Chapter 18 EZRA
It had been weeks with no movement in the case, and I’d started to feel like we weren’t ever going to leave this place.
I didn’t even care anymore about being caught, I just wanted it over with.
My legal team had built something solid, something I could actually present, but now Victor had gone into hiding.
He was probably doing the same as me, hiding underground, probably in a fancier place, surrounded by all types of hired guns to protect him.
Standing between two dumpsters in the icy morning air, I sucked in deep and let the cool settle on my skin.
I stayed outside until my nose and cheeks became pink.
It was easy enough to do considering I think being underground had made me lose skin pigment—or at least I joked it had.
Making jokes was my new hobby, and I think through all of this, the main takeaway was finding my voice.
“Are you coming in?” Jacques asked from the doorway.
While he couldn’t see my face, I rolled my eyes and screwed up my face into a big frown. “Five more minutes,” I said.
“Okay, we’re getting a Christmas tree delivered later.”
“Fine,” I grumbled back.
I should’ve been happy—excited even. The idea of Christmas was always nostalgic to me.
My mom liked a conservative tree with these tiny Korean dolls dressed in hanboks.
My grandma on my dad’s side always liked a full tree with glitter baubles, tinsel, and colorful lights that flashed in a way I found hypnotizing.
Christmas meant we were going to be spending more time here, underground, out of the way, avoiding everyone. I’d only seen three other people, and they didn’t stick around longer than it took for them to hand over a recording or letter.
After my moment in the cold air and moderate sunlight, I returned to see Jacques. He sat on the sofa and patted the seat beside him. I wondered if he’d seen my eye roll and now wanted to offer up some soft domination. I threw myself into the seat with a sigh.
“You’re cold,” he said, and the back of his warm hand touched my cheek. “You should’ve put a jacket on.”
“No,” I grumbled.
“Oh, you’re a sassy pants today,” he said with a chuckle that broke me from my frown. “I thought we could make some hot chocolate and brownies. Or if that’s not good for you, maybe we could do a jigsaw.”
I cuddled my head against his chest and brought my feet onto the sofa with my knees up. “I don’t want to stay here over Christmas,” I said. “This is all shit. I just want to see things again, and not these walls or that alley. I wanna go out and I—”
“I feel that too,” he said. “You should go out. But wear a scarf and hat.”
“What? Are you serious?”
Jacques continued to stroke my face. “I don’t want to see you sad. I definitely don’t want to see you doing something that breaks your soul. And if going out is going to help, then you should.”
I stared at him. “What’s the catch?” I asked. “And why now?”
“I have to come with you,” he said. “If you consider that a catch.” My eyes rolled right in front of him. His big hand pinched both cheeks with it over my mouth. “Don’t do that. I’m not being mean. I’m really trying my best to keep you safe, kitten.”
“I know,” I said, through the limited amount of space my mouth had to open. “It’s just . . .” He pulled his hand away. “I think we’ve spent too long together. Like, what if you’re annoyed at me. What if I’m annoyed at you? Because I—”
He chuckled. “I know when you’re annoyed at me,” he said. “I know how to deal with you, and if letting you take a stroll down the street will help, then kitten, I want you to take that stroll.”
“And do you get annoyed at me?” I asked.
“I’ve dealt with worse situations, but I’m never annoyed at you.”
I cuddled back up to him again. “Worse situations?”
“Some people have to spend a long time in safe houses,” he said. “And to think, you could’ve been in FBI custody right now, living in that awful hotel room.”
“Don’t.” I shuddered at the memory of almost spending the night there. That bed would’ve broken my back if I’d had to sleep on it. “I don’t want to think about that.”
“But you should,” he said. “Think about how shit could’ve been different, then you learn to appreciate and know how much better you have it.”
I wrapped an arm around him and tried my best to squeeze him. His muscles had become a little more flabby since all we could do all day was cook, eat, and fuck. “I know we have it good, but if we go out, what’s to stop people from recognizing you as the guy from the news?”
Jacques chuckled. “Hat, scarf, some fancy shades. And if we’re caught, I have a gun.”
My hand slipped down his body until I was grabbing at his crotch. “And another big weapon.” He thrust his hips into my hand, shimmying with a wiggle. “And he knows how to use it.”
* * *
As far as disguises went, this was fun. It felt a little naughty, like I was sneaking out of the house, except Jacques was several paces behind me, also bundled up with a thick jacket, sweater, and scarf combo.
He was right. Nobody knew it was us. We managed to walk around for a little while.
I got coffee and had them break a hundred-dollar bill.
Then I went into a bakery and bought up most of their croissants.
Jacques never came in anywhere with me, and I barely even noticed he was tailing me, which he said wasn’t good because I needed to be aware of people at all times.
I didn’t know whereabouts in Boston we were, but we came upon a small park and I sat on a bench. There was a basketball court opposite me, and two kids were in there kicking a soccer ball around.
Jacques sat on the bench beside mine. We were together. He also had a large coffee warming his gloved hands.
“When did you get that?” I asked while looking straight ahead.
“I told you, pay attention,” he said. “I got it from some vendor outside. You passed right by him.”
“The hotdog guy?” I grumbled in disgust.
“No, but they were close to each other,” he said. “Pass me a croissant.”
Trying not to move my head in the beanie and thick scarf, I said, “What if people are watching?”
“Nah, nobody cares about us like this,” he said, and with a glance at him, I could see he was manspreading his big legs out and his arms wide across the back of the bench.
I’d never seen someone who had zero care about how the world saw him.
Even if the world was looking for him, Jacques was open, ready for it. His confidence was sexy.
“Opening your legs for business?” I giggled, pulling the plastic bag to my lap.
“You’ve been getting such a sassy mouth lately,” he said.
“It’s either this or I go insane,” I confessed. “And I do not want to go insane.”
“Me either, kitten.”
I handed him a croissant. I didn’t know which one—they were all fun ones, some filled with chocolate, others with almonds.
It reminded me of Oh Crumbs in Sugar Bay.
They had really nice croissants filled with pistachio creme.
I almost dribbled at the thought. I pushed the scarf up over my nose as it was also beginning to leak.
“When this is over, we’ll go somewhere warm,” he said, screwing up the croissant, almost deflating it, then taking a big bite. “Where do you think?”
“Thailand,” I said. “I went after graduating and it was gorgeous. The beaches. The sun. Ah.” I really didn’t like being cold.
“Deal,” he said. “We’ll go there once this is all over. But we’ve still got to wait for the hearing.”
I sank into the bench seat. My team had told me it could be months until then. Victor was avoiding every little attempt at legal action. “I wish it would happen already,” I mumbled.
“I can reach out to some people if you want,” he said. “Maybe take some of the attention.”
“Bait Victor out,” I said, it just came off my tongue.
He laughed. “You’d be best at that.”
True. I would. He wanted me dead. I bet he’d do anything to make it happen, even coming out of his hidey hole to do it. “I have an idea.”
“No,” he said. “You’re not being used as bait, Ez.
You are staying with me, and alive. I’m not having your life put in jeopardy because you’re bored.
We just have to sit tight and wait.” I watched as he spoke, and it looked like it pained him.
The Jacques I knew and the Reaper I’d heard about was all action, no waiting around, just shoot and go. I had to appeal to that side of him.
“Hear me out,” I said, sipping my coffee. It was a little colder now, but still a rush of caffeine.
“I don’t need to hear you out, Ez. You’re not being bait.”
I pouted at him. Even though he wasn’t looking, I wanted him to see my pleasing face. “I thought I was your kitten,” I said, all soppy. “Pweese.”
“If it—”
“It won’t involve me being hurt,” I said, cutting to it. “It’s a bit out there, but—”
“Go on,” he said, turning his head slowly, as if he was forced to.
“You know that fighting dummy, the one you don’t use?”
Jacques scoffed. “I would, if there was room to get into it.”
“We dress the dummy up to look like me. We basically give them the place, not exactly where we’re staying, but like, here?” I shrugged. “Maybe. Then they come, they shoot, they report. We could even—”
“Put some red dye packs on it,” he added, smiling.
See! I knew he’d like the idea if he heard it.
And it would actually put that poor training dummy to some use.
“I think we might be able to get somewhere with that idea. But you’ll have to run it by your team, and we—” He paused, and dusting the croissant crumbs off his jacket, he looked at his watch.
“We have to get back. They’re bringing the tree soon, and there could be a letter. ”
“What if I call them now?”
“You don’t have a phone on you.”
“From a payphone,” I said. “We could breadcrumb it.”
Jacques stare grew intense. “I’m gonna need you to stop watching so much real crime on the TV,” he said.
I had binged a lot of TV, to the point I could sit for six hours and watch one of those full seasons. I hated that about TV now. A full season used to be twenty-two episodes, but now it was eight.
He agreed to the idea, which surprised me, actually.
I thought I would have to fight him on it.
And my brain was finally getting a workout, so I was more than willing to fight.
I knew the number for my team, they wrote it on every letter—“if you need help, call us”—and right now, I think I needed them.
We needed the help, and they needed to spread the information.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
“I’m supposed to be asking you for reassurance,” I grumbled.
Payphones weren’t too hard to come by, most of them smelled of urine and cigarettes, and the ground was covered in squished cigarette butts and bottle caps. “I’m sure,” I said, staring at the phone. “I hope I don’t catch anything.”
“Let’s make it quick,” he said, taking my bag of croissants.
“Don’t eat them,” I said, watching as he smirked at me.
“I won’t.”
So I made the call. I knew it was going to alert people. I told them I had a plan, not what the plan was, but about how I was going to be coming out of hiding and I’d be ready to tell the world my truth—the truth, which people would have to handle. Those people being Victor and Nexovex.
I knew the moment the words came out of my mouth that people, agencies, everyone was going to be mobilized.
* * *
Christmas trees were always so dull to look at when they were naked.
Who’d decided to dress them up in the first place?
And what were their intentions with it? Make it look all pretty—who were they doing that for?
Jacques pulled me into a hug from behind as I whined about the tree, looking at the monstrosity taking up the entire corner of our ever-small underground lodgings.
“That tongue of your is becoming a little too sharp,” he said.
I felt it, every day spent here was like having my tongue ground against a whetstone. “Then let me put it to some use.”
He squeezed me like I was an orange and he was trying to get all the juices out of me. “Careful, kitten.” He kissed my neck.
Restlessness was my new normal. It had been days since I’d placed that call to my team.
People were talking, people were closing in on the park.
We were relatively safe here, all things considered.
The Bianchi brothers were all a little fruity, and I say that with kindness because they were open about going on dates with twinks.
Which made Jacques become Reaper in front of them, telling them to keep their eyes off me.
It was that type of stuff that dulled my sharpness, that made me soft and submissive.
Waiting for hell on earth, a.k.a. this hearing, was doing the opposite.
The tree remained naked by choice. I didn’t feel the Christmas spirit at all. And without all the lights and decoration, it kinda made me feel like I was out in the Sugar Bay woods again.
All we did was wait for a go. It felt like it was going to take forever.
The dummy was prepared. The red dye packs were strapped to it, and it was wearing a large puffy coat to hide the fact it was a dummy. If it hadn’t been ready, I might’ve actually tried to throw a punch at it—my first punch. But I didn’t. Instead, I pawed at Jacques’s chest and pouted.