without biting down. “I fucked up, Gabi. I fucked up bad.”

Gabrielle signaled for the bartender. “Did you really fuck up, or are you just blaming yourself for things beyond your control again?”

“You do not get to show up here after…fuck, it’s been four years? Six? And read me for filth like you saw me just yesterday.”

“I didn’t know those privileges had a time limit.” She broke off as the bartender approached and flashed a smile, murmuring, “Gimlet, extra lime, please” before returning her attention to Anjulie. “What happened?”

“Everything happened. I don’t know. All these cases keep exploding around me, and ever since I put your fuckhead ex and his new partner together, it’s like they’re digging up all the dirt in Baltimore and dumping it at my feet.” With a hoarse sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, she bit into the olive harshly, chewing it off the toothpick and then swallowing. “I am in over my fucking head. I don’t know why I wanted to be a Captain.”

“Because you can’t become Police Chief without going through the ranks.” Gabrielle leaned over enough to rest her shoulder against Anjulie’s. “It gets worse higher up, too.”

“I know. Maybe I should be glad. With this shit on my record, I’ll never get any higher than Captain.” Anjulie’s throat worked in a hitching breath as if she might cry—but her eyes were so hard they were almost glassy, clear and dark and furious. “Maybe I don’t want to get any higher, than Captain if it means people relying on me to keep them alive. Maybe I need a demotion.”

Ah…now Gabrielle understood. She sighed, watching Anjulie worriedly. “The case with that witness and the officer?”

“Mal told you?”

“A little. That wasn’t your fault, Anji.”

“I thought I was making the right call.” Anjulie slumped forward until her mouth pressed against the rim of her martini glass; she mumbled against it. “And two people died.”

“Sometimes it happens that way. It probably would’ve happened that way no matter what you did.”

“Would it?” Still muffling her words against the glass, Anjulie used her lips to tip the glass on its edge so that some of her martini spilled into her mouth, before she bubbled into it morosely. “What if I’d just refused to let him go?”

Gabrielle couldn’t help a sad, sympathetic chuckle. “That would’ve been illegal if he hadn’t wanted to stay and you didn’t have anything to charge him with. Sometimes you can’t force people into things, even for their own good. Even to save a life.”

“Yeah,” Anjulie said, more to the glass than to Gabrielle. “I know.”

They lingered in silence for a time, while Anjulie’s martini disappeared and Gabrielle sipped her gimlet more slowly, even as glass after glass passed in front of Anjulie. She thought, right now, Anjulie didn’t need to talk.

She just needed someone who would let her be miserable without judgment, and not ask anything of her but her presence.

But by the fourth martini, Anjulie was starting to list to one side…and she eventually leaned over far enough for her head to thunk heavily to Gabrielle’s shoulder, her rather bony chin digging in painfully.

“I miss you,” she slurred, closing her eyes.

“Yeah?” Gabrielle smiled faintly, circling the rim of her glass with her fingertip, and wondered why that hurt. “Me too.”

“Don’t go home to him.” Linking her arm in Gabrielle’s, Anjulie rubbed her cheek to her shoulder. “You know it’s not good for you.”

“I know. I know, Anjulie.” Gabrielle tilted her head, watching her fondly. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m not,” Anjulie insisted, eyes still closed.

“You are.” Shaking her head, Gabrielle gently disentangled herself enough to stand, then slipped her arm around Anjulie’s waist to catch her tall, lanky frame as the woman stumbled after her. “Let me get you a cab. You can come back for your car in the morning.”

“Fine. Whatever. Sure. I’ll be a good cop and do that shit, yeah.”

Anjulie trailed off, mumbling something under her breath in Spanish; Gabrielle couldn’t catch much, just something about her abuela and some pendejo and un montaje pirotécnico, slurred out as she stumbled toward the door with Gabrielle holding her up; Gabrielle didn’t think she even really knew what she was saying, if she was muttering some half-asleep nonsense about fireworks…but she nearly drew Gabrielle up short with her next thick, half-buried murmur.

“Gabi?”

“Hm?”

“…how come we never dated?”

Gabrielle just blinked, a quiet fillip of tension rippling through her and stopping at her heart as if someone had just given it a light thump with their fingertips. She stared down at Anjulie, but Anjulie was already half-gone, and probably wouldn’t remember this in the morning.

“Mal,” she answered softly, almost under her breath. “Mal’s why.”

Anjulie’s only answer was a sighing, drowsy breath, while Gabrielle held her tongue and carefully guided her outside.

^

WHEN JASON HUANG RETURNED HOME, Sade was waiting for him.

They were a slender shape shrouded in darkness, perched on a stool before the kitchen island. Jason could feel them there before he even turned on the light, a sense of home, of rightness, that told him there was no danger from an unwanted intruder.

There was only a pair of angry, tawny brown eyes, snapping sharply and locking on him the moment Jason flicked on the dim, soft-illumination lights hanging over the stove.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” he said. “You’re back at the BPD.”

“Hello to you too,” Sade answered scathingly. “So I’m supposed to hide? Go to ground scared because you said so?” They slid off their stool, movements soundless; they were always like that, this slim flitting thing like a cat, tumble of dark hair lashing in place of an agitated tail. Their mouth trembled, then tightened into a furious line as they glared up at him. “Is this really how you end us? Using my friends to pass on your cowardly, pathetic messages? I had to hurt someone I care about so, so fucking much to keep him out of this and off your trail.” They clenched their fists, shoulders rigid. “You can’t see me for a while? That’s it?”

Jason looked down into that fine-sculpted, lovely face as if he might never see it again. He might not, if this was how Sade took things.

Maybe that was for the best.

He turned away, reaching up to pull down a tumbler from an overhead shelf. “I’m not ending us,” he said quietly. “I just need time.”

“For what?” Sade’s throaty, husky voice choked. “If I let you go, if I let go of this las thread of you I’m holding to, then what happens? You fall completely out of my reach?”

“Maybe.” Jason crossed to the liquor cabinet and drew down a bottle of bourbon, but he just…stared at it, sitting on the table next to the tumbler, without pouring. It wouldn’t help, right now. Wouldn’t even take the edge off. “I’m not who you want me to be, Sade. I haven’t been for a long time.”

“Don’t give me that. If you’re not that person, that’s by your choice. We had an agreement.” There was no forgiveness in Sade’s voice. No softness at all. Just the expectation that Jason be better than who and what he was; the belief that he could, and that was the hardest of all to listen to. “We were supposed to get out. I did. You’re the one who stayed. And for what? For what?”

When Jason didn’t answer, Sade stalked closer and caught his arm. Despite that slender frame there was strength in that grip, strength enough to drag Jason roughly around to face Sade, refusing to let him avoid looking at them head-on. Facing this. Facing them.

Facing his own hollow reflection in their eyes.

“Did you do it?” Sade demanded in a broken whisper. “Did you kill Chris Romeo and Samuel McComber?” With a sobbing breath, Sade fell against him, shoving at his chest ineffectively. “You swore it was over, Min Zhe. You said no more!”

“And I meant it,” Jason said, but Sade only crashed their fists against his chest, beating at him until he caught them by the wrists. “Sade. Sade!” He shook them gently, glaring down at them. “I didn’t kill either of them. I didn’t have them killed.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“Do you trust me that little?” Jason loosened his grip, stroking his thumbs over the soft insides of Sade’s wrists. “That was our promise. We lie to everyone else, but never to each other. Either you trust me, or you don’t.” Fuck, he felt like he was cracking to pieces as Sade looked at him with such question, such disbelief. He let them go, stepping back, letting his own hands fall. “Or you don’t want to.”

Sade wrapped their arms around themself, looking away, mouth thinning. “If you didn’t, then who did?”

“I don’t know. Someone might have gone rogue and acted without orders.”

“You don’t believe that.” Sade’s shoulders shook in a soundless, humorless laugh, before those penetrating eyes snapped back to him. “Who? Who?”

With a sigh, Jason turned back to pour his drink. “If I had to guess? That Wellington woman.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why would I lie about this?”

“I don’t know. I just…it’s too coincidental. It’s too easy.” Sade shook their head sharply. “No. I can’t—I can’t look at you right now. I have to go back to work. I have to get caught up. I’ll be at the office until morning, at this rate”

Jason finished pouring out two fingers of bourbon, then capped the bottle, set it down, and gripped the edge of the counter. Fuck, he couldn’t let this go like this. Couldn’t let Sade go like this, when for fuck’s sake, even if he might be about to lose them, he loved them. He couldn’t love anyone else. He turned, reaching for them.

“Sade—”

“Don’t touch me.” Sade flinched back, moving lithely out of his reach. “Don’t touch me!” The wary distance between them grew, one step at a time, and every inch felt like another inch Jason’s insides were stretched out, spooling from inside him to connect him to the pretty young thing who had his heart on a string. “How much longer?” Sade asked, then shook their head, pressing their fingers over their mouth. “I came to get you out. Not to get pulled in deeper.”

Jason let his hands fall uselessly. “There is no getting out for me.” Even as he said the words they felt hopeless, terrible. “This is who I am now.”

“Just like that. Just like that, you’re part of this forever.” Sade shook their head fiercely, hair whipping in accusatory lashes, eyes brimming wetly. “What happened to you? How did it come to this? Was the money just too good?”

Jason said nothing. Nothing he could say right now would make this easier for Sade; nothing would ever regain Sade’s trust. It didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that Sade would be away from this, free, no longer living this double life or walking the dangerous tightrope that kept them tethered to all the wrong people.

But then suddenly Sade was there—shoving him again, trying to move him like the wind against a mountain, but Jason didn’t try to stop them when at least Sade was touching him one last time.

“Talk to me, damn it!” Sade cried. “Who are you? Who are you now?”

“The man they abandoned,” he answered softly. “They turned their backs on me. I owe them nothing.”

“I didn’t abandon you. I’m here.” Sade fell still as though their strings had been cut, head bowing, shoulders trembling. Their hands grasped at one of Jason’s, cradling his fingers in their own. “I’m here, Min Zhe.”

Even though it broke him to do so…Jason gently pulled his hand free from Sade’s. This time he was the one who put distance between them, retreating to retrieve his tumbler and taken a bracing sip of bourbon before making himself say, “You had work to do.”

Sade only stared at him. He couldn’t bring himself to look back, not when he couldn’t live with himself if he had to face the emotions written in Sade’s eyes. The silence between them was a fragile sphere of glass, thin as paper and ready to shatter with a single touch.

And Sade broke it with a whisper, one that rang as loud as breaking. “I used to look up to you,” they said. “I’ve loved you since I was old enough to walk. But now…” The last of Sade Jason saw was a hint of motion in the corner of his eye, retreating away. “I don’t know if the man I loved ever existed at all.”

Then the creak of hinges, the slam of a door that echoed as loud as the pounding chambers of Jason Huang’s heart…and he was alone, staring down into the skim of liquid gold in the bottom of the glass.

While the last person who saw him as a man instead of a monster walked out of his life, and back into the light where they belonged.

^

MALCOLM HAD VERY LITTLE RECOLLECTION of driving home.

He didn’t know how long he and Seong-Jae had sat at the office in silence, digesting that information without words—silent but together, at least, and it was fucking better than being alone with the questions tearing through his mind.

Did Anjulie know? If Sade knew Huang…how deep in were they? How far did this go, and could Malcolm risk probing to try to find out when he no longer knew who he could trust or who might tell him the truth?

I don’t know what to do, he’d said. I just…don’t.

We go home. Seong-Jae had stood, and lightly brushed his fingers to Malcolm’s shoulder. We go home, and we regroup to face this again tomorrow.

For a moment, Malcolm had reached up to that hand against his shoulder, laced their fingers together, held.

Then Seong-Jae had pulled away, and Malcolm was alone.

As he was alone now, sitting on the couch with his elbows braced on his knees, hands intertwined, mouth pressed to his knuckles as he stared at the coffee table.

Fuck.

He really was getting too old for this job.

He pulled from inside his own head as the faint sound came of the key turning in the lock, before the door pushed open stealthily as Gabrielle tiptoed inside with her heels dangling from one hand—only to blink at him, straightening.

“Oh. You’re still up.”

“Had a lot on my mind.” He offered a faint smile and diverted away; at least having Gabi here gave him a reason to pull himself together, shove it down, lock it away until he knew how to deal with it. “Is Anjulie okay?”

“In her own way. Even if I had to send her home in a cab, falling-down drunk.” With a wry smile, she left her shoes in the entryway and padded over to drop down on the couch next to him, making it jounce gently. “She’s carrying a lot of guilt over that case.” Her smile faded as she sighed. “She sees it as a failure of leadership.”

“I don’t see what else she could’ve done.”

Making a face, Gabrielle leaned over to rest against his side, tucking her head to his shoulder, her hair a ticklish warmth spilling over his back and chest, cool and biting in a few spots where rain drops shed from her curls to soak through his shirt. “I think she’s wishing she’d forcibly arrested him. He’d have lived, in jail.”

“In this system, we don’t know that,” he murmured, grinding his knuckles harder against his mouth for a moment, then wincing and stopping when he stretched the split in his lower lip. “We don’t know much of anything.” Or maybe he didn’t, when his last bit of surety had been ripped out from under him. He frowned. “Nothing’s certain. Everything’s broken. So broken. For all we know, having Romeo in protective custody would’ve gotten him killed that much faster.”

He could feel Gabrielle looking at him—questioning, wondering, this quiet wavelength between them. She could always tell when he was upset, and a trace of sympathy was in her soft touch as she curled her fingers against his arm and pushed herself up to brush her lips to his cheek.

“Mal…”

Low, sultry, an invitation to distraction. A question, too, of if he wanted to forget for a few short hours; if she could offer anything with her touch that might ease things words couldn’t. Maybe a few days ago, he’d have tumbled into bed willingly, and lost himself for just a little while longer.

But when he turned his head to look at her, to meet her eyes, all he could see in those glimmering brown depths was that she was hurting, too.

And he couldn’t bring himself to make it worse.

He offered a faint, apologetic smile. “Not tonight, Gabi.” He shook his head ruefully. “And I think I should sleep on the couch for a while.”

Her brows drew together; for one visible second her expression crumpled, before easing into an understanding smile. “Okay,” she said warmly, and just settled to lean against him; when he eyed her, she chuckled. “It’s really okay. Fun until it’s not, remember?”

“Sure.” Carefully, though, he eased free from her, waiting until she let go and leaned back before he stood. “I think I need to go for a walk.”

There it was again—that flash of vulnerability in her eyes, before she locked it away. He almost wished he wasn’t so good at reading her, at knowing her, but…

“At this time of night?” she asked. “It’s raining.”

“I’ll be fine.” He reached down to lightly trail his fingers through her hair, then pulled back. “I always am.”

She said nothing, as he stepped into his shoes and slipped out onto the stairs.

He probably should have put on his discarded suit coat, at least—as when he stepped down the stairs and outside into the misting drizzle, he was damp all over within moments, chilling his clothing until it clung to him heavily and left him vulnerable to the chill bite in the October air. After midnight the street was mostly empty; cars parked in their places, standing guard while their owners settled into their everyday lives and wound down the end of the day with the knowledge they would have to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. Somewhere behind the walls around him, people were fighting; others were making love. Others were talking, having difficult conversations or good ones or nostalgic ones or necessary ones, while for some this hour was just the reflective glow of the television and the comfort of a solitary sofa or a companion’s arms or the warmth of a pet curled against their hip. Others were asleep already, while others…

Others lay awake, staring up at the ceiling and full of their thoughts and others’ thoughts and every small and large thing in the world, silent kin to Malcolm for all the walls that stood between them.

Malcolm stopped on the sidewalk beneath a street lamp that shone off falling raindrops to turn the entire street into glowing bronze, and looked up at the sky. The rain spilled down on his cheeks, trickling into his hair and beard like stroking fingers, and he closed his eyes and let himself stop thinking entirely. Let himself fall into the sensation, as if every cool licking droplet could wash him clean and leave him quiet.

Instead it only left him lonely, left him hollow, his chest hollow and yearning.

He wanted Seong-Jae here.

He wanted Seong-Jae here, standing with him beneath the rain, his thick black lashes spiked into dripping, curving points.

“Hi,” lilted softly at his side.

He stilled, opening his eyes—but he already knew it wasn’t who he wanted to hear, who he wanted to see. That would be too much of a coincidence.

But then so would the pretty young man standing in front of him, his long, messy platinum hair and loose t-shirt soaked in the rain, his stark green eyes bright and his smile sweet and clever and playful, standing there in the rain like some elfin pale fae.

Oh, there was some fuckery afoot tonight.

Malcolm sighed, turning toward the man, feeling so heavy, grinding in his bones. “All right. Be honest. Are you stalking me?”

“Only a little.” The man winked, then laughed, shaking his head. “God, Malcolm, I live four blocks over.”

“And you shop at Jewish grocery stores. And you just happened to be out at this time of night. In the rain.”

“I’m looking for my cat.” That lyrical British accent mocked, and he turned, almost pirouetting, arms flung out and making slashes in the drizzling rainfall before he spun to a stop. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen him? He’s all black.”

“Gom sho,” Malcolm muttered, then in English, “No cats around here, sorry.”

He turned to walk back toward his apartment. This strange little thing already knew where he lived anyway, and at least the apartment had Gabrielle and a door he could shut in this man’s face.

But the man fell into step with him, humming softly to himself and tilting his head back as if accepting the rain as a benediction, his steps straight-legged and high-kicking like a child playing in puddles. “Pity,” he said. “It’s a nice night out, at least.” He tipped his head back further, eyes almost fully closing. “I always enjoy the wind in October. It tastes like dying things, but the rain makes that smell all clean.”

Exhaling roughly, Malcolm drew to a halt, looking down at the fey young thing who’d been a one-night mistake. Any other night he might have found this bizarrely amusing, maybe even charming, but tonight he was in no mood and he might as well put a stop to this before it got any farther.

“I’m not going to ask your name,” he said firmly.

“No?” The man chuckled, eyes crinkling at the corners as he cocked his head, looking up at Malcolm almost wistfully. “I really don’t have a chance with you, do I?”

“Probably not.”

“But I bet you kept my number.”

“I’ll be correcting that shortly.” Malcolm wasn’t trying to be cruel, but he most certainly didn’t want to be unclear. He offered a tight smile. “We’ll just have to try to avoid any more of these coincidences, won’t we?”

“Such a shame. I liked you.” Clucking his tongue, the man rocked on his heels, leaning in, peering at Malcolm closely. “But you…” He suddenly lit with a brilliant, yet oddly sad smile. “Ah…I see now. You’re in love with someone.”

Malcolm lifted both brows tiredly. “That obvious, huh?”

“I do like to think sleeping with a man gives one a little intimate insight.” With a coy, almost flirtatious laugh, the man turned away…but then fell still as if arrested in a single moment, his smile fading away to leave him looking pale, drawn, tired as he returned his gaze to the rain-silvered sky. “People are strange, don’t you think?” he said softly. “They’re like little machines. You push a button, and they spit out a reaction. An emotion. Love, hate, fear, anger…it’s all just programming. You can program anyone for almost anything. Push a button, hate your parents. Push a button, hate yourself. Push a button, tumble headlong into jealousy, resentment, bitterness.” He glanced over his shoulder at Malcolm, haunted green eye knowing, thoughtful. “Push a button…fall in love.”

Malcolm regarded the nameless man. He was an odd one, but then it was his oddity that had attracted Malcolm that one night. Now, though?

Even if it was a strange moment of kinship, standing beneath the rain and thinking very different thoughts about love…something about this didn’t sit right.

“I’d like to think,” Malcolm said neutrally, “it’s something deeper than that. More than just chemical.”

“Oh?” The man arched a brow, then chuckled. “I suppose we’d never have been compatible anyway. Here I read you for an old cynic, and instead you’re an old romantic.” He turned back to face Malcolm, pushing the sodden tangle of his hair from his eyes; even soaked and dripping it was almost purely white, until it shone pale silver when wet. “Lucky him, eh?”

Despite himself, Malcolm couldn’t help but smile. God, Seong-Jae would just give him one of those looks and tell him he was being entirely irrational. “I don’t think he’d think so.”

“He might. You never know.” Lacing his fingers together behind his back, the nameless man took a few steps backward in the opposite direction from Malcolm’s apartment, smiling ever-so-bright. “Take good care of him, Malcolm Khalaji. Goodnight.”

“‘night.” Malcolm didn’t move, not until he was sure the man was walking away for good. “Good luck finding your cat.”

“He’ll be all right,” sailed back merrily, drifting over the night as the nameless man practically danced away, a strange and unreal apparition moving ghostly through the rain. “Sooner or later…he always comes home to me.”

^

BY PREDAWN LIGHT, THE PADRILLE lost its glitter and glow until it was a tired place of stained napkins and the castoff bits of humanity left behind on the tables, the dance floor, the walls. Cigarettes with lipstick prints, gum wrappers, condom wrappers, blood, other fluids, bits of broken glass, empty little tiny plastic ziplock baggies that probably came right out of Jason’s stock. All was silent as the grave, save for the faint noise of  a few people on cleanup behind the bar below, clanks and shufflings and whispered curses. The smell was thick and heavy, a decaying thing of flesh, as dead as the man who had once owned the place.

The woman who sat across from Jason, however, was very much alive, and studying him with a cold, snakelike gaze over her splayed nail tips as she crossed her legs and settled primly into the lush violet velvet sofa of the upper level VIP area.

Lillienne Wellington made a poised and elegant figure in her white sheath dress, her sun-streaked hair tumbling everywhere, fresh as if she’d just come off the dance floor at the club rather than standing as matron over what took place in those shadowed, gyrating clusters of bodies where secrets passed from lips to lips and hands to hands. If he wanted to tell the truth, Jason would rather have anyone but her here. She was too new. Too messy.

And she was going to get the wrong people killed.

He said nothing until she sighed, glancing at the tall, thick-set man hovering at her shoulder with his feet braced and his hands clasped. “Give us a moment, would you?”

With a curt nod, the bodyguard retreated wordlessly, unlatching the velvet rope at the head of the stairs and stepping downward. Lillienne watched him go with coolly lidded eyes, then flashed Jason a sardonic, mockingly pleasant little smile.

“There. Privacy. Happy?”

Not really.

“You need to stop,” he said without preamble. “You don’t know what you’re doing, and while you try to take the training wheels off you’re going to crash into every last one of us and bring us all down.” He flicked her over with a look. Sitting pretty and clean, like none of this could touch her. “Garvey knew his place. Don’t forget yours.”

That false smile melted into a more genuine one—if ice could melt at all, chilly and disdainful. “Mr. Huang.” She said his name as though trying it on, and deciding it didn’t fit. “I make my own place.” Her smile vanished, her gray eyes flat and dead. “And I’m not amused by that little stunt you pulled with Edmund Bishop.”

“You knew.”

“That you used my dead lover’s pocket hitman and a few falsely labeled shipping crates to place me under suspicion? I suppose it’s not a bad way to divert attention away from your…ah…expansion activities, to put it delicately.” She flicked her fingers with dismissive composure, the tilt of her chin haughty. “Really. I’m a Wellington. How little business sense do you think I have?”

“Were you the one?” he demanded. “Did you leak my stock to your runners?”

“I did not. It sounds like you have bigger problems than me.” She arched her brows, pursing her lips mockingly. “Rats within your organization, perhaps?”

“I don’t think so.” And he didn’t believe her—but for right now, to keep a tense and uneasy peace, he would take it at face value and let the subject drop. “Don’t you think it’s a little too coincidental?”

He rose—the energy inside him wouldn’t let him sit still, bristling and uneasy and disquieted. Sade had been his point of calm, and without that influence, with the jagged-edged hole still inside him where Sade had been, he was a mess of chaotic energy and ripping, spinning thoughts and tension that coursed through his entire body, turning the blood in his veins into acid.

He paced the tight confines of the VIP section, knotting his hands together behind his back. “My stock leaks to your people on a seemingly authorized distribution, but neither of us had anything to do with it. Then my only choice is to eliminate them, and make it look like you’re behind it—or my entire operation comes crashing down.”

“What are you implying?”

“That we’re being set against each other.”

She scoffed. “By whom?”

“I don’t know.” He stopped, making himself look at her fully. Gweilo like her always pissed him off, looking down their noses at him and acting like nothing could touch them because they had money—but right now they were better off working for each other than against each other. “They’re starting to fuck with me and mine, Wellington. I’m not here for that.”

“Nor am I.” She stood, moving with the languid elegance of a gazelle, and sauntered to the minibar ensconced against one wall. “What are you proposing?”

“Somebody’s got their fingers in both our pies. I’m proposing that we find out who. Together.”

“Collaboration does have its merits, Mr. Huang.” She uncapped a crystal vial of whiskey and poured out a finger’s worth into two tumblers, then picked up both and swayed toward him with a thoughtful, calculating smile. “I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” She paused, cocking her head, then smirked and shrugged one shoulder. “Well. A lucrative partnership, at least. So.” She offered him one of the tumblers. “What, then, is our first move?”

He took the drink, but didn’t taste it. He wasn’t sealing bonds with her over liquor; that was for people he trusted. “Getting our hands on Edmund Bishop.”

“And then what?”

“Depends on what he says, doesn’t it.” He looked down into the tumbler thoughtfully, swirling the whiskey inside, watching it slosh against the sides. “Maybe we ship him off somewhere to retire where there’s no extradition. New identity, nice little bank account, done. Little thank-you for his service.” He looked up at her from under his brows, watching her speculatively. “Or maybe we do to him what you did to Chris Romeo.”

With a flippant little laugh, Lillienne swayed close and tapped her glass to his as if in a toast. “What makes you so certain that was me?”

But she froze when he caught her wrist, holding her there as he leaned in, meeting her eye to eye. “I know what it smells like when a wildcat covers her tracks.”

Rather than struggle, she regarded him flintily, utterly cold and unruffled. “A wildcat, am I?” She moved in on him, then, close as breathing, close as kissing, her smile oily and dark. “Perhaps you should be more careful, then. Never forget, Mr. Huang…” She turned her head, her voice a mockery of intimacy against his ear, purring and slick. “Wildcats have claws.”

Then she ripped her arm from his grasp and walked away from him.

Turning her back on him, without a single ounce of fear.

This woman, Jason Huang thought…

This woman was going to destroy them all.

 

 [THE END]

 

Read on for a preview from CRIMINAL INTENTIONS Season One, Episode Six: WHERE THERE’S SMOKE!