Page 17 of Bad Enough

Throwing the used towel in the laundry bin nearby and beginning to strip, he continued his argument. “I wonder if your Flame’s really who she presents herself to be. I mean, I wonder if she’s really a hottie, or if she’s just a normal chick, or if she’s, like, three hundred pounds and seventy years old. Maybe that’s why she won’t commit to meeting you.”

TB scrunched up all of his facial muscles. “Since when did you become as shallow as your twin?”

“I’m not,” he defended himself. “I’m just trying to figure out why she wouldn’t jump at the opportunity.”

“Kink makes a lot of people nervous,” TB countered with a shrug, returning his attention to his shoes. “Publicizing their interest takes a lot of courage. Even when they’re in a safe space, like The Library, a club that’s designed specifically for people in the scene, new people struggle with the worry of being judged. The fact that all the people around them are also in the same club often doesn’t register. She’s pretty shy and probably obsessing over what others will think about her.” His shoes unlaced, he moved to pull his sweat-drenched T-shirt over his head and snapped it at Midas. “And not that it matters, asshole, but the club owner told me she was very good-looking.”

“Yeah, but you know women. They stick together. And I looked up your research pimp, Mistress Tabitha, and that woman is smokin’ hot. There’s always that pretty-girl’s-best-friend thing.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, TB stood and lifted the latch on his locker. As the metal door opened, a loud bang went off, and projectiles flew toward his face with no time to get out of the way. TB dropped to the floor face first, and seconds later, after his ears cleared, all he could hear was cackling, whooping, and hollering. Turning his face back toward the locker, his eyes traveled from the floor of the locker, where he saw a pair of Under Armour running shoes, a pair of well-worn jeans, a tight blue tee exposing full tattoo sleeves and neck, and finally, the face of one of his other teammates. Nemo, the jackass, had stuffed himself tight into the locker and now stood in there with an empty confetti cannon in his hands. Pastel rectangles of paper floated through the air and covered TB, Midas, the floor, and the bench.

Midas, Nemo’s fraternal twin, was shaking his head but laughing.

“You fucking prick!” TB yelled at the man in the locker. “That’s the third time in two days. Just fucking stop already. What are you, five?”

Inside the locker, the young South African was still laughing so hard he was turning red. Nemo was the chick magnet of the group with his killer body, golden tan, blond hair that was in a pseudo-military cut, just too long and glued straight up, and baby blue eyes that were always lit up with laughter. He had a smile that was set with perfect, straight white teeth, and deep dimples on either side. He was also the practical joker of the group, and sometimes, he didn’t know when to quit. Like now.

This fucker is going to pay.

“Hope you liked your stay in the locker, Nincompoop,” TB growled. “It’s going to be your new home.”

Before Nemo could get a word out, TB closed the locker back up and put the combination lock on it. Backward. He banged on the locker twice. “Good luck getting out of that.”

Then he walked away.

Banging began from the inside of the locker, with its occupant hurling invectives at TB’s retreating form. Midas was still laughing, but he was also yelling at TB to get his ass back there to let Nemo out. TB ignored them both and went into the shower room to clean up.

Serves the douchebag right.

An hour later, Nemo was freed from his cramped prison, and the entire team was arriving at the conference room for the daily meeting.

The whole team had taken their seats around the table, minus their teammate, Demon, who was currently guarding Hollywood film director Kai Serrano, also known to them by her nickname Kubrick. Her brother had gone missing months earlier, and Waters had been assigned as a consultant on her current movie project down in Honduras in order to watch over her. The belief was that her Navy SEAL brother, Ka-Bar, had been captured, and now his sister was in trouble due to him passing information to her for safekeeping. Just a couple of days ago, they had learned that the “information” in question was actually Ka-Bar’s girlfriend from his teenage years, who was very pregnant with what they assumed was his unborn child.

The big boss, known only as God, because they never saw him and only spoke with him over the speaker, had called Waters and his team back to L.A., forcing them to abandon Kubrick, something that was not sitting well with their team leader, who had fallen in love with the sassy director. Technically, Demon had also been called back, but Waters had refused to leave his lover there completely unprotected. However, their team leader was less than happy, and both parties of the couple were nursing some seriously broken hearts.

Waters stood at the front of the room, remote in hand, next to the oversized telescreen. His normally intense but blank facade was cracking. There were exhaustion lines around his eyes, his mouth pinched, and he looked pissed. Like Midas, he kept his dark blond hair cropped close to his head, but it was a little on the long side right now, and it was easy to tell he had been running his fingers through it in frustration.

Again. His own damn fault.

“Okay, now that we’ve moved on from high school antics of shoving people into lockers,” Waters bitched, “we can get down to business.” He pressed the blue button that powered on the starfish speaker in the center of the table, then pressed the red button that secured the locks on the doors, tinted the windows to block anyone from seeing inside, and dimmed the lighting to a slightly red tint around the wall edges. “God is online. Let’s start with an update on Zahra.”

Steel piped up from his side of the table, his silver eyes boring into Waters’ figure up front, where he had his head focused down on a briefing folder. “I ran down all the technicals on the break-ins at Kubrick’s trailer. Impossible to track their ingress and egress, so unsure if it’s connected to the package reveal or not. No luck yet pinning down a location on Ka-Bar’s woman.”

Midas’ fingers whirred and clacked over his keyboard, and the telescreen on the far wall filled with images. Ka-Bar. News articles about the woman who featured front and center on the screen. The very beautiful, very pregnant Zahra Kader, seventh child of Pharaoh Kader, the richest man in Egypt. Also, a very subtle picture of Kubrick in the upper right corner.

I’m sensing the boys are sending an underhanded message to the bosses. Sneaky bastards.

“I’ve got facial recognition running as requested, but so far, no hits. Wherever she is, she’s well hidden. I also have no intel on hired hits for Jacques, the French ambassador, or the location of his family since I found their abandoned vehicle. Also, confirmed no hits contracted on Kubrick or chatter that she has a package he sent.”

“Dark web?” TB asked.

“Negative there as well,” Midas replied.

Waters’ gaze had snagged on Kubrick’s picture. His jaw ticked, but other than that, no reaction.

His face went back to the folder in front of him that TB would bet his last paycheck had pictures or references related to Kubrick buried at the back.

“So chances are this is happening in-house with the Kader family. Fucking fabulous. I love nothing more than creating an international incident,” Waters snarked. “Anything at all about Ka-Bar's location?”

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