Big Bad Wolf

by Suleikha Snyder

  “Nathaniel.” Dustin frowned at him, playing the disciplinarian for their audience’s benefit. “I think you’re overwrought—which is understandable, given that we were all in the vicinity of a shooting.” He turned his body so he was half shielding Nate, easily creating a barrier between him and the esteemed employees of the City of New York. “If we hear anything from Peluso or our associate Ms. Ahluwalia, you will be the first to know,” he lied in the velvet-smooth tone that had disrobed countless people across the Eastern Seaboard.

  Dustin always protected him. Without fail. Together, they would protect Neha and their client.

  * * *

  The sound of shattering glass could’ve meant anything. A clumsy moment. A raucous toast. The angry torrent of words that came after it was unmistakable. Aleksei had fucked something up. His pleasure and pride from the night before, in the arena, had vanished into utter fury. Yulia winced, flattening against the wall outside his office door, hearing only his side of the conversation. Hell, they could probably hear his half of the conversation all the way at the top hill of the Coney Island Cyclone. Now it was a steady stream of suddenly deferential Slovak punctuated with curses. It was a talent to cover one’s ass and display one’s rage at the same time, but Yulia was no stranger to her brother’s many skills. The self-proclaimed king of South Brooklyn’s Russian and Eastern European enclave was desperate to hold on to his empire even as it slipped through his fingers.

  His anger woke the beast inside her, making her fur ripple over her skin and her claws pop. But she forced back the turn, swallowed the urge to shift. The hit went bad, she surmised, once she’d heard enough. Her Slovak wasn’t great, but she understood what was important: the Maspeth Mauler, or whatever silly name the news was calling him this week, had somehow escaped. Now Aleksei had to explain himself to the big monsters on top—the monsters no one ever wanted to disappoint. If her brother had named himself king, then it was safe to say that the men he answered to thought themselves gods. Yulia had never been happier to be a nonbeliever.

  She hurried away from the offices, back to the front of the club, shaking the ice crystals from her skin. Yes, she could melt the chill…but she could never be rid of the stain of the business. Her phone burned a hole in the back pocket of her jeans, begging to be plucked out and used. Call Danny, said the little voice in her head she’d been ignoring for months. Call him and tell him what’s happening. But she’d sworn—sworn—loyalty to Aleksei, hadn’t she? Wasn’t that the deal she made with him, with herself, when she wiped down the bar at the Confessional on Church Avenue for the last time and came back down to Kamchatka? No more contact with Detective Danny Yeo. No more looking outside their family, outside their world. No more humans.

  That foolish vow didn’t account for what she saw when she closed her eyes. Because Danny was always there. Strong, steadfast, kind, and funny. Quick with a light for her cigarettes, giving of warm end-of-shift hugs. Despite discovering her connection to one of Brooklyn’s most notorious crime rings, he’d never pressured her to turn on her brother. He’d never asked for any information. Even when she’d itched to give it to him. And now…now that they never spoke, all she wanted to do was spill everything.

  My brother is a killer, she’d say. And I never should have left you to be by his side.

  * * *

  Danny was on shift at 3S when the call came in, when their scanners went wild. Shooting at Kings County Criminal Court. Police and Fire on the scene. Suspect at large. Possible rogue supernatural unaccounted for. It wasn’t his precinct, but he half expected his personal phone to light up, calling him back into the station where he’d already clocked a full shift. It stayed silent. Unlike Elijah and Jack, who slammed out of the glass-walled conference room set against the back wall, voices raised.

  “I told you we should’ve kept a closer eye on him!” Lije was saying, his eyes going shifter-gold with anger.

  Jackson, who normally looked like a poster boy for white Republican chic, had lost his suit jacket sometime in the last hour. His tie was unknotted and his usual perfectly styled brown hair was a mess. “Oh, you did, did you?” he spat. “When exactly was that? When you were cleaning out the tabloid shelf at the Duane Reade?”

  “Sod off, Jack!” Elijah roared. Like literally roared.

  Heads went up across the sea of cubicles, like meerkats popping up out of their little meerkat holes. Not that they had any meerkat shifters on staff, as far as Danny knew. He locked eyes with Joaquin Serrano, Third Shift’s best surveillance expert, who already had their wall of monitors syncing in with drone coverage of the area. Finn Conlan and Mack Wilson both had quarters on premises and therefore tended to be around for all major Third Shift events. They slipped out of their desk chairs and into the aisle. Like they could intercept and subdue their bosses before things got too out of hand. Ha. A vampire and a human against a lion shifter and a sorcerer? Fat chance. But Danny admired the initiative. Maybe he envied it a little, too.

  Finn and Mack were both senior field operatives with decades of experience—it was possible the decades were all on Finian’s side, since he bragged about being ninety-something years old—and risked little blowback for shouting. “Hey!” and “What the hell is going on here?” at the two powerful men who’d created 3S.

  As if only just realizing they had an audience, Jack and Elijah seemed to immediately deflate. The shadow of Elijah’s lion vanished. The faint glow around Jackson that meant conjuring was imminent disappeared, too, and his pale face reddened with embarrassment at having lost his cool patrician facade. “I’m sorry,” he said, in a milder tone better suited for the workplace. “That dig about the tabloids was uncalled for.”

  “Accepted. Forgotten.” Elijah offered a curt nod. “Now what the hell are we going to do about Joe Peluso doing a runner?”

  Was that what had happened at the courthouse? Danny felt a surge of dread followed by confusion. “Why do we have to do anything about him doing a runner?” He was like a high-school kid again, raising his hand in class. But the question had to be asked. For his own edification if nothing else. “Isn’t it better for the bigger picture if he just vanishes and the Russians are left chasing their tails? If we just let the local precinct clean up the mess?”

  Jack made a face, and then scrubbed the expression away with the palm of his hand. “There are things you don’t know,” he admitted, though it clearly pained him to do so. “Things we haven’t told all the operatives.”

  “Like what?” Finn’s near-black brows rose, and then wiggled in speculation. Because there was nothing he couldn’t turn into innuendo. “He an ex or something? Did you have a threesome and not invite me? I’m insulted, honestly.”

  “Shut it, Finian,” Elijah said, not entertaining the digression even a little. “We do have a past with Peluso, but it’s not that sort of past. He’s one of us.”

  That told Danny absolutely nothing. “A shifter? A supernatural? We knew that already.”

  Elijah and Jack traded an indecipherable look. One that resulted in Lije slumping against a cubicle divider while Jack straightened his tie and cleared his throat. Lecture mode, activated. “The Apex Initiative—the cooperative military program that created supernatural soldiers like Peluso—began with a team of born supes. I was on that team. So was Elijah. We were the first wave. Phase One. When the project was deemed a success, they decided to pursue a new avenue: making their own supes via genetic manipulation. Joe, and others like him, are results of that experimentation.”

  Holy shit. Danny had known, of course, that they’d met during wartime and dreamed up Third Shift for when they weren’t active duty anymore…but he’d never figured this was part of their origin story. That the intermilitary unit Peluso was a part of had started with them. “So, Third Shift wouldn’t even exist without Apex. And you still feed into each other, don’t you?”

  Elijah nodded. “We pull recruits from that pool,
yeah. And they keep us informed of ongoing developments with the program. Sometimes they’ll kick us an op they need done off the books. Sometimes we watch their retirees. Like Peluso. Especially if they stumble into one of our active missions. So, we can’t just let him vanish.”

  “Not even if he wanted to,” Jack added. “He’s too valuable. And too dangerous. The public has just started accepting supernaturals in their midst. If word gets out that the military’s been making supe-soldiers for decades, the tiny bit of progress we’ve made will get buried in a shitshow.”

  Danny flinched. To think, he’d written off Peluso as unimportant, unworthy of his attention. Too caught up in what that hit last year had meant for him and Yulia on a personal level to link it to what Third Shift was trying to do overall. He’d sworn to fight for freedom and equality in the only ways he could. That meant fighting for Joe Peluso, too.

  “We’ll find him,” he said, even though it was a promise he couldn’t be sure to keep. “I know we’ll get this back on track.”

  Elijah’s roar this time was one of weary laughter. “Then you know more than me, Danny. You know a whole bloody lot more than me.”

  Chapter 12

  They went at it again right there by Neha’s door. The lights were off. It was all touch and taste and scent, no sight. And he couldn’t not have her. Because, fuck, the cops could bust in on them right then, guns blazing, and if he was gonna die, Joe wanted to die like this. His fingertips sinking into her hips. His cock sinking into her softness, the way eased by that first round against the bricks. He should have been halfway across town by now. Not here, fucking her, swallowing her little moans, letting her believe that she could save him. He wasn’t supposed to be getting off on how she clutched fistfuls of his shirt and bit at his throat. Like she was the supe, not him. Like she wanted to drink him dry.

  Vasiliev was behind the hit. No question. The beatdowns in lockup were just foreplay. Joe knew his best bet was to go to ground for a couple days and then get the fuck out of Dodge. There was no shaking that kind of target on his back. But there was no shaking Neha either, even though he needed to walk the fuck out right now. Instead, he shoved her jacket down her shoulders, trapping her arms at the elbows, and he ripped open her blouse, sending the buttons flying. And he took and took. Tonguing her pretty throat and her jaw and her tits. As heavy and full against his lips as he’d imagined they’d be.

  He knew the minute she stopped being into it. She went still under his mouth. There was a break in how she was panting for him. “Don’t like having your tits sucked, Doc?” he wondered, trying not to laugh and accidentally bite her beautiful brown nipple right off.

  “Doesn’t do a damn thing for me,” she confessed, her shoulders lifting in a shrug that just scrunched her gorgeous rack together like an invite to fuck it. He wanted to slide his cock right into that valley and die there…except for the part where she was like, “Have at it if you want. Just remember we’re in a rush.”

  Joe couldn’t help it then. He did laugh. Lowering his head and cracking up right there against her chest. And his damn fool cock didn’t even feel insulted. Still hard as a rock. “Nah,” he told her, once he’d gotten himself in hand. Literally. “I think we can work out a compromise.” He grinned up at her before he slid down her body. So soft and hot and sweaty from everything they’ve already done. “I ever tell you that I was the pussy-eatin’ champion of Aviation High?”

  “We’re still in a rush,” she reminded him.

  “Time me,” he said before he put his face between her thighs.

  The reality of that first taste…fuck. It beat every fantasy in his jailhouse spank bank. Salty. Musky. His come and hers combined. So fucking filthy. He had to brace one hand on her hip so he didn’t go all in like the rabid animal everyone assumed he was. But he wanted to. Fuck, he wanted to. Because she was so wet and so into it. Making little hungry noises, reaching down to tangle her fingers in his hair and tug. He used his tongue. His thumb. Pressing into her clit while he licked into her. And, fuck, hell, god, it was everything. Everything and too much. His fur bristled under his skin like a thousand pinpricks. His balls drew up tight. He was gonna spill again without even touching himself. Just from touching her. Devouring her.

  Her orgasm hit fast. No slow build. No tiny tremors. Her whole body went over the edge. And it was beautiful. Wrecked him. Wrecked her.

  “Three minutes.” It was barely a whisper. It was enough. For the first time in a long-ass time, Joe actually felt a little smug…and a little safe.

  * * *

  She’d just had the best sex of her life—twice—and she couldn’t even stop and linger in the afterglow. The clock was ticking. Neha managed to yank herself away from Joe at some point after he’d pulled two more orgasms from her with just his mouth. She practically had to crawl, her knees were so shaky. It was a miracle she could move at all, leaving him there by the door as she willed her limbs to propel her to the bathroom for the world’s fastest and hottest shower. She made sure to clean every nook and cranny—no sense in getting a UTI while on the run with a wanted criminal, right? And when she emerged a few minutes later, dressed in loose cotton Indian clothes, it was to find Joe up and prowling her living area.

  “The shower’s all yours,” she offered. She didn’t have to tell him twice. He set down the family photo he’d been studying and made a beeline down the short hallway.

  He didn’t take long. She’d barely managed to gather up some toiletries and extra clothes when he came out bare-chested and damp-haired, wearing just his suit pants, a sheepish grin on his face. “I hung the jacket up in the steam. The shirt’s kind of a waste, though.”

  Because she’d ripped it open at some point. Just like he’d shredded hers. And she wasn’t at all sorry. Joe’s chest was a thing of beauty. Like something carved from rock and hewn further by the elements. Suntanned, hairy but not furry, his was the body of a man who worked outdoors. His abs hadn’t come from a gym. They weren’t six-pack, but she knew from close perusal that she’d hurt her fist if she tried to hit him in the gut. God, she wanted to just stand there and stare at him for an hour. But she couldn’t.

  “I have some oversized T-shirts somewhere. Go check in the bottom drawer of my dresser. You can borrow one,” she assured him before moving from her first bag to the second one she’d grabbed from the top shelf in her closet. Her go bag. She’d packed it for the first time on November 9, 2016. The day after the Darkest Day.

  He reemerged from the back of the apartment, pulling a generic promotional T-shirt over his head, as she checked the contents. And his dark eyes went wide as she laid out the inventory. The steel bangle kara she no longer wore. Her American passport. Her U.S. birth certificate. Protein bars. A couple of water bottles. A first-aid kit. Two burner phones. A slick and shiny Apple iPod Touch. A Taser. A sweet little handgun. Extra bullets.

  “Is that a—?”

  “It’s a .22,” she confirmed, running her thumb across the hammer. “I worked in the DA’s office. And half the country hates people who look like me. Probably more than half. You think I’m going to take any chances?” It wasn’t a choice she’d made lightly. She’d spent most of her life hating guns. Hating anything wielded in violence. But as the nation had changed, so had her stance. Out of sheer practicality if not actual principle. Her first few months at the DA’s office, she’d spent as many weekends as she could at an NYPD firing range with a guy she was dating. The target shooting had proved to be way more useful than the guy, who got transferred to a precinct in Staten Island for coking up on the job.

  She didn’t know how much longer she’d be allowed to carry. There was legislation being circulated in Congress right now to restrict Second Amendment rights to humans of a Caucasian persuasion. They were pretending the intent was something less malevolent, but anybody with half a brain knew it was just one more step on the road to a white-supremacist, humans-first America. And Ne
ha wouldn’t be allowed on that road. Countless people would be happy to leave her corpse on the side of it. So, she and Joe had to keep moving while they could.

  Still, her hands shook as she finished inventorying her bags and then zipped them up. All the practical preparation in the world didn’t ease the tension brewing in her gut and tightening her shoulders. “What are we going to do, Joe? What are our choices?”

  He sighed, shoulders sinking as he gripped the back of his neck with one hand. “I know what I was gonna do. Go after Vasiliev and then get the hell outta Dodge. Fuck if I know what to do now.”

  The reminder stung a little. He’d meant to leave her after taking her against the bricks, and she’d kept him from going off without her. “So, it’s all up in the air because I’m with you. It’d be easier if you could go it alone, but I messed that up for you by insisting you stay with me.”

  “You didn’t mess anything up. I messed up your life. I dragged you into my bullshit.” Joe sighed again. His dark-brown gaze flicked over her face and then away, toward the picture frame he’d picked up earlier. “I know you’re worried about my case and shit. I’m not. They were probably going to give me life anyway. So, I could get gone. Duck out of sight. Never come back here. But you? You can’t run,” he pointed out. “You have family and shit, right? People who’ll miss you.”

  Ma. Papa. Her brothers. The twins. Those were only a few of the faces that flashed through her mind. A few of the faces in the photo he’d studied. “People will miss you, too.”

  Joe’s laugh was short and sharp like a bark. “Yeah, like who?”

  “Me,” she said simply. Because after kissing him, getting shot at with him, and having sex with him, that was something she couldn’t deny. Good or bad, Joe Peluso was a part of her life now, a part of her history and memory. There was no going back to a no-Joe existence.