by Lacey Dailey
He kissed my cheek. “How was your day?”
“I can’t actually remember anything that happened before the last thirty minutes. In fact, I don’t even know what day it is.”
His shoulders shook with laughter. “Fuck. You’re cute.”
“Cute is not the word I would use to describe what just happened.”
To my dismay, he tucked himself back in his pants and zipped up. I followed suit and let him tug me into his chest. “So, something happened today.”
“Fuck yeah, something did.” I let out a hoot.
He shook his head with a smile. “You loon. That isn’t what I meant.”
“Alright. Lay it on me. What happened?”
“It went through.”
“Uh…”
“My online application.” He elaborated, a shake of nerves snaking into his voice. “For the police academy. It went through. I have to make an appointment for the testing.”
“Babe!” I shot to my feet like the floor was about to collapse. “No way! Congratulations!”
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, staggering to his feet. “That’s if I pass.”
I frowned. “Why would you not pass?”
“Because I’m a two-time college drop out? I studied chemistry. Not criminal justice. What the fuck do I know?”
There was this feeling. I got it in my chest sometimes. A little twinge that occurred when I was hearing something that put a teeny tiny crack in my heart. Over the short course of time I’ve known Brett Maddison, those cracks formed more often than not. Each time he talked about himself like he wasn't worth the time of day, a little sliver was added to the collection.
“It’s. . . whatever.” He shrugged and stepped around me before I had a chance to speak. I watched him yank open the refrigerator and stare inside of it.
“Brett—"
He angled his head to face me, a look I’ve come to know well appearing on his face. It screamed for me to give him an outlet to forget whatever burdens were pressing down on him. Fear overcame him with just one sentence. One thought about his future. Looking at him, you’d think he was worried about what would happen when he didn’t pass. I knew my man well enough to know he was scared of what would happen when he did.
“You’re going to be one badass cop, you know that?”
He snorted. “You just want to perv on me in my uniform.”
“I sure as shit do.” I pointed at the open door. “You gonna stare at our empty refrigerator or you wanna go out for dinner?”
“Are you mine tonight?”
I was his every damn day, but I knew that wasn’t what he was asking. “You betcha.”
“Cool. This place is lonely on the nights you’re at Pathways.”
“I can skip a few nights.” The offer flew right out of me. Like vomit after a long night of drinking. “Help you study for those tests. My supervisor won’t mind.” Hell. Cruz would probably be happy to get my ass out of there for a few extra days. I took annoying him to a serious level. August and I were in a bet. Who could irritate Cruz worse? I was winning by a fuck ton of bitcoins.
“No way.” He dismissed that immediately and crossed his arms over his chest. “You do some important shit while I sit here on my ass.”
“You don’t sit on your ass.” I reached around him and took a handful of it. “This ass is way too firm. You probably do squats in between research sessions.”
“Research sessions?”
My lips pulled into a smile. I leaned forward and kissed his lips. “Brett, you don’t have to play it cool. Not with me. I know how much time and thought you’ve put into this decision since we first discussed it. I know how invested you are. How excited you are and how fucking scared you’ll be once you pass this exam. You don’t want to fail at this career, I know, but Brett? You won’t.”
He released a breath of air big enough to rock his body backward. Our foreheads connected and he pushed his hands in my hair like he did when he was wound up. “It’s like I’m a wide-open book around you, A. Totally exposed.”
That might’ve been true, but I thought it had more to do with the way I read his pages. I often wondered why I was the only one who saw the fear he harbored and the struggles he fought off daily. Then I thought it was because he was bound into a language only I could understand. And I was bound with the same one.
“You’re gonna pass this test, B. You’re gonna go to the police academy, kick some ass, and then come home to me so I can call you Officer Maddison while you frisk me.”
He threw his head back and let out a laugh. “Will you be doing something that would require me to frisk you, Mr. Jackson?
“I’m packing something in my pants that is borderline illegal. You’ll need a clear inspection, I’m sure.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for when I get my badge.”
“You could practice right now. For your test, I mean.” I flashed him a wink. “Sure, all those books you bought and are highlighting the shit out of will come in handy, but if you need a human to frisk, I volunteer.”
He shook his head and backed me against the refrigerator. “You are trouble, ya know that?”
I dipped my head and licked up his neck, grinning at the way he trembled and pushed his hips into me, ready for round two. Fuck. It was good to be twenty-three. “What are you gonna do about it, Officer Maddison?”
He pressed his lips right to my ear. My heart beat with the force of one thousand drums while I waited for what he would say. Something that would turn me into putty, I was positive. But when he bit the tip of my earlobe and whispered directly to my dick, I nearly disintegrated.
“I might have to cuff you.”
I groaned and attacked his lips the moment the sound of our front door unlatching filled the apartment.
“Ace!”
“Go home!” I turned my head and hurled a poisonous look at Wren. He was standing in my doorway and scanning the position I held, sandwiched between my boyfriend and a kitchen appliance with a bare chest and wrinkled pants.
“I’m sorry.” Wren’s lips morphed into the smuggest fucking look I’d ever seen. “Was I interrupting?”
“Yes. You were. Officer Maddison was just about to frisk me.”
Brett chuckled, unfazed by my word vomit and non-existent mouth filter. “You should knock, dude.”
“If you want people to knock, lock your door.” Wren stepped further inside and kicked our front door shut behind him. “I need your help, man.”
I wiggled against Brett, who still hadn’t backed away. I couldn’t decide if it was to conceal his stiffy or if he liked being close to me. I wasn’t sure I cared either way.
“Is it an emergency?” My eyes narrowed at my best friend, still dressed in the polo and khakis he wore to work as head of IT at a recruiting firm his sister founded. This was one of two nights off I had from Circuit. One of two we both had off. “Brett and I have plans.”
“It’s fine, babe.” Brett kissed my forehead and stepped back. “Go ahead.”
Wren sighed and adjusted his glasses. “Dude, I’m sorry. I just got off the phone with our supervisor. Pathways needs us.”
My heart sped up. I held back from throwing Brett across the room and barreling to grab my phone. It had gone neglected after eight hours of massage therapy and getting my brains sucked out through my dick. For all I knew, there was a message waiting for me from the devil himself. With Wren's impromptu appearance, I'd bet money Satan was coming back from hell. All of Circuit was hacked into my email. The second I got a message from Kade, the whole damn team did.
“You should go, A.” Brett nudged me and flashed me a sweet smile. “I’ll wait up for you.”
“I’d rather spend the evening watching you study while simultaneously doing one-handed push-ups.”
“Man,” he barked a laugh. “I don’t know what the hell you think I do—"
“Shh.” I pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t ruin it. I'll see you in a few hours.”
“I’l
l be waiting.”
The dark look in his eyes told me exactly where he’d be waiting for me and that he'd be wearing nothing but his birthday suit. I kissed him one last time and moved down the hall to change from my work pants. Apparently, I had a date with the devil.
11
Ace
It was an accident.
Four words. Four words that held absolutely no importance to me. What the fuck was the accident and why should I care? More importantly, why did Kade Wilson think I’d give even one measly shit about any sort of accident he was in? The longer I spent analyzing Kade, the more convinced I became that he was the sociopath of all sociopaths. The king of the crazies. The leader of the loonies. With each email he sent me, it felt as though he was trying to recruit me into his band of bozos. I was not here for that.
It was an accident.
“Is he talking about Sage?” I tugged at my hair and sat back in my chair, propping my feet on the edge of my desk. I’d eaten almost an entire bag of Red Vines in the twenty minutes I’d been staring at the email.
In those minutes, I’d been through three phases of emotions. First, I was freaking the fuck out that a human trafficker/serial killer/drug lord was seemingly stalking me and sending me cryptic messages. After a good pop to the nuts from August, I moved into phase two.
Anger. Who did this joker think he was? Strutting into my perfectly fine life and attempting to fuck it all up? As far as I was concerned, he and his greasy ass hair could get shanked in a prison raid.
As the clock moved into minute twenty-one, my anger morphed into good quality annoyance. I didn’t have time for this. I had a boyfriend. A job. A kick-ass alter ego. A fucking life I was excited about. I didn’t want to waste the seconds I was given decoding Kade Wilson’s bullshit emails. And I couldn’t help but think if it wasn’t for Sage, and the possible threat this meant for her, I’d flash my middle fingers to the screen and give Kade a big ol’ fuck you.
“What about Sage?” Poor Wren looked like he’d been chewed up and spat out. His hair was disheveled. His glasses were crooked. All one thousand of his freckles were buzzing around his skin in a frenzy. Even with Sage sitting right there on his lap, her head resting against his chest, he was terrified for her.
I didn’t blame him. The love my brother had for his girl was the forever kind.
“Why would you think this is about me?” Sage was doing her best to play it cool. Act like this wasn’t affecting her as immensely as it was. And maybe no else saw the way her fist was twisted in Wren’s shirt, her face pushed into his neck. But I saw it. And I knew she was struggling.
“I don’t know anything, phantom girl,” I said lightly. “I’m just throwing out suggestions.”
Wren let out a disgusted snort. “It wasn’t an accident to shoot up a Wells Fargo and kidnap Sage.”
“I second that,” August blurted from behind Wren, smacking his palms against his desk. “Nothing he did to Sage was an accident. That man is a sick fuck.”
“It’s true,” Sage mumbled. “The times he hurt me were on purpose. Being high and sloshed out of his mind was never an excuse. Nothing he did was an accident. There were times I tried to convince myself it was. But it wasn’t. No.” She shook her head and swiped at her eye. “This isn’t about me.”
“Let’s re-route the focus then.” Cruz stepped down from his platform and paced around the Circuit board. He scratched at the Puerto Rican flag tattooed on his forearm and pulled his lips into a snarl. No First Name Cruz was getting just as annoyed as I was. “Let’s just assume the first email has to do with this second one.”
“There is zero commonality between them,” Zelda tossed out, gesturing to her screen with a flail of her hand. “What do we have to go on?”
I felt thirteen pairs of eyes roam my body. It made me itchy. I flailed in my chair and pulled at my T-shirt, trying to remove some of the weight. “Don’t look at me! Just because Kade chose me doesn’t mean I can decode his psychopath messages.”
“Maybe we should focus on what the message means rather than why he’s sending it.” Our friendly neighborhood chocolate swirl stood up and yanked off his tie. “He’s admitting to some sort of accident. Everything else we know about Kade Wilson points to him being the poster child for narcissism. Why would he admit to being involved in an accident? To a stranger no less?”
“Not to argue with the hotshot FBI agent in the room.” I cleared my throat. “But how do we know Kade was even in the accident, Marshall? How do we know he’s not just talking out of his ass about some random accident he saw on the news in the group room in prison?”
“Kade isn’t allowed in a group room or whatever the fuck you just called it.”
If anyone would know, it’d be Marshall. Being an intelligence analyst for the FBI meant he waded in deeper shit than all of us combined. Half the time I wasn’t sure how Circuit would function without our double agent. The files he illegally copied on the regular usually gave us more intel than we needed to take down an asshole. But in this case, I wasn’t sure there was a such thing as too much intel. Kade Wilson’s brain was a never-ending maze with sides so high, you couldn’t ever be sure where you were headed next. The only way out of the maze was to go deeper in.
“I have no idea what Kade’s talking about,” Marshall sighed and rubbed at his face. “Your guess is as good as mine, but my instincts tell me that this means something. It just doesn’t seem right that a man who thrives on power and control would admit to being the victim of an accident.”
“It’s not right.” Sage sat up on Wren’s lap, pulling back her shoulders. “It’s completely impossible. Kade Wilson is not a victim. He wouldn’t throw out the possibility of an accident if made him look weak. In fact, I’m not even sure he caused it. Kade never liked to admit when he was wrong. Prison is the first time he’s ever had to take responsibility for his actions. I have no idea what this accident is but it’s highly possible he’s just going senile and trying to fuck with Ace.”
“Well.” I clicked my tongue and slammed my keyboard, bringing my sleeping monitor back to life. “I love you, phantom girl but I absolutely refuse to believe that. I don’t know who I look like and I sure as fuck don’t know anything about any kind of accident, but Kade doesn’t seem like the kind of man to do something without a purpose. And I want some God damn answers.”
“Kade isn’t a man, Ace,” she whispered, her trembling fingers linking with Wren’s. “He’s a monster.”
I swallowed the hesitation I felt as a reaction to the unadulterated fear plastered across Sage’s face. It’d be naive of me not to be at least a little frightened with what was happening. But that fear only drove me.
My feet hit the floor with a smack. I sat up straight and popped my knuckles, positioning them on the rubbed off letters of my keyboard. “All the more reason to catch him then.”
Cruz clapped his hands once and pointed at me, a fire burning in his dark eyes. “I like the way you think, mano. Alright Circuit, let’s go!” With one leap, he was back on his platform, swiping his finger across the touchscreen monitor he had built into his desk. “I want every single one of you looking into Kade’s past. This motherfucker has a rap sheet a mile long. Study it! Pull out anything that could possibly be an accident and flag it. It won’t be hard, but it will take a while to sift through it all. So, let’s get to work.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath, ready to launch myself into the role I played when I was down here. Mischief was ready to fuck someone up, and I was twitching with three powerful emotions all fighting to take the lead inside me. Before I could channel anything into building hacking hell, Sage cleared her throat and brought me back.
“I’m sorry.” She smiled meekly. “About your night with Brett, I mean. I’m sorry you had to miss it.”
“Not your fault, phantom girl. Don’t worry.”
I lifted my shoulder in a small shrug and focused my attention back on my waiting computer. I fought with myself in order to appear
fine. As if her words didn’t affect me. Really though, I was struggling. The muscles around my ribs felt tight. The top layer of my skin felt heavier than ever. An invisible weight was crashing down upon me that my mind could only recognize as guilt. Guilt was a fucking thief. It consumed a man. Tortured a man. Robbed him of rational thoughts and actions. It was a sad excuse of an emotion. It didn’t do crap. It couldn’t change a situation or make anyone feel better. Still, I succumbed to it. And suddenly, I found it hard to get my fingers to move.
“Ace?” I heard Wren’s voice pushing against the fog of guilt. “You good?”
“Who? Me?” I forced a dry laugh from my throat. “I’m great, man. Ready to work.”
“You’re a lying sack of shit is what you are,” August blurted. “You look like somebody shoved a cactus up your ass.”
“My ass is fine, thank you very much,” I retorted. “Worry about yourself and get to work.”
A big breath rolled out of me. I schooled my face and tried to take my own advice. That worked for all of sixty seconds. Each time I tried to launch into work, allow Mischief to take over, he refused to surface.
With a push against my desk, I launched myself backward and heaved my body from my chair. I could feel eyes tracking my movements. I ignored them and stalked across the room, pushing into the bathroom.
Once alone, I wrapped long fingers around the edges of the sink and hung my head, purposely avoiding my reflection in the small mirror hanging directly in front of me. My face was contorted and twisted into a look of pure pain. There was certainly not a cactus shoved up my ass but it kind of felt like there was one lodged in my chest, causing the sharpest of ache every time I moved.
“Ace.”
I groaned.
I forgot to lock the fucking door.
With a roll of my head, I found Cruz perched in the doorway, staring at me with dark eyebrows raised high on his forehead. “You need a night off to wrap your head around this?”