Page 37 of No Second Chances

“Nope.” I point at the clock. “I’m off a half hour earlier than you this week, remember?”

He still glares. “Will you do your uncle duties with Nox tomorrow for me and Parker? We have a date.”

“Nope.” I shake my head and walk by him with a smile on my face. “Kennedy isn’t doing it, either. Tonight’s the first night that neither of us is working in a week, and I’d like to spend time with her.”

Daisy plops herself on the ground in front of me, refusing to move. No doubt she wants the snacks I still have in my locker for her.

He opens his mouth to say something else, probably to complain about my unwillingness to take my brother’s crotch goblin, but a scream echoes from the other side of the bullpen.

“Hide,” Remy hisses while rolling his eyes. “If we didn’t see it, we don’t have to help.” Contradicting his words, he unhooks the holster of the gun at his side but leaves it there in favor of his taser. I drop my bag and grab the taser from the side pocket, and with a nod to Remy, we move into the room cautiously.

Dom is standing in the hall next to the detectives’ offices, looking around the corner for whatever is making the noise. Daisy, however, hasn’t moved from her position on the hall floor, with her head lying on her paws, ignoring all of us.

“Are we detectives now?” I’m talking more to myself than anything else, but Remy snorts.

“Holy shit,” Dom holsters his taser and starts laughing, walking into the bullpen and out of our line of sight. “What the hell happened, Ames?”

“Guess it’s safe,” Remy says while rebuttoning his gun and putting away his taser. I follow suit and drop mine back into my duffel.

“Fuck!” Dom shouts at the top of his lungs, followed by grunting and another person yelling obscenities too.

In the middle of the room is Dom, clutching his balls and lying on the ground, wheezing.

“My balls,” he gasps. “Holy shit.” He wheezes some more, followed by deep gasping breaths as he tries to fill his lungs. “How’d he kick me that hard?”

Amie Lee, probably the scariest police officer in our department, is holding her taser in her hand, pointing it at a naked man who stands over Dom. Dom, who won’t look up because if he does, he’ll get a face full of old man balls.

“Why is he naked?” I ask the important question while Amie stands there, silently daring the man to move.

“No clue,” Remy says loudly. “But the man looks good for his age.”

I have to agree. Balding, with a small amount of gray hair, the old man looks like he used to be a boxer or something. His hands are probably the same size mine are, and he still has enough muscle on his body that no one will be putting him in a nursing home anytime soon.

“I really don’t want to hurt you,” she says with a sigh. “But I swear, if you don’t put the robe I gave you back on, you’re going to have issues, Lou. The worst of which is that I will actually have to arrest you instead of just giving you a ride after you and your girl broke up.” Lou, a man who had to be in his eighties, moves his foot like he is about to kick Dom, but Amie shakes her head and her taser at him. “Nope. I really will use it, and then I’ll be really mad because you’re old. So you’ll probably piss yourself, and nobody wants to see that.”

Lou looks around at the escalating situation and then back at Dom, who has managed to scoot away. “He shouldn’t touch a man when his back is turned.” Lou smacks his lips together and walks toward Amie in a nonthreatening way. “I’m cold, dear. Could you hand me my robe?”

Amie rolls her eyes, puts away her taser, and laughs. “Come on, Lou. Let’s call your granddaughter and get her over here to pick you up.”

“Did you see the size of his?—”

I shove Remy in the chest before he can finish his sentence.

“Seriously,” he goes on like I didn’t just interrupt. “The man could have been a porn star or something.”

“You know who that is, right?” I move into the bullpen to help Dom to his feet and he waits for me to answer him.

When I don’t say anything, Remy keeps mumbling to himself about the size of the old man’s dick and balls.

“That’s Lou Barro.” If Dom wasn’t still clutching his balls, I’d think that he is in awe of the old man.

“I don’t know who that is,” I admit with a shrug. But the fact that he just did whatever Amie told him was hilarious. “How does she always end up with the crazy people?”

“That guy’s not crazy.” Dom finally catches himself and shakes his head at me. “That man was a complete and utter badass back in the day. He’s a legend in the boxing ring.”

“Well, he’s still a badass apparently. Brought you to the ground with one kick.”

Dom shakes his head, clearly dismissing what I said to him in favor of replaying some piece of history that is important to him.

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