Bounty (11 page)

F
rom the moment
April left my apartment I watched her. Like the world’s creepiest stalker, I kept my eyes glued to the video feed from her phone, the audio. Mostly, I watched the inside of her back pocket (trying not to think about the gorgeous shape of her ass), but I also started going through all of her contacts, her emails, her texts, hunting for “Dad.”

Nothing.

All I got was gut-wrenching audio of her sniffling a bit, trying valiantly not to cry. I hear the cabby ask if she’s okay.

I have got to stop caring this much. It’s tiring. I’m just doing bounty hunter work. This is my job.

I’m not sure who I’m convincing.

Half an hour later she makes the call, and I finally get to hear Devin Sullivan’s voice.

He sounds more authentically Irish than I expected — I mean, I knew it was an Irish organization, but April only seems peripherally Irish. The hair, the eyes, the freckles. Maybe a bit in the way she drinks her beer: with relish. This man, on the other hand, is straight out of goddamn Dubliners. Or maybe The Boondock Saints.

The digitizing and sending process isn’t perfect. Parts drop out, the audio isn’t great. But I can hear his voice. I don’t hear, however, where he is, so I get to work tracing the call the old fashioned way.

He’s overseas, for sure, and I’ve narrowed it down to a few contender cities, but it doesn’t help much.

I think the motherfucker might be in Costa Rica. So, not exactly Dublin.

But Costa Rican cities aren’t tiny — and there’s no way to know precisely where he is. I can only see the country code, and the “region” matrix — he’s on the East side of the country, the less touristy one (I find out after I google it. I’ve been to Central and South America quite a bit in my time, drug lords love to retreat to their cartels. But I’ve never been to Costa Rica. Eco-tourism isn’t exactly friendly to heroine farmers.)

I spend the entire next day researching this. I barely eat and barely leave my desk, but I’m on a roll. I’m in the thick of it, digging through records and previous trace testimony in court to try to crack it, when my buzzer sounds.

I’ve actually never heard it ring, now that I think about it. It’s an awful noise.

I’m on my feet and clambering down the stairs before I can think. I can see April standing there, through the peephole.

And she’s looking fucking gorgeous. My stomach drops out, pure dread, but at the same time a thrill of excitement and even – fuck – arousal.

Then I realize I’m still in my underwear. The beating I took to my side is black and blue — nothing cracked, but it looks ugly. My face is a mess.

But I don’t care. I don’t deserve her, anyway. I don’t want to keep trying to impress her while I’m following her, stalking her, gathering evidence against her father. After I… fucked her. In her time of need.

I’m a monster. I should look like one. Stop being a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and just be the wolf.

In my underwear.

I swing open the door.

Her eyes light upon my chest immediately, and then swoop down to the line of my boxer briefs, and then spring immediately back to my eyes. Then to my cut, which I had stitched up in her absence. I watch as she composes herself.

“Can we talk?”

“I’m not sure what there is to talk about,” I say. It’s pretty obvious that only a monster would do to her what I did. What I’m doing.

Her eyes look pained, and the guilt washes over me.

“I’m sorry, Liam.” Why is she apologizing to me? “I need to tell you some things.”

I look behind her and there are men very obviously tailing her. Standing in the street, attempting to pretend to be reading a newspaper, clicking on a phone, sitting behind the wheel of a nondescript-looking car. Definitely tailing her. I’m not sure if it would be as obvious to the untrained eye, but I can see that Devlin Sullivan has finally decided to put protection on his daughter. Too little, too late, really. But I guess it’s better than nothing.

“April, I’m the one who —“

She interrupts me in a rush, letting a tumble of words fall out of her mouth, as if rehearsed. She looks nervous — of course, she’s scared of me — and goes through a very prepared-sounding apology, followed by a formal invitation to attend dinner with her and her father in one week.

“What?” My mouth moves without my permission.

She had no idea how happy this makes me, on a professional level, and then how awful, because this is what I was taking advantage of her for all along. And then happy again, because, fuck if I don’t feel a sense of accomplishment, being invited to meet the father of the woman I… and then like shit again, because it’s quite obvious she’s not enthused about this invitation. She probably just wants to get away from me, but her father wants to size me up now that he’s heard that I’m involved with his daughter.

And I have to figure out how to turn this into an opportunity to take him down.

“He wants to thank the man who saved his daughter’s life,” she clarifies, sensing my confusion.

“Of course,” I say.

“You don’t have to — I mean, it’s not a date,” she says, and that sucks. But it also makes me smile, a little. That’s what she said when we first met.

Which feels like ages ago, but I realize hasn’t really been very long at all.

She continues through my silence, slowly choosing her words.

“But Liam… my father is a very powerful man. I wish you could just stay out of it, I wish you didn’t have to go,” ouch, “but I think he’s really set on this. And it’s not, um… wise… to refuse my father.”

Okay, so even pretend-naive, sheep-clothed-wolf Liam would be confused by this, right? I can ask her what on earth she means by that, I can act suspicious, ask for more details.

This close to the prize, I realize I’m still willing to lie. I’m right back to figuring out how to play her.

I know I’m a monster.

At least I’ll be one that brings in the worst gangster in Boston.

“What does that mean, exactly?” I ask.

God this conversation is slow, and awkward, each of us thinking over our responses. Avoiding eye-contact. And for her, I guess eye-to-junk contact.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I want to say it every time I speak to her, I have so much to apologize for. “Do you want to come in so I can put some pants on.”

“That’s… that won’t be necessary,” she says. “I just wanted to invite you.”

“Sure,” I blurt out immediately. “I mean… sounds like I don’t have a choice, right?”

Her face falls. “Right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

We stop talking and make eye-contact for just a second. She glances behind her, at the security guys, then bites her lip to look back at me.

In her eyes I see grim resolve.

She shoves me, hard, back into the apartment and follows me in, slamming the door, locking it, and closing the deadbolt. Then she pulls something off her collar… a microphone? And tosses it on a little side-table by the door.

What she doesn’t know is that I’ve bugged her phone, anyway. Even if her dad can’t keep tabs on her, this is all being recorded.

And the FBI will probably listen in.

“This’ll keep them busy for just a few minutes before they find another way around,” she says, grabbing my hand and dragging me back up to my apartment.

“Wha–“ for a wild moment, my traitorous brain (and cock) hope I’m about to get laid.

No, you fucking monster. Never again. I’m going to take advantage of her, yes, but only what I need in order to take down her father. I’ll do it as fast as I can, as efficiently as I can. I’ll do whatever it takes — lying, fighting, tricking her.

But the end result is that I’ll arrest Devlin Sullivan, and then she can wash her hands of me. I’ll be so bad that she won’t have to pine after me.

She’s dragged me all the way up to my apartment door, and I try not to cherish the feeling of her small, strong hand in mine.

“Liam, I need to tell you something,” she says, pushing through my front door, which I left open. “We only have a minute, and you cannot let on that I told you, but I think you deserve to hear the truth.”

Holy shit.

“It’s about my father.”

I
’ve got
him pressed up against the wall of his doorway, backing him further and further into the apartment. Away from eavesdroppers. Away from the windows, too.

I’ve got to talk to him alone.

“Liam, my dad is the leader of organized crime. He’s not a businessman, at least, his business isn’t legal. That’s why I was attacked, that’s why you had to fight some Russian thugs.” In hushed whispers, I explain everything, how I recently started to suspect what I think my father does. I tell him that my father only gave me permission to tell him he’s a ‘powerful’ man but that I wanted to try to tell him everything I knew. So he could be prepared.

Liam is very quiet throughout. I think I’m freaking him out. I mean, I know I am. If all my previous drama wasn’t bad enough — this is some shit out of a goddamn movie.

“I’m sorry,” I finish. I’ve been apologizing a lot, lately. Maybe in the future I should just stop getting people beaten up and in need of stitches. Not get people involved in my mess in the first place. Maybe I’m not fit to fall in love — it always falls apart, anyway. I’m a mess.

I wait for Liam’s response.

“I was wondering,” Liam finally says, looking dumbfounded but not entirely shocked. “I mean, I knew there was something strange going on. With the guns.”

“And the shop,” I say.

“What?”

“My shop is for laundering money,” I say bitterly, that’s a fairly recent realization as well. I wonder if my father thinks that I’m a joke, that my art is all bullshit. Did he ever really believe in me and my talent?

“Wow. Did you know —”

“I didn’t know,” I interrupt him. “I mean… I should have, I guess.” I could have put the pieces together. About all of this. He never told me anything, but we had all these rules, and I knew I was sending him a lot of money from my shop. But I’ve only just now heard the truth. “And I’m afraid he’s into some really bad stuff. Like… I think he hurts people.”

“Have you ever seen something like that?” He looks actually concerned.

“What? No, of course not. He’s kept me away from it. I don’t know. Though now… he wants us to fly to meet him. So I think he’s on the run.”

“Fly? Where to?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think he’s going to tell us until we get there.”

“How exactly is that going to work? We’ll just get to the airport and —“

“Oh no, silly.” I laugh a little. “We’ll head to his private airfield.”

“His what?” He looks shocked.

“Yeah. I know, I know. But we’ll just hop on a plane, and it’ll take us to him, and we won’t even know where we are.” I don’t want to tell him that I’ve done this before. My dad used to fly me places, when I was younger, and I would have no idea what was going on.

“This is insane,” Liam says.

“I know, I know. I’m so sorry, Liam. I know this is fucking crazy. But—”

“I have to go. To meet your gangster father.”

“Right.”

I hear a pounding at Liam’s door. The security guys.

“Quick,” I say, hearing my voice squeak with stress. “Just pretend we were making out. Or, that we were gonna screw.”

He’s still in his underwear, so that should help. I can’t even muss his hair, it’s too short.

I pop open my top buttons, the button on my jeans, swipe my hand through my hair until the strands tangle, stand on end.

“Sorry for this,” I say, and lean in for a searing, lip-biting kiss. Brutal and rough, I sweep open his mouth with my tongue, and scrape at his lips with my teeth.

Fuck. That’s good.

I sink my teeth into his lip until he yelps. And then when I pull away, I bite my own. To make them red, and puffy. Swollen.

He’s got my lipstick all over his mouth.

I nod, satisfied. Looks good. The fact that I’m already wildly turned on, just from kissing him… I glance down, and his cock agrees.

Well, that’s nice to see. Even if he isn’t into me, at least I’m not a total turn-off. Even though I’m aware that men’s erections often have a mind of their own, so it doesn’t
really
mean anything.

But it’s still satisfying to see.

Then I just feel shitty for taking advantage of him like that.

“April, wha—”

But I spin around and swing open his front door before the security guys have to ram it down.

“Hi,” I say to them, pretending to be flustered. One has a hand on his gun, the other is speaking into his wrist quietly. “So sorry, I just… I’m sorry. I don’t know how this works.” I furiously button my jeans back up, fumble with the ones on my shirt, pretend to try to make my hair lie flat, embarrassed. “Was that—“

“Don’t do that again,” one of the men says, but his partner is now trying to smother a smirk. “Just let us know what’s up. There’s no need to hide.”

“But like… would you, um, watch?” I ask, putting on my most innocently sheepish face.

“No, ma’am. We have protocols.”

“Right,” I say. “It’s just weird, you know?”

The man only nods, then jerks his head. “C’mon. You go out of our sight, we gotta report it.”

It strikes me now what a huge loss of freedom this is. Will be. It’s horrifying.

I glance back at poor Liam, mussed, lip bitten red, his muscles glistening with a bit of sweat, his bruises and cuts littering his body like masculine decoration, his half-mast still visible against his underwear.

He looks fucking delicious.

I’m pressuring him overseas to meet with my criminal father. He can’t say no. He has no consent in this… this relationship has to end the minute we get through with meeting my dad. There’s no way we can make this work. And there’s absolutely no way he still likes me after all of the shit I’ve put him through. How much baggage I have. We have to just suck it up, pretend everything’s okay to meet Dad, and then pretend to break up amicably.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say to Liam, putting in a little extra simper into my voice for the audience. “We’ll come pick you up.”

I hope he can see the apology in my eyes.