Page 16 of Kings Against the World

I gave up when I glanced in the living room and found Dad snoring again. I grabbed the stack of past due bills and took care of them. After that, I cleaned the house and took out the trash. Two days later, I was on a redeye back to D.C.

If I didn’t lose myself in something else, I was going to go crazy. My parents were as lost to their vices as ever and I was funding their bad habits. Mom wasn’t the only enabler—I was an enabler too. I was giving them money they splurged on who knows what and then paying off the rest of their debts anyway.

Again and again I picked up the slack. I would be the one bailing them out of jail or whatever other bind they’d find themselves in.

The burden was so much weight to bear. It was a responsibility that intertwined with my self-worth, making me feel like I was a failure if I didn’t save everyone.

It was up to me and me alone.

So I sought distraction. I found it in the Boone investigation I had opened a file on. Duchovny told me when he suspended me that he expected I drop any future work on the Boone case. He wanted for it to be the end of the matter.

Too bad I wasn’t about to let it go.

The Boone case was everything. It was my first real—and possibly only—chance to get justice in Zani’s honor.

I wasn’t giving up no matter what Duchovny said.

But I was going to try my damnedest to convince him otherwise. I spent many insomniac nights staying up ’til sunrise, glued to my laptop screen as I read articles upon articles of Boone’s criminal history. I typed up a thorough thirty-four page brief for Duchovny and the rest of leadership detailing everything I’d found on Asa Boone and how it all tied into my current day undercover investigation of him.

I was manic about it, obsessively waiting for his response.

He called me late one Friday evening when I was getting out the shower and taking my medications. “Strauss, you need to understand that this doesn’t give you permission to go fucking haywire. This is an official federal investigation and it will be treated as such. You’ll do everything we say. No questions or deviations. Is that understood?”

I grit my teeth, screwing the cap onto a pill bottle. Yet my tone’s sugary as I answer him. “Understood, boss!”

“Don’t be a smartass. You should be happy I went to bat for you when no one else would. You know nobody else would’ve pushed for you to keep your badge with your situation. Salgado was pushing termination! Humble yourself, Strauss. I mean it.”

I had to really check myself to keep from mouthing off at the last second. I kept it cute and wished him a good night.

Then I jumped up and down in excitement once we’d hung up. I dug out my favorite photo of Zani, a candid taken of her in our backyard as she sat and did her homework. She smiled at the camera, her cheeks round, her eyes lit up. It’s the epitome of everything she was: a smart, bright, sweet girl who lost her life for no other reason than she became a pawn by sick men like Boone.

This was for her.

6

OZZIE

“Yes… yes… FUCKING YES!”

I roar as my hips buck and I hit a peak. The pressure explodes from within, sending a rush of pulsating warmth through my dick. I grope Cass’s thighs and slam into her several more times, pinning her between my body and the side of the trailer.

She rakes her coffin-shaped nails down my tattooed arms and screams with me, her pale face flushed and eyes screwed shut.

My erratic thrusts finally slow up as I plant myself deep and nut inside her pussy.

The high is unfuckingbelievable. Unlike anything I’ve felt before.

Intense wave after intense wave crashes over me. It pulsates from my dick, up my spine, spreading everywhere ’til it’s like the chemicals have taken over. I’m blitzed out of my mind on dopamine and oxytocin and all the other shit.

I can’t see straight for seconds to come.

Everything’s fuzzy, distorted.

Even the night sky looks like it’s shifting above our heads. Some rotating belt of dark velvet and gleaming stars that disappear and reappear. Blips of bright red lights blinking in and out. Probably satellites watching our every move.

Cass drops her legs from my waist and aims a satisfied smile at me. She straightens her skirt but leaves her discarded panties in the dirt. “Oz… that was… amazing.”

I zip up my Dickies pants and wipe sweat from my brow. I’m slicked in it, shining from all the exertion I’ve put in fucking her.

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