“Where the hell would these punks get their hands on full-auto M4s?” Shane asked.
“Griffin, didn’t your CI say this truck was coming from Monterey?” Sakura said. “There’s an Army garrison there.”
“Christ,” Charles muttered. If a shipment of weapons had been diverted from an Army garrison, there was no way someone on the inside wasn’t involved. This was going to devolve into a total clusterfuck very quickly.
“Maybe they aren’t all M4s,” Jade said.
Her optimism was proven unfounded as the Jackals continued unloading the truck, piling up case after case of identical weapons. They might not even have enough cars here to hide them all.
“If this much firepower gets into the hands of one of the cartels, the casualties are going to be off the charts,” Ángel said.
“That’s not going to happen.” Eva shifted on the balls of her feet where she crouched beside Charles. “Sounds like they’re finished unloading the weapons. Siren?”
“Affirmative.”
“All right. Sandman, proceed.”
A few seconds later, a burst of gunfire sounded nearby. The Jackals stiffened, most of them running for the open loading-bay door.
“The fuck was that?” said a short, skinny kid who couldn’t be much older than fourteen.
“Probably those goddamn 66ers. They’re always trying to poach these warehouses from the Espinas.”
More gunshots cracked through the air from the opposite direction, courtesy of Sakura. Confused shouts rang out among the Jackals. Charles risked another peek and saw the whole group gathered by the door.
“Dance, puppets,” Jade said gleefully.
“Go check it out,” Marcus said to the others. “Those fucking cokeheads are gonna bring the cops down here, and that’s the last thing we need right now. Go!”
The Jackals took off, heading in both directions. Marcus stayed behind with two men stationed by the truck’s cab with their guns drawn, alert to any movement on the street—but not so much to the warehouse behind them.
“Valkyrie, Griffin, you’re good to go,” said Jade.
Charles and Eva slunk forward, staying low to the ground as they wove between the parked cars. They didn’t have the resources to track every single car, so Eva would choose a selection at random to tag with GPS units. Charles, meanwhile, made his way to the gun cases stacked on the ground behind the open truck.
Checking to ensure that his position concealed him from the Jackals’ sight, Charles rose to half height and eased open one of the top cases. He was greeted by the sight of a standard military-issue M4 assault rifle, packed along with seven magazines and an M203 grenade launcher nestled into their own cutouts in the foam lining. Jade was always right, and today was no exception—this was military equipment, no question.
Charles pulled a quarter-sized GPS tracker from his pocket. After stripping the backing off the tracker’s adhesive, he peeled away a corner of the case’s foam lining, pressed the tracker into place, and smoothed the lining flat again.
Though their intel suggested that all of these weapons were going to the same buyer, they couldn’t be sure, and Charles only had three trackers. He couldn’t risk making noise by moving the cases around to get a varied sample, but they were already sorted into three stacks, so his decision was made for him. He moved on to the next case over and tagged it the same way.
“I’m clear,” Eva reported. “Griffin, hurry up.”
Charles opened the gun case on top of the third stack, tried to pull on the lining—and found it glued to the side of the case too well to be tugged away like the others. Cursing internally, he grabbed his pocketknife and made two neat, surgical cuts in the corner.
“Just leave it!” Jade said, her voice tight with stress. “Marcus is on his way.”
Sure enough, footsteps were heading right for him. Charles stuck the tracker inside, replaced the lining, and lowered the case’s lid. He hit the ground and rolled beneath the nearest car just as Marcus rounded the truck, speaking on his cell phone.
“They must’ve run off,” Marcus said, ambling toward the gun cases. “You see any cops? Okay, good. Call Ricky and get your ass back here so we can load up these cars.”
He aimed an idle kick at one of the onions on the ground, sending it tumbling underneath Charles’s car. Charles grabbed it a split second before it hit his face.
As he ended his call, Marcus turned around and opened the door of a Toyota two cars over, ducking into the driver’s seat. The hiding places in these smuggling cars were well concealed, often rigged to require a complex sequence of actions performed from inside the car before they could be opened.
Charles exhaled a breath he’d been holding since he heard Marcus approaching. He army-crawled along the cement floor, trusting Jade to have his back as he moved from one car to another.
“You’re good,” she said. “Just go as fast as you can. I can set off all those car alarms at once if I need to disorient him.”
Fortunately, such tactics weren’t necessary. Charles made it to the shelving units undetected, though short of breath and aching from shoulders to hips. Once they’d retreated to the relative shelter of the far wall, Eva socked him hard in the arm. Coming from Eva, that was no joke, and Charles stumbled sideways with a pained hiss.
“Pinche idiota,” Ángel said. He sounded shaken.
“Let’s get out of here while we still can,” said Eva.
When Ángel left Campos’s office at the end of the day, Charles was the only one left at their cluster, still writing his report on the surveillance mission. He took one look at Ángel’s face and said, “What’s wrong?”
“The lab results came back on the blood that was on my personnel record.” Ángel grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and pulled it on. “It’s Paul’s.”
“I’m sorry,” Charles said.
Ángel shrugged. He’d never had a single doubt that the blood was Paul’s, and—unlike Charles—he also had no doubts that it had been taken involuntarily. Someone out there had bled Paul so they could taunt and threaten Ángel. He wanted to vomit just thinking about it.
“The good news is that they got a warrant to break into my storage unit,” Ángel said, seeking to distract them both. “The Dallas RAC said the agency will cover the costs of transporting my belongings here, given the circumstances.”
“Great.” Charles shut down his computer and set his desk in order, which took him about five seconds because it was never out of order. “It’ll be a relief to have your own stuff back, right?”
“Honestly, what I’m looking forward to most is my driver’s license. I’m getting really sick of cabbing it.”
“Is that your passive-aggressive way of asking for a ride home?” Charles asked, rising to his feet and putting on his own jacket.
Ángel tilted his head. “Is that your passive-aggressive way of offering?”
With a snorting laugh, Charles said, “Fine, come on.”
Ángel stared out the window the entire drive, utterly failing not to obsess over Paul. Were his captors just keeping him prisoner, isolated in a room somewhere, or were they actively torturing him? Was he even still alive? Once Ángel’s true identity had been revealed, what use could Paul have to the people who had taken him?
“We’re here,” Charles said, startling Ángel out of his brooding.
The motel parking lot was full, its No Vacancy sign lit in neon. Ángel thought of the depressing evening awaiting him and couldn’t bring himself to reach for the door handle.
“Why did you and your fiancée break up?” he asked, apropos of nothing.
Charles had been relaxed—as relaxed as he got around Ángel these days, anyway—but now he tensed, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. “That’s none of your business,” he said without looking at Ángel. “And Jade needs to learn to keep her mouth shut.”
“Don’t blame her. It’s harmless workplace gossip.” Ángel shifted around in his seat to face Charles. �
�You got engaged fast.”
“I guess. Didn’t seem fast at the time, though.” Finally turning his head toward Ángel, Charles sighed and said, “You’re not going to get out of the car until I answer your question, are you?”
“I just want to know.”
“She said I didn’t trust her.” Charles released the steering wheel, flexing his fingers and lowering his hands to his lap. “She kept waiting and hoping for me to open up more, make myself vulnerable, but she realized that I was never going to lower my guard around her. She said it was like I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“Why?” Ángel said with a sinking feeling.
Charles was silent for a moment. “How can you even ask me that?”
Ángel looked away, clenching his jaw. So Charles blamed his breakup on Ángel’s indiscretion with Jared? Fantastic.
“Let me ask you another question,” Ángel said, his blood humming with resentment. “Do you miss her, or do you miss being engaged?”
Charles dropped his head against the seat and closed his eyes, exhaling a harsh breath. “Fuck you, Ángel.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course I miss her. I loved her.”
Ángel narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure she’s something really respectable and impressive, right? A lawyer, maybe—but not a trial lawyer. Taxes or estate law or something.”
“She’s an accountant,” Charles said, shooting him a warning glare.
“Thrilling,” said Ángel. “And she’s probably into farmers’ markets and antiquing and day hikes.”
“I like all those things.”
“No, you don’t! You think you should, so you try to make yourself—”
“Amy is an amazing person,” Charles snapped. He unbuckled his seat belt so he could twist around to fully confront Ángel. “She’s reliable, grounded, level-headed . . .”
“All excellent qualities in an accountant,” Ángel said. “Are those really the first adjectives you want to spring to mind when you’re describing the person you’ll spend the rest of your life with?” When Charles opened his mouth, Ángel added, “What you want, Charles. Not your grandmother.”
“I swear to God—”
Charles broke off with a strangled groan as Ángel pushed a hand between his legs. As he’d expected, Charles’s cock was swelling, the thick bulge of it heavy through the jeans he’d changed into after ruining his first pair of pants crawling along that warehouse floor.
“You’re getting hard just sitting next to me and arguing.” Ángel squeezed Charles’s cock, massaging along the length of the shaft. “Did she ever do that to you?”
“You always make everything about sex,” Charles said, but he didn’t move Ángel’s hand.
Ángel slid as close to Charles as he could get without sitting on the gearshift. “I’m not talking about sex; I’m talking about passion. They aren’t the same.”
Now Charles knocked Ángel’s hand aside, huffing in exasperation. “Passion is all you and I ever had, and look where that got us.”
Stung, Ángel drew back. Charles pulled the key out of the ignition and opened the door, stepping out of the car. He waited a moment and then leaned back in.
“You coming?” he asked impatiently.
Ángel blinked and grabbed his own door handle.
Charles had been obliged to park in the far corner of the packed lot. They walked up to Ángel’s room in charged silence, and once Ángel had locked the door behind them, he stripped off his jacket and holster and waited for Charles’s next move.
After a long, slow look around the room, Charles said, “Where did he fuck you?”
“What?” Ángel said, taken aback. “Who, Ian?”
“Has anyone else fucked you in this room?”
Interested to see where Charles planned on taking this, Ángel led him to the desk and gestured to the wall beside it. “Standing up, against that wall.”
The bottle of lube was still out on the desk, as were a couple of condoms from the strip Ian had used. Charles took off his own jacket and holster, draped them on the back of the chair, and pulled it away from the desk. Then he grabbed Ángel and dragged him over, shoving him forward into the desk so his thighs hit the edge.
“He should’ve fucked you over the desk instead,” Charles said into Ángel’s ear. “Better leverage.”
Ángel took a shuddering breath. When Charles reached for the hem of his shirt, he raised his arms to help Charles pull it off him.
“Ian didn’t take off my shirt,” Ángel said, just to be a dick.
“Then he was an idiot.” Charles smoothed his hands up Ángel’s chest, rubbing and plucking at Ángel’s nipples until Ángel jerked against him. “He didn’t get to see how sensitive you are here.”
“I’m sensitive? I’m not the one who came so hard wearing nipple clamps that I blacked out.”
It had taken weeks for Ángel to sweet-talk Charles into wearing the clamps. They’d fucked face-to-face, Ángel’s legs in the air and his hand fisted in the chain between the clamps, yanking on it whenever he wanted Charles to give it to him harder.
“I didn’t black out,” Charles said, nettled.
“You almost suffocated me—”
Charles flicked both of Ángel’s nipples hard enough to make him gasp. Ángel let his head fall back onto Charles’s shoulder.
“I bet he never even touched your cock.” Charles undid Ángel’s pants and pushed his hand inside, caressing Ángel’s erection through his underwear. “Just went straight for your ass, no foreplay at all.”
Annoyed by Charles’s perceptiveness, Ángel said, “Of course he touched my cock.”
Charles laughed. “No, he didn’t. Anyone who would take money to pull a stunt like that is too selfish to care about their partner’s pleasure.” He eased Ángel’s cock out of his underwear, and his voice deepened as he said, “I don’t know how anyone could not want to get their hands on this.”
Rubbing his own erection against Ángel’s ass, Charles slowly stroked Ángel’s cock, his other hand cupping Ángel’s balls. He nuzzled Ángel’s neck and bit down with gentle pressure.
“Charles,” Ángel said, breathless, watching Charles’s hands work on him. Dangerous words hovered on the tip of his tongue, things he couldn’t afford to say no matter how good this felt. “Take off your shirt,” he said instead.
Once they were skin to skin, things progressed quickly. Charles pushed Ángel forward to brace his hands on the desk and reached for the lube; Ángel tugged his pants and underwear down his thighs with eager anticipation.
A few minutes later, Ángel was writhing flat against the desk, clawing at the wood as Charles fingered him into an incoherent mess with one hand and jerked him off with the other. He was more than ready to take Charles’s cock, but Charles didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping.
“Fuck, all right, Charles, I get it,” Ángel said, panting. “You’re great at foreplay. Congratulations, okay? I’ll get you a trophy. Would you please put your dick in me now?”
Charles slowed his fingers but didn’t pull them out. “Maybe I want to make you come this way.”
“Really?” Ángel reached back with both hands to spread his ass cheeks apart, smirking at the audible catch in Charles’s breath. “Are you sure about that?”
“Stay like that,” Charles said, finally withdrawing his fingers.
His chest and cheek pressed to the desk, Ángel held his ass open while Charles rolled on a condom and nudged up against him. He groaned through his teeth when that thick, fat head pushed inside.
“Was Ian as big as I am?” Charles asked, working his cock into Ángel’s ass.
“You know he wasn’t.”
Charles got in deeper, and then said, haltingly, “Was Esparza?”
“Oh, fuck you,” said Ángel, caught off guard.
The mention of Raúl should have killed Ángel’s erection—should have had him pulling off Charles’s cock and demanding he get the hell o
ut. Instead, his balls tightened and his cock leaped, his ass clenching greedily around Charles’s shaft.
Charles was jealous. Charles was fucking jealous.
Burying himself to the root, Charles ground his hips in small circles that were guaranteed to drive Ángel insane in short order. “Was he?”
“He was . . . about as thick,” Ángel said, struggling to think through the haze of lust clouding his mind. “Not as long.”
Charles pulled all the way out and then slammed back in; Ángel gasped, jolting against the desk. “He couldn’t give it to you this deep,” Charles said.
“Shit.” Ángel’s hands slipped in the sweat on his skin, and he firmed his grip, keeping his ass spread. “No. Nobody ever has.” Pushing back, he said, “Come on, Charles, let me feel you. Come on.”
Groaning low in his throat, Charles leaned forward, grabbed Ángel’s shoulders for leverage, and pumped his hips, giving Ángel a brutal deep dicking. Ángel moaned and shook beneath the onslaught, overwhelmed by the pleasure of it. Charles fucked like he did everything else—with focused, single-minded determination, the same commitment and intensity of purpose that had resulted in him almost being shot up by a gangbanger that afternoon.
Ángel bit his lip, but as the pleasure continued to build, a low scream escaped him. Charles’s thrusts sped up even more at the sound.
“Did Esparza make you scream like this?” Charles asked, his breathing ragged.
“S-sometimes,” Ángel said. He hadn’t been lying when he said he’d taken pleasure in sex with Raúl. In terms of technical skill, Raúl had been an extraordinary lover; it was everything else about him that had left much to be desired.
Charles grunted in dissatisfaction. Releasing Ángel’s shoulders, he took hold of his hips and lifted them, driving in at an angle that lit up Ángel’s prostate like the neon sign outside. Ángel’s hands slipped off his ass, and he grabbed Charles’s thighs instead, feeling the powerful muscles flexing beneath the skin.
“Fuck, right there,” Ángel said, rising onto the balls of his feet.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, God, don’t stop.”
When Ángel reached for his cock, Charles got there first, pushing his hand away. “Just take it,” Charles said.
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