Page 45 of Cosmo

“My dad was a federal agent. I admired him growing up, though I saw little of him.”

“Past tense?”

“He passed a couple of years before I graduated the academy.”

Liam’s empathy wanted to overtake his better senses. “Sorry.”

“Thanks.”

They drove until the buildings and houses of the city fell away behind them, and Taran was pulling into a closed rest area, skirting around the chained blockade. “You guys make your own fucking rules, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said seriously. “Perks are perks.”

After they parked, Taran exited the car and asked Liam to do the same. He did, and they walked to one of the picnic tables under a dilapidated canopy. As they sat on opposing sides, Liam thought it was àpropos that they were sitting like that, being they were on clearly opposing sides of bigger things.

But the bad part of it was, he would have to stare right into those cerulean blues. They chose the perfect fed for the job as far as looks. He was a cross between Ian Somerhalder and Jared Leto. Two men, coincidently or not, that had always been Liam’s favorite celebrities. Though, how they’d know that he had no idea.

“Liam, I went into this with my eyes wide open, thinking I knew what I was getting into. All my life, I wanted to hunt down the bad guys, and to be perfectly honest, I still do. What I didn’t know, what completely eluded me, was the fact that there was a lot of gray. None of this is black and white, good and bad, right and wrong.”

“Welcome to the real world,” he said sarcastically, but honestly. “I knew that as a kid.”

“I know about your past, Liam. I had to study everything about you, to come up with things we had in common. I have an entire file just of the things that I’m supposed to say that I like or hate to make you think we have a ton in common, but then, as I was making all this up, my partner told me to pull what is true first. That makes me a lot more likely to be sincere. Cons know liars, because they’re all liars.”

If that was supposed to get a reaction from Liam, it hadn’t worked. He simply continued to stare at the guy, blinking nice and slow, waiting for more confession.

“Um…I found there was more we had in common than not, but one thing was completely different. Our families, and I have to tell you, reading about yours, it was the first time I felt like you had every right to turn into a con.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Again, if he was looking for reactions, Liam would refuse to give them.

“You’re…you’re the gray area that I didn’t expect, Liam. Seeing you helping that bum…sorry, that homeless guy, then thefucking cat, it confirmed everything I’d been feeling about you up to that point. I cannot bust you. There’s no way, and as far as the others go? They’re not bad people either.”

“They’re actually some pretty good people. You want bad people to bust, there are plenty out there.”

That was when the tension left Taran’s face, and he smiled. “I know. A lot of them hate Murphy and his band of bandits.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re new, so maybe they don’t want to scare you off, Liam, but there are other gangs that do similar things to what Murphy’s crew does. Theft is a moneymaker, no one is disputing that, and the amounts of money that your friends take in, well, it’s made many people jealous. Murphy’s taken meetings with gang leaders, organized crime leaders, big shots, okay? They’ve all asked him to share the wealth, and what I mean by that is the talent he’s got.”

Liam had heard nothing about it, but it made sense. Not only did it make sense the other gangs would want guys like Mims and Hippy, especially, but that they’d not told Liam about it. Cops were one thing, but other criminals were much more dangerous.

“Okay. And?”

“Murphy always turns them down. Always. He’s lent none of the crew out, and if I understand this correctly, your crew isn’t allowed to do jobs for others, even if they wanted to.”

Carefully choosing his words, Liam said, “If it were true that they did these things you say, why the hell would they want to work for anyone else? If you all are trying to recruit me to snitch for you, going so far as to make one of the agents my, what? Boyfriend? Isn’t it pretty clear what Murphy’s allegedly done is working?”

“And having you on board just makes them more successful, and that isn’t me blowing smoke up your ass. Liam, I don’t wantto bust you or the rest of them, but I am warning you to be careful of what jobs you take.”

“Assuming I believe a word you said, or if there were jobs to take, why?”

“Because not only are we after you, but so is the Blue Badge Cartel or BBC, they call themselves.”

It was like he was speaking another language. “Who?”

“Ask Murphy about them. Tell Murphy about me. In our research, in our deep dives to get the goods on you all, we’ve found a group that is a thousand times worse. My partner and my handler both wanted me in with you all not to bust you. They have much bigger fish to fry, and let me tell you, they’re fish that are swimming upstream to get at the people at Murphy’s Pub.”

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