by Amy Lane
“There’s a power vacuum,” Ellery said, finally seeing what Jackson saw. “And if there’s a power vacuum, now is the time for Ziggy and his new friend to make a move.”
Jackson stood up suddenly, looking exhausted and intense. “We need to warn Tage’s parents. We… I can’t believe we’re saying this, but we need to warn Dima Siderov.”
Ellery stayed put. “Why? Dima Siderov is a bad man, Jackson. He traffics children and sells bathtub meth. He’s no better or worse than the guy who’s taking his place.”
Jackson scowled. “No, I could give a rat’s ass about Siderov, but look at Ziggy’s scorched-earth progression right now. Tage’s in protective custody, but his parents are relying on Siderov’s protection. They’re going to get hurt. Everybody in that apartment complex is going to get hurt, and some of them are just people looking for affordable housing!”
Okay. “Well, we’re not SWAT!” Ellery retorted. “Look, you know people, I know people. I’m going to call Arizona Brooks and tell her to get ready to start processing people. You call Christie and Fetzer and Hardison and give them a heads-up. And while you’re on the phone, get our Kevlar out of the closet. Tomorrow promises to be a treat.”
“But shouldn’t we do something?” Jackson protested, and Ellery did stand up now, because having this fight was much more impactful if they were standing three feet from each other and yelling.
“We are. We’re telling people with guns and vests and tactical gear where to find other people with guns. Jackson, it’s time to think. This isn’t meeting a bad guy on accident, or rescuing someone from a situation because nobody has your back. This is having valuable information for people who are better equipped to deal with it. If we go out tonight and get shot because we’re in the middle of a gunfight, who’s going to have Constance’s back? Who’s going to take care of Sophie and Maxim? This thing we’re in the middle of? It’s bigger than us. It’s huge. And we’re not out in the desert where we can just shoot a bunch of shit up and blow up a car and hope for the best. If we go cowboy here, we will get hurt, we will get others hurt, and we will not do the good things that we are capable of doing because we were someplace we had no business being. Now get on the phone and call the cavalry, young soldier, and I’ll do the same thing.”
“The cavalry was a bunch of racist pussies who tortured women and children, you realize that, right?”
“Well, Custer was a bad man, but not all of them were—”
“Genocide, Ellery.”
“Well, sue me for a bad example. And make your goddamned phone call before I blow on you and knock you on your ass!”
Jackson’s face went absolutely blank, and then Ellery heard it too. “Don’t,” he muttered.
“You’re gonna blow me and knock my ass?” Jackson asked, his lips quirking up reluctantly.
“If that’s how you want to do things,” Ellery said, pinching the bridge of his nose. His voice gentled. “Make your calls, Jackson. I’ll make mine. We have to be up in—” He looked at the microwave over the stove. “—less than five hours. Let’s do what we can.”
“Fine,” Jackson muttered. “Hate this.”
“Yeah, mortality’s a bitch. Call.”
Jackson stalked off, muttering to himself, and for a heartbeat Ellery mourned the quiet moment they’d just been sharing.
Then he remembered that he’d won. Jackson had conceded that—this once—being in the thick of the battle wasn’t the best way for the two of them to win the war.
Oh God, they might survive to see forty.
Hell, they might survive to get married.
Ellery was going to give a truckload of money to his synagogue to spend on good works, because whether the rabbi thought so or not, he was sure somebody was looking down on them and perhaps just once had whispered in Jackson’s ear.
Swimming Fury
GOD, IT sucked when Ellery was right sometimes. By the time Jackson had gotten off the phone, he’d woken people up and pissed people off, but he’d gotten Fetzer, Hardison, Andre Christie, and the entire SWAT team mobilized to the Dobrevks’ apartment complex.
Christie had been particularly glad Jackson and Ellery weren’t in the thick of things.
“Stay home,” he’d muttered, apparently texting someone else while he got out of bed and got dressed. “You don’t know these apartment complexes.”
“The fuck I don’t,” Jackson replied shortly. Rabbit warrens, with ins and outs and often no rhyme or reason. It was easy to lose a suspect in one and easy to be ambushed while you were finding your way.
“Okay, maybe you do. But if there’s a gang takeover going on, there will be a boatload of guns out there and too many civilians as it is. This is a good tip—and you could save some lives tonight—but not if we’re watching your ass too.”
Jackson growled, hating being sidelined, but then he remembered Kryzynski. Odds were, even if Sean and Jackson trained together every day for a year, there would have been no way to predict what had happened when Ziggy Ivanov had leaped over that railing and stabbed Sean Kryzynski.
But Jackson couldn’t know that. Not for sure.
He’d spent nearly ten years expecting nobody to have his back and counting on good luck and good reflexes to save his life. Relying on those things to keep everyone else safe while he ran around and stirred shit up was a good way to get other people killed, and that was no goddamned fair.
And the fact was, the cops didn’t know who he was and didn’t trust him to wipe his own ass. He could be doing everything right, and he’d still get people killed because they’d be watching him instead of the bad guys.
“Fine. Whatever. But if this pans out, I want you all to remember this the next time shit goes down. I’m one of the good guys, and just like you, we want the innocent people safe and the real bad guys off the street.”
Christie blew out a breath. “We’re starting to get that. Let me go be a cop, and I’ll let you know what goes down.”
“Fine. Be safe. Don’t get dead. If I have to visit you in the hospital, I might have to wipe the floor with more beat cops, and that’s not what Ellery had in mind when he told me to make nice.”
Christie’s chuckle was bad-guy dirty. “I heard about that. You beat the crap out of some of the guys who’ve given Sean the worst time for being out. So, well done.” He sobered. “And I’ll keep you in the loop. That’s not bullshit. You’re doing good work here. Later.”
“Later,” Jackson grunted and hit End Call. Okay. Fine. He could do this. He called Fetzer next, and she was a little grouchier about being woken up.
“Seriously? You are being serious here calling at this hour? Some of us have to work, Rivers!”
“I’m one of them,” Jackson retorted. “And I’ve got a 6:00 a.m. meeting that promises to be a bear. Did you know that Dima Siderov’s boss got blown up tonight, and Ziggy Ivanov is probably working for his archrival? Because that’s our theory right now, and if that’s the case….”
Fetzer had stayed alive on the streets for too long to not understand the implications.
“Oh holy Jesus,” she muttered, and Jackson could hear waking-up noises in the background. “This could get bloody. This could get…. I’m going to hang up now and call the dispatch sergeant, and I will call you if we all survive the night.”
“Be safe out there. Keep Hardison safe. You’re the only blue uniforms I can actually stand.”
Fetzer’s grim chuckle echoed over the phone line. “Don’t gush on, my boy. I’ve got shit to do. Stay put, you hear?”
“That 6:00 a.m. meeting is really important,” Jackson told her. “If I don’t make that, this other shit might not matter.”
“Well, we all got a job to do. Stay safe.”
“Will do.”
Jackson signed off then and swore. Oh, he hated this. Sending other people out into the thick of things while he hung back was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.
But Ellery had been right. They had people counting
on them in the morning, and this thing was bigger than the two of them.
Irritated and unhappy, he stalked to the closet and got out their Kevlar, then unlocked the gun safe and pulled out their guns. While Ellery finished his calls, he grimly set about cleaning and loading their weapons and hoped their regular trips to the gun range since March had made Ellery a better shot.
It certainly hadn’t made Jackson happier at seeing Ellery with a gun, but there was grim shit going down. They needed all the backup they could get.
Ellery came in while he was packing up the cleaning kit and putting the guns back in the safe for the next morning. By the time Jackson had washed his hands and brushed his teeth, Ellery was in bed, setting his phone to go off at unholy buttcrack a.m., and Jackson was feeling the exhaustion of the day seeping into his bones.
“God,” he muttered, yawning and turning out the light. “So much for a nap.”
“So much for recovery,” Ellery fretted. “You were supposed to ease into things.”
“I am easing into things,” Jackson told him soberly. “If I’m not out at that apartment complex getting my ass shot off, I’d say I’m being a model citizen.”
Ellery’s brow furrowed, and his chin jutted. “That’s not funny,” he said. “Dammit, Jackson—”
Jackson put two fingers over Ellery’s mouth and then removed them for a quick kiss. “Don’t. We’re both tired. We have to be up at fuck-all in the morning. Let’s go to sleep and not argue so we can wake up and not argue and do the shit we need to do because it’s important, okay?”
He saw the reluctant curve to Ellery’s lips, and a little bit of triumph soothed the parts of his soul left raw by staying out of the fray.
“I would love to go to sleep and not argue,” Ellery said.
“Good.” Jackson smiled a little. “Now roll over so I can spoon you.”
Ellery’s mouth quirked. “Can I be big spoon tonight?”
Jackson searched his eyes in the dark. “Why?”
“Because I need to is all.”
He sounded so much like Jackson himself that Jackson’s heart gave a little throb. He hadn’t been easy on Ellery Cramer in the past year. Maybe Ellery just needed to feel in control of Jackson, of the two of them.
“Sure.”
Jackson rolled over and Ellery’s arm wound around his middle. “Thank you,” Ellery whispered. “Thank you for staying with me.”
Jackson laced their fingers together and spoke the truth. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
HIS PHONE rang less than fifteen minutes later.
“Jackson?”
Jackson recognized the voice, but barely. Tage’s cousin, Sascha, fresh from prison, working hard to get his life back on the straight and narrow.
“Sascha? What’s up?” God, fifteen minutes. He actually had drool on his chin because he’d been asleep.
“My aunt and uncle,” Sascha said fretfully. “They are at their apartment building, and there are shots and shouting. Jackson, they’re crouched in the bathtub, and they’re freaked the fuck out, and there’s cops all over the apartment complex, and if they get caught talking to the cops, they’re toast. You know it, I know it. Tage will never be able to come out of hiding.” His voice caught. “Even if Sophie and Maxim come home, they will always be in danger. Jackson, you have to get them out of there. Please. For me. They can’t be seen talking to cops! That’s the only way I could keep Tage safe in jail was because he didn’t have any connection to the police.”
God. And what Sascha wasn’t saying was that his only hope of staying gang- and bullet-free while he got his life together was to avoid any notice whatsoever, and that meant his family too. Sascha, in fact, was one of the people Boris and Olga Dobrevk were trying to protect by not going into hiding with Tage.
He swung his feet over the edge of the bed. “I’ll get ’em,” he muttered. “Can I bring them to you?”
“Yeah.” Sascha had been born in Sacramento, and he had no accent and no connection, really, to the people probably in the middle of starting a war. He just had his aunt and uncle. His parents had gone back to Russia when he’d been in middle school.
And he’d called Jackson because Jackson was his only hope.
“Be ready for me to bring them by,” he said. “Tell them I’m coming.”
He stood stiffly and slid on yesterday’s jeans while Ellery rolled over in bed. “What in the hell…?”
“The Dobrevks need me,” he said, his voice dropping, hoping Ellery understood. “It was one thing when it was just a big cop clusterfuck and nobody needed little ol’ me in the middle. But this is different. If the Dobrevks are taken in by the cops and not arrested, they’re fucked.”
Ellery sucked in a breath, and Jackson knew he couldn’t argue.
“And even if they’re arrested, they’re still fucked,” Jackson said softly. “Just like Tage was about to be. One way or another, they’re going to be material witnesses to people with a lot more money and a lot more power, and not even the world’s best defense attorney will be able to save them.” Jackson gave what he hoped was a conciliatory smile, and his heart hurt when Ellery looked away.
“I’ll be back,” he promised rashly. “I’m just going to sneak in, grab the little old people, and sneak out. I promise—”
“Stop,” Ellery said, voice shaking, and Jackson felt it in the pit of his groin.
He could lose Ellery over this.
It’s why he’d backed off before. Why he’d called the police and gave them the tip and told them he’d stay put. Because Ellery was scared, and goddammit, hadn’t he put Ellery through enough?
But this was different. When it was going to be a police roundup of different gang factions gunning for each other, Jackson had absolutely no place in the battle. There was nothing for him to do, and he’d promised he’d think twice about putting himself in danger. But the Dobrevks were innocent, and Jackson had a tie to them, and someone had asked—begged—that he keep them safe.
This was who he was. If Ellery couldn’t understand this, all of Jackson’s “being good” was not going to save them.
Ellery had gotten out of bed, still in his underwear, and was looking pale and awkward and vulnerable in the faint light from the bathroom.
“Ellery—”
Ellery put a shaking finger over Jackson’s mouth, and Jackson closed his eyes. Then Ellery’s voice, nothing more than a trembling rasp, whispered in the darkness.
“Come home to me.”
Jackson’s eyes flew open, and he pressed Ellery’s fingers to his lips and kissed them.
“If there’s breath in my body,” he said, and then took Ellery’s mouth, hard and urgent, because the blood surging through his chest was hard and urgent.
He hadn’t lost him. Ellery understood.
Jackson would die for this man.
He could damned sure live for him.
HE DROVE the Tank and parked it behind the line of cherry tops on the side of the block covered by the apartment complex, searching out a familiar face.
The complex itself sat under the grainy luminescence of the soda lights, looking deathly still. Nobody in the quad, nobody walking from their car to the pool in the humid light. No lights on, no windows open to catch a stray breeze.
Every now and then came the pop-pop-pop of gunfire, and then silence.
Jackson’s gut churned. It was a meat grinder, fuck him if it wasn’t.
Fetzer and Hardison were easy to spot. They were hanging behind the SWAT vehicle, exchanging dry looks as the commander barked instructions to everyone not SWAT. Fetzer was the one who saw Jackson first, and she nudged her partner’s elbow. Together they edged their way behind the crowd completely and directed him to a dark corner in the shade of what was probably their own vehicle. Only the shop’s cop would lean on it.
“What in the hell is that?” Hardison asked, nodding at Jackson’s converted SUV.
Jackson squinted. “Well, it used to be something fancy, but now it’s b
ulletproof, and I really don’t think it has a name.”
Fetzer’s eyes went wide. “Bulletproof, you say?” she asked with interest.
Jackson nodded. “Some friends tricked it out for me after I, uh, well, it’s a long story, and we’ve got no time.”
“I thought you were going to wait this one out,” Fetzer said, her mouth pursed in a look that probably terrified children and grandchildren alike.
Jackson smiled gamely. “I got called in?”
They both just looked at him, their eyes weary as only old cops’ eyes could be.
“There’s civilians inside,” he said, looking at the sprawl of the apartment complex. He’d had Ellery text him the address—and some specs on where, exactly, the Dobrevks lived in the multiunit area—and studying it now gave him stomach cramps. More pops.
And hey, there was a scream. Aces.
“We know that,” Fetzer snapped. “That’s what we’re for!”
Jackson shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. These civilians have children who were trafficked because one of the players in this little shindig wants to keep the family quiet. Their son was the kid we bailed out of jail—and both sides want him dead. They refused police protection because they hoped the gang wouldn’t turn on their extended family. If they’re seen taken into custody, it’ll be a death sentence. They need to just disa-fucking-pear and not surface until we get them into WITSEC with their son.”
Fetzer’s and Hardison’s eyes had gone wide. “So you’re going to… what? Walk in there and say, ‘Come with me’?”
Jackson shrugged. “As good a plan as any?”
“It’s a shitty plan!” Fetzer burst out. “It’s a hellaciously shitty plan.” She and Hardison met eyes. “What can we do to help?”