Chapter 13
Ricardo had an idea.
Heidi wasn’t going to like it, and August would probably dislike it, be confused by it, then jump all over it with manic glee.
With any luck, NightPigeon would be pissed about it. After the fact, anyway.
While Ricardo waited for August to come back up from talking to his sister, he texted Heidi.
Have you finalized the job’s details yet?
You mean have I claimed it for you and your ridiculous husband? Yes.
Can it be reassigned? Like will the system allow it?
The system will allow it, yes. Why? What are you doing, Ricardo? (knife emoji)
Do you trust me?
Probably more than I should.
Exactly. Give me an hour.
An hour was how long it took for Ricardo to create a completely different profile on RateYourHit. Well, the profile itself only took a few minutes to put together. Getting it approved by the admins? That was a different story. In fact, that part usually took weeks thanks to the vetting involved.
When the owner of the site owed Ricardo a favor? Things could be… expedited. Not things that involved looking into other members, unfortunately, but Ricardo would take what he could get.
Remember that thing with your mother-in-law?
Allen
Cashing in your favor?
Yes, and I need it taken care of fast and discreet.
FFS. What do you want?
Breathe a word about it to anyone, even another admin, I’ll know about it.
Fine. What do you want?
Exactly thirty-seven minutes later, the profile was approved.
Allen
We’re even now, right?
We’ll see.
I hate you so much.
Do you want me to tell her what I did? And that you hired me?
HATE. YOU.
(halo emoji)
He chuckled to himself as he sent the new profile to Heidi.
“What’s so funny?” August’s words were laced with suspicion as he entered the suite. “You have that evil grin. What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Ricardo let the grin come fully to life just because he loved that “oh fuck” look on August’s face.
Still eyeing him warily, August came closer to the bed where Ricardo was sitting. “You gonna fill me in or what?”
Ricardo sobered and glanced down at his phone, where a text had come in from Heidi confirming that their Brazilian ex-husband job had been assigned to the ghost profile. He told her thanks and said he’d fill her in later.
Then he put the phone aside and faced August. “I want to throw NightPigeon off our scent.”
The wariness shifted to interested, and August sat beside the open, half-packed suitcase. “Go on.”
“So… if we’re reading the situation right, this fucker seems to be following us to jobs somehow. And I think the connection might be RateYourHit.”
August frowned. “So much for being a secure site.”
“It’s possible he’s an admin. Or he’s in close enough with one to be accessing information he shouldn’t.’
The frown turned to disgust. “Ugh. You can’t trust anyone, can you?”
Ricardo cocked a brow. “Did you ever really think you could trust people who ran a site for taking out hits?”
“Okay, that’s fair.” There was, after all, a reason no one accessed that site without layers of cybersecurity and fake metadata. But patterns could still emerge, and someone on the admin end of the site could see which avatars were connected to which jobs.
“Right,” Ricardo said. “So if NightRaven has admin access, or he has an in with someone who has that access, it’s possible he can see which jobs we’re taking.”
“Which means if we do this job after it’s been assigned to someone else on RateYourHit,” August said, apparently catching on, “and he doesn’t interfere, then we’ll know how he’s been finding us.”
“Exactly. If he’s out to fuck with us—with August and Ricardo—then he won’t be interested in this hit once it’s been assigned to another profile.”
August quirked his lips. “But what if the person it’s assigned to tries to fulfill the hit?”
Ricardo grinned. “That won’t be an issue.”
Interest and wariness both sparked in August’s expression. “Oh yeah?”
Nodding, Ricardo said, “The job has been assigned to a ghost.”
August’s eyes widened. “Wait, how did we get it assigned to a ghost?”
Ricardo gestured at his phone. “I made a fake profile.”
“You—like just now?”
“Well, while I was supposed to be packing your luggage.”
August blinked. “But those take days to approve.”
“Not when you have dirt on the site owner.”
It was far more satisfying than it should’ve been to catch August off guard like that. The bewildered WTF? expression was delicious. “You… have dirt. On the owner of RateYourHit.”
Ricardo shrugged unrepentantly. “Well, maybe less dirt and just that he owed me a favor.”
August’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Oh yeah? You blew him and he didn’t reciprocate? Because he’d definitely owe you after that.”
“Uh, no. He’s not my type.”
“So… what did you do for him?” August inclined his head. “Come on. You know the curiosity is going to keep me up all night.”
Ricardo flashed him a grin. “I do, yes!” Then he got up and headed for the bathroom. “I’m going to go take a shower.”
“What?” August squawked. “Oh, come on! You can’t just leave me hanging like that!”
Ricardo turned around. “I can’t? Because I’m pretty sure I just did.”
August swore at Ricardo’s back until the bathroom door closed. He probably kept swearing after that, but Ricardo didn’t hear it. Chuckling to himself, Ricardo stripped off his clothes and got into the shower.
Unsurprisingly, by the time he got out, August hadn’t let it go.
And in fact, he’d brought out the big guns. So to speak.
When Ricardo stepped out of the bathroom, all the luggage had been relocated to the floor, and August was lying in the middle of the bed. Completely naked. Fully hard. Stroking himself and looking right at Ricardo with a challenge in his expression.
“Let’s make a deal.” He narrowed his eyes. “You tell me why the owner of RateYourHit owed you a favor, and we’ll fuck tonight.”
Of course, Ricardo hadn’t bothered with so much as a towel around his waist, and his traitorous dick was giving away how much he wanted what was laid out in front of him.
August grinned triumphantly and bit his lip. “So… tell me.”
Ricardo was admittedly caught off-guard for a few beats, but he caught up. Approaching the bed, he asked, “How do you know it’s anything interesting? Maybe I just did some IT work for him.”
August guffawed. “Pretty sure he’d have leverage on you for introducing six types of malware onto his computer.”
Ricardo grabbed a pillow and tossed it at August, who cackled and knocked it away. In his moment of distraction, Ricardo pounced, and he knew from the heat in August’s eyes that they’d be fucking tonight whether he tipped his hand or not.
“Come on,” August pleaded breathlessly. “Just tell me.”
Ugh. As fun as it was to taunt him, Ricardo wanted him a little too much for games.
Leaning down to kiss August’s neck, he murmured, “It was nothing. I just took care of something with his mother-in-law.”
August tensed. “You offed his mother-in-law?”
Ricardo laughed, and he shook his head as he pushed himself back up. “No. I didn’t kill his mother-in-law.”
An eyebrow flicked up. “So, what did you do? Fuck her or something?”
“Oh fuck you.” Ricardo started to pull away, but August laughed, wrapped his arms around his neck, and drew him back down.
“Come on! Tell me!” He hooked a leg around Ricardo’s thigh and pulled him down so their erections rubbed together. In a low growl, he repeated, “Tell me.”
Ricardo could be as stubborn as anyone including the man beneath him, but he was too hard and needy to tease.
He bit August’s collarbone, reveling in the way it made him gasp and arch.
Then he nipped his earlobe before he said, “He knew his mother-in-law would be an attention-seeking pain in the ass at his wedding. So he paid me to be her date.”
August tensed again, though not quite as much as before. “Wait, so you did fuck her?”
“No, no.” Ricardo kissed along the underside of August’s jaw. “I just showed up with her, fawned all over her, danced with her, and made sure she got home.”
At that, August relaxed. “Oh. So you were just… like… the mother-in-law wrangler.” He deflated. “Well, that’s kind of anticlimactic.”
Ricardo pushed himself up again and glared down at his husband. “And it got my ghost profile approved in under an hour. Are you really going to look that gift horse in the mouth?”
August gave a bratty shrug. “I mean, I think I—”
Ricardo shut him up with a hard, demanding kiss.
And August didn’t bitch about anything being anticlimactic for the rest of the night.
The next morning, as Ricardo watched with satisfaction as his husband gingerly got out of bed, his phone pinged with a text.
Rolling his eyes, Ricardo reached for his phone. It never stopped, did it? Before he checked the message, he stole another glance at August, grinning at the slight hitch in his step and the faint bruises on his hips. That handprint on his right butt cheek was sublime. Fuck, last night had been hot.
As August disappeared into the bathroom for a shower, Ricardo shook himself and looked at his phone.
Heidi
Are you sure about this?
Do you have any better ideas?
No, but having you guys bail on a hit doesn’t look good.
Having NightPigeon fuck up our jobs doesn’t look any better.
Touche.
And you got the second job, right?
Yes. It’s assigned to you boys. I hope you know what you’re doing.
Ricardo hoped so too. Last night, before he’d finally joined August in sleep, he’d set up another profile on RateYourHit.
A client profile, this time. Allen had approved it, and Ricardo had created a dummy job.
Fake names. A fake location. A detailed backstory about why one Herschel Clanton of Goshen, Arkansas, needed his father dispatched immediately.
The patriarch refused to retire from the family business, which eldest son Herschel was eager to take over.
The job? Stage an agricultural accident on the neighbor’s soybean farm, which would ideally result in a lawsuit that would allow Herschel to take over the farm in question.