by Martha Carr
What…the…hell?
Alison watched them from the couch a huge grin on her face. Shay leaned against a wall, more restrained amusement on her features.
Why the fuck do they have a smudge pot inside? I thought you used those outside in orchards. I’ll never understand women.
The bounty hunter blinked and shoved his gun back into its holster before the women noticed.
James started to back out of the door when Janelle spotted him.
She gasped and pointed. “That’s why I recognize Alison. From the news. From the hearing when they tried to block her adoption.”
The bounty hunter grunted and looked at his recently adopted daughter. She gave him a thin little grin and a shrug.
“You’re James Brownstone,” Janelle all but shrieked. “And she’s Alison Brownstone.”
The two other women stopped and stared at him before pivoting as a group toward Shay.
“You didn’t tell us you were dating James Brownstone,” they shouted in unison. “The James Brownstone!”
James groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face.
Shay shrugged. “Surprise.”
8
Shay smirked when James’ hand twitched. He picked up his pizza with a frown and took a bite. It’d been hard enough to get him to agree to the date, so she wasn’t surprised to see him less than relaxed.
The man can kill hundreds of gangsters without blinking, but push him outside his comfort zone for a few hours and he’s like some nervous little kid. KISS screwed you over, James. You should have lived by AETU, Always Expect The Unexpected.
Shay sighed. “She’ll be fine alone at my place. She’s not a little kid, James. If she can take the train from Virginia to LA by herself, I think she can last a few hours at home without Dad. She was walking the streets by herself before you even met her if you remember.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t worry.” James grunted. “Just so you know, Alison says it still smells funny from your friend’s weird shit yesterday.”
The tomb raider chuckled. “It does. I think it’s gonna take a while to get the smell out, but at least I don’t have any negative energy in my house.” She laughed and picked up her water to take a sip.
He snorted. “Negative energy. Magic’s real now, so why do people still believe in bullshit?”
“Knowing magic’s real means there’s a greater than zero chance that any bit of bullshit is true.” Shay shrugged.
James shook his head. “Your friends are strange.”
“Most of your friends are ex-gang members or criminal information brokers. Not exactly a normal group of guys.” She snickered.
He frowned. “Information brokers? You talking about Tyler? He’s not my friend. He’s just a guy I know.” He pointed at her. “And don’t call him a frenemy. I fucking hate that word.”
Shay rolled her eyes. “Yeah, he’s totally not your friend. You guys just hatch idiot plans together to make money all the time, and he constantly bets on you kicking ass. Hell, after the hearing, he pretty much said he was your friend. Was half-weepy about it, even.”
“It’s weird to think of Tyler as my friend.” James shook his head. “At least he’s not coming over to my house and trying to set it on fire, unlike your friends.”
“Yet. I’m sure if he can find a way to make money betting on Brownstone arson, he will.”
James grunted. “Wouldn’t put it past him. The guy’s not a total piece of shit, but he’s still a slippery little snake.”
“Enough about your weird friends for now.” Shay set her glass down and folded her hands in front of her. “So, last week, when you agreed to go out on this date with me, do you remember what else you said?”
“I have a photographic memory. Of course, I remember.” He shrugged.
“And what did you agree to after dinner?”
James’ face paled, and he winced. “Shit. That I’d go wherever you wanted afterward.” He rubbed his neck. “I just figured you meant a movie or something. Why? You got some weird shit planned?”
Shay enjoyed the slight panic in her man’s eyes. Seeing the mighty James Brownstone, Scourge of Harriken and the Granite Ghost, worried about what she might have in store made her want to throw her head back and cackle.
I should take a picture of him.
“You don’t have to look like I’m gonna drop you into a nest of Drow and despair bugs. It’s not some big, twisted plan. I just want to go dancing. Normal, everyday dancing, like normal people who aren’t bounty hunters and tomb raiders do.”
James grunted. “Dancing? I don’t dance.” He shrugged. “I kick ass, and I barbeque.”
“It’s called flexibility, James.” Shay shook a finger at him. “And it doesn’t matter. You at least have to go to a club with me, because you promised to go wherever I wanted, and I want to go to a club.”
He shrugged. “Fine. That doesn’t mean I’m dancing.”
“Don’t be so afraid. Dancing’s just like sex, except with your clothes on.” She smirked.
James grunted.
The pounding base thrummed through Shay’s body in time with the changing of the kaleidoscopic lights overhead. The thick scents of men’s cologne, women’s perfume, and everybody’s sweat mingled in the air, not letting anyone forget even for a second where they were.
James stood against the wall, his arms hanging at his side and tension radiating out of every pore as he frowned at the thick crowd filling the dance floor. It was like he expected a group of magical assassins to bust through the wall and go after him at any second.
Shay tried not to laugh at her poor uncomfortable boyfriend. It might take years to whip him into shape.
Can’t be too surprised. For a guy who likes simple and straight-forward, a crowded club must feel like a slap in the face. He needs to loosen up a little, though, and, shit, I want to go dancing sometimes with someone other than the girls. Is it so wrong to go dancing with your man?
She needed to give him a reason to care, and a reason to understand the power that came with dancing.
Shay sashayed over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and putting her face right next to his.
“You look like you’re trying to pass a kidney stone.” She snickered. “Try to relax a little. You could have a fun time if you let yourself.”
“This place is fucking loud,” he rumbled. “An assassin could go to town in here, and people wouldn’t realize for an hour that someone’s been killed.”
“It’s a club. It’s supposed to be loud, and most people aren’t worried about assassins. They aren’t exactly James Brownstone.” Shay laughed. “Or even me. It’s just a club where people go to drink and dance. You know, have fun.”
James frowned. “How are people supposed to chat when it’s so fucking loud?”
Shay laughed. “They aren’t. Their bodies are supposed to do the talking for them. Come on, let’s do a little dance-talking.”
She shimmied backward a little, letting her arms drop and trace down the thick, powerful muscles in his arms until she reached his hands and tugged lightly.
James shook his head. Despite the noise, she could still make out what he had to say.
“I agreed to go wherever you wanted. I didn’t agree to do whatever you wanted.”
A blond pretty boy sauntered up to Shay and shouted to be heard. “I see that guy doesn’t want to dance. I’d be more than happy to dance with a beautiful woman like you. That guy doesn’t appreciate what he’s got.”
Shay was surprised the pretty boy didn’t recognize James, especially given how much he’d been on television in recent weeks. She didn’t say anything back, instead waiting to see how her anti-dancing boyfriend would react.
The bounty hunter stomped over toward the man and let a loud growl. “Get the fuck out of here, asshole, or I’ll punt you through a fucking wall.”
The pretty boy’s eyes widened, and he ran off, dodging through the crowd like he expected James to open fire on him at any
second.
Shay cackled. “Are you kidding me right now? I thought I used to overreact to annoying guys in clubs, but you make me look like the Queen of Restraint.”
He shrugged. “Fine, I’ll dance a little if it’ll make you happy.” He muttered as he stepped forward. “This shit’s gonna be worse than the Bard of Filth Competition. Dancing. Yeah. Whatever.”
Shay placed her hands on his body as she started moving in time with the music. The poor man tried, but either he had a supernaturally bad sense of rhythm or the tension still suffusing him wouldn’t let me shake it.
The sad truth was that James Brownstone had zero groove. Hell, he had negative groove.
The tomb raider grinned, turning around to grind her ass against him for a bit. James grunted, and she let out another merry laugh.
I don’t even care if he is dancing. I’ve got James Brownstone on a dance floor in a club. That’s a victory in itself. Too bad I’m not taking video of this.
The tension stopped radiating off James the minute they stepped into his F-350. He let out a sigh of relief as if he’d just escaped a hostile den of Oriceran assassins.
Shay reached over to pat him on the arm. “I know that probably made you almost have a stroke, but I like that you at least tried. Sometimes you just got to push life, you know?”
He turned the key, and his engine roared to life. “Next time, I think I would prefer to be dropped into a bunch of angry Drow or back in that freaky-ass lab in Las Vegas.”
The tomb raider gave him a seductive smile. “Good boys who do what they’re told get rewards later.”
James grinned. “I did what I was told.”
They pulled out of the parking lot. A few minutes of silence passed, with Shay smiling out the window.
Nice. The last couple of days have been nice. I needed something to clean out the old thoughts after that shit in Argentina.
Just pizza and dancing, nothing special on the surface, but it was hard to ignore how the last few days had been something unusual. Spending time with Alison felt like the most natural thing in the world, and now it wasn’t a big deal to have an open relationship with James. It got inconvenient when people recognized him, but they mostly wanted his autograph or to buy him barbeque. Not much she could do about dating one of the most famous bounty hunters in the country.
Part of her worried about someone recognizing her and deciding it was a good time to take her out, but they would have to contend with James as well as her. Neither of them went anywhere without guns. Shay almost always was carrying at least one adamantine knife, and her man almost always had his amulet on him, even if it wasn’t bonded. Unless an attacker killed them instantly, they were in for a world of pain.
“We should stop somewhere,” James rumbled, breaking the silence.
“Stop somewhere? You hungry again? Yeah, I know you’re the man who’d eat a whole cow if they’d offered it to you, but you had so much pizza earlier. I’m honestly surprised.”
He shook his head. “Not that kind of thing. You know, more like dessert shit. Ice cream. Hot summer night and all that.”
Shay smiled, but then it faded. She couldn’t push the image of a melting ice cream cone out of her mind, the thick, dripping liquid all too strong a reminder of the poor bastard in Argentina.
Too fucking soon.
She shrugged. “Screw ice cream. How about we go home and have some hot and sweaty fun?”
James grinned. “Not gonna complain about that.”
9
Shay stifled a yawn the next morning as she sat in front of the office computer in Warehouse Two. James’ stamina was as superhuman as everything else about him, which always made spending a night with him a careful balance of judging pleasure in the moment versus soreness in the future. She wasn’t always sure she always picked the right side of that equation, but she never felt bad about it either.
Not like I’m running off on a tomb raid today. It’ll be okay.
She tapped away at the computer, snickering and pushing the thoughts of her alien lover out of her head. Peyton wasn’t there, and she couldn’t help but wonder where her assistant was.
His earlier issues with getting to Warehouse Two in a timely manner had gone away, and she hadn’t had to worry much about busting his balls about showing up. She’d settled into a comfortable rhythm of just expecting him to be there when she showed up.
“I’ll give him a few more minutes before I call him.”
Shay took a deep breath. It’d been a while since she last hit the dark web for a deep dive into the forums and sites catering to people employed in her original profession of the not-so-kindly art of paid murder. Given how she’d let more than a few people, including James’ friends, meet her, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to double-check and make sure no one new was coming after her.
I wonder how long I can keep this up. Fake professor by day, tomb raider by night. Won’t have to make any big decisions unless the school wants me to do more than guest lecture. What do I do if they ask?
She clicked around with her mouse as she cruised along to the kinds of websites that kept the NSA and FBI up at night. Improvements in cryptography in recent decades had done a lot to facilitate personal privacy, while at the same time allowing criminals to be even bolder on the net.
So many people out there want so many other people dead. Shit. If they just had the balls, they could do it themselves and cut out the middleman. Why not save the money? Fucking pussies. I’m annoyed I helped so many of them.
Shay snorted and shook her head. She started scrolling down a forum message board and stopped. Her heart kicked up as she read a message and spotted a familiar picture.
“Son of a bitch. You’ve got to be kidding me. You fucking moron.” The tomb raider pinched the bridge of her nose. “Talk about no good deed going unpunished!”
The message was a request for a hit but had raised an unusual amount of discussion because of its nature. Hitmen and professional killers tended to prefer straightforward fixed payments, but this hit promised a fifty-percent cut of an inherited fortune once the hitman could find the target, kill the target, and drop off the body in front of a police station of all things to facilitate rapid confirmation of the death of the target.
Shay shook head. “Talk about balls, you arrogant asshole.”
The elaborate requirements might not make sense to the average hitman, but the picture of the target in the forum made it very clear both why so much money was being offered and the reasoning behind the request.
The target was Peyton.
Shay shook her head. Their efforts had taken Randy’s access to serious money away. They’d tried to Scrooge him into behaving, and the financial assault was supposed to eliminate the need to put some bullets into the man, but now he was trying the next step—hiring thugs to go kill a man who was supposed to be already dead by offering ridiculous amounts of future money.
That Peyton’s brother had done that was irritating enough, but the fact that a group of killers had agreed to the damned deal ruined Shay’s morning.
You dumbasses. Why would you take a hit with a contingency-based payment plan? That’s just bad business. Unfortunately for you, I’m gonna prove to you why it’s such bad business.
“Fucking Randy.” She shook her head. “You’re dumber than the Harriken. You should have given up when you had the chance since I’m fucking through with looking the other way with you.”
Shay took a few breaths and picked up her phone. Peyton needed and deserved to know what was going on.
She gritted her teeth. Or was she already too late? He wasn’t at the warehouse even though she’d expected him. There was one possible fatal reason that might be the case.
She dialed his number. One ring. Two rings.
“Hello,” he answered on the third ring.
The relief that washed through Shay surprised her. “Where the fuck are you, Peyton?”
“My place still. Sorry, I overslept.”
“Who is that, Peyton?” called a female voice in the background.
“Just my boss.”
Shay hadn’t met the woman, but she’d already done enough surveillance on her to recognize the voice. Amber, Peyton’s girlfriend.
The tomb raider sighed. No reason to ruin both their mornings.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Or are you just pissed that I’m not there?”
“Don’t worry about it, Peyton. Not like I’m aching to go on another job right away. Take your time. I’ve got my own shit to look into anyway.”
“You sure?” The doubt in his voice almost made Shay laugh.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Everything okay? This just doesn’t sound like you. Do we need some sort of distress codes for phone calls so I can know you’re okay?”
Shay snorted. “Even I can’t be a bitch 24/7.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Handle your girlfriend,” Shay snapped, “and I’ll handle shit here.”
Peyton sighed. “Okay. If you need me, just let me know.”
“Let’s just say I’m sure I don’t need you for what I’m about to do.”
James shook his head as he stepped out of the black van with a ski mask on. “Why didn’t you just fucking kill this guy a while ago? You chewed me out about not killing Lars Hansen’s buddies, but you’ve let this fucker slide when he already tried to have Peyton killed?”
Shay sighed and slipped on her ski mask. The bounty hunter did have a point. It wasn’t so much that she gave that much of a shit about being hypocritical. It was more that she found it annoying to have to explain it.
“Because Peyton didn’t want me to, and it’s his brother, so I figured he got to make the call.”
The bounty hunter shook his head. “Just saying, even now it’d be easier to just go directly to him and kill him if he’s your big problem instead of all this complicated shit you’ve set up.”