Kai

KAI

"I'm just saying, a bit of waiting wouldn't hurt either of us," I told Hunter patiently, knowing my words were falling on deaf ears—or stubborn ones.

"We've been at this for two weeks, going on three," he retorted in a low voice. "How long do we have to plan, plot, and dig for information?"

How long before we finally decided we were going to follow through on a plan to kill three men? That was the real question, but not one I could ask aloud while we were sitting in the middle of the café. Arwen was chatting a handful of feet away, clearly enjoying herself as she flirted with a couple of handsome guys who'd come in for a drink and the chance to pet their favorite cats. Apparently, they wanted to adopt, but their third roommate was allergic to cats, so they had to settle for coming in occasionally.

"Here you go," Rich piped up, sliding a steaming mug toward me. "Try that one."

"Sure," I said with a shake of my head and eyed Hunter. "How long is he going to keep trying?"

"Until he finds you a cup of coffee that isn't met with the equivalent of a grunt and a shrug," Hunter informed me with a laugh. "You could always make it stop by giving at least a half-assed performance of how good the coffee is."

"You really think he'd fall for that?"

"If you managed it with a smile and a better word than good, he might."

"Well, it's all just...good," I said with a shrug.

"Well, he's made it his life's mission to find everyone's super special cup of coffee that makes sure they keep coming back for more than just the cats," Hunter said with a fond smile. "It's literally the second reason I hired him...and gave him a few raises."

"I'm hoping the first reason was because he was actually good at making coffee."

"It would be a little weird to have a barista dedicated to making coffee special to everyone while only making cups of turpentine and old dirt mixed with lake water."

"That is...very specific, Hunter."

"You try drinking some of the coffee those stores give to their employees," he said with a wrinkle of his nose.

"Customer facing jobs aren't really for me," I said.

Hunter glanced over at Rich and rolled his eyes. "If you don't drink that coffee, he's going to implode."

"I can hear you!" Rich grumbled from behind the machines.

"Oh, I know," Hunter said with a chuckle.

Sighing, I took a drink and raised a brow as the bitter richness of the coffee intermingled with the heavy smoothness of cream and something...floral? "What...is there flower juice in this?"

"Oh, did you get that lavender mix in again?" Hunter asked over his shoulder.

"As in the flower that old lady used to try to grow in bushes on her balcony?" I asked Hunter in disbelief.

"Close enough," Hunter said and then pointed over his shoulder. "No, Rich, we do not need to know that it isn't exactly those flowers, where you got the stuff from, or the history of using lavender in coffee and other drinks over the years. Let the man give you his assessment before you get too excited."

"Doesn't sound like he much likes it," Rich said.

"No, it's?—"

"New to him," Hunter said with a slight smirk. "New things take a minute to stop surprising him before he can say if he likes it."

"Shut up," I muttered, knowing that was the only response I had because the little shit was right. "Actually, it's not bad. I'm still a little thrown off by drinking flower juice in my coffee, but?—"

"It's not?—"

"Rich."

"Fine."

I took a moment to collect my thoughts to ensure I didn't damage any feelings before shrugging. "Well, it's good, I'll give you that. But I won't say it's really my thing. I'll still finish it and like it, though."

"Ugh," Rich said with a heavy sigh. "At least you didn't take Hunter's advice and try to lie to me."

"And rob you of the chance of real victory? Never," I said with a snort, taking another sip. "I'm sure you'll figure something out."

"If he doesn't end up putting us in the red because he's going out of his way to find new, exotic blends and new ways to make coffee," Hunter said with a shake of his head as he leaned on the other side of the counter from me. I was allowed to be anywhere in the café, but since I wasn't an employee, there was no sense in me being behind the counter in the way.

"Like the books haven't been in the black forever," a new voice popped up, and I glanced over to see Brooke eyeing Hunter with vague irritation. "Which you should be trying to balance now, I might add."

"When did I promote you to being my boss again?" Hunter asked lightly, clearly unbothered by her annoyance. Not that I blamed him, Brooke could be bitchy a lot of the time, but she was also genuinely not a bitch...just a little too serious.

"Well, someone needs to keep you on your toes," she said, then glanced at me and frowned. "Because this one isn't doing it."

"I manage in other ways," I said, taking another drink of my coffee.

"Just so long as those other ways aren't during business hours," she said with a toss of her hair and a smirk.

It wasn't exactly a secret that something had changed between Hunter and me over the past couple of weeks. I wasn't sure how that little secret had managed to leak its way out since I knew full well I hadn't mentioned it, and Hunter wasn't the type to gossip about his private life. As far as I knew, we weren't acting differently either. Yet apparently, something had given us away because all the employees seemed to have figured out that Hunter and I were more than just childhood best friends now.

"Never," I told her, lying through my teeth in a way I refused to do to Rich about the coffee. She did not need to know that Hunter and I had enjoyed one another during business hours. It had been done in his office quickly and quietly but still during business hours.

All in all, things between him and I were progressing just fine. The new control of his own sex life had given Hunter renewed vigor and enthusiasm about sex. He was still hesitant and could change his mind at times, but I wasn't going to complain or be upset. He'd already been through quite enough without me pressuring him to ‘finally' have full-blown sex.

Not that I needed to go all the way to be happy. There were times when I ached to feel him from the inside. Everything else was still the perfect amount of intimacy and sexiness I needed to be with someone. We'd even worked our way up to where I could finger him without him losing his mind with anxiety or fear, and everything else just added flavor to our sex life.

Strangely enough, my teenage fears that had kept me from saying anything about my feelings for him had yet to come true. Almost nothing else about us and our relationship had changed significantly or somehow disappeared. There was the sex, and now we didn't have to worry about physical contact between us somehow being mistranslated, mainly because it was supposed to be translated as a gesture of more than friendship.

Few other things had changed save for abandoning preconceived fears and worries. Of course, there were a few new things, including our current bloody plotting, but those seemed wholly separate from our relationship. Not that we had called it a relationship, of course, that conversation or anything close to it hadn't come up between us. Not that I blamed Hunter for avoiding it. His last relationship had ended horribly, and I couldn't fault him for wanting to stay away from the idea a bit longer and enjoy what he had.

"Somehow, that feels like a big fat lie," Brooke said, then glanced over the counter. "Rich, my usual, please. Make it a double this time, though. I was up half the night."

"Anything worth staying up for?" I asked with a raised brow.

She smirked. "If you consider two kids worth it, then yes. Otherwise, it was just misery and stress."

"Mmm, can't say it's a bad thing to be there for your kids, but I can't say it's a fun thing either," I said with a snort.

"Hmm," she said, sliding onto the stool beside me. "What about you?"

"Uh, what about me?"

"Kids, you, yeah?"

"Kids, me, hell no."

Brooke laughed softly as Rich set her steaming drink down. "What, don't like kids?"

"Are you kidding?" Hunter asked, returning with a drink of his own. "He loves kids. He's just absolutely terrified of them."

"Wow, thank you so much for putting my personal stuff on full display," I told him with a glare. "Would you like to share anything else?"

"Maybe someone should go do the books like they're supposed to," Brooke said, raising her brow at him. "Instead of butting into conversations that don't involve him. Or, you know, I could go try to balance the books again."

"Like hell," Hunter said, eyes going wide. "It took me weeks to fix what you screwed up!"

"Then maybe you should go get those books done on your own," she said with a smirk. "Because you're the only one who knows how to use that convoluted mess you created."

"It's not convoluted! I spent forever making those things as easy as possible. All you had to do was follow my typed instructions. Yet you somehow managed to screw up every worksheet. I didn't even know that was possible."

"What can I say? I have a gift," she said, glancing at me. "What about you? Good with numbers?"

"Technology decided many years ago that it despises my very existence to the point that it refuses to function properly whenever I'm around it," I explained to her. "If I tried to operate the system, I would probably find a way to install a virus even without getting on the internet. Or the computer would explode."

"Or any number of other things," Hunter added helpfully. "Fine. I had stuff I wanted to do in my office anyway."

By stuff, he probably meant he was going to continue digging for more information that could help us. I knew he wanted to move soon, between anxiousness to get it over with and impatience to get rid of the three men. His hatred and desire to see them die hadn't abated in the slightest, but to my surprise, he had learned to control it. I had feared that with his newfound hatred, he would start to spiral out of control, and I'd have to fight him tooth and nail to hold back. I didn't know if I should be relieved or concerned that he'd figured out the basics of keeping himself under control but had a feeling I would figure out which one eventually.

All we needed was a good in with the three of them, something that would let us get close without risking exposure. We had plenty of information about their doings, though we were bound to miss things. We had addresses, pictures from gossip and news sites, known associates and their addresses and information, and random stuff we could dig up without leaving a trail.

The problem was these three men were pretty high profile and didn't go anywhere alone except for their homes. Every single one of their living spaces either had security systems up the wazoo, which neither Hunter nor I had any knowledge about dealing with, or in the case of penthouses, additional security in the form of a front desk, live-in security, and cameras.

All in all, we had plenty of information, but we lacked the opening necessary to move on them. Maybe if we had other people working with us with greater knowledge and expertise than the two of us, but we didn't. I could call in favors from some of the people I'd worked with in the past, but that opened up a whole new slew of complications and potential issues. The fewer people involved, the better, as far as I was concerned.

"So, scared of kids?" Brooke asked once Hunter had disappeared. I appreciated that she hadn't commented on the fact that my eyes had lingered on Hunter's ass in his well-fitting work pants as he walked off. Though that might tell me precisely how people had figured out the two of us had found our way to more than just best friends.

"Not of them, really," I said with an uncomfortable shrug. "I just...yeah, sometimes I get nervous around them. I should know better since I remember my childhood pretty well, but there's just something so fragile and...I don't know."

"Kids are more durable than you think," she said with a chuckle. "I'm always surprised by the shit they can get into and come out alive. My mom always said God looks over drunks and young children, and I'd swear to...well, God, that's true."

"Heh," I said with a wry smile. "My mom had plenty of her own sayings. But those were ways to make me get her drinks."

"Ah, yeah, Hunter mentioned you two didn't grow up with the best parents."

"Hunter is also the master of understatement when he wants to be...namely when he's talking about our childhood."

"Well, then, your aversion to children makes a lot more sense."

"I just don't think I'm equipped to deal with kids. They're small, needy, and they're so helpless. You're completely in charge of protecting them, teaching them, showing them right from wrong, and dealing with outbursts of emotions while trying to make sure yours are under control. That's a lot of responsibility I'm not ready for and never will be."

"Hmm, you sound pretty sure, I'll give you that," she said, eyeing me

"Sure enough that I made sure there wouldn't be any accidental little me's running around," I said with a raised brow.

"No shit? You got snipped?"

"The doctor fought me tooth and nail. Wanted me to ‘realize' it could mean I might never be able to have them because being able to fix that isn't the easiest thing. And on and on. It drove me crazy trying to get him to listen to me."

"How'd you get him to listen?"

"Found another doctor who said he wished his parents had made that decision."

Her eyes went wide. "Wow, that's...quite the thing to lay on a person."

"Not really," I shrugged. "I agreed with him. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm alive, and I like a lot of things about living, but my parents should never have had me. So I got snipped, no accidents or uh...other things."

"Other things?" she wondered.

I sighed. "I had this sort of friend. She wanted to be more than...sort of friends."

Brooke rolled her eyes. "I know what a fuck buddy is, . I've had a few of them myself. You won't be injuring my delicate sensibilities."

"Fine, yes, she was a fuck buddy," I said, rolling my eyes right back at her. "But she wanted more."

"Ohhh, are you a heartbreaker, ?"

"No. I told her I wouldn't ever want more than what we had. I was clear on that. She knew."

"Jesus, tell me you don't understand women without telling me you don't understand women."

"Then clearly, she didn't understand men just as much as I didn't understand women. Because I meant what I said, and said what I meant...though it was only after that I realized I should have seen the signs and bailed long before."

"Hmm," she said thoughtfully, leaning in close. "Did she try to baby-trap you?"

I looked at her in surprise. "She did, actually."

"Don't look so shocked. It's not like I don't know what women can get up to when they're scheming," she said with a snort. "And she wouldn't be the first woman to try to trap a guy with a baby he didn't want. How'd she do it?"

"Stopped taking the pill. I found out later, but I busted her when she was the one who brought the condoms, even though that was supposed to be my job."

"Brought the..." she stopped her question, and her eyes lit up, grinning. "You slippery little shit, you never told her about getting snipped."

"I didn't tell any of my partners," I said with a snort. "Not even you, until now."

She cackled. "So it was before you were with me."

"It was," I said, not ashamed of it. "It's not really anyone's business."

"And it also lets you weed out the women who might try something like that," she said with a chuckle. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not getting on your ass about it. That's a lot more sly than I expected from you."

"Shows how little you can know about a person," I snorted. "It's not a long story. I got suspicious after the offer to use the condoms she brought. So I checked one with the classic fill it with water trick. Not that I needed to, I should have just looked at the packaging. She was about as subtle as a hot iron poker to the face."

"God, she turned it into a pincushion, didn't she?"

"It would have looked like a porcupine if she'd left the needles in."

Brooke laughed, covering her mouth as it scared one of the cats sniffing at her ankles. "That's...so bad. I mean, it's bad enough to baby-trap someone, but if you're going to do it, at least have the sense to be smart about it."

"Clearly, that was not her priority," I said, thinking she was more right than she knew. If you were going to try to do something you most definitely should not be doing, then you needed to be as cautious as possible. And the more wrong the thing you were doing was, whether moral or legal, then the more cautious you had to be. I could only hope Hunter understood that; otherwise, we'd be in for a lot of trouble very soon.

"In any case," she said, sliding her empty mug back across the counter. "I need to go see some ladies about adopting their cat before they head out of here."

"Hopefully, you have better luck than Arwen seems to be having over there," I said, watching as she chatted with the two men, one of which was holding a pretty tortoiseshell cat in his lap.

"Oh, she's going to get them," Brooke chuckled. "They're apparently talking about the other roommate moving out soon, and she's hinting that if they give us a time frame, we can hold a cat for them to pick up later."

"Isn't the point of this place to sell coffee and adopt cats out, and the second one to be done as quickly as possible?"

"Mmm, yes, but," her eyes darted toward the door leading toward the back and smiled gently, "some people around here have soft hearts and would prefer the cats get adopted by people who fall in love with them. Usually the ones who form the first loving bond with them, even if it means holding onto a cat that we could give to someone else while we wait."

"Yes, because you are certainly not the kind of person who would want something like that for these animals," I said with a smirk. "You're far too hard ass for that."

"See? You can be taught," she said with a wink. "And if you could go make sure that certain someone is actually doing his work instead of screwing around on World of Warcraft...again, that would be great."

"I didn't...know he'd subscribed again," I said with a blink.

"Wow, you two are dating, and he's already keeping secrets? Tsk tsk," she chided, making to walk off before I could say anything to correct her assumption. That wasn't going to happen, so I grabbed her arm before she got too far.

"Hold on a minute," I said, pulling her back to her seat and raising a brow when she took a moment to decide whether to sit. "Who said anything about us dating? Or me being into him, for that matter?"

"I notice you weren't surprised that I thought he was into you."

"Brooke."

She laughed, and I remembered how much I liked her laugh. It was rich and rang from her throat in the rare moments when she let it free. "Fine, fine, you're right. He's always been obvious that he's a little into you. I always thought he was a lot into you, but toned it down. I always wondered what Lucas thought about that, but I never said anything."

"Much appreciated," I grumbled, making sure Rich was minding his own business, which he wasn't. But he was doing an admirable job pretending to clean a machine. "And if you knew, Lucas probably knew."

"I'm sure he did. He never seemed bothered, as far as I could tell, and it wasn't like Hunter ever drooled over you," she said, looking at me. "At least in public. I wouldn't blame him in private. I sure did."

"Brooke."

She rolled her eyes. "And people say I'm serious."

"About your job? Yes. Otherwise, not so much."

"Look. Even if being into each other didn't come into play, it's obvious you two are close and have each other's backs through thick and thin, hell and high water…all those corny phrases. If that translates into a relationship, you two have?—"

"Not once did I say we were dating."

"Relationship, you two have, then good. After…" A shadow crossed her face. "After what happened to him, he deserves the chance to have something good in his life. You may not think you're the best or even good, but I saw enough to know you're not bad. Hunter clearly adores you, with or without sharing a bed, and he seems pretty good at knowing where to put his heart."

I sighed. "Is this your way of giving your blessing?"

"I hadn't thought about it like that, but yes," she said brightly, then dropped her voice. "So, is he better in bed than me?"

"Weren't you bothered about other people not doing their jobs? I asked with a sigh.

"Ooh, you don't want to tell, which probably means it's him. Oh well," she said with a laugh. "Better you're with the person you have better sex with now than wonder what could have been if?—"

"Bye," I said, pushing her hard enough to dislodge her from the chair. Despite the attention it drew, it didn't deter her in the slightest. She just walked away with a cackle.

"So," Rich said as I stood up. "We're just going to ignore the fact that you and Brooke were sleeping together, and now you're sleeping with the boss?"

"By all means," I told him dryly, "bring that up to Hunter if you'd like."

"Are you trying to get me killed?"

"Now, why would you say that?"

"Hunter's a nice guy, but don't think I haven't seen his temper. This one time some guy came in and started trouble. Drunk or something and kept trying to start fights. Hunter practically dragged the guy out by himself, and I don't know what the hell he said, but the guy gave him a dirty look and just walked off."

"Interesting," I said. "When was this?"

"Mmm, a few months before you showed back up."

"I didn't show ‘back up' I was…" I stopped myself and shook my head. It seemed Hunter had found a connection with his rougher side a lot sooner than that strangely coincidental meeting with the dealer a few weeks prior. "And if you're that worried, you can talk to Brooke about it instead."

"Okay, yeah, you're definitely trying to get me killed."

"Oh, come now, she can't be scarier than Hunter, right?"

"Definitely trying to kill me."

I smiled sweetly. "Rich, you wound me. If I was trying to kill you, you'd know it...right before I killed you."

He stared at me for a few heartbeats before snorting and shaking his head. "You know, even though you're smiling, I think you might actually be a lot scarier than the two of them combined."

I watched him squint at me and frowned. "Don't you dare ask the question you're about to ask."

"What was I about to ask?"

"If I've killed someone before, and what it felt like."

"I...wasn't," he said in a tone that said he didn't even believe himself.

"Well, then I'll count that as a mistake on my part and move on," I said with a smirk. "Thank you for the coffee. Maybe you'll have better luck with the next one."

"Luck, nothing. I'm going to figure it out based on all the other drinks I've given you and try to work from there," he said with a sigh. "I'll figure this out. There's a coffee drink for everyone, and I will find yours."

"You keep up that determination," I told him with a chuckle.

I wound around the counter and headed into the back. Ignoring the door leading up to Hunter's apartment, I noticed the office door was closed, which it rarely was. That meant he had subscribed to the game that had sucked good chunks of his life once, or he was doing research instead of work. Either option meant I was walking into his office without warning, raising my brow when he all but leaped out of his chair in surprise.

"Jesus," he said, putting a hand over his chest. "You scared the shit out of me. What the hell!"

I snorted, closing the door behind me. "You're jumpy. Feeling guilty?"

He scowled at me. "Did you come in here to give me a hard time about not working? Because I am managing to get work done."

"I see that," I said, looking at the desktop screen and then glancing at the laptop in front of him. "Multitasking, I see."

"I am capable of it," he said after a momentary huff and opened the laptop more after closing it a little upon my entry. "You're supposed to be less quiet when you walk around."

"I apologize for not stomping my way down the hallway like a pissed-off buffalo."

"You're goddamn right you are."

I laughed at that, bending down to kiss him. "And I'm not sure if I should be worried that you're in here obsessing over more research or if Brooke is right and you're an addict again."

"An addict? What the hell?"

"Mmm, told me she caught you playing World of Warcraft again."

"Oh, that," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I picked it up again about half a year ago to see how things were going since I hadn't played in a few years. Turned out she didn't need to be worried. The game was absolute shit, and from what I hear, it hasn't got much better. Might do Classic, though, I'll think about it."

"God save us all if you decide to," I said with a heavy sigh. The game had sucked chunks of his life at college. At first, it seemed like a good way to socialize with people safely that didn't involve going to parties or getting wasted all the time. Only for me to come back on leave one time and realize he was barely managing to focus on his schoolwork, saved only by his brains rather than hard work, and had lost himself almost completely to it. "Because I don't know if they have an anonymous group for gamer addicts."

"? It's the twenty-twenties. Of course, they have addict groups for that."

"Duly noted. I'll give them a look."

"Stop," he said with a grunt, swatting at me. "I'm not playing it, so quit. I'll find a different MMO to get hooked on. I hear Final Fantasy is still doing great."

"Hunter?"

He laughed, wrapping his hand around mine. "I'm not going to get hooked. I have a lot more going on in my life now that doesn't leave me time to spend hours a day on a game, alright?"

"Good."

"Are you ready to hear what I found?"

"You're always finding things. Your research skills are impressive. I've told you that."

"Yeah, but I found something we can actually use. Our in."

"Our in? On all of them?"

"No," he said, pulling up one of the many files he'd been keeping on the small thumb drive. "This one."

"Damon," I said softly as the man's smug, smiling face filled the screen. Damon was the corporate lawyer. From what Hunter had dug up, the man was exceptionally good at making sure any business who wanted to get away with something, he was the man to call. He was still young, but his methods and efficacy were hard to argue with.

All three men were still connected, which didn't require much digging on Hunter's part to discover. Their friendship had been noticed and tracked since they'd gone to school together as boys. They'd even gone to Yale together before returning to Port Dale to keep up the family businesses and ‘give back to the city they loved.'

What they'd really done was take advantage of their family's respective influences and start building a power base of their own. Callum was the face of the group, being a member of a well-respected and very old family and managing to make a few smart political decisions that made him look good. Damon was essentially the attack dog, managing connections even with personal and criminal lawyer circuits to pull plenty of strings and probably bully a few people. The last was the CEO, Mitchell, who led the initially small shipping company his family owned and, in the past few years, had started pushing competitors out with help from his friends.

"I'll admit to being a little wary of what the in with him is," I said, thinking he was probably the easiest to get to. He had the least amount of security and was fond of spending time on his own.

"Well, I've been trying to get at them from just about every angle I can think of. But there was one I wasn't giving too much thought to even though it should have been obvious."

"That being?"

He pulled up a screen, and I raised a brow. "An escort service?"

"It didn't occur to me to look at escort services. In my mind, the bastards enjoyed using what they could to lure people in and then getting them."

"I mean, yeah, but they can't get their kicks like that all the time when they want to get off. That would leave a big, messy trail that not even they and their families could cover up."

"Well, consider me appropriately corrected," he said dryly and just a little testily.

"I didn't think of it either, so I'm glad you did," I told him, watching the annoyance disappear. "But how is that our in?"

"Well, lawyers might be allowed to be sleazy, but there's a limit. Apparently, a service in the city caters to...interesting tastes."

"Just how interesting?"

"The kind of interesting that would raise eyebrows...legal ones."

"Oh shit, how legal?"

"Well, the place does emphasize in its ads that it allows a variety of tastes, and that includes, uh," he leaned forward to read something he'd typed out. "the most unsullied of nubile flesh."

I wrinkled my nose. "So, we're just going to pretend they mean perfectly legal virgins, right?"

"It proves my fucking point," he said with a quiet savagery. "He uses the service almost weekly. More than that, if he can get away with it. I guess our boy has an appetite."

"And...how did you find all this out?"

"There are sites where people talk about the doings of people in higher levels of society. They go out of their way to dig up all they can, including hacking into conversations they're having. Apparently, he's made an order for...tomorrow night."

"Hunter, how does that help us? We don't know where or what escort, plus if the escort is there, we can't have them see anything and?—"

"Hold your horses. Some of those problems are taken care of, I think," he said, turning the computer back toward him. "The conversation he had in the order said he didn't want it in the same place as the last time but the second place because he wanted to see the water."

"And?"

"And I'd already been digging into his holdings, but while I waited for you to come in here and scare the shit out of me, I realized that people can buy property without tying their names directly to it. Especially if they have connections."

I cocked my head. "Like, shell companies?"

"Exactly," he said. "And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Other people were digging."

"There are people who followed some hotshot corporate lawyer in Port Dale?" I asked in disbelief.

He chuckled. "Never underestimate the lengths people will go to fulfill some sense of justice. He's tied to two big names, Callum's especially, making him a big target for anyone who wants to do some digging. The website looking at his holdings was focused on keeping track of people in powerful positions because they can do stuff like buy a private loft on the nice side of the bay, a loft that went through some quiet renovations to soundproof it."

"You were in here for half an hour unsupervised. How the hell did you crack this so quickly?"

"Half the work was done for me. The rest was just putting pieces together, which didn't take long."

"So the escort is going to his house tomorrow night?"

"Eight at night. I have the address."

"And how are we supposed to interfere?"

"Hopefully, the escort does their job and moves on, leaving dear Damon open."

"And security?"

"Well," he said, nose finally scrunching in annoyance to tell me he hadn't unraveled that particular knot. "I didn't see any orders for a security system, but he could use his own or buy it under a different name to have it installed privately. But...I don't think so."

"You don't think so," I repeated with a sigh. "And if you're wrong?"

"Look, this is a place for him to sneak off without anyone seeing who comes and goes. What would the point of having a security system be if you're trying to keep things quiet?"

"Like you said, he could have a private one."

"You and I both know that's even easier than one tied to a company. Wi-Fi blocker, which is...something I already ordered."

"I...what?"

"Do I have to explain the where's and how's?"

"I..." Pinching my nose, I took a deep breath. "Fine, that would probably work, but if it doesn't, we'd have to find wherever the system is plugged in and destroy the whole lot. And that leaves the possibility that this escort would still be there. And could stay the night or leave shortly before he does. That's a time frame we don't know about."

He thought about that for a moment and then winced guiltily. "There is...a possible answer to that problem, but?—"

"But what?"

"Well, it's not exactly a nice option, but nicer than the escort getting pulled into the whole mess."

I sighed. "Tell me."

"Well, you see...it used to be that we would take our cats to the vet when they needed their medication or exams. But it became easier with follow-up exams and checkups for her just to come here."

"I'm failing to see where this is going."

"And after some time, she started leaving stuff here...including ether."

"Eth…wait, you want to knock this person out?" I asked, surprised at the boldness of the plan. "That's...wait, isn't that shit explosive?"

He rolled his eyes. "We keep it temperature controlled, for God's sake, ."

I vaguely remembered some of the specialized training I'd been through after it was obvious to Command that I could work with special operations groups and handle missions requiring a softer touch. One of those had been to prepare for the use of and handling different types of drugs. Ether wasn't one of the ones I'd been trained in extensively, but it was still used on occasion by other groups, so we'd been aware of it. The chances of it going fatally wrong for the recipient were not high, but still possible. The worst this escort would face would be dry mouth and a bad headache.

Yet the bigger problem was that a lot was riding on ensuring the ether was delivered to the person. But the problem was, it had to be breathed in for it to be effective, which could take a ridiculous amount of time, depending on the person's size and how hard they struggled.

"Do we know what kind of escort, male, female?"

"He just said ‘surprise me' in the message."

"Great."

I thought about it for a moment and sighed. "Alright. Here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to check the place out tomorrow without getting too close. That way, we can see if any security systems need to be dealt with and what's going on on the property. From there, we'll figure out how to handle it."

"Well," Hunter began and then shook his head. "I'll wait to hear back from you before I go any further."

"Shouldn't I know now? Because if I give the green light, we won't have much time to plan things out, only hours. If we're going to cover any problems with the plan, then we should address them now."

"It can wait," he said with a small smile. "I don't want to complicate things."

I had the distinct feeling that not wanting to complicate things was not what was holding him back. In truth, I probably could have pressed him and gotten more answers. I could have also risked pushing him too hard and setting off his temper. He wasn't showing any signs of it now, but I couldn't help but feel a lot more was going on beneath the surface.

I'd seen it before, felt it before in other people. The sense that something was moving around behind the translucent window of their soul, something dark and sharp, ever hungry but being made to wait to strike. It was still the same Hunter, with his pretty eyes, his warm smile, and a laugh that still sounded like there was something to be happy about. But there was something else, and it was near the surface now that we might be on the tail of the first target.

For now, I would leave well alone and let him have whatever he kept close to his chest.

"I'll go take a look," I told him, letting the subject drop. "Then, once I figure out what's what, we can move forward."

"Sounds good," he said with a smile that almost made me believe he wasn't trying to keep something from me. And the more I thought about it, the more I believed he kept it quiet because he didn't want to upset me. "Keep in touch, okay?"

"Heh, I'm not taking my phone," I told him, turning toward the door. "Going to go get some cash, then buy a couple of disposable phones for us to use."

"Oh...that's smart," he said with a few rapid blinks. "Probably a good idea if we don't have our phones pinging on the towers near them, huh?"

"Exactly," I said, opening the door. "I'll bring one back and then head out."

"Okay, be safe."

"Always."