Page 42 of Business vs. Pleasure

August tried to bite Ricardo’s palm without success. He licked it instead, and snickered at the disgusted look on his husband’s face. Like you don’t love the things I can do with my tongue.

“There’s a hit available on a warlord in South Sudan.”

God, no. Regional conflicts like that were something Ricardo had once been very good at, but August would sooner cut off another toe. He shook his head, careful not to dislodge Ricardo’s hand.

“I don’t think so. What else?”

“Um, there’s an Iranian-American nuclear scientist accused of selling secrets, but you know… actually, that one looks dodgy, I’m going to flag it. That might be a government-based contract.” Which meant it was bait meant to lead an agency to both the scientist or the hitman or both. Fuck that.

“Anything else?”

“Well, there’s one for a kidnapper, but⁠—”

August turned toward the phone so fast his neck twinged. “Tell us more,” he said, his interest piqued.

“It’s a very low value contract,” Heidi said. “But it seems sincere. The offer comes from a Brazilian woman whose husband has allegedly kidnapped their two children and taken them to the States without her permission.” Tap-tap. “Looks like they’re in the middle of an ugly divorce. She comes from a very wealthy family in São Paulo, and he’s looking to get a better deal according to court filings. Hmm… looks like the kids aren’t biologically his, actually. They’re from her first marriage. He legally adopted them when they got married, though, so I guess they think of him as a dad.”

“And now he’s absconded with them,” August said, a slow simmer of outrage welling up inside his chest and drowning out the lust. “Any idea of his current whereabouts?”

“Um, somewhere in Texas, it looks like. She left several potential addresses. It would require some surveillance, though, and jobs with kids are always risky. Honestly, I think you should give this one a pass and⁠—”

“We’ll take it.” August would have been up and pacing already if Ricardo’s grip on his waist wasn’t so firm.

“I haven’t even told you how much the contract is worth.”

“I don’t care.”

“August, you⁠—”

He cut her off. “I will pay you a fee that outstrips anything those other jobs could possibly have offered for this one. I’ll transfer it to your personal account right now, everything in advance, if that’s what’s making you cagey about this job. One way or another, though, we’re doing it.” Kids being held hostage in order to extort more money from their mother? Yeah, there was no way August wasn’t taking this job. He would do it without any help from Heidi if he had to.

These were the jobs he’d cut his teeth on back when he was first getting started. They were the only ones that could keep his attention, the only ones he cared about enough to bother trying for. Eventually, as he grew out of his funk, August had branched out into better-paying work, but he never stopped taking contracts on kidnappers.

Heidi, to her credit, didn’t try to talk him out of it. “I’ll send the details to your phones. Standard agreements in place—no talking about fight club to anyone on the ground out there, gentlemen. Other than that, you’re free to finish this one any way you want to. The only caveat is that the children can’t be involved. She doesn’t want them traumatized any more than they already are.”

“That’s fair,” Ricardo said with a nod. “Thanks, Heidi.”

“Good luck, guys.” She ended the call, and August turned a beaming smile on Ricardo.

“Thank you for following my lead,” he said with a sincerity that didn’t come easily to him. “I know it probably seems like I’m being too cautious, but I want to give us the best shot of going out on a high note. And there’s nothing higher than stopping a filthy fucking excuse for a human being from holding his own family members hostage for money.”

Ricardo nodded, but he looked a little pensive. “August… have you ever thought about doing more of this kind of work?”

“What, killing kidnappers? All the time.”

“No, I mean setting up some sort of foundation that helped people trying to find their missing family members, kidnapped or otherwise. Maybe a focus on stopping human trafficking would be better, I don’t know exactly, but… something like that.”

“Oh.” To be honest, August hadn’t ever thought of that kind of thing before. It felt too much like letting his past trauma dictate the direction of his life, and as a young man—younger, a younger man, he was still young, damn it—he’d been consumed with the need to control his personal narrative. Killing kidnappers was one thing, but confronting the systems that had shaped his own sob story had been a step too far.

But it wasn’t a bad idea, honestly. August had grown a lot since then, but the world hadn’t grown with him. There was still a huge need for intervention, whether it came in the form of money for an investigator or a tracking database for victims or a silent, capable person ready to take the final step when it came to rescuing someone from their captors.

Ricardo would be damn good at that sort of thing, actually.

Later. They could talk more about it after the job. “Let’s wait to plan out our futures until we’ve put this douchebag dad and NightPigeon in the ground.” He kissed the tip of Ricardo’s nose, then levered himself off his lap and headed for the hallway. “I’m going to let Elodie know we’re leaving and get her to let us use the jet, so if you’d pack our bags, that would be lovely.”

“She said we’re not getting the jet!” Ricardo called after him.

“She’ll let us have it once she knows what the job is! And do not fold up any of my suits!”