by Tal Bauer
Stan Coffey was having a shitty day, and it was only going to get shittier.
“Let’s get him booked. Fairfax PD can finish processing this scene.” Mike called the officer guarding Stan over and told him they were headed for the jail. The officer seemed relieved to be leaving. To get out of the heat—late DC spring was turning into summer with a vengeance—or to get away from the slit-eyed glares of the neighbors and the hostile tension choking the humid air.
The ride to the jail was easy as they followed behind the patrol car. Silver drove and quizzed Gordon on the afternoon, on what went down, and the arrest. Gordon answered with a sheen to his eyes, the come-down of an adrenaline-soaked arrest.
Stan was sullen and silent through the booking, glaring at the camera for his mugshots and sneering and cursing through the body search. Mike and the others waited until the paperwork was processed, and then watched Stan parade past them into the lockup, decked out in Virginia’s finest shade of neon orange.
It was almost four PM. Mike scrunched up his face. Gordon and Silver were close to their office in Arlington—U.S. Marshals Service headquarters—but he was at least an hour and a half away from his in the Prettyman Courthouse, right in the heart of DC. Maybe two hours, what with rush hour traffic.
It wasn’t worth fighting back to the office this late in the day. Time to head home. “Thanks, guys.” Mike shook Gordon and Silver’s hands. “I’ll call you both again anytime I need backup.”
They smiled, thanked him, and left together, heading out to Silver’s SUV. They were marshals assigned to fugitive tracking and criminal investigations. The glitzy, glamorized duties that all the TV shows were about. They were what Mike had been, once. He’d been a member of a fugitive task force, a deputy marshal scouring his district for escaped prisoners, for wanted felons, for dangerous men and women evading the reach of the law.
Not anymore. He was still a deputy marshal, but he’d moved into the judicial security division, the part of the marshals exclusively dedicated to protecting federal judges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and all prosecutors, all juries, and the courthouses. Threats against judges and prosecutors, not to mention juries, had skyrocketed over the past fifty years. Congress had charged the marshals with the job of protecting the entire judiciary.
They were given the job with allocations for 110 judicial security inspectors, JSIs, and told to put “one to three” in each of the 94 federal judicial districts in the United States. With an average of eighteen judges and fifteen prosecutors—and thousands of jurors each year—in each district, “one to three” inspectors had their work cut out for them.
Investigating and responding to threats, providing security for the judges and the prosecutors inside and outside the courthouse, devising security strategies for high-risk trials, and even, sometimes, providing personal protection for judges under high-threat risk. It was enough to keep him and his fellow JSIs busy for three hundred hours a week. He couldn’t imagine what working alone would be like. He and the other two JSIs in DC didn’t see eye to eye all the time—or ever—but at least they were there, and they had each other’s backs. Like New York and Los Angeles, DC had three JSIs for the entire federal judicial district. Chicago had two. The rest of the ninety federal districts had one.
Mike got a ride from a Fairfax patrol officer to the Metro and squeezed his way onto the orange train heading into DC. He bumped and rocked for forty-five minutes and then hopped off at McPherson Square. He turned up 15th and walked to Logan Circle, heading home.
He hadn’t been home this early in a long, long time. Silvio should be happy.
He and Silvio constantly argued about his work hours. It seemed every other conversation they had was an argument now. Yes, he worked a lot. But he had a big job. A huge job. He didn’t have the kind of job where he could take a few days off because he felt like it. His schedule was dictated by the court, by the judges he protected, and by their trial dates. And if he wasn’t running security for a high-risk trial, then he was chasing down threats or following up on intelligence passed over from the prisons or the task force. If he managed to find a few days where each judge he protected didn’t have a trial going, and if he managed to get Villegas, his fellow deputy JSI, to agree to cover for him, then he could take a few days off.
That wasn’t ever enough for Silvio, though. Silvio wanted him to jet around the world, fly off for a long weekend on one of his international trips. Spend a weekend in Paris before coming in late on Monday. As a flight attendant, Silvio had a different understanding of time than Mike did. The workweek was whatever Silvio wanted it to be, and he seemed to resent Mike’s rigid hours, his lashing to the federal courts.
Coming home early would be good for them. Hopefully he’d get to see that giant smile of Silvio’s, the one that lit up his face. The one he’d been captivated by from the first night they met, dancing and grinding at the Going Down club. Was it a year now? In about six weeks, yeah. Damn, he should start making noise at the courthouse about getting time off. He needed at least a day with Silvio for their one-year anniversary.
Mike thundered up the steps to his building, an older block of townhomes squished together on the edge of Logan Circle. He wasn’t wealthy enough to own one of the fancy townhouses on the Circle itself, but he liked being close to the neighborhood. His home was quiet, DC charm in a teaspoon-sized place. He’d moved Silvio in four months into their relationship, eagerly hauling boxes and boxes of Silvio’s stuff from his studio north of DC, on the Maryland side, into his townhome.
There was a strange car parked on the street. He knew his neighbors, generally knew what time they came and went. An out-of-place vehicle on the street before anyone was due to be home stood out. Mike eyed it, making note of the license plate as he shoved open his building’s door.
He jogged the steps to the third-floor apartment he owned and reached for the door handle. There were noises inside, someone obviously happy. Silvio. Maybe he was on the phone.
Smiling, Mike unlocked the door and strode in, expecting to see Silvio in the kitchen, glass of white wine in one hand, phone in the other, chatting with his friends about the latest high-fashion crime. Silvio loved fashion, loved dressing to the nines. His closets were near to bursting with Silvio’s decadent wardrobe, shoes and shirts and skinny pants for days. He loved peeling those pants off Silvio and finding his jock strap. He always wore a jock, and always a sexy one. Silvio was a tiger in bed, a sex kitten with the wildness of a jaguar. Sinking into Silvio made each of their fights fade away, made each of their arguments soften and disappear from his mind. They’d work it out. They’d made it this far.
Mike stopped short, his boot scuffing against the scraped hardwood he’d laid by hand. The rubber of his sole made a sad little whine, like a balloon letting loose air by surprise.
Silvio was in the kitchen, but he wasn’t alone.
And he wasn’t wearing any of his cute clothes.
Someone tall, dark, and swarthy moved behind Silvio, his cock obviously buried deep in Silvio’s ass. Hands gripped Silvio’s shoulders, pulling him down on Tall & Swarthy’s cock over and over. Silvio had that look on his face, that scrunched-up, mouth-open look he got when he was getting a good dicking, when he was loving Mike’s cock buried in his ass. When he was close to coming.
Neither of them had noticed Mike, even though they were facing him. Tall & Swarthy was watching himself disappear into Silvio’s ass. A captivating sight, Mike knew.
He should feel something. Something should register. But all he did was blink, watching this stranger plow into his boyfriend, over and over.
Well. His ex-boyfriend.
Mike let the door go, letting it fall back against the doorjamb with a loud clang. It wasn’t balanced right and would always slam if not shut carefully.
The door banged and Silvio’s eyes opened, shock bursting across his delicate features. Tall & Swarthy’s thrusts faltered.
“Hi honey.” One corner of Mike’s lip curled up. �
��I’m home.”
Silvio cursed, a breeze of Spanish as he backed up, pulled off Tall & Swarthy’s cock—and, look at that, they were going bareback—and grabbed a dishtowel, as if he could somehow preserve any sense of modesty in front of Mike. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I live here.” Mike held out his hands, spreading them wide. “This is my home.”
“You’re never here this early.” Silvio’s eyes flashed.
Jesus, was Silvio angry? At him? Something bubbled in Mike’s chest, indignation rising like a wave, a slowly-building tsunami that kept growing and growing before it crashed against the shore. “I wanted to surprise you.” He turned to Tall & Swarthy, who wasn’t doing a thing to cover himself. “Who the hell is this?”
Tall & Swarthy had the good sense not to say anything. His eyes slid sideways to Silvio.
“He’s not your concern.” Silvio’s voice snapped, cutting like broken glass.
“Not. My. Concern.” Mike snorted, shaking his head. The wave in his heart kept building, rising higher than a skyscraper, a wall of rage and hurt that threatened to crash down on his world. He never thought this would happen to them. To him. Didn’t Silvio know how he felt? What happened to the good times, when they cuddled on the couch and watched TV, that then turned into kissing and making out and then slow, sweet loving into the cushions? Waking up slowly on the weekends and drinking coffee in bed? Holding hands and walking through the city, talking for hours, listening to Silvio tell stories about the flights he went on, the cities he visited. Planning to visit them together.
Though… those moments, his favorite moments of their relationship—of any relationship—had been few and far between.
“What do you expect? You’re never home. You never give me any attention anymore.” A curl of hurt wrapped around Silvio’s words, his voice trembling at the very end. “You think I’m just going to sit here and wait for you all day?”
“I’m working! I have a job! I’m trying to support you! Us! And, I expect someone who loves me not to do this.” Mike threw his hand out, toward Tall & Swarthy and his kitchen. Jesus, there was a shine on his counter, right where they’d been. He’d have to bleach the entire place. He’d have to remodel. Rip out all the granite and the cupboards down to studs. Maybe he should just burn the whole place down.
“You’re such a selfish bastard!” Silvio snapped, stamping his foot. “If you loved me, you wouldn’t have made me do this!”
The wave crashed, descending through his soul and drowning out his entire world. Red flared in front of his eyes, a bolero waving a crimson flag in the path of a bull. Reality seemed disconnected, as if he were living in a soap bubble with edges that shimmered. Silvio’s face warped, first sneering, then twisting as if he were about to cry.
Silvio’s words bounced around his skull, the petulant tone of a child not getting his way. What he’d done, fucking another man in Mike’s home, was Mike’s fault?
No. Never in a million years.
Dealing with prisoners, with criminals, and with the scum of the earth had inured him over the years to emotional manipulations, empty platitudes and frantic reaches from desperate men and women struggling to save themselves from the inevitable. He blinked and saw Silvio suddenly in a new light. The bubble around him burst, vanishing with a pop.
Silvio was teetering on the edge of a full Mariah Carey meltdown. He could see it in the quiver of his chin, the flatness of his lips. The angle of his jaw, set just at that fuck-you angle, the one that begged for a no-holds-barred fight.
Part of him, still rocking and rolling on the waves of rage and indignation, still sloshing in the turgid waters of hurt and disbelief, wanted to dive right in, scream and shout and bellow about the whys and the wherefores. He wanted to tear into Silvio, hurt him with his words, shred him with every terrible thought he could dredge up, every frustration, every sideways, unkind thing he’d ever thought.
But, why fight about this? What would the end be? Would fighting change what had happened?
Or… what he had already decided?
Mike pulled open the front door. He swept his hand out toward the hallway, an ironic gesture of chivalry. “Buh-bye.”
“What?” Silvio’s jaw dropped. The fire in his eyes turned to lava spewing from a volcano, erupting with enough force to reach the moon. “What the fuck do you mean ‘bye’?”
“I mean get out, Silvio. Get out right now.”
“You can’t kick me out of our home!”
“It’s my home, you don’t pay for a Goddamn thing, and I absolutely am throwing you out.”
“All of my stuff is here!”
“It will be waiting for you in the morning.”
“Don’t you dare—” Silvio hissed.
Mike gave Tall & Swarthy a long look, sighing. “Will you control your boy, please? And get the fuck out of here?”
Silvio’s breathless gasp could have broken glass. He might have sprained a lung. His eyes boggled, practically leaping from his face, and his jaw nearly unhinged. “His boy?” he shrieked. “I am not his boy!”
“Well, sweetheart, you’re not my boy either.” Again, Mike swept his hand to the door, dramatically inviting Silvio to get the fuck out of his life. “Buh-bye.”
“Mike—”
“Leave, Silvio. Get out. Before I call the cops.”
“Mike!”
“Go. Come back in the morning for your stuff.”
“Michael!”
Finally, Tall & Swarthy moved. He grabbed a dish towel and covered himself—a little fucking late—and then scooped up his clothes, left in a trail on the way to the kitchen from the front door. Designer jeans with ridiculous bling on the ass, a bromo t-shirt with too much design on the front, swirls that looked like stupid tribal designs and sleeves purposely cut too small to cling to the biceps. Ugly underwear. “Come on, Siv,” he grunted. “Let’s go back to my place.’
Siv. What a stupid nickname. He never called Silvio dumb nicknames like that.
Silvio sashayed across the living room, plucking his clothes off the floor one by one, as if flaunting the savagery of their undressing, the stripping that had sent socks and jeans and Silvio’s button-down halfway across the room. His ass twitched with every step, hips swaying. A line of lube smeared across one cheek. He held Mike’s gaze, staring him down as he stalked toward the door. “Don’t fucking touch my things,” he hissed, passing Mike by. He tossed his head, lifted his chin, and strutted into the hall, naked, glistening ass shaking like a flustered peacock.
Mike choked back his laughter, the shouts he wanted to holler at the haughty ridiculousness of Silvio, his petty tyranny making him seem like a toddler with a broken tiara, stamping her foot as she wailed at the indignity of the world.
Tall & Swarthy had the good sense to at least appear embarrassed about their ejection from Mike’s home. He shuffled to the door quickly, his clothes held in front of him.
He offered Mike the dishtowel he’d used to cover his cock.
Mike didn’t take it.
And then, they both were in the hallway, naked, clutching their clothes, Silvio glaring at Mike like his eyes would truly murder him if he just wished it hard enough.
Mike let the door slam shut, cutting Silvio off from him. Hopefully forever.
A minute later, a car started up on the street. Probably that car he’d noticed, the out-of-place one. He’d known something was up the moment he saw it.
And then, his cell phone buzzed. And buzzed again. And again.
He looked down, swiping the screen on.
A barrage of texts from Silvio paraded down his phone, exhortations and eviscerations, the fight he hadn’t let Silvio start apparently now happening over text. Blistering tirades, Silvio shredding him right and left, ripping into their relationship, his job, and even their sex life.
He had to call a locksmith and get his locks changed tonight. Start pulling out all of Silvio’s things and making giant piles of his crap. Silvio could pick
them up on the curb tomorrow. Maybe neighborhood vultures would tear through it, pull out what they wanted and leave Silvio with the dregs. He had to post signs in the building, tell his neighbors not to let the cheating bastard in if he claimed he’d lost his key. He had to bleach—or fucking destroy—his kitchen.
His phone buzzed, over and over and over again.
It was going to be a long fucking night.
Chapter 2
Nine AM, and Tom’s courtroom was packed.
The first day of trial for Wayne Lincoln was due to begin that very moment. Wayne Lincoln was a mid-level gang member, responsible for running drugs through his depressed neighborhood of Brentwood, and had upped his game to murder. The prosecution was charging him with four drug-related murders and slapping distribution charges on top of that. They were trying to send a signal to gangs and drug runners in DC: gang violence and drug distribution weren’t going to be tolerated.
He was still a baby judge, only a year into hearing his new title: Judge Tom Brewer, the newest judge on the DC federal bench. And, even though he was new, he’d tried to work with Lincoln’s attorney to persuade Lincoln to offer up evidence and testimony in chambers that would help with the federal investigation into the growing gang and drug violence, in lieu of going to trial. He wanted the best for everyone, if possible. He’d lessen the sentence if Lincoln cooperated with the investigation. But, Lincoln had clammed up, and the case went to trial. If the jury found Lincoln guilty, he’d have to be harsh with sentencing.
It was a high-risk trial—all gang cases were—and Tom had been briefed by the JSI assigned to him, Deputy U.S. Marshal Mike Lucciano, about the security procedures Mike had hand-crafted.
Point number one on the security plan was that Mike himself would escort Tom from his chambers to the courtroom every day and provide personal security, standing watch during the trial when Lincoln and the public were present, and then escort him back to his chambers after trial was over.