Chapter 17 Tyler
TYLER
Tivon totally wants to fuck Ari.
He can hide it all he wants, but I see straight through that shit.
All joking aside, it’s the way that he talks about him.
There’s a longing in his voice. I just don’t know if Tivon will ever act on it, or if the others would want him to be a part of our team and relationship.
No matter how this all started, I trust him.
He helped get Ari and Jason out of that prison, and I watched him today.
Tivon is good, damn good, and he’s someone you would want at your back.
“You ready to question them?”
I turn around at the sound of Tivon’s voice and nod before following him into the house.
We walk down to the basement, and I find myself assessing him even more.
He couldn’t get away from Ari fast enough, and I have to admit I’m intrigued by Tivon myself.
I’m not the only one either. Jason seems to be getting closer to him, Kira has accepted him, and Keon worked his shit out about him.
The guys come into view, and I step back, wanting to watch Tivon work.
He goes to the guy that slashed his arm first. “What were you looking for?” Tivon asks in a harsh tone that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
I’m still so fucking confused as to how the hell he hid this part of himself. “Answer me.”
“I’m not telling you shit. You might as well kill me.”
“That can be arranged,” I answer, finally moving to stand beside Tivon. “But we want answers first. So, easy way, or hard way? Those are your only options.”
“Fuck you,” the other guy spits, jerking on his chains.
“Do you have any idea who I am?” Tivon asks, cocking his head to the side.
“No, and I don’t give a fuck.”
Tivon’s hand lashes out faster than I can react, wrapping around the guy’s throat.
“My name is Tivon Askari. I was trained by the men you are working for.” Tivon’s hand tightens enough to make the guy wince.
“I was obviously trained better than you if we got the drop on you. I know how to strategically break your bones to make you scream in pain, but never pass out. Sending you into hours of torture.” Is this a bad time to get hard?
Because holy shit. “I can peel layers of skin from your bones one section at a time. You’ll eventually talk.
The question is, do you want to do it now, or see if I’m telling the truth?
” Bad timing or not, I’m fully hard now.
I adjust myself in my jeans and grin when Tivon looks at me.
“There is something very wrong with you.”
“I’m not going to debate that. That was hot.” Tivon gives me a strange look and then drops his hand from the guy’s neck. “You need to tell him what you know. I’m already tired of this, and I need someone to touch my dick.”
“Stop,” Tivon hisses, making me chuckle. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
“So…you’re saying there’s a chance.”
“That is not what I said.” I thought flustering Ari was fun, but this is even better. “We have work to do.”
“I can multitask. You can do all the heavy lifting, and I can stand in the corner, watching you work. While stroking my cock.”
Tivon turns around so fast that I actually flinch. He locks his hand around my throat, squeezing until my mouth pops open, and gets into my face so close that I can feel his breath on my lips. “You don’t know when to shut up.”
“So I’ve been told,” I wheeze.
“Why are you pushing me?”
“Because I wanted to see this side of you come out.”
Tivon squeezes one last time before pushing me away from him. “You can’t do this with me.”
Everything in me wants to ask why, but he walks away, so I lock my lips shut.
But this conversation is far from over. I saw the fire in his eyes when he was in my face, and he isn’t entirely unaffected either.
I know he wants Ari bad, I see the way he’s starting to look at Jason, and he already looked at Kira that way.
I just need to get the rest of them on board, because that big boy needs to get laid.
Tivon grabs a wicked looking carving knife and goes back to our captives.
He starts with the one who cut him and lays the knife against his collarbone.
“Tell me what I want to know. What were you looking for?” When the guy refuses to answer, Tivon moves the knife, making it slice his skin. “What were you looking for?”
This goes on until a thin layer of skin hits the floor with a wet plop.
I have to give him credit for not making a noise.
Tivon moves to the other guy, whose eyes are already as wide as saucers.
“It’s a flash drive,” the guy blurts out before Tivon can even touch him.
“We don’t know what’s on it, but it was supposed to be in that house. ”
“What the fuck, man?!” the other guys yells.
“This sick fuck isn’t carving me up. We don’t get paid enough for this bullshit.”
My fist snaps out before I can stop it, punching him right in the face. “Don’t you dare fucking call him that. Who pays you?”
“Some guy that calls himself Cryptic.” Tivon and I exchange a quick glance. I don’t see Abraham using some code name, and from the look on Tivon’s face, he’s thinking the same thing.
“Do you know who Abraham Cohen is?” Tivon asks, and the guy shakes his head. “Who were you talking about at the house?”
“Ari and his little fa…” his words trail off when Tivon glares. “Ari and his boyfriend. They weren’t supposed to leave that prison alive.”
I start laughing before I can stop myself.
“You really thought you could take out Ari? First of all, you fucked up by messing with Jason. Nothing would have motivated him more to get out of there. Second of all, you underestimated his team.” I slap Tivon on the back so he knows he’s included in that statement.
“He knew where Ari was from the beginning. We’re a family.
When you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.
Were you at the prison?” They both clam up, so I already have my answer.
“Did either of you have anything to do with hurting Jason or Ari?”
“Answer him,” Tivon barks.
“Man, I was one of the ones who grabbed Jason,” the talkative one answers.
Tivon’s face goes from neutral to red in seconds.
He bares his teeth, and before I can react, he jabs the knife right into the guy’s stomach.
The guy’s eyes widen, and his mouth opens to speak, but nothing is coming out.
“You almost killed him!” Tivon’s voice echoes around the basement.
“Someone completely innocent to this life and for what? A monster.” Tivon looks at the other guy, who looks seconds from puking. “Start fucking talking.”
“There’s a website,” he rushes out. “It’s a dark web thing where people post looking for criminals to do things they can’t.
This Cryptic guy posted that he needed bodies to go to that apartment to grab Ari and Jason.
He also needed people to guard a prison.
We answered it, and the next day, five guys showed up, grabbed us, and took us to a training facility.
We trained for over a month until we finally met the main guy, but we never got a name. ”
“What did he look like?”
“Dark hair, dressed in a suit, creepy fucking brown eyes.” Definitely Abraham. “He said that Ari was dangerous, and he had to be locked up.”
Tivon twists the knife in his friend’s stomach, making him gurgle, and then jerks his hand to the side, slitting him wide open.
He pulls the knife free and we step back in unison when his guts splatter to the floor.
The guy gags, then vomits all over the floor.
Tivon doesn’t even bat an eye when he uses the guy’s pants to wipe the blood off the knife.
“We need to talk to Ari,” Tivon says and nods his head toward the stairs. I follow behind him, completely in awe that Tivon just reacted like that about Jason.
“You can’t leave me down here with him like that!”
“I can and I will,” Tivon answers, never stopping moving up the steps. “Just wait a while. The smell will be unbearable. Let this be a lesson for when you fuck with the Saviors.”
Tivon pushes the door open to the house and I groan. “You’re so fucking hot.”
“I’m not playing your games right now,” he says, making me smile. “And wipe that fucking grin off your face.”
My mouth drops open. “How the hell do you know I’m smiling?”
“Because I know you.”
I snort. “You don’t know shit.”
We find Ari in the living room with Jason’s head in his lap, fast asleep. Ari looks up when he hears us, continuing to run his fingers through Jason’s hair. “Did you find out anything?”
“Oh, I found out a lot,” I answer, making Tivon glare at me. “But the guys were looking for a flash drive.”
“You have something on your father, don’t you?” Tivon asks suddenly. “That’s why it’s more important than finding you.”
Ari studies Tivon for a second, assessing his loyalty, before he nods. “I have years of evidence of his corruption in Mossad, what he did to Avina, and how he treats the soldiers.”
“Why didn’t you turn it over?” I wonder.
“Because he would have killed everyone that could talk,” Tivon answers. “He would have gone nuclear. Have you ever heard of a guy named Cryptic?” Ari shakes his head. Tivon explains everything we found out downstairs. “We need to find this website.”
“I have just the guy.” With a smile, I pull my phone from my pocket and dial one of my favorite computer guys. “Hello, my adorable computer nerd,” I say when Nolan answers.
“Stop calling me that. What’s going on?”
“Say there’s a dark website that we need to find, but don’t have the web address. How would one go about finding it?”
“I just need the device they accessed the site on.”
“This is why I love you, Nolan.”
“I’ll slit your goddamn throat, Tyler,” Axel growls in the background, making Nolan laugh. I hit the video button and to my surprise, Nolan accepts it, but it’s Axel’s face that fills the screen. “If you don’t stop giving him pet names, and telling him you love him, I’ll fucking end you.”
“Are you naked right now?” Ari sighs because he knows I’m just baiting Axel. “Pan down and let me see what you’re working with. I’ll be so disappointed if you have all that big dick energy with a small cock.”
“It’s not small!” Nolan yells in the background, and I crack up when Axel’s eyes narrow.
“Get Nolan what he needs, and stop fucking calling him.” The call disconnects before I can reply, and I laugh even harder.
“We’ll let him stew for a while.” Tivon jerks his head toward the door, indicating who he’s talking about. “A couple hours with that and he’ll be more willing to give up information.”
Tivon goes outside and Ari raises a brow at me in question. “Tivon flipped his shit downstairs when he found out one of those guys is the one who grabbed Jason.”
“What the fuck?” Jason stirs from Ari’s tone, and Ari smooths a hand down his cheek. “Tell me you killed him.”
I chuckle. “It wasn’t me. Tivon slit him open. His insides are currently on the outside.”
“Tivon?”
I sigh and sit in the chair in front of the couch. “You can’t tell me you don’t see that Tivon is struggling to fit in. He’s already working with us as part of the team. He would put his life on the line for any of us.”
“That’s his job.”
I shake my head. “It’s more than a job for him. You should have seen how fast he reacted when that piece of shit called Jason a faggot, and when he realized he’s the fucker that hurt him.”
“Tyler, I’m on too many meds to sift through your riddles right now.”
“He wants to be a part of us. Not just the team.” Ari just keeps staring at me, and I roll my eyes. “The relationship, Ari. He would walk through fire, which he did, for Kira and Jason. He would take a bullet for any of us. That’s more than a job.”
I can tell by the look on Ari’s face that now isn’t the time to push the issue, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop pushing. I need a plan.
And I think it has everything to do with the man currently sleeping in Ari’s lap.