Chapter 12
Was there such a thing as too perfect? Before this week, August would have said no.
Aperol spritzes at a quiet bar on the outskirts of downtown Venice; L’Avia’s quiet laugh as August flirted with her in French or bad Catalan; the feel of slipping on a bespoke suit jacket for the very first time…
No, perfection was real, and August hunted it down like a cat determined to take care of his hopelessly quotidian human housemate with the best life had to offer.
But now…
“No.”
Ricardo looked up from the table where he had his phone on speaker. “Excuse me?” Heidi asked, clearly picking up August’s rejection of what she’d described as “totally perfect for you two.”
“I said, no.”
Ricardo didn’t say anything, but his eyes narrowed in that way that meant he wasn’t quite sure where August was going with this.
Fair enough—August wasn’t entirely sure himself.
But he did know, without a shadow of a doubt, that “perfect” had been a part of the last two job descriptions as well, and they’d both ended up going incredibly wrong.
“Care to explain why?” Heidi demanded. “It’s in New York City, which I know you love, and the fee is—”
“New York is full of people even this time of year. The Met would be a nightmare. Plus, rain. Maybe even snow. Ugh.”
There was a moment of quiet, then—“Fine. There’s another in Tokyo for the CEO of a company that makes—”
“Mm, nope.” Another CEO? Ha, that was a full stop.
“Why not?”
“Too far away,” August said instead of telling her the truth.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Heidi as far as he could throw her—which was pretty far, if he put his hips into it—but there was a creeping, crawling sensation under his skin that he couldn’t ignore this time around.
If they were cursed, then he wasn’t going to tempt fate by trying to take out the same kind of target a third time.
And if they were being followed… that fucking waiter…
then he wasn’t going to make it easier to track them by being predictable.
“I wouldn’t get over the jetlag in time to do the job. ”
“I didn’t even tell you the timetable for the job!”
August hummed thoughtfully. “Arrival within the next two days, target dead in five?”
“Huh.” There was a brief clacking noise. “How did you know that?”
His lips curled with satisfaction. “I’m brilliant at everything, obviously.
” August glanced at Ricardo and was glad to see the question in his eyes had subsided now that he knew August wasn’t about to pull the rug out from under them by changing his mind on the fly about taking a final job.
He leaned back from the table and crossed his arms, implicitly giving control of the conversation to August.
Aww. August would have just taken control one way or another, but it was nice when Ricardo let him have his way too. He winked at his husband, then said, “Try again.”
“Um… all right, here’s a contract on an oil magnate who—”
“No.”
“August!” Heidi huffed in exasperation. “You two take A-level contracts, and those are almost always going to be for very wealthy people. They’re the only fees that have ever made you sit up and pay attention before.”
“I don’t give a shit about the fee,” August said. “Genuinely. I don’t care whether our next job’s fee is paid in bunches of bananas or shares in a pangolin sanctuary. We’re not taking on a rich bitch for our next job. Keep looking.”
There was a heavy sigh. “Give me a moment.”
A tinny, instrumental version of “Fuck the Police” started playing over the phone, and August sat back in his chair and took a sip of his mimosa. Mm, Elodie kept the best champagne on hand, he’d have to—
“You’re testing her.”
August smiled at Ricardo. “Not just her.”
Ricardo didn’t quite smile back, but it was enough that August could tell he wanted to. “I’ve never had a problem with Heidi,” he pointed out.
“And that’s wonderful. It’s been three years since you last worked with her, though.
Circumstances change. People change.” He shrugged.
“But honestly, I don’t think our troubles have anything to do with Heidi.
She’s been doing her job exactly how we asked her to, which is by finding the highest-paying contracts on offer that are best suited to us and that would give her a significant fee, which means billionaires, for the most part.
Under normal circumstances, you know I’d be all about culling my own clan. ”
“You’re a bit of a sociopath, baby.”
August preened. “It’s part of my charm.”
Ricardo rolled his eyes. “So you want to avoid our usual and see if we can have a job go normally.”
“Exactly. And if it does, then hooray, all’s well and good, we do the deed and say our fond farewells, but if it doesn’t?
” If it, in fact, ended up going all to shit while endangering their lives?
“Then we know there’s something wrong on the agency side of things.
Either with the security of the website, or the way the jobs are vetted, or… ”
“Or with Heidi.”
August pointed a finger-gun at his husband. “Bang-bang, baby.”
Ricardo reached out and snagged a finger in the edge of August’s shirt. “Rude,” he said dryly, and August laughed in delight as his husband pulled him onto his lap.
“That’s my word,” he insisted, leaning forward until their chests were pressed together. He wrapped his arms around Ricardo’s neck and brushed his lips in a teasing kiss. “You don’t get to use it without paying the tax.”
“What would you know about paying taxes?” Ricardo scoffed. “Your people are famous for avoiding them, remember?”
August pouted. “I don’t evade taxes! I never have, even when I lived in the States. They’re the foundation of a functional nation, and I like paying for infrastructure and educating children and making sure there’s a safety net for—”
Ricardo cut August’s tirade off with a kiss, slipping one hand around his waist and the other up into his hair so he could tilt August’s head just so, sliding his tongue across the plush line of August’s mouth until he opened up and let Ricardo inside.
August squirmed as his cock began to fill, pressing uncomfortably up into the seam of his shorts, fucking Armani, they never cut enough room into their ready-to-wears.
He could ignore it for a while, though; long enough to make his husband lose his mind and carry him off to their room so they could—
“—cuse me? Are you even there anymore? August? Ricardo?”
Ricardo pulled away from the kiss with a slick noise that made August immediately follow him back in, but then—“Mmph!” He covered August’s entire mouth with his palm as he said, “Sorry, Heidi, we’re here. We’re listening.”
“What the fuck?” That was what August tried to say, at least. It came out more like “Whhfffhhh?”
“Good. All right, I did a quick run-down on some of your specialty work over the years, and I’ve got a few jobs that I think will appeal to your sensibilities. They do not meet your current standards for compensation,” she emphasized, “but they’re the sort of thing you’ve done in the past.”
“Go ahead.”
August tried to bite Ricardo’s palm without success. He licked it instead, and snickered at the disgusted look on his husband’s face. Like you don’t love the things I can do with my tongue.
“There’s a hit available on a warlord in South Sudan.”
God, no. Regional conflicts like that were something Ricardo had once been very good at, but August would sooner cut off another toe. He shook his head, careful not to dislodge Ricardo’s hand.
“I don’t think so. What else?”
“Um, there’s an Iranian-American nuclear scientist accused of selling secrets, but you know… actually, that one looks dodgy, I’m going to flag it. That might be a government-based contract.” Which meant it was bait meant to lead an agency to both the scientist or the hitman or both. Fuck that.
“Anything else?”
“Well, there’s one for a kidnapper, but—”
August turned toward the phone so fast his neck twinged. “Tell us more,” he said, his interest piqued.
“It’s a very low value contract,” Heidi said.
“But it seems sincere. The offer comes from a Brazilian woman whose husband has allegedly kidnapped their two children and taken them to the States without her permission.” Tap-tap.
“Looks like they’re in the middle of an ugly divorce.
She comes from a very wealthy family in S?o Paulo, and he’s looking to get a better deal according to court filings.
Hmm… looks like the kids aren’t biologically his, actually.
They’re from her first marriage. He legally adopted them when they got married, though, so I guess they think of him as a dad. ”
“And now he’s absconded with them,” August said, a slow simmer of outrage welling up inside his chest and drowning out the lust. “Any idea of his current whereabouts?”
“Um, somewhere in Texas, it looks like. She left several potential addresses. It would require some surveillance, though, and jobs with kids are always risky. Honestly, I think you should give this one a pass and—”
“We’ll take it.” August would have been up and pacing already if Ricardo’s grip on his waist wasn’t so firm.
“I haven’t even told you how much the contract is worth.”
“I don’t care.”
“August, you—”
He cut her off. “I will pay you a fee that outstrips anything those other jobs could possibly have offered for this one. I’ll transfer it to your personal account right now, everything in advance, if that’s what’s making you cagey about this job.
One way or another, though, we’re doing it.
” Kids being held hostage in order to extort more money from their mother?
Yeah, there was no way August wasn’t taking this job.
He would do it without any help from Heidi if he had to.