Paladin, page 18
That wasn’t possible. How? How would he know that?
“Isn’t that your name?” Nico asked.
Ever shook his head harder. “No.”
Levi frowned. “Ever isn’t your name?”
He felt like he’d been punched in the diaphragm. “No,” he wailed, hating the sound of his own voice.
Nico looked at Arsen then Levi before asking, “What is your name?”
“I didn’t have one,” Ever said quietly.
“Didn’t have one?” Nico said. “Like, at all?”
Ever shook his head, the heat of his embarrassment thawing some of the ice in his veins.
“Everybody has a name, right?” Levi asked, looking back and forth between Arsen and Nico.
Ever shrugged, voice dull. “She just called me ‘boy.’ She said I didn’t need a name. She said it would be like naming the dishwasher or garbage disposal. Even pets had names, but not me. I wasn’t even human to her.”
They all stood quietly for a moment or two before Arsen took his hand, squeezing it. “Are you sure he called you Ever?”
Ever nodded. “He definitely did.”
Levi shook his head. “How would he know that?”
“I mean, it’s hardly a secret,” Nico said. At their confused looks, he shook his head like they were all dumb. “Ever is all over Arsen’s live streams. They’ve been all over town. Wherever they go, people fall all over themselves talking about how adorable and sweet he is. Someone is bound to be talking about the boy who seemed to have dropped from the sky never having eaten a Snickers or scrambled eggs. Jamesville is literally the city next door. Isn’t that where you took him to the bookstore?”
Arsen nodded gravely.
“I should leave,” Ever said again, fear ratcheting up with each passing moment—not for himself but for them. He couldn’t live with himself if anything happened to them because of him. He wasn’t worth all this.
Arsen gripped his chin hard, turning him to look him in the eye, his face as stern as Ever had ever seen it. “You’re not leaving. That’s never happening. Not to protect me or them or anybody but you. Got it?”
Ever blinked at him. “Okay,” he said, breathless.
“Good.”
Arsen knew that whenever there was a crisis of this magnitude, Jericho had no choice but to call in reinforcements. Reinforcements like his in-laws, the Mulvaneys. He knew Jericho would bring Atticus. He’d also known the drama of stabbing someone in the shop would bring Felix and his husband, Avi. However, he hadn’t expected to get Avi’s twin brother, Asa, or his husband, Zane.
Arsen was just grateful the whole Mulvaney clan hadn’t shown up. Ever wasn’t quite ready for that level of chaos. He sat on the counter, legs crossed, bottom lip trapped beneath bunny teeth, watching Asa and Avi with interest and maybe a little trepidation. The two weren’t incredibly tall, but they were broad and muscular, and so identical they could be bookends. Mirror twins, opposite in every way.
Nico and Levi hovered close to Ever, like self-appointed bodyguards, placing a physical barrier between Ever and the corpse on the ground. Knowing his friends wanted to protect Ever made Arsen’s heart trip a little. He was lucky to have all these people in his life. Ever slipped his headphones onto his ears, but there was no music playing in them. It was just one more barrier between him and the world.
Avi ran a hand through his deep brown hair, then crossed tattooed arms over his chest, whistling low. “A screwdriver to the brainstem. Gnarly.”
“Mm,” Asa agreed. “I didn’t think you had it in you, firestarter.”
Arsen rolled his eyes at the nickname. No matter how many times he told them Arsen was short for Arseny and not a nickname given for a felony, they ignored him. He’d just stopped trying. “He was going to…hurt…Ever.”
Arsen tamped down the bile trying to claw its way up his esophagus. What would have happened if he hadn’t gotten there in time? Gruesome images flooded his brain, but he pushed them away even as his pulse thudded hard in his ears. He never should have left him alone, not even for a minute.
“Hey,” Avi said, dragging him from his thoughts. “We get it. I’d kill anyone who even looked at Felix sideways.” When Felix didn’t react, Avi nudged him. “Hey, I’m being romantic here.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Two days ago, you threatened to rip a guy’s heart out because he forgot your queso. Forgive me if I’m not swooning.” Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Besides, I can take care of myself.”
It was true. Felix might look like a pampered trophy wife, but he had claws. Literally. Silver-tipped claws gifted to him by his husband—claws Arsen had witnessed him use first-hand to geld a pedophile. If Arsen had to put money on who would win in a fight between Avi and Felix, he’d back Felix every time. And not just because Avi was obsessed with him.
Zane, however, wasn’t a fighter. He was all brain, no brawn. He was a reporter and a true crime writer, which came in handy when the people closest to you were largely responsible for the exceedingly high number of unsolved murder cases in the city.
Zane crowded closer to Felix, who absently lifted his hand to Zane’s springy dark curls, fingers winding through them without thought, like he was petting him. Felix and Zane were…close. Arsen pretended it was just because they all lived together and did his best not to ponder how close the four of them truly were.
“What did he want?” Zane asked.
Arsen spit on the body. “He was warning Ever to keep his mouth shut about his and Jennika’s ‘arrangement.’”
“She had a partner?” Felix murmured.
“And a boss,” Ever said quietly, flushing when they all looked at him.
“A boss?” Jericho asked. “What do you mean?”
Ever wrapped his arms around himself, and Nico and Levi stepped closer instinctively. “He said his boss could think of a lot of things to do with someone like me. He didn’t specify what, but”—Ever shuddered—“I can guess.”
Atticus’s lip curled in disgust. “We all can.”
“So, they’re running a human trafficking ring,” Asa said.
“In my fucking neighborhood,” Jericho muttered. “That shit pisses me off.”
“He’s a Jamesville cop,” Nico said.
“It’s not our territory,” Levi reminded him. “Besides, we usually wait until someone asks us to get involved.”
“If we didn’t, we’d never stop working,” Nico said.
Jericho shook his head, his mouth a grim line. “Jennika lived in our neighborhood. Ever lived in our neighborhood. He was ours to look after.”
Asa sighed, sounding more put out than disturbed. “If there’s a trafficking ring and the cops are involved, it’s our job to take out the trash.”
Asa didn’t say that due to any sense of responsibility. He didn’t have the ability to feel guilt or remorse or empathy. Right now, Arsen envied that about him. He was swimming in guilt. Not about killing that piece of shit, but because he almost didn’t get there in time.
“Yeah, Dad will insist on it,” Zane said.
“If he came here to deliver a message, they’re going to notice pretty quickly when he doesn’t come back,” Asa pointed out. “Killing a cop is…problematic.”
Heat rushed through Arsen’s veins at Asa’s words. So what if it was problematic? He was hot all over, his blood whooshing in his ears, drowning out everything but his sudden rage. Every time he thought about Ever and that asshole touching him, it made him crazy. It made him want to revive the man and torture him slowly. It made him want to hear him scream.
“I wasn’t going to let him rape Ever,” Arsen snarled. “He had his hands all over him.”
“Whoa. Easy, killer. Nobody is saying you did anything wrong,” Jericho said. “We’re on your side.”
Felix gave a low “Mm,” then glowered at the corpse. “I fucking hate rapists,” he said, placing the heel of his boot on the man’s nose. It gave with a sickening, wet crunch.
“Gross,” Zane muttered.
“We can get rid of the body and we can clean up the evidence, but they’re going to know this was the last place he came and they’re going to come knocking,” Asa said.
“Good,” Atticus scoffed, drawing their attention.
“Good?” Avi echoed, giving his brother a curious look.
Atticus wasn’t a fan of the wet work. Everyone in that room knew he preferred to leave the murder to his husband.
“Yeah, good,” Atticus repeated. “They’ll come straight to us. If other cops come sniffing around, we’ll know exactly how deep this cover-up goes. If it’s just low-level thugs, we’ll know it was a gang paying off a cop. One is infinitely easier to clean up than the other.”
“You just want me to wait around and see who tries to hurt Ever again?” Arsen snapped. “That’s your plan?”
Arsen jumped when arms wrapped around him from behind. “They’re just trying to help,” Ever said quietly against his back, his warm breath puffing between Arsen’s shoulder blades.
Arsen’s hands covered Ever’s, all but engulfing them. He gave them a squeeze, hoping Ever knew that he didn’t think any of this was his fault. After a moment, he pulled Ever to stand before him, needing to wrap his arms around him, needing to feel the heat of his body and smell the shampoo in his hair. He needed to reassure himself that Ever was alive and well.
Asa and Avi took Ever in, almost like it was the first time they’d noticed him. With those two, it was possible.
Asa snickered. “He really is adorable. Like a kitten…or a teletubby.”
“Teletubby?” Ever echoed.
Zane glared at his husband. “They’re these creepy little alien-like creatures who babble in gibberish that my husband is eerily obsessed with. You do not look like a teletubby.”
Asa rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say he looked like a teletubby. I said he was as adorable as one.”
Avi shook his head. “You don’t look like a teletubby,” he assured him.
“He’s more like Toothless from How to Train your Dragon,” Zane said.
“Oh, or that super cute animated spider from that short with the fuzzy legs and big eyes,” Felix added. “Or Totoro or Eevee from Pokémon. So squishable.”
Arsen rolled his eyes, dropping his chin onto Ever’s head right between his cat ears. “He’s not a teletubby or a Pokémon or Totoro. He’s just Ever. And Ever is cuter than all of them.”
“Someone is in love,” Felix said under his breath in a sing-song voice.
Arsen didn’t care. He was in love. He’d tell Ever that to his face. He’d tell all of them. He’d skywrite it if he had to. He just needed Ever to know he meant it. He was the only thing that mattered to Arsen.
“Alright, enough fucking around,” Jericho said. “Let’s get to work. August is bringing the van to the alley in…” He looked at his cell phone. “Forty-five minutes.”
“What is he going to do with it?” Ever asked, glancing at the body.
“Disarticulate it and dissolve it in lye most likely,” Avi said, like he was discussing the weather.
“Sometimes, he just dumps it in a bucket of acid until it’s soup,” Asa added. “Either way, we need to tarp it up so we can bleach the floors.”
“Won’t that be a dead giveaway if the cops are stupid enough to tell someone this is the last known whereabouts of the detective? I mean, bleach lights up under luminol, too. It’s going to look like a crime scene,” Nico said, frowning.
“It is a crime scene, but there’s a big difference between suspecting someone was murdered because of bleach stains and knowing someone was murdered because their DNA is still detectable everywhere,” Zane said.
“Yeah, one is circumstantial evidence,” Atticus said. “The other is a death sentence after a long stay in a federal prison.”
“Besides, the cops on this side of town are on our side,” Jericho said.
“But these aren’t our cops,” Levi reminded. “They’re Jamesville. We have no control over Jamesville PD.”
“This conversation is irrelevant,” Felix said. “If this guy was working for a human trafficking ring, they’ll never send the cops here to look for him, and if the cops are running the trafficking ring, they’re not going to show their hand by accusing us of a crime when they have no body. Let’s just clean up and go home. I’m tired and I do not miss the smell of diesel.”
Jericho nodded, then looked from Ever to Arsen. “Why don’t you take Ever upstairs and shower. We’ll be out of here before you know it.”
“I should help,” Arsen said. “This is my mess to clean up.”
Jericho shook his head. “You did your part by keeping Ever alive. We’ll take care of the rest.” He pointed to the stairs. “Go.”
Arsen knew better than to argue with Jericho, so he sighed and pushed Ever towards the stairs. Ever seemed as reluctant to leave as he was but allowed himself to be led out of the garage. Once in the apartment, Arsen told Ever to take a shower, then watched the others below as they worked.
If there was one thing the Mulvaneys and Jericho’s boys had in common, it was crime scene clean-up.
They were practically experts by now.
When Arsen exited the shower, Ever was waiting for him on the bed, perched on his knees in nothing but a pair of barely-there striped sleep shorts and Arsen’s slit-side black tank top that left little to the imagination. Arsen’s dick took notice immediately.
Ever sat back, tilting his head. Arsen once more had the feeling he was being stalked…by a kitten. “What are you up to, malen'kiy hischnik?” he asked suspiciously.
Ever looked him up and down, then bit his lip and pouted, his gaze locking onto the towel around Arsen’s waist. “You promised.”
Was Ever expecting Arsen to be able to think of what he’d promised him while looking at him like that? He could barely remember his own name with Ever’s soft, smooth legs on full display and his torso peeking out from his shirt. There was too much skin and Arsen’s blood was flowing in the wrong direction for higher thought processes.
Ever’s hand shot out, curling into his towel and dragging him closer. He was deceptively fast for someone so little. Arsen wanted to remind Ever that more than a half dozen people were downstairs and could—technically—arrive any moment to interrupt…whatever this was.
That was what he wanted to do.
It was the logical, adult thing to do.
But then Ever placed an open-mouthed kiss just below Arsen’s belly button—his hands not removing the towel but sliding up underneath it to grab his bare ass—making a satisfied sound when Arsen’s erection started tenting the towel.
Arsen groaned, his hands falling to pet Ever’s dark hair. He was being seduced…well.
Ever bit Arsen’s hip, dragging his teeth along the skin there, before moving to give the other the same treatment. If Ever had learned this from a romance novel, too, Arsen was going to get him the biggest bookstore gift card he could afford.
Ever rose up to let his tongue trace the tattoo around Arsen’s nipple before closing his mouth over it, sucking in a way that made Arsen light-headed. Ever had figured out how to get Arsen going far too quickly. Chert. His soft, wet tongue swirled, then sucked then bit until Arsen was throbbing.
A library card.
He was going to get him one of those, too.
Chert.
But no matter how much he was enjoying the attention—how much he wanted Ever to play out this little seduction—he still had to ask, “Are you sure you want to do this tonight? After what just happened?”
Ever sat back on his knees, eyes bleak. “Do you think I want his hands to be the last thing that touched me?”
Why hadn’t Arsen thought of that? He didn’t want that, either. He didn’t want anybody touching Ever but him. Ever.
“Well, when you put it like that…” he murmured, gently toppling Ever onto the mattress and climbing over him. He loosely pinned his wrists to the mattress, studying Ever’s face, looking for any fear or trepidation, but there wasn’t any. There was just heat and anticipation.
“If you start to panic, you tell me. Promise?” he asked, more for his peace of mind than Ever’s. He didn’t want to feel like he was taking advantage of a situation.
Ever nodded, curling up to smack a kiss on Arsen’s parted lips. “I promise. Can we do it now?”
Arsen snickered but then dipped his head to kiss Ever’s forehead, his nose, then finally his mouth, tangling their tongues briefly before pulling back. “This is your first time, though, so it’s all about you. You have to just lie back and let me do the rest.”
Ever’s lip pooched adorably and he leveled puppy eyes at him. “It’s my first time, so shouldn’t I get to decide how we do it?”
Once more, Arsen felt like he’d been put in checkmate by an amateur player. How did he keep falling into his traps? “I just want you to be happy.”
“Being with you does make me happy,” Ever said, like Arsen was stupid. “But having you inside me will make me happier.”
Arsen’s cock jerked at his words, and he was grateful for the resilience of the towel still knotted at his hips, creating a small barrier between his painfully hard dick and Ever.
“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” Arsen said. He released Ever’s wrists. “Then what do you want to do, besenok?” He trailed a finger along Ever’s side, watching in fascination as the muscles jumped beneath his hand. “What do you want me to do to you?”
Ever stared up at him, pupils blown, lips parted, his hand rising to stroke his thumb along Arsen’s lower lip. “Kiss me?” he asked, breathless.
“As if you could stop me,” Arsen teased, leaning down and slanting their mouths together. Ever tasted like spearmint and he smelled like flowers, and kissing him created this euphoric effect that made Arsen feel almost high.
That was Ever, though—kissing him was drug-inducing. The more their lips met, the harder it was for Arsen to pull back, to give space. The more Ever’s tongue darted out to tease his own, the more Arsen wanted. Each kiss grew longer, hotter, more intense until Ever was writhing beneath him, whining into his mouth, his blunt nails digging into Arsen’s back.
