SWNOVELS Sworn Enemy: Chapter 4
Hell is the Fourth of July on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas. It’s just past ten, and practically half the city has walked from the fireworks display to squeeze into the same nine-block corridor. Everyone from frat bros to soccer moms to the vaguely vegan set is wasted and sweaty with no concept of personal space.
It’s also possible I’m agitated because this op has been one big clusterfuck from the jump.
Erik’s a damn good pilot, and while we don’t exactly have buy-and-maintain-our-own plane money, his cousin, Anders, knows a gal with a private airstrip and a desire to support our anti-trafficking measures. Too bad the plane we were gonna use on the first part of this op had bullet holes in the fuselage.
I’m guessing that happens a lot when Anders is involved.
Thankfully, the op was just outside Houston, so we went in my truck. It’s an easy enough drive, but halfway there, we discovered that my fuel-level indicator was on the fritz. Unfortunately, there’s only one way you figure that out.
While we weren’t too far from a gas station, pushing the truck along a Texas frontage road proved tricky. Side note: I fucking hate Texas wildlife. Too much of it wants to kill you.
We finally arrived at the hotel after midnight, only to find our room had been given away. We decided at that point, fuck it, sleep in the truck. Then we almost got arrested for doing so in the hotel parking lot. Thankfully, I got off a quick text to some state-level friends of mine, and the officer begrudgingly let us go.
The op itself went fine—we tussled with a few well-armed assholes, and only one of them managed to get away. Everyone else we detained and left for law enforcement to deal with. As for the escape artist, we’ve got a description out to all my friends in low places, and I have no doubt he’ll be caught and dealt with in short order.
He’s just signed his death warrant, and I don’t feel the least bit sorry for him.
On a more positive note, we grabbed a dozen very young human-trafficking victims from a house in Baytown and worked with the local authorities to coordinate reunification. However, before we left, we discovered we’d missed a young man who’d been sold off a few hours prior to our rescue.
Ryder, a white-hat contact I’d made on a rescue earlier this year, took up the cause and traced the transaction on the dark web to a politician’s son in Austin.
Bitcoin, it seems, is not nearly as untraceable as they’d have you believe.
According to Ryder’s highly illegal and equally efficient search, this overprivileged, closeted asshole son of a senator never met a party he didn’t like. Find him, find the boy.
When his phone’s location pinged at Sixth and Congress, I wasn’t exactly shocked. Thankfully, the annoying hoard of revelers is the perfect cover for what I need to do.
I slip in an earbud as Erik drops me off a few blocks north in the shadow of the state capital.
I make my way down toward Sixth and am immediately enveloped in the crowd. I tap my earbud. “Fuck, let’s get this done. Hand over this fucker, take care of the kid, and we can make it home tonight.”
The word home jars me every time I say it, especially since the land still looks like a post-war memorial, frozen in place until I can get the damn bulldozers out there.
Erik and I stayed at Trip and Sam’s right after the fire, but I decided I’m not that big of a masochist.
Seeing their relationship did kill off any remaining crush I had on Trip. He’s a great guy, but those two work too well as a couple for me to be anything but happy for the life they’re building together.
Look at me, growing and changing.
Eye roll.
Georg and Anja Bash offered us a place to stay, but as I understand it, they are a rather amorous couple. Erik and I have been taking cases left and right to keep ourselves busy while we wait for the construction to begin, but there are some things you can’t unhear.
We bought a gently used, late-model mobile home and had it hauled onto the least charred section of the property. We got the utilities hooked up almost a week ago, and it’s nicer than I anticipated.
So yeah. Home.
God, my head is all over the place. I need to spend some time with the horses, restore a little of the balance I seem to have lost.
“Don’t jinx it,” Erik warns, interrupting my meandering thoughts.
“Good point. We’ll get home eventually.”
“Fuckin’ a,” he grumbles.
Anyway. Back to the child predator.
Despite the drunken college kids trying to slosh their beers on me, finding this evening’s mark is stupid easy. I spot him slipping out of an upscale tavern on the corner and follow him into an alley, where he drunkenly detoured to relieve himself. Classy.
I pull out my cock and start peeing on the wall beside him, not subtle about checking him out. “Fuck, it’s so goddamn swampy out here,” I mutter, leaning my forearm against the wall.
“Yeah, it’s…mmm…”—his gaze burns down my body—“miserable.”
Ah. And there’s the other irritant, just under my skin. Until recently, every time I’ve encountered one of these barely human pieces of shit in my extracurricular line of work, I only needed to imagine Justin’s ugly sneer to get myself into the right headspace.
I’ve used that visual my entire adult life, but now all I can conjure are his anxious puppy eyes and the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple. Not to mention the frustrating appeal of his competent awkwardness. Fucker.
Thankfully, there is a veritable buffet of Texas politicians with punchable faces just waiting in the wings to fuel my vigilante rage. Greg Abbott’s weaselly visage will hafta do.
Huh. Surprisingly effective.
I finish peeing and reorient myself. Ah, yes. Boy-buying asshole at six o’clock.
Knowing exactly where his eyes have landed, I shake off my dick, making sure to do a thorough job. “Right? Couldn’t get an Uber, and my hotel’s, like, two miles away. Fuck, I just want to sit in the air conditioning.”
Nodding up at the Driskill, he grins. “My place is right across the street. If you’re interested.”
I smirk, giving him a sexy half-smile as I put myself away. “Oh, I’m interested. Lead the way.”
“You took your huge cock out again, didn’t you?” Erik whispers in my ear.
“Fuck off,” I grit back under my breath.
“Can’t say it isn’t effective.”
The line goes quiet, and I refocus on this waste of donatable organs.
Unsteady on his feet, he begins walk-shuffling across the blocked-off street. Halfway across, he spins and puts his hand on my chest, stopping to appreciate my strong build. I raise a brow when his eyes finally track back to mine.
“There a problem?”
“Not at all, it’s just…” He hesitates, looking to get a read on me. “I’ve already got a pretty boy waiting for me in the room. Hope that’s not going to be a problem.”
“As long as you’re willing to share,” I answer, baring my teeth.
He grips my shirt and leans in conspiratorially. “He’s got two holes for a reason.”
Erik’s steady voice comes through the comms. “Charlie…don’t. We’ve got confirmation. Get the kid first. We’ll deal with his trifling ass later.”
Fine. I don’t usually require Erik to play the voice of reason in the middle of a heated op, but here we are. We both know my practiced calm doesn’t mean I’m incapable of rage.
For example, I’m currently stifling the urge to knock this asshole’s teeth down his throat.
“Fuck yeah,” I respond to his gross words, manufacturing enthusiasm.
Following him through the fancy lobby and into the elevator, I endure his lips on my neck while the car ascends to his floor. When he rubs his pathetic erection against my leg, it takes everything in my power not to slip the push dagger out of my pocket and stab him in the eye.
Stop visualizing it, Wills. Focus on Greg Abbott’s punchable face.
Honestly, I should’ve upgraded to this visual years ago.
We get to his floor, and he fumbles with his key card. I bend down to pick it up, skimming his ass with my fingers as I let him into his own hotel room. He shivers in anticipation.
Just wait, you fucking piece of filth.
And…dammit. The scene before me makes my stomach crater to the soles of my feet.
The boy is waiting on the bed, scantily clad, long hair curling around his shoulders, face full of makeup, probably bombed out of his mind. The trafficker’s records say he’s seventeen, but who knows his real age. He looks twelve. He was taken from Mexico six years ago and has lived in the United States without papers since then.
That’s according to the trafficker’s documentation. We have no clue how long he’s been here.
“Papi, you back! You gone so long. I miss you,” he says, his voice heavily accented and ethereal as he rises to his knees, displaying himself for us. “And you brought a friend.”
Do not kill this man.
Do not kill this man.
Do not kill this man.
Erik’s voice filters through the comms. “Don’t kill him, Charlie. We are not set up for that and have no good way to get him out of the hotel.”
I let out a long breath. “Fine,” I mutter. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going easy on him.”
“Fair.”
My mark drunkenly cranes his neck to look at me. “Did you say something?”
I lick my lips suggestively and cup the back of his head, eyeballing the sharp corner where the two walls meet at the end of the little entryway. Just another step, and he’ll be right there.
“Mm-hmm. I was just thinking that—”
I smash his temple into that perfect corner, then knuckle-punch his windpipe. While he struggles to breathe, I step into his stride and stomp his ankle with a satisfying crunch. He lands with a thump, gasping for air, his eyes wide with fright.
Fuck, that felt good.
The kid scrambles off the bed and runs for the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
“Who the fuck—” The asshole’s ragged question is cut off by his seizing throat. Tsk. He should’ve hydrated in and around all those drinks.
Placing my boot on his neck, I introduce myself. “Hey, fuckface. I’m Wills. The guy who’s about to ruin your fucking life.”
Dragging him up on the bed, I wrangle his flailing limbs until I’ve zip-tied him to the four corners. His throat figures itself out, and he starts to get loud, so I rip off one of his sweaty socks and stuff it into his mouth. That accomplished, I turn to the bathroom and its frightened occupant.
“Kid?”
“Antonio. He goes by Ant,” Erik reminds me.
“Ant?” I whisper through the door seam, hoping my voice conveys safety.
The sound of breaking glass leads me to believe otherwise. Self-harm or self-defense? I can’t tell which direction he’s going in, so I step back, analyze the door, and decide I don’t have the luxury of time. Glad for my tactical boots, I draw back and kick the door open.
The mirror above the sink is cracked and missing a piece near the bottom. Yanking back the shower curtain, I find the young man sitting in the tub, holding the broken piece of mirror to his wrist, blood dripping from his tight grip.
Having kicked in the door, I must seem like just another flavor of monster to him, though I can only guess what he’s thinking. Like a lot of folks, I used to question why people in these situations don’t try to escape when presented with the opportunity.
The sad reality is that traffickers use drugs, food, family, documentation, fear of law enforcement, really, whatever they have at their disposal for leverage. The victims are dependent on the traffickers for everything, and there is no concept of having a way out.
Erik and I once met a brave young woman who had attempted to escape the man who bought her. When she was caught and brought back to him, he disfigured her. After seeing what was left of her face, I stopped asking why people stayed.
Refocusing, I kneel at Ant’s side, remembering what it felt like to wake up in the hospital after my suicide attempt, furious I hadn’t finished the job.
You were bullied by high school boys, not sold like livestock. Don’t be dramatic, Wills.
“Ant, we freed all the kids in Baytown. Ginger told us about you, hoping we could help. That’s why I’m here.”
Gripping the mirror shard, his eyes widen like he wants to believe me but can’t quite make the leap. I can disarm him. I can force him out of this tub and drag him to the truck, I suppose. But he needs to get there on his own, for his own sake. So I wait.
After a few heart-stopping seconds, his face crumples.
“I just want it to stop,” he sobs, his heavy accent, stilted grammar, and breathy falsetto all but gone. Mascara streaks his face, desperation marking his features. “Please. I can’t take anymore.”
I do remember what it’s like to feel so utterly fucking hopeless.
Wordlessly, I show him my forearms. His eyes open wide as they flick to the jagged white scars. Some of the tightness leaves his shoulders.
“Ant, you’ll never have to do this ever again. I can promise you that.”
Another sob wracks his body, and I ease the mirror shard out of his grip. He parts with it easily. The cuts to his palm are minor, and the bleeding isn’t as bad as I’d initially feared.
When I reach out a hand to help him stand, he hesitates. Using the showerhead, I gently rinse his cuts, then wrap his hand in one of the hotel’s plush washcloths.
“Thank you,” he says in a small voice.
“You’re welcome. We’ll get you back home as soon as we can, okay?”
Shivering, his dark-brown eyes widen in alarm. “Please don’t make me go back. They’ll just sell me again.”
Erik, still on comms, curses.
“Who would sell you again?” I ask, trying to soften my voice.
“My family.”
Well, shit.
Erik’s steady voice whispers through the line, “He can still get a T-Visa, but he’ll have to be placed.”
The T-Visa is set aside for victims of human trafficking. But a parentless minor would have to go through the foster care system, which in Texas is held together by a fraying thread swinging back and forth over an open flame.
I’d rather shave my nuts with a rusty razor than put another kid into the system, even if only for a short time. Worse, he’d be spit out at eighteen and be in the same vulnerable position all over again.
I curse under my breath. “That means we can’t call the authorities, and I don’t want to let that asshole go. He’ll just buy another boy.”
“I can promise you he will not,” Erik says, his voice hard steel. “I’m texting Anders. Get the kid out of there. We’ll take him to the vineyard, and my cousins will take care of the rest.”
One look at this kid—Ant—steadies my resolve. We will not be going through the proper channels on this one. Instead, Erik’s cousins and their mercenary friends will gladly play judge, jury, and executioner. Normally, I try very hard not to feather the handbasket I’ll be riding to hell in, but some people require exceptions.
Fuck it. I’ll worry about my eternal soul when I’m dead.
I turn to Ant. “Change of plans. My buddy,” I say, pointing to my earbud, “is contacting his family. We’re going to take you to his aunt and uncle’s house. We can get you papers so you don’t have to worry about being sent back. Besides, they’ll probably take one look at you and adopt you as one of their own.”
Looking a bit like a trapped animal, he edges away from me. “I don’t want to be adopted.”
“It’s not a real adoption, kid. Just found family.”
“Found? Like a piece of garbage along the road?”
Cursing under my breath, I shake my head. Now that he’s dropped the ingenue act, he does look a little older, and the makeup and lingerie are garishly out of place.
“No. Like a piece of treasure someone foolish once threw away. We don’t let fools diminish our value.”
Eyes glistening, Ant sighs into a nod, looking both hopeful and resigned. He knows he has no choice but to trust me. I’m one hundred percent certain his trust has been broken again and again, but this is why we do what we do.
His life is about to change, and he’s about to have more love and acceptance than he’s ever known. I’m just sorry I can’t somehow transmit all of that to the sad and frightened young man before me.
Still, he willingly follows me, and we walk into the hotel suite, his previous jailer glaring daggers at us. The bastard is grunting—maybe screaming—around the sock. I sneak a quick peek at Ant’s face, and he looks numb.
Ignoring the discomfort of the asshole tied to the bed, I root through his things, finding two cell phones, an iPad, and a laptop. They’re probably loaded with actionable intel, so I render them untraceable and shove them into the backpack with everything else.
Meanwhile, Ant knots his long, black hair at the base of his neck. Without any consideration of his nudity, he rips off the lingerie and quickly pulls on worn jeans and an old Atari T-shirt, slipping into some beat-up tennis shoes.
He then grabs a small overnight bag and pulls out a packet of makeup remover wipes, making quick work of his streaked mascara, blush, and lipstick. There’s no mistaking the violence and speed with which he removes every trace of the dolled-up femboy fantasy, likely a persona forced on him for years.
In its place is the real, very abused young man with eyes that speak to a soul far too old for his age. People will admire his precocious maturity, but it’s trauma, pure and simple. Years and years of it.
“Are we done here?” he asks, his voice monotone as he looks over the man who tried to own him, spread-eagle on the bed.
“Yep. Just ignore anyone we pass,” I instruct, putting my phone in his hands. “Look bored.”
He nods and brings up Candy Crush.
Bastard better not fuck with my high score.
The hallway is clear, and we get the elevator to ourselves. Ant’s posture relaxes—slightly. We make our way through the revelers in the lobby and then hit the street. We make a beeline toward the Capitol, where Erik is waiting in the truck.
Ant climbs into the back, his eyes immediately calculating the threat of an additional man. Erik, knowing the score, smiles warmly in that quiet, Erik way of his.
Ant’s hand goes to his chest and he takes a deep breath, maybe for the first time in his life. As much as Erik busts my chops, I love that even the most vulnerable, abused people see him as a protector.
Erik gives him a nod, then turns his attention to the road, letting Ant slide into the shadow of the back seat.
After buckling, Ant stares out at the hundreds of people festooned in red, white, and blue. Erik and I exchange a glance and get on the road.
Ant’s asleep by the time we hit the backroads. Happy for the silence, we drive through the darkening evening to Erik’s aunt and uncle’s vineyard between Dripping Springs and Johnson City. I don’t miss the irony of rescuing a queer kid and bringing him back to the place where I grew up feeling so unwelcome as a queer kid.
Shit, that’s an assumption on my part.
He might not be queer at all. And God help him with trying to figure out his sexuality at this point. Whoever he is, I know in my heart I could not be delivering him to a safer environment.
We wind around the terraced vineyard and through the arched entryway to the circular drive in front of their beautiful Tuscan-inspired home. There’s also a carport and a familiar-looking stand-alone building with a sign above the door that says Tasting Room.
Anja, Georg, and Moose are waiting outside for us. Usually effusive, they are quiet and gentle with Ant as they set him up in the spare room.
Erik and I discuss the next steps, and when Georg and Anja rejoin us in the living room, I ask for their advice.
“What can we do to help? Should we stay here with you?”
The unusual, sweet couple look at each other, then at us, shaking their heads.
Georg lowers his voice. “I don’t imagine he’ll come out of the room for a while. He’s a little nervous about Moose, but Smokey climbed into bed with him, and Ant held on to him for dear life.”
God, I should have fucking killed that guy.
“He asked if I could slide him a sandwich under the door, of all things,” Anja says, shaking her head.
“He says he turns twenty next month,” Georg says, sorrow in the downturn of his mouth. “Told us we didn’t have to keep him after that.”
Erik and I exchange a glance. We’ve done this for too long to be surprised that the traffickers knocked off a few years. The gut-churning truth is that he’s more valuable if he appears underage.
I bet he made his handlers a lot of money.
And I wonder if he thinks he’ll be less valuable when he turns twenty.
“Have Ryder confirm his age,” I whisper.
He gives me a thumbs-up, then turns to Anja and Georg, bringing them in for a hug. “You’ll have him convinced to stay by then. Let us know what we can do to help.”
“We will, nevø,” Anja says, kissing his cheek. “And we promise to keep our more amorous activities to the Tasting Room so as not to disturb our guest.”
Erik and I break, laughing with his colorful, wonderful aunt and uncle. Damn, I needed that after tonight.
The light-heartedness, however, is short-lived.
We say our goodbyes and head out to the truck, and by the time I slide into the driver’s seat, I’m marinating in regret for not having killed that son of a bitch. I grip the steering wheel, knocking my head on it a couple of times.
“Yeah, this one sucked,” Erik says with a sigh.
I look out the windshield. “When I walked into the room, Ant looked like an overly made-up preteen girl in lingerie. And did you pick it up over comms? The persona he put on?”
Erik’s jaw hardens. “Yeah. Smart. Shouldn’t have had to be so goddamn smart.”
I pull back and hit the button to start the truck as I send a pained grin Erik’s way.
“See? I told you we’d make it home tonight.”
His responding smile is a little…uncanny.
“What?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Was just thinking this means you can’t get out of Sunday dinner at the Goodnights.”
I groan. “Fuck. Forgot about that.”
“C’mon. It’ll be good for you.”
Goddamn Viking son of a… “No. It’ll be good for you. I assume you and your cousins have a bet of some kind on whether or not it’ll get awkward with the Jennings brothers?”
“You assume correctly. Fear not. I have faith in you.”
“Faith in me to do what?”
“Make it awkward as hell.”
“Asshole.”
He winks. “Don’t worry. You can do this.”