Chapter 1 #2
“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Will asked. He pulled his mask down as they hit the front lawn, breathing in the fresh afternoon air.
“I kiss yours.”
“Yeah?” Will said. He took the guy to the sidewalk and nudged him towards where Cain and Diego had the original two. They were sitting on the curb, hands cuffed behind their backs. “Well, Dad, sit down and wait for your ride. Maybe they’ll let her visit you for conjugal rights.”
A small crowd had gathered, likely because of the sound of gunfire. Peanut Butter and Jelly were keeping them at bay, holding out a hand and speaking to the people as they gawked.
“Thought there were five guys?” Diego asked, glancing between the perps they’d lined up.
They’d gone quiet, their shoulders hunched in—as much as they could with their hands behind their backs like that—and seemed perfectly docile.
Even the mouthier asshole that Will had brought out was quiet now.
That’s what usually happened once they realised the predicament they were in and that they were basically fucked.
The chances of bail for this were slim, and court would chew them up and spit them out.
Once Will and his team were involved, guilt was already a given.
“No one else was in the house,” Roy said. “I figure he either knew we were coming and got the fuck out of Dodge before we could get here, or he saw us coming.”
“Saved himself and left his buddies to take the fall?” Cain wondered.
“Likely.”
“Or he wasn’t here in the first place,” Will pointed out.
Intel had said five, but the guy could have left well before anyone had assembled, or they’d counted wrong.
He’d look over the paperwork when they got back and find out who exactly the five men were and whether they would need to put out a search for the fifth.
Probably. Driving around the city searching for a needle in a haystack was his favourite job.
The media showed up a few minutes later.
It figured they’d get there before any uniformed police could.
The nearest precinct would have been given as much notice as Will and his guys had, and they were a fuckload slower than his team.
His team’s entire job revolved around a stop-start mentality and their ability to go from zero to a thousand in a split second of violence.
It had taken them longer to get here than it had to clear the building.
“We’ll let them know; they can sort it out,” Roy said.
Will blew out a breath and glanced around. More people were gathering, and Diego went over to help Peanut Butter and Jelly control them. The uniformed officers would take over once they got here, but until then, it was up to them to keep order.
This was the part that made Will jittery—the part where they all stood around with their dicks in their hands while they waited.
The media circus was both a blessing and a curse.
It was good for public opinion, but Will wasn’t a fan of having cameras everywhere.
He tried his best to stay out of the way—which was difficult at the best of times, considering he towered over most people—as he and his men coordinated how to get the four criminals transported to a jail cell.
A lockup van was on its way, and once they were securely inside, Will and Roy would do a final sweep of the house and get the drugs ready for transport.
“Do you think if we asked, we could have copies of some of those media shots?” Cain asked. “My ass looks great in this uniform.”
Will coughed to disguise his laugh.
“What the fuck do you want a picture of your ass for?” Roy asked.
“Don’t be jealous that yours is sagging,” Cain replied.
“Stop looking at my ass.”
Will knew if there weren’t so many people loitering around, Roy would have flipped him off. Or shot him. Even odds.
“Will’s is better.”
Will winked at him. He slapped Roy on the shoulder as he passed and went over to check on crowd control.
If they could get out of here in the next three hours, it would be a miracle.
Other than one of the five they had wanted to pick up getting away, and the bruise that he could feel forming on his knee, it had been a successful hunt.
He was ready for other departments to do their thing so they could head back to HQ, and he could shower.
He had plans with Peyton—his best friend and regular bed partner—that didn’t involve a crime scene. Peyton was seeing Quinn at his brother’s birthday dinner, which meant Peyton would be frustrated and horny, with a touch of anger just sharp enough that the sex would be hot.
Sebastian Devlin loved being a defence lawyer. He loved the thrill of it, loved having the odds against him and beating them. Having inside information helped, but it’s not how he won his cases, it only solidified why he had become a defence lawyer in the first place.
What he didn’t love was when it was nine thirty at night and he still had at least six more hours of work to get through. And his coffee had gone cold.
The effort to get up and walk across the lobby to the staff room to make a fresh cup seemed insurmountable.
But he also knew that without the caffeine boost, he wasn't going to make it through the evening, and he would fall asleep at his desk again and struggle to make it through the following day. The last time he’d done that, his paralegal—and one of his closest and oldest friends—Caleb, had given him the side-eye for a week and hidden the good chocolate.
Sebastian would prefer not to have a repeat of those awful seven days.
He was almost willing to risk it, though. He was tired, and the staff room seemed light years away.
He jerked into a half-standing position, palms braced on the desk, when his office door swung open. He relaxed when he recognised the man in the doorway.
Hunter. Just Hunter. Sebastian didn’t know his last name. He had no idea if that was even his real first name, but it was appropriate for who he was.
A man who hunted the evil in the world.
Sebastian had met him early on in his law career, almost seven years ago.
When Hunter had offered him the ability to know for sure if a client was guilty or not, in exchange for his help when Hunter required his services, he had jumped in with both feet without checking how far down the bottom was.
He'd been going through a rough patch after—well, just after.
And after a case he'd been sure about had blown up in his face when he realised that he'd let a killer out, and that killer had struck again. ..
So he’d signed a deal with the devil without properly checking the fine print—a rookie move, but he’d been a rookie at the time, ripe for the plucking.
While some days Sebastian wasn’t sure if maybe he’d been too hasty to get into bed with Hunter—figuratively speaking—he also knew that there were a lot of innocent people still free because he’d sold his soul to a man who walked in the shadows.
Sebastian was sure he didn’t know half of what Hunter did in whatever line of work he was in, but he had ways of getting information to Sebastian that he would have had no hope of finding on his own.
All he’d had to do was defend and manipulate certain situations in Hunter’s favour whenever the man requested, no questions asked.
That was the hardest part. He had so many questions, and Hunter refused to answer any of them.
“I knew you’d still be here.”
Sebastian relaxed back down into his chair and took his glasses off. “And if I hadn’t been?”
“I knew you would be.”
That was a little unfair. It wasn't that late, and he wasn't the only person still working.
Sometimes Lewis across the hallway stayed up until the wee hours as well.
Sebastian only knew that because they passed each other on the way to the staff room for coffee at ungodly hours.
A single nod was all they needed; they both understood that conversation was for the weak. Coffee was all that mattered.
“What do you want, Hunter? It’s a little late for a social call.” Fuck, Sebastian needed another coffee. Hunter had never visited him for any reason other than work.
Hunter stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him before approaching.
Once he was in the dim light of the lamp on Sebastian’s desk, Sebastian caught sight of a takeaway coffee cup.
He hoped to all that was holy that it was for him because if Hunter tried to drink it in Sebastian’s company, someone was going to be seriously injured.
When Hunter pulled a thick folder from the inside of his jacket and handed it over, along with the coffee, Sebastian knew he was going to pay dearly for every sip he took.
He looked mournfully at the stacks of files already lying over his desk; he did not need another one and especially not one of the calibre that Hunter always gave him. If Hunter was here personally, it meant it was big, and Sebastian didn’t have time for big.
He took a sip of the coffee first, letting the hot liquid scald his throat and spread the caffeine through him, warming him from the inside before he flipped open the file.
“Warren Boiler,” Sebastian read the top of the profile. “Is that someone I should know?”
“No.”
Sebastian waited. Then sighed. “Who is he?” he prompted. Maybe he needed to pour a little extra in his coffee. A little Irish coffee never hurt anyone. Caleb had driven them in today—and then abandoned him when he refused to leave at a “normal” time, so he had to take an Uber home anyway.
Hunter settled himself onto the couch. “Tactical Operations conducted a surprise raid this afternoon and picked him up.”
“What raid?” Sebastian frowned. He skimmed the page, but it was all generic information about the man—twenty-eight, only a few years younger than Sebastian himself—and nothing particularly interesting caught his eye.
“If you’d turned on the TV at all in the last five hours, you would know about it.”