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His eyes came back up, causing mine to flit away. “Fox… isn’t this… you know, something meant for the DEA to handle?”
I arched a brow at that and tensed. “DEA is working on overtime while being understaffed and underpaid. Their solution was to shut down the club indefinitely, which could put Dylan and his family’s business in huge jeopardy, while simultaneously knocking out one of the safe spaces queer people could go and let loose. Closing down Club Trinity would only cause Dragon to spread faster, not slower. Not to mention, there’s an unnecessary war on drugs going on, taking up valuable resources. Meanwhile, an actual lethal issue has snuck right past the battle lines and into home territory. I’ve got to deal with this, Jonah, and the DEA can come in and clean up when I’m done.”
Jonah straightened in his seat, his eyes filling with the same steely determination that drove me.
“Then let’s get this Dragon shit off the streets.”
“Perfect. I’ve got a meeting set up with Dylan Rose—he’s the guy who brought the case to me. He’s an eccentric dude, but I think you’ll like him. Along with his two husbands.”
“Two?”
“Well, I guess they aren’t technically both married to him, but they still like to use that term.”
“Cool, when’s the meeting?”
I looked down at my watch again. “In an hour.”
“Oh, oh shit… okay. Let’s do this, then.”
“You ready? If you want a few days—”
“No, no. I’m good. I’m ready.”
I smiled, feeling really damn good about Jonah Brightly. “Thanks for jumping on this case with me right out of the gate, I really appreciate it.”
Jonah’s expressive eyes opened wide. “Are you kidding me, man? Thank you for hiring me and letting me work with you. I’m not going to let you down. I won’t let Stonewall down.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I know you won’t. That’s why I want you on this drug case with me. It’s… well, let’s just say it hits kind of close to home.”
I didn’t feel like going into my fucked-up family history at the moment since, one, it felt like a bit of a mood dampener even though we were talking about a potential drug outbreak, and two, I was in no way, shape, or form ready to open myself up like that. I hadn’t talked about my mom in…fuck, it had been a while. And I wasn’t about to open up that can of baggage on Jonah’s first day.
Or ever. I had decided to myself, after opening up once before, that no one was really worth opening up to like that again.
Absolutely fucking no one.
6 Jonah Brightly
Star Island, an eclectic Miami paradise in the center of the city, where the homes of the rich and famous looked out over the bay from their massive backyards, boats docked to their own private piers. The streets were lined with regal-looking palm trees and trimmed, emerald-green hedges. Stones that looked handpicked and hand-washed made up borders that trailed up expansive pathways that led to the multimillion-dollar homes.
There were also gates. A whole lot of gates. And for good reason, seeing as how Star Island was exactly that: an island. And it was floating in the center of one of America’s biggest cities, with a matching crime rate. I worked the beat, I knew the kind of crap that was out there. I was familiar with it, and so the gates made sense.
We pulled up to a set of golden gates, spiraled and curved and grand in a way I didn’t know gates could be.
Fox pulled up and parked on the street, just next to the gate. We got out, the Miami heat stinging my face. It felt like it had been getting hotter and hotter every year, this one being no exception.
My head was slightly spinning, but I made sure not to show how disoriented I felt by how fast this was all moving. I woke up unemployed and, about six hours later, I was working a massive drug case with the lead detective at Stonewall Investigations.
Life could be crazy sometimes, that was for sure.
“All right, so I think their assistant was suppo—” Fox was cut off by the sound of gears working, wheels turning. We turned to see the gate was swinging open, and a man was soon walking through them.
He was a thin guy, with a head of curly brown hair and a face hidden underneath massive sunglasses, the lenses seemingly made out of pure mirror. For a second, I was scared he was about to accidentally focus a sunbeam at us and fry us like ants.
Instead of melting us, he came over and shook our hands, introducing himself as Walter Rivas, the assistant who basically managed the lives of these three men.
He didn’t include that last part in his introduction, but I had a sense of it by the way he said, “Without me, the guys would be chickens without any heads. And they’re already big enough cocks as it is.”
