BOSSY BROTHERS: JOHNNY

by Huss, JA

  If I wasn’t who I am. If I didn’t already know how to make folders in my brain to save myself from the insanity, I would not be able to say yes to her question.

  But I am who I am. And I make that folder real quick. Stick a fucking label on it that says ‘Creepy Girl’ and nod my head. “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell you. But you need to let me go and forget you ever saw me. If anyone ever comes asking about me? You don’t know me. Understand? That’s the deal.”

  “Done,” I say without emotion.

  “Your mother’s not dead. She’s part of the Company now. But trust me on this, OK? You don’t wanna know your mother. Don’t go looking for her again.”

  My mouth actually falls open.

  “You want answers? There are your answers. You said you knew about the rat. Megan’s longevity treatment is already being applied to babies. I missed it, unfortunately. But Maisy didn’t. She’s the new rat, Johnny Boston. They will never give her up. Just let it go. Let it all go.”

  I don’t know how many minutes I stand there trying to process this girl and her revelations, but it’s many. So many the little girl crawls over the bed to her plate of food and she’s happily chewing her sandwich by the time I snap out of it.

  “Do they know you’re telling me this shit?”

  “I don’t really work for them,” she says, still chewing her bite of sandwich. “I work for my team. They’re the only ones I care about. I do these jobs because they tell me to. That’s all.”

  “Who is on your team?”

  She just laughs and some of her sandwich flies out of her mouth. She covers her mouth, chews thoroughly. Bobbing her head back and forth in one of those I’m-chewing-here-be-with-you-in-a-sec motions. Finally, she’s done. “Listen to me. You don’t want that information. They’ll just kill you if I tell you their names.”

  “How deep does this go?” I whisper. Because I’m getting a very bad feeling in my gut. A hopeless feeling. Remember the downside of hope? It’s fragile. One little thing can shatter it. And I feel it breaking in billions of pieces right now.

  “Deep,” the girl says.

  “But you said you don’t work for them. How did you manage that?”

  “I was sold four years ago. The guy who bought me? He’s an untouchable. He might just run a clean-up team, but he’s part of the founding families. And he just wants to do his job and be left alone. It’s as outside as he can manage for now. And he took me along for the ride, so…” She shrugs. “Fuck it. I’m untouchable now too.”

  I sit down on the bed and breathe. Counting my breaths. Hastily making new folder, after new folder, after new folder inside my brain.

  “Look,” she says. Scooting over to sit next to me. “I have a feeling we’re doing something bigger than even I know about. So if you’re feeling clueless right now? It’s… normal.”

  Jesus Christ. Is this kid trying to comfort me?

  “What do you mean?” I mumble, still arranging folders in my head. Desperately trying to file shit away.

  “One of my guys? He’s been in contact with another kid like me. Well—” She bobs her head a little like she’s thinking about that. “She’s not a kid anymore. I think she’s like twenty-something now. But she was like me before she got out. And he thinks something big is going to happen soon. You know. Like it did that one time? Out in Santa Barbara?”

  I turn my head and squint at her.

  “You don’t know about that?”

  “No. What are you talking about?”

  “The Company,” she whispers.

  “What company?” Because she’s used that term twice now.

  “Oh, man. You really are clueless. That’s the parent name of the Way. The people in charge. Haven’t you ever met them?”

  “No,” I breathe. “I don’t think I ever have.”

  “Well, this girl, when she was my age, she took down the whole thing.”

  I laugh. “Apparently not. Since we’re still here.”

  The kid shrugs. “She made things harder, that’s for sure. That’s why the Way had to reorganize everything about nine years ago.”

  I do the math. Counting back nine years. What was I doing nine years ago?

  Logan and I were killing those government black ops guys on that joint job my father and his boss sent us on. That’s what was happening nine years ago.

  Coincidence?

  Dunno.

  “Of course, this was before my time,” she continues. “I was just learning to read and write back then. But for a while there I’m told life got easier. They’ve reorganized now. But my team thinks they’re going down for good this time. Real soon, too. Because some bad-ass from Central America has been killing the kids like me to put an end to the Company once and for all. He’s not going to get me, that’s for sure. I’m not even in the system anymore and anyways, we have a plan. And I don’t need you fucking things up. So even if you’re not the kind of guy who’s good for his word, I really hope you’ll do me a professional courtesy and keep your mouth shut once I’m gone. It’s not my fault I’m mixed up in this shit. I’m mostly just a work-for-hire mercenary. I don’t normally steal samples of infectious diseases.”

  “Who are you?”

  Her smile is big and suddenly she’s just a kid again. Then she puts her little hand out. “I’m Indie.” I shake it on instinct. “Nice to meet you Johnny Boston. Now, can you please just put me on a life raft with a satellite phone so I can call for a pick up and go home? I have a life, you know. And plans for next weekend.”

  “Another job?” I ask. Raising one eyebrow.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m going on my first date next weekend and I’m kind of excited about it.”

  “He a merc? Like you?”

  “No. He’s the boy next door, if you must know.”

  I blink at her. Twice. Trying to give my brain time to make yet another folder. Then I say, “Does your team know about Megan’s secret research?”

  She just shrugs. “They don’t like to tell me too much. They think it’ll mess with my mind and distract me on the job.”

  “What kind of sick fucks are you mixed up with, kid?”

  “Me?” She tsks her tongue. “Look in the mirror, buddy.”

  Can’t argue with that.

  Psychopaths all the way around.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - MEGAN

  The mattress dips beside me when Johnny finally crawls into bed. He’s naked, and warm, and he slips his arms underneath me and pulls my back into his chest.

  “Sorry,” he whispers in my ear. “Things got very complicated.”

  “Everything OK?” I mumble back. Which I know is a dumb question, but I’m still half asleep.

  He sighs. Then he kisses my neck and his hand begins to wander down the curve of my hip. When he reaches the peak he pauses. Then his fingers slip between my legs. “I think I love you,” he says.

  I smile in the dark. Enjoying the slow way his fingers are exploring me. Enjoying the tingle rising inside my belly and the wetness they make.

  “I want you, Megan. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a woman so much in my entire life. And maybe that’s not love. Maybe it’s not possible to fall in love with someone over the course of a week, but I can’t stand the thought of losing you.”

  “I’m right here,” I murmur.

  “I know, but listen. That little girl told me something and I think you need to know about it.”

  I listen carefully as he starts explaining his encounter with the hazmat girl. And the whole thing turns into a nightmare. One detail in particular makes me sicker than the others. The part about my longevity treatment already being applied to babies. Kids. And he mentions Maisy specifically.

  His niece.

  I almost don’t hear the rest of it. The part about the infection and the vaccines. Because while all that stuff is horrible, sick, and disgusting, none of that has any bearing on what I was planning to do tomorrow.

  But the babies. Th
e kids.

  They have everything to do with tomorrow.

  My father knew what he was doing down in his lab. And he knew that bringing me in on it was dangerous so he explained this to me very thoroughly when we first started. And then again, many times, as I got older.

  I knew that eventually, one day, we’d get caught. And one day, one of us would have to take the fall.

  And it was always going to be him.

  I knew that. I agreed to that. It was always the plan.

  I was OK with that. Not fine with it, but I had come to accept it. Once the Way knew about the secret we were keeping down in the lab everything would change.

  And when they came for us in the middle of the night I thought they knew. I thought for sure they knew.

  But they didn’t.

  The Way knows something. They have suspicions. But they do not know what we’ve done. If they did we wouldn’t be playing this game with them right now. I’d be locked up somewhere. That dungeon I was in wouldn’t have been a set up to trick Johnny. It would’ve been real.

  They would’ve never let me out of their sight for as long as I lived.

  So our secret is safe. It still has power.

  But now that I know about the kids… it’s just… not enough.

  “I don’t really understand all this stuff, Megan. But I think we should talk it through. Because this is the key. I feel it.”

  But when he starts to say more I put my fingers up to his lips and say, “Shh.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “So let’s make the most of it.” I turn over and let my hand start wandering down his chest, stopping at the tip of his semi-hard cock to massage it with my thumb.

  “We don’t have to—”

  “We do,” I say, leaning over to kiss his mouth. “We absolutely do,” I whisper past his lips.

  “I don’t want it to be goodbye,” he says, still kissing me.

  “It’s not,” I reassure him.

  Because while he’s been down below getting his answers I’ve been up here making decisions. Trying to understand the consequences of tomorrow.

  But I don’t want to think about that now. I just want to think about him. I pull down my shorts and kick them aside under the covers, then ease my leg over his legs and position myself on top of his chest. I just barely make out the blue of his eyes in the coming dawn when I place both hands on his cheeks and lean in to kiss his mouth.

  The kiss is slow. And tender. And if I didn’t know better, I would think we’ve been partners forever. Because it feels familiar and safe. His kiss feels like home.

  I reach down between my legs and wrap my hand around his cock, squeezing and pumping just enough to get him fully hard.

  His hands find my hips and begin massaging small circles across my ass cheeks. Slipping between my legs to tease me.

  But this isn’t about teasing. So I lift up, place his cock at my entrance, and then sink down.

  He moans and forces my face down to his. This kiss is harder. More desperate. More demanding. Like he needs to take control of something. Anything.

  Me.

  I sit up a little and begin to fuck him slowly. My long hair dragging along his chest as I rock back and forth. Trying to get him as deep inside me as possible.

  His hands come up to my breasts. Gripping them tight, then easing up until his touch is gentle and nice.

  I lean my head down and sigh when we bump foreheads. Our breathing matches and gets a little bit heavy. His eyes open, and my eyes open, and that’s when I know what I have to do.

  I plan it as we make love. I iron out all the details as he thrusts deep inside me. I accept the loss that’s coming when I arch my back and moan up at the ceiling.

  And when we come, I know what I have to do.

  I know everything in that moment.

  But mostly I know this: I would do anything for this man.

  Absolutely anything.

  When we’re done we shower together. It’s not a big shower because this isn’t a stateroom, just a guest room. But he lifts me up and slips his cock inside me, and we fuck this time. Nothing but lust. Nothing but desperation. Nothing but the primal need to connect before it all turns to shit.

  And then we get dressed. I don’t complain about the tactical gear. I don’t care about the heat, I just put it on. He adjusts my armored vest, making sure I’m as safe as I can possibly be. And then we head up top together where Logan is pacing back and forth in front of the navigation table with a satellite image of the prison island in the center.

  They plot and plan. Many men come in and join us. At one point a breakfast buffet appears on the other side of the dining room and people begin to eat.

  I scan the weapons lined up on a long table as Johnny walks over to me. “You want a gun?” he asks.

  I swallow hard, do my best not to sigh, and then look at him and nod. “Yes. Can I have this one?” I point to a Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm that’s lying on top of a thigh holster.

  “That one, huh?” He grins. It’s the first smile I’ve seen on him since before the drone came and ruined our lives last night. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” I say.

  “OK,” he says. Then he straps the holster onto my thigh and slips the gun in. “But only for a ‘just in case’ moment, you hear me? I don’t want you in the middle of shit.”

  “Johnny, I’m already in the middle of shit.”

  He nods and exhales. “I know. But just… let me handle it, OK? That’s why I’m here.”

  “OK,” I whisper. Because I want to believe that even more than he does.

  “So,” Logan says, walking over to us. “What do you want to do with the girl?”

  Johnny says, “Put her in a life raft with a satellite phone and leave her here.”

  “What?” I say. “You can’t leave her in the middle of the ocean. She’ll die.”

  “Trust me.” Johnny sighs. “She will be fine.” I furrow my brows at him but he puts up a hand. “I swear to God, she will be fine. Her team is going to come pick her up. And if I could make one suggestion,” he says, raising his voice and directing it at the men in the room with us, “every single one of you should forget you ever saw her.”

  “Oh,” I say. Because he left that part out last night. I wonder what else he left out?

  Johnny nods. “Yeah. Oh.”

  And then it’s time to leave. Johnny and I take the tender boat back over to his yacht. And for some reason I fixate on the name painted on the side as we approach. Because I hadn’t noticed or thought about her name until now.

  She’s called the High Hopes.

  And then I look back at Logan’s yacht and read her name too. Dead Ends.

  And then I wish I hadn’t seen either one. Because when you put them together it’s a bad omen.

  High hopes and dead ends.

  It feels like the alpha and the omega.

  The beginning of the end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - JOHNNY

  I want to protect her. That’s all I want out of this exchange.

  “Listen to me,” I say, turning towards Megan. I’m at the helm and she’s sitting on the bench seat next to me, the prison island only a few miles off in the distance. “We’re going to do this just like we planned, OK? We’re going to go in there, we’re going to tell them about your secret, make our deal, and get out.”

  She says nothing. Just stares straight ahead.

  “It’s a good plan, Megan. It’s going to work.”

  “Maybe” she whispers. “I mean, it probably could. But there are consequences and—”

  “I get it,” I say. “It’s fucked up. What you and your father did was fucked up. But they’ve backed us into a corner now. We have no other choice. We have to use that threat.”

  Megan’s real secret is a game changer. She and her father have been doing some pretty fucked up science down in their island laboratory. Not the fucked up shit we saw on that island yesterday. No one’s getti
ng hurt.

  Yet.

  But the potential… Jesus Christ. Her secret is a goddamned get-out-of-jail-free card if ever there was one.

  And they can’t kill her and her father. They need one of them alive. They need that so much more than money at this point. As long as one of them is still alive the Way keeps going. They keep their power, they keep their money… what they don’t get to keep are the people in those labs. And the prisons. And the ones they’re experimenting on in the migrant camps.

  They have to be willing to kiss their Fountain of Youth project goodbye.

  They give us that, they keep all our family and friends safe, and Megan lets the Way live to see another day.

  That’s the deal.

  “Listen,” Megan says. “I have to tell you something.”

  I turn to her. Find her face lined with worry. “What? What is it? Are you scared? It’s OK. It’s going to work out, I promise. Our threat is a good one. You’ll see.”

  No,” she says. “Well, yes. Of course I’m scared. But… there’s a problem. That stuff that girl told you last night?’

  “What about it?” I ask. And that fucking sinking feeling I had last night is back. It’s all I can do to swallow down the vomit because I feel it. I feel what’s coming.

  Defeat.

  “She told you that they were already applying my treatment to the kids, right?”

  I nod. Trying to be calm. Trying to pretend this isn’t what I think it is. “Yeah. So…”

  “So… that means what my father and I have been doing to the leaders of the Way? We’ve been doing it to the kids too, Johnny. And she mentioned Maisy. She said her name and—”

  I turn away and stop listening.

  No. No. This can’t be true. We’re so fucking close to winning. Megan has been holding on to the ultimate trump card this whole time and she finally has a way out. She can get us all out but…

  “She’ll die, Johnny. We can’t use this. I won’t be responsible for killing children. So I’m going to go in there and just give myself up. Then—“

  No!” I say. Spinning back around to face her. “No. Fuck that. I didn’t come this goddamned far to lose you now. They’re not going to push you on this, OK! Trust me. Your threat is real. They won’t take any chances.”