the most resilient person I’d ever met.
Hunter clapped my shoulder and steered me toward the door. “Let’s go get this fucker.”
We took the Suburban and parked in the dark under a busted street light in an otherwise pristinely kept part of a notoriously well-off municipality.
“Look at this asshole.” Hunter scoffed at Ian standing on his front porch, holding up a beer and swaying to the heavy beat of music seeping into our car. “Rich kid trash.”
I had to admit, the guy’s huge house wasn’t what I’d been expecting when I’d punched in the GPS details. I was imagining a hovel in a back alleyway. A room in a warehouse apartment that hosted illegal raves. Maybe a penthouse in a hotel in the city. But this place was a big family home.
“Oh, look. Now he’s wearing a visor. At night. Backwards.” Hunter blew a raspberry and then cracked his knuckles. “I can’t wait to wipe the smug grin off his—”
Two guys came out of the front door to join Ian, one carrying a silver tray. Hunter and I both sat up, and I glanced in the rearview mirror to see if José was seeing what we were seeing. He had his eyes on the porch, too. Good.
The three idiots up there talked, cracked fresh beers, and pumped their fists to the insufferable music for so long I thought we weren’t going to get anything good, until Ian leaned down behind the porch railing and snorted something off the tray.
“Ha!” we said in unison.
“Got him.” Hunter threw open the passenger door and a rush of cold wind burst in.
I pulled on my jacket on the way across the street, and José joined us, walking behind us as we mounted the stairs.
“Hey, Ian, who the fuck is this?” a small guy with black fingernails asked with disdain.
“What the fuck is this?” I pointed to a mound of cocaine on the tray and flashed my badge.
Nothing split up a party faster than a federal insignia. Ian’s friends bolted, made a jump over the porch railing.
“Hey, what the fuck!” Ian shouted after them, as José made chase.
“Nice friends, Ian.” Hunter scoffed, and poked the tray with the end of his pen. “Drugs, huh? We were here to talk to you about what happened last night, but you’ve made it even easier for us.”
But Ian wasn’t listening to Hunter. His pupils were pinpricked and wild, and he looked me over with a sudden sense of recognition.
“Oh, it’s you.” He started laughing like a high school bully, high-pitched as he looked me over. “Brax’s brother brought the fucking delivery man with him!”
“Yeah, it’s me.” I stepped closer, leering over him, hoping to give him a scare.
“Brax sent you, huh? Is he putting out for you yet?” He waggled his eyebrows and kept wiggling.
Hunter inhaled sharply and made to advance to him, but I held him back. I tightened my grip on his arm as he flexed his muscle, as desperate to knock this asshole out as I was.
“Got anything to tell us about what happened last night?” I raised my voice at Ian.
He laughed again and clapped his hands. “Last night? You’re here because of what happened last night? Ah, c’mon. He’s had worse. Taken more than two guys at once, I’m sure. You know he’s sold his ass for cash, right? Doesn’t it turn you off? Or are you into that sort of thing—”
BAM. I punched him in the gut before I could think twice, wrenched his hair back as he doubled over and cried out, and hissed in his ear. “You pathetic little fuck. You come near Braxton again, you speak to him, you even so much as think about him, and I will fucking kill you.”
Ian choked on air as he clenched his stomach, but still managed a sick laugh. “I knew you were fucking him.”
I was a second away from landing another punch, this one to his fucking kidney for good measure, when Hunter grabbed my arm and pulled me off. I growled in frustration but didn’t fight it. I was burning with anger but we needed a clean arrest to be able to make the charges stick. It’d be easier to investigate the assault if we put him away for the drugs first.
The door to the cop car slammed and I looked back to find José had thrown a skinny kid in the back and was walking back up with a fresh set of cuffs and some evidence bags.
Hunter grabbed Ian and