Chapter 17
ARCHER
Iwas finding it more and more difficult to convince myself I shouldn't kill Detective Hans Getzoff.
Between the fact he was sniffing around Harlow, and that he apparently knew more than he was letting on, he was starting to become trouble.
In my experience, when you had trouble, you dealt with it. At least, as much as possible.
And if you couldn't deal with it, you avoided it.
Since he kept turning up like a fart after Taco Tuesday, avoiding him was apparently not going to happen.
Now I was hungry for tacos.
"He admitted they know Toby Dent was murdered?" I asked.
"He didn't come out and say as much," Harlow said. "He let us come to that conclusion and he didn't disagree."
"Sounds like he was trying to profile you," I said, getting more aggravated.
"He doesn't know anything," she assured me. "He's looking for an angle. He could be stopping at every single business in the neighborhood, asking the same questions."
"You really think that?" I rubbed a hand over the stubble on my cheek.
"No," she said with a sigh. "I think he's looking for a connection between Toby Dent and Erin. I can't tell him who killed her since Gina was dead long before Toby."
"We could name someone we don't like," Boner suggested. "I don't mind throwing an arsehole under the bus to get the heat off us."
"Like who?" Harlow swiveled around in her chair and looked at him.
"Don't suggest me." Jules glowered, looking up from his phone before turning back to whatever he was doing. Not watching porn. It looked like something boring, like his bank app.
"What makes you think I was going to suggest you?" Boner asked.
"Because I've met you," Jules said, without glancing in his direction. He tapped at something on the screen and his scowl deepened.
"And I’ve met you." Boner grinned. "How does it feel to be one of the chosen ones?"
Still without looking up, Jules flipped him off.
"He knows he’s lucky." Boner chuckled. "He's keeping his cards close to his chest."
Jules smirked. "Come up with someone else. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there you don't like. On the other hand, it might be easier to find someone who doesn't like you."
Boner pressed a hand to his chest as though deeply offended. “There are people out there who don't like me?” he asked with mock disbelief. "Couldn't be."
Jules rolled his eyes and turned off his phone before placing it down on the coffee table in front of him. "We can't just give him a name. The moment he looks into it, he's going to see it's full of shit."
"Unless it's not," I said.
I tried not to shrink back when they all turned their attention to me. Sometimes being around so many people was a lot.
"We keep saying there's lots of assholes and predators out there," I said slowly.
"I think you just repeated yourself," Boner remarked.
I considered that for a moment.
"All predators are assholes, but not all assholes are predators."
He pointed a finger gun at me and clicked his tongue, conceding the point.
"Anyway, we find one and give his name to Getzoff," I said. "Someone plausible."
"Someone like you?" Jules suggested. He didn't sound malicious, just stating the fact that I more or less fit the description.
"Archer isn't an asshole," Cass said.
"I'm a predator." I uncrossed my knees and crossed them the other way, my arm on the couch behind Harlow. "I tracked down these people. That's what it makes me, isn't it?"
"In a way," Harlow agreed reluctantly. "But then so am I. And Getzoff already knows I exist. You too. Not," she added quickly, "that any of us is going to give your name to him."
She glanced around like she needed to be sure everyone was listening. Including Jules. Her gaze settled on him for longer than the rest of us.
"I could volunteer as bait, but I have a feeling that's a long game," Boner said. "Arrests. Court appearances. Prison. Becoming someone's bitch. All that shit."
"We're not using you as bait, either," Harlow said. "We need to find someone who deserves it. Someone we'd take care of ourselves, under other circumstances."
"Right now we need to cover our asses, and keep Getzoff busy," Boner said.
"That too," Harlow agreed. "If we could find Hypnos and Zeus, that would be perfect. Getzoff could deal with them for us."
"Or they could deal with him," I said unapologetically.
"They could deal with each other," Cass suggested.
Boner snapped his fingers. "That's perfect. Can we do that?"
"Have you found them yet?" Jules asked him, his tone bone dry.
"It’s on my to-do list," Boner said. "Right at the top, as a matter of fact. It's one of those tasks that doesn't seem to be crossed off when it should be." He pressed his lips into a line with annoyance.
Harlow rubbed the tattoos on her arm, the lines for the five men she'd crossed off her to-do list. I knew how frustrated she was that the other two remained elusive.
I was frustrated too. They were out there.
Until they weren't, she wouldn't get the peace she needed.
She'd always be watching and waiting, either to find them or for them to come after us.
I'd spent too many sleepless nights searching for clues for those two.
Either speaking to contacts or searching parts of the internet no sane person should venture into.
Which, to be fair, was most of the internet, but some places are worse than others.
How many predators had I found that way? And yet, not the two we really wanted.
They were good. Which probably meant they were powerful and virtually untouchable.
The thing about the virtually untouchable, though, they posed a challenge none of us could resist. Not me anyway.
I loved a good puzzle. And I loved to remind powerful people they were as mortal as I was.
Acid was fun for that, a nice slow reckoning.
Face to face with everything they'd done before their hearts came to a stop.
"What if we put out word that Getzoff was closing in on Hypnos and Zeus?" Cass suggested.
Now we were all staring at him.
"They'd go after him," Harlow said, as if she didn't quite believe what she was saying herself.
"What if this guy hasn't done anything wrong?" Jules suggested. "We could be dooming him when he's innocent."
"He's a detective; shouldn't he be able to handle anything?" Boner asked.
"He's a detective, not an immortal." Harlow said. "But that gives me an idea."
We all leaned in toward her while she spoke, nodding and offering suggestions.
"This could work," I said finally.
"If we do it right, it'll work," Boner said, with his usual confidence.
"If it doesn't, we're either dead or fucked," Jules said, as impressed as always. Which is to say he looked at us like he thought we were out of our minds. While at the same time accepting it might be the best idea any of us could come up with.
Either way, he wasn't offering anything better.
"Let's do it," Harlow said.
"We could kill three birds with one stone." Boner seemed pleased with that. "I always knew Harlow was the smartest one here."
"I don't know about that," Harlow said. "It's the logical thing to do, that's all."
"It's logical until it gets us dead," Jules said. He looked torn between agreeing to go along with the idea and getting up, walking out of my apartment and never looking back.
Evidently, Harlow and his brother overruled his sense of self-preservation because he stayed put for now.
"Then we don't let it get us dead." Cass gave him a look, like daring him to disagree. If there was something Jules knew how to do, it was disagree. He was as intimidated by the look as anyone would expect. He rolled his eyes and smirked.
"Manifesting is only going to get us so far, little brother," he said. "We need a lot of planning and a whole shit ton of luck."
"Then we plan," Harlow said. "We plan and pull this thing off."
Boner
I have to say Harlow was hot when she was making plans to take over the world. Okay, okay. Take down her enemies. Either way.
She was making my cock harder and harder the more I sat and listened to her.
The minute this conversation was over, I was going to drag her off and fuck her brains out.
Or maybe I'd stay here with the rest of them and we could all fuck her brains out together.
Yeah, that sounds like the perfect plan.
Archer
This is my book, bro.
Boner
Yeah, you don't mind me helping you out a little bit here and there, right? I mean, everyone wants to know what's going on in my head. Right?
Archer
I don't.
I turned back to the conversation. Harlow had found one of my notepads on my desk and started to write down our plan, outlining everything everyone needed to do and where we all needed to be.
Boner was right about one thing. She was hot as hell when she was doing this. I gave him a look to remind him not to interrupt again. He’d had his say. He didn't need to jump on mine.
Okay, I didn't mind too much. As long as he didn't intrude when I was fucking our woman. That would be annoying.
Boner opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again, giving me a smile before he turned to speak to Harlow instead.
"Should I hold another party at the gallery? We know Getzoff likes those."
"And the bad guys," Harlow said.
Her eyes glazed, remembering how Solomon Danforth was at that party. They'd spoken briefly. He was an old friend of her father, a former mentor. She had no way of knowing he was really Eros, not until he revealed himself.
His identity, that is, not his dick. I'd say lucky for him, but he ended up dead anyway.
And in several pieces. His death was one of the most satisfying, I have to say.
Because of what he was to Harlow and because I might have held a grudge after he tied me to a chair.
If there was anything I hated, it was being confined like that.
Also thinking I might die at any moment. That wasn't fun either.
"Another party would be too obvious," I said. "What about something at one of the restaurants?"
"We’ve already had the grand opening," Harlow said regretfully.
She seemed frustrated, like we squandered the perfect opportunity to trap our enemies "There's nothing else on the itinerary.
The place is booked out for the next year at least." She should be celebrating that, not looking like someone kicked her kitten.
"What about Angel's Rest?" Cass asked. "I know it's smaller but maybe something there." He toyed with the hair that hung over his forehead, like he couldn't decide if he should shove it back out of the way or pull it down further. Torn between hiding himself and leaving himself exposed.
"That's a good idea," I said slowly.
I told Harlow what to add to the list, and she wrote them down in her neat, precise handwriting. Of course she even wrote prettily.
Finally, she tossed the notepad and pen onto the table in front of her and leaned back. "Until then, we might as well get some rest."
"I have an idea before we get any rest," I said, reaching for her.