Chapter 4 - August
Grayson stops dead halfway up the bunker stairs, eyes flicking between me and the door.
I push open the heavy steel submarine door. “You want to wire Kate William’s place, then walk through that damn door and show me you’re ready to tackle this.”
I can’t send a fragile and broken soldier into enemy territory. What if he crashes his Yamaha or freezes and drops a pin camera on the carpet and our target finds the evidence?
This exercise is two-fold—professional and personal. If I can get him out of the bunker once, I’ll encourage him to sleep at his place, rather than in a single-bed cot in a storeroom with no windows. Zero sunlight and fresh air aren’t healthy.
“You always were the scary one in school.” His palms drag over three-day old stubble. “Do I get a gold star on my locker for this excursion?” He weaponizes humor as a distraction the same way I weaponize shame.
I snort. “You get a half compliment and a juice box if you’re lucky.”
“Throw in a bagel and you’re on.” Negotiation is always a good sign.
I nod at the hallway behind me. “Then earn your bagel.”
Grayson hesitates only a second, then exhales through his nose and steps out, the bunker door grinding shut behind him. Good. One foot out. Let’s see if he can keep walking.
“You good?” I clock any sign of him cracking.
He stuffs his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched and braced for a sniper shot. “They teach you this in Police Sensitivity School?”
I stay calm for him. “Graduated top of my class.”
He huffs. “Top of the Constipation Class.”
Under the grunted insults lies twenty years of loyalty. He’s the nerd with bite, two steps ahead in class. I’m the stoic brute that knocks his bullies out cold. Together, we’re a mismatched duo who cover each other’s blind spots, our humor the buffer that keeps us close.
We lean on that bond as we push through the outer door and into open air. He stiffens, breath hitching, checking every shadow twice. Old instincts fire under strain, and he catalogues escape routes, exits, and threats.
“Are you still brooding about the unicorn?” Code for Kate Williams. “You saw someone in trouble and your cop reflexes kicked in.” Staying focused on the mission staves off the worst of his anxiety.
“Ex cop,” I mutter. “And helping a Roman isn’t in the textbooks.”
Grayson shrugs. “Is she really a villain?”
I raise a hand. “She’s compromised. Period.”
What the fuck was I thinking? I blew protocol and let her see me. If I were still on the force, this would’ve earned me a reprimand, possibly a suspension. But something reckless and dangerous overrode orders.
Spartacus depends on me not screwing up. One mistake and years of digging into Roman corruption goes up in flames. Grayson. Katar. A web of informants and allies. I don’t get to feel. Don’t get to risk it all for a girl who’s just an assignment. I’m not a grizzled white knight with a death wish.
“Right. She’s definitely a threat, the way she faked a panic attack in a crowd,” he quips, posture straighter.
I unlock the doors of the Drama Department’s storage facility. “You held it together. That’s something.”
I remember what it took to face daylight again. It took me a year before I stopped waking up, expecting a knock on the door. To stop hating the face in the mirror.
“They teach you how to compliment someone at Police Sensitivity School?” Deflection 1-0-1.
Having my closest friend in the whole wide world snark at me like we’re sixteen again is one of the few things that brings me peace.
“You’ve earned your bagel and your juice box,” I say, sliding into the driver’s seat of my black Camaro.
“Can’t wait,” he mutters, getting in beside me. “Let’s wire the unicorn’s castle.” That one line is the closest he’s sounded like his old self in months. Not fixed. Not whole. But present.
I manuver the car out past plywood castle walls and fake trees into the empty parking lot, and then onto the road.
Thirty minutes later, we drive into her neighborhood.
Too quaint and unsuspecting for an undercover Roman.
We park two blocks out, and put our gloves on.
Grayson shoulders his equipment bag with a tight exhale.
Moving like a tactical unit, we duck behind fences and hedges like the shadows we’ve become.
If she’s got security, we won’t be on it.
And if we are, my friend can delete any trace.
The moment we’re inside, he shifts, burying his nerves under work. Wires, mics, cameras disguised as plugs. He cases the room for potential camera locations like he’s done this a hundred times.
I’m here to keep watch and snoop in her files. I grab the hard drive cloner from to copy her computer for any communications that will tie her to the Romans.
A dog bounds out of nowhere. Small, loud, and convinced he’s Cerberus. His banshee bark echoes off the walls. Fuck, I didn’t see the mutt during my reconnaissance after the festival.
“Jesus, August, I can’t wire with this noise.” Grayson shuffles around the gremlin attacking his shoe. “People plot revolutions over coffee and cookies in the kitchen!”
I distract the fiend, and he goes for my jeans’ hem. “Want to trade jobs?”
“Charming demons isn’t in my skillset.” The tremble in Grayson’s fingers fades by the time he slides the first bug in the light pendant. Once I deal with the banshee, I can give him space and conduct my own recon.
“You hungry?” I ask the gremlin, and relocate to the pantry, cracking open jars and tins, hunting for dog kibble.
Kate and her housemate stock enough chocolate for a fallout bunker. Crumbs litter the floor as I break up the beef jerky. Guard dog duty abruptly ends as the mutt hoovers up the snacks, sits at my feet, and stares up at me as if deciding whether to spare me.
“Keep doing whatever you’re doing to shut up His Holiness,” Grayson grunts as he loads a cam onto a fridge magnet for the best vantage point.
I give the fuzzball a few more morsels. “Does this mean we’re on a temporary no-kill truce, Pipsqueak John III?”
I’ll probably regret it, but I lean down and scratch behind its ears. PJ3 (for short) responds with a groan and nuzzles into me.
“Careful there, August,” Grayson calls out, now at the lounge’s bookcase. “Talking to and feeding dogs leads to collecting strays and knitting them blankets.”
“I’ll knit blankets out of your cables.” I tuck the snacks under one arm and scoop PJ3 into the crook of my arm. Babysitting was the last thing I expected this morning. “Be quiet while we poke around, and you’ll get more jerky.”
I pat his soft, silky head while I carry him to the study.
Grayson obtained schematics of her house from the planning authority yesterday, and we memorized them before leaving the bunker. Kitchen, dining, lounge, laundry, bathroom, and study downstairs. Bedrooms and bathroom upstairs.
I nudge open a drawer, and PJ3 wriggles. “This better be worth the hair my shirt’s collecting. ‘Cause I’ll send you the dry-cleaning bill.”
PJ3 flops in the crook of my arm, seeming to enjoy being carried around and fed like he’s the damn sultan. Who’d have thought I could charm the little beast?
“Aww, look, it’s Recon Daddy.” Grayson smirks as he enters the study. He’s in his element bugging the house, hands steadier, eyes sharper than I’ve seen them in months. It almost feels like my friend, tech guy, and shadow are back.
I flip him the bird and balance PJ3 on my hip to plug the scanner into her computer and clone her hard drive.
While the cloner does its job, I rifle through a tray of receipts, invoices, and utility bills. Nothing stands out to me… except her music collection housing every Celine Dion recording known to man.
PJ3 gets restless and demands more attention.
Pats comfort him while I check her notebook.
Handwritten notes from her sources, all coded, none identified.
This girl is smart and covers her tracks.
I pull out my phone to take pictures of the pages, as well as Post-It notes stuck to the bottom of her computer screen to analyze later.
Finding nothing incriminating makes my pulse scale higher. Either she’s innocent or a goddamn professional at covering her tracks. It’s making my skin itchy to catch her at her own game.
A sharp knock rattles the front door. PJ3 goes nuclear, barking and wriggling.
Grayson’s frozen halfway through fitting a mic to the back of her computer. “You think someone saw us sneak in or heard the dog?”
I pull out my gun. “I’ll check it out.”
Light on my feet, I creep out to the foyer.
Gun pressed to the wood, I peer through the spy hole.
The goddamn old neighbor. Gray, thinning hair combed to the side.
Sour expression baked into his face. Phone angled at the door as he rattles the flyscreen with enough force to make the hinges groan and rile PJ3 into a barking frenzy.
Safe to say he’s not here to borrow sugar.
The asshole’s baiting the dog as if it’s a twisted hobby. I catalogue his face into memory.
I try to calm the mutt with a treat, but he scratches the door like he wants to chase the dick from his property and shit on his lawn.
The neighbor smiles triumphantly, presses a button on his phone, and marches down the porch stairs.
I’ve got enough shit on my plate to deal with, but if this jackass is stirring up hell for Kate, I want to know why he’s not six feet under, given her connection to the Romans.
I sheath my gun and lift the squirming PJ3 into my arms. “Me too, buddy.” I rub his head, and get back to my mission.
“Problem?” Grayson whispers from the office doorway.
“What kind of neighborhood menace gets his kicks picking a fight with Kate’s six-pound banshee and records it?” It makes me wonder what else he films, and my pulse doesn’t drop.
Grayson stabs a hand through his mop of ash-blond hair. “Do you want me to hack him too?”
“Once we finish upstairs,” I tell him.