Chapter Eighteen #2
“Be my husband, my partner, and my best friend. I need you in my life. I want you in my life. We were meant to be together from that first day in your parents’ pub to now. It’s never been clearer. You’re meant to be mine.”
“Really?” he asked again, so caught off guard.
The man just nodded.
Corbin suddenly had more hope. It was like all the strength returned, and he could fight on for another day. This man gave him the ability to do that.
He’d fight for Will when he couldn’t fight for himself.
Will brushed some of the hair from Corbin’s eyes.
“What do you say, handsome cop of mine?” he asked, waiting for an answer.
Corbin didn’t want to wait.
Maybe getting married would help him hold his shit together.
And he wouldn’t lose him.
“Yes. Let’s get married when we go home. I’ll marry you, Will. I want to be your husband. I want you to be my husband.”
That was all he had to hear.
Will kissed him.
Immediately, Corbin felt better. He felt like he just might make it, and with this man, his life would be amazing. Now, he could focus on that, and not how broken he was.
“We can elope, we can plan a big wedding, or we can do Vegas. I don’t care, Corby. I just want to be your husband. I want to be William Price, Esquire. I want to work from our home, and one day have kids together. I want to be the man you come home to every night.”
His heart skipped.
He wanted that too.
“I love you, Will, and the idea of you taking my name and being my husband is amazing.”
He kissed him.
It was soft, it was filled with love, and it healed a little piece of him. Corbin’s goal was to be able to stop being afraid. For their honeymoon, he wanted to be able to give Will something.
Anything.
He was determined to do it too.
“I love you too, Corby.”
And he did.
As they sat there, watching the waves, and the people frolicking in them, Corbin felt alive again. No, he wasn’t back to whole, but he was able to smile.
And he did.
Then, he wanted something else.
Jumping up, he pulled Will to his feet, and tossed him over his shoulder.
The man laughed hard, amused by his man. As he hung over his shoulder, he slapped Corbin on the ass.
“If you think I’m going to tell you to stop, Corbin Price, you’re out of your goddamn mind!” he said, laughing outrageously.
And Corbin jogged them down the beach and right to the warm water. There, he took them into the surf, and they both went under.
When they came up, they were both smiling and holding onto each other.
For Corbin, this renewed him.
Now…
He might just have a fighting chance.
* * * Blackhawk & Cantrell * * *
In The Office
Research Time
One of the things that helped them do their job was the ability to dig in and find anything in research. With the FBI’s computers, and access to multiple databases, an agent had an advantage.
And now, they were looking for one.
They needed it.
With Ethan beside him, Gene was working on running the homicide captain and his cops.
They were covering their bases.
Because if it smelled off, it was off.
As they worked in silence, Greyson had headed out to get some lunch. They’d eaten, and they were holding down the fort.
Which was silent.
Because no one was there.
Agents Ramirez, Cragen, Torez, and Gonzales had vacated for the day. When Greyson had said they cut out at two to head out for drinks and sun, he wasn’t kidding.
Not.
At.
All.
Agent Mayfield was off doing who knew what, and at this rate, it was best they didn’t ask. Yes, he’d said he’d help do research, but something must have come up.
Honestly, if the agents wanted to work that way, it was fine—but if they were ever transferred to a busier office…
The shit would hit the fan.
“Anything?” Ethan asked, as he was doing research on Jaden’s and Rodrigo’s businesses, to see what else they shared.
They couldn't just believe the mob man.
Gene and Ethan had to make sure they researched everything he’d said to be sure.
They were crazy like that.
“Nothing on the homicide captain,” he admitted. “He grew up here, was a beat cop, and moved up to detective, and finally captain. He’s clean. He’s single, has a decent income, and that’s about it. Nothing flags anything that screams he’s in cahoots with a mob man.”
Ethan laughed.
“Cahoots?”
Gene winked at him.
“I said what I said, sexy Native man. Your hearing is perfectly fine.”
Oh, it was, and Ethan was grinning because there was nothing sexier than a man who made him laugh. Sometimes, he was way too serious.
“How’s the lower body situation going?” Gene asked. “Asking for a horny Top.”
Well, it was definitely going.
“It’s a constant reminder. When something is going to be touching your dick all day, it’s difficult not to think about it.”
Gene leaned over, and paused, his lips close to his mate’s.
“God. I wish I was touching your dick all day. That had been my vacation plan.”
Oh, it had been Ethan’s, too.
Taking a chance, he leaned into his man, and put his mouth on Gene’s. The kiss was steady, filled with heat, and made his body wake up.
How could it not?
When he broke the kiss, Gene tucked some of Ethan’s hair behind his ears.
“I love you,” he admitted. “I love you more as my hapless sexual prisoner.”
That intrigued him.
Honestly, he’d rather be playing that role than the one where he was sitting in an FBI office with no AC trying to find a killer.
“We have to work, huh?”
Gene just laughed.
That said it all, forcing Ethan to do just that—for the sake of this case.
“Anything on the cops?” Ethan asked, now that he’d gotten that kiss out of his system.
His dick ached again, and he was struggling with not climbing into Gene’s lap—because he could.
“Nothing,” Gene admitted. “I ran Yandriel Potter, and he came back clean. Same scenario as the homicide captain. He grew up here, but his father was a cop. That’s the only difference.
Well, that and he isn’t a captain. There are articles about him, and how he gives back to the community.
From what I can see, he’s a model cop and citizen. ”
Well, that sucked.
They needed some good suspects. Because there were only so many people who could have told Rodrigo where they were.
Again, if he hadn’t been following them. That was a distinct possibility.
“I dug into his partner, Luis Patron. I am on his social media right now. He was Aaron’s best friend. There are pictures of them all over the place. They had some adventures.”
Ethan listened.
“What bothers me the most is that on Friday, Jarod turns the case back over to the local cops, and he dies. The case goes to Yandriel, and the man didn’t see any of this coming. It feels fake.”
Ethan played Devil’s Advocate.
“Well, in their defense, it felt fake to us because we solve serial homicides all of the time. They handle a hit and run, or a domestic turned deadly. Maybe it was easy for us to see a mile away, but not them.”
He had a point.
“Want to watch a video?” Gene asked, holding up the disc.
Since Ethan’s system was still running businesses, trying to find a correlation, he had some time.
“Sure. Hit it.”
Gene popped the disc into his computer, and it began playing. Together, they watched, and Gene made notes.
He had to admit one thing.
They’d asked all the right questions. What he’d expected was to leave some important ones out if they were trying to delay them.
That wasn’t the case.
“Okay, well, Aaron’s family knew nothing. They didn’t lie about that,” Gene admitted, shutting the video down and adding it to the evidence log.
Ethan sighed.
“That’s problematic. We don’t have a lot of suspects, and while this case isn’t difficult, we also don’t have forensics—not yet, anyway,” Blackhawk admitted.
Between the forensics that went off to the city facility, to the lack of evidence on the bodies…they were batting a big, fat zero.
That was definitely a problem.
“Who do we have?” Gene asked, pointing at the whiteboard behind them.
Ethan turned in his chair, and grabbed a marker.
“We can add a few more.”
Suspects
Adrian Marrero
Margie Padillo
Rodrigo Cruz
Esmeralda Barbada
Yandriel Potter
Luis Patron
Ethan sat back down.
“As you can see, it’s sketchy at best. We only have a few reasons to put them on there. Adrian is leading the list because he saw Jarod last, and he knew the name of the mob man when he supposedly shouldn’t.”
Gene listened to his partner break it down.
“I haven’t run Margie Padillo yet, but she’s on there since she connects to two of the dead victims. We know the cop and Fed weren’t about the crime, but about the investigation, so she’s tied to both of them. Plus, she worked at Papi’s.”
Gene started running Margie while his partner talked.
“Then, we have the whole Rodrigo mess—since he was partners with Jared, and he’s dating Esmeralda, but would he point it at them?”
Gene shrugged.
“I mean, it’s a strategy. Keep in mind, they didn’t know we would be working this. What if they pointed it that way before they realized it would go to shit, and that show he put on was to convince us. I think we should be skeptical until we figure this out.”
On that, Ethan agreed.
“Esmeralda worked there, and she’s the Voodoo priestess nonsense. Plus, we find out she was banging Jared, and now she’s saddled up with the mob man. That puts her into the thick of it.”
Gene didn’t disagree.
He wasn’t a fan of the whole damsel in distress bullshit. There was no doubt in his mind that women could be prolific killers.
He’d run into plenty.
Now, though, they needed to look at the evidence.
“Then, we have Yandriel and Luis. They worked with Aaron, they would know what he was doing, and they got the case afterward. Both men were at the scene and could be helping Rodrigo. We all know mob men like having cops on their payroll.”
Gene agreed there, too.
“We just need proof.”
That was the difficult part.
When Ethan’s laptop beeped, he knew one of his searches was done.
As he checked, Gene kept talking.