“Well, assuming that money came from—”
“Glass! My office. Now.” Captain Ashanafi Mangistu’s dark face glared at me from his office doorway. Max Delmonico smirked just behind him.
I grabbed my jacket, standing up and pointing at the screen. “If that two hundred grand in cash was from the recent smuggling, then what’s that exact amount doing in Alvarado’s books, funneled through—”
“Now would be best.” The captain’s accent rolled across the station house, depositing its load of sarcasm in my ear.
Suspension Without Pay
An hour and a half after jerking my arm out of Luis’s grasp without a word, I drove home. I sat on my sofa, pounding Johnny Walker Black like it was my new bride and this was our honeymoon. Well into my fourth glass, listening and thinking of nothing but the sheets of rain outside, my doorbell rang. It took four buzzes and continual hammering against the wood to finally register: someone was at my door.
I launched to standing, fell back into a wave of dizziness and laughed. Crawling seemed to be the best option here, and it got me safely to the door—but not before my shoulder was detoured by an end table. Using the knob I pulled myself up and opened to greet my visitor.
“Oh, good. I was wondering when you’d come to finish me off,” I told Peter.
“Are you drunk?”
“Are you my mother?” I laughed. “Never mind, she can’t raise her brows through the Botox. You can’t be her.” How he got his hands into his jean pockets while they were wet was something only sober me could ask. Drunk me just stood there and stared at his hard nipples poking through his wet cotton shirt.
“I need your help.”
I laughed harder. Nearly doubling over. “You need my help? Naïve, clueless li’l ol’ moi?”
“Please.” I could barely hear him through the rain.
“Go away, little boy,” I sneered and went to shut the door.
“Please.” He pushed his hand against the wood. “Please. I’m begging you. They arrested Cai.”
“I’m suspended. Can’t help you.” I huffed a laugh completely lacking in amusement. “Surprised you didn’t try and take the blame.”
“I did. But I was with Darryl at The Manhole. About thirty people saw us. He didn’t do it, Austin. He didn’t kill Iss.”
“Not couldn’t?” I asked with a lucidity I didn’t realize I had. “Didn’t? Not couldn’t?” I cursed my curiosity.
Peter bit his lip, making my groin stir before he turned away. Down boy. “I need him out before they…Before they find out who he is.”
“And who is he?” I asked, fully expecting to be lied to, ignored, the question bypassed.
“Nikolaj Strakosha.”
Slow as my mind worked, synapses swimming lazily through whiskey, I pinpointed the name while Peter drowned on my doorstep. “The eight-year-old who took out Nikki the Nail?”
Chapter Ten
Who’s Using Whom?
Although I was crazy curious about Cai, there was this perverse enjoyment of Peter standing there, getting soaked, looking as lost as I felt. My little bit of revenge backfired, however, when I noticed how his t-shirt stuck to his chest, and how his abs outlined out against the cotton. Instant sobering fantasies.
Peter’s indecisive expression returned, manifesting in the pull of his bottom lip between his teeth and the squinting downcast eyes. I could almost hear his brain churning out the question, ‘Use sex or not?’ The fact that he turned me on didn’t embarrass me nearly as much as his knowing how much he affected me. That, and understanding how naturally it came to Peter to use the information to his advantage. We were at odds, a still-frame: I—trying to breathe while ignoring my urge to push him over the sofa and lick the rain off his stomach, and he—considering how best to use my attraction.
“You could have me.” He stepped forward. Instead of meeting my eyes, Peter appeared to be staring at the center of my nose. “Just help me.”
“Oh, for fuck's sake.” I sighed. “Just get inside and try not to whore yourself for five minutes.” I yanked him inside the door.
“S-stop st-staring at me like that then,” he chattered as my A/C unit delivered a frigid welcome.
Since I didn’t want to turn off the central air, I sent him upstairs while I went to make something hot to drink. “Go take a shower and put on some dry clothes.”
Midway to the kitchen, weaving a Johnny Walker induced walk, a resounding splat near the stairway grabbed my attention. I turned to see Peter’s shirt on the bottom step. The green lump of cotton dripped rivers of rain on my floor, calling my attention to him. He paused halfway up the stairs, bending to see me through the railing, pale muscled chest inviting me through the bars. “Are you going to join?”