His First Surrender (Stonewall Investigations Miami Book 3) Read online

  And then the bus doors closed. At the exact moment when the man decided to jump. He hit the closed doors face-first, falling backward and hitting the ground with a heavy thump, the purse falling next to the bus stop. Someone nearby shouted and went to go help the thief. I made it to his side first, grabbing the purse and standing over the crumbled and sweaty mess of a man.

  “Was all of that worth it?” I asked him. His face was beet red, spreading across the top of his balding head. He reeked like old fish and rotten cat litter.

  “Maybe,” he answered.

  I rolled my eyes. This fucker.

  “Thank you! Oh my sweet baby Jesus, thank you.”

  I handed the purse back to its rightful owner. The girl ran a hand through her windswept brown hair, catching her breath. She opened the purse and double-checked to make sure he hadn’t swiped anything from inside.

  “Got everything?” I asked after a quick call with the police.

  “Yes, thank you again, sir. Really.” She shook her head, throwing a wary glance at the man still on the ground, head in his hands. I was at the ready, just in case he decided he had a shot at escaping. “It hasn’t exactly been my month. I’ve been getting things stolen directly out of my bedroom, so when this happened… well, yeah. Thank you.”

  She smiled a soft and genuine smile.

  “My name’s Hazel,” she said, extending a hand.

  “Rocky.” We shook hands.

  The police sirens sounded down the street. Moments later, the cop car pulled up to the bus stop. The officer, Officer Hawk, took our statements and arrested the thief. He opened the back of his cop car and let the man fall in. This time, the door didn’t shut in his face.

  “Everyone good here?” Officer Hawk asked as he finished up.

  “Yup,” I said, getting ready to call an Uber to take me home. I had come to the beach for a morning hookup, not expecting I’d get in a morning jog at the same time. I thought I’d gotten enough cardio already. I was ready to head home, have some lunch, and enjoy the rest of my weekend. This past month had me taking on a huge caseload and left me feeling spent. I was ready for some time to myself.

  “Thank you, Officer!” Hazel said. “Oh shoot, wait, wait!”

  The police car was already pulling out to the street. She stopped waving, her shoulders hanging slumped as she walked back to where I stood. I arched a brow. “Did you need something?”

  “I just, ugh, I figured I could finally talk to someone about my creepy-ass roommate. I’m honestly not sure if it’s bad enough to call the police, but maybe Officer Hawk could have known who to point me to.”

  Like a private detective?

  “This have to do with your things going missing?”

  She nodded “Yeah. For months now I’ve been noticing that my underwear has been going missing. Sometimes they show up, but not in the spots I was sure I’d left them in. It has to be my roommate, but I don’t know… He also has some dumb cunty and transphobic friends who might have something to do with it all. The ones that have the loudest hate toward me are also usually the ones who want to fuck me the baddest. If it’s not Jesse, it’s the trash he hangs out with.”

  Her expressive light green eyes went wide for a moment. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be bothering you with all this. I’m gonna get going.”

  She had no idea I was a detective. I wasn’t a doctor, I didn’t have a Hippocratic oath binding me to help whoever needed it. I could nod, wish her the best, and go home. This didn’t involve me. I already helped in getting her purse back; I don’t think anyone would have judged me for walking away and letting her figure out the rest on her own.

  “Hold on,” I said. “What else can you tell me about your roommate?”

  “Huh?” She crossed her skinny arms, the straps of her teal shirt hanging on to her shoulders where a vibrant sunflower had been tattooed, its canary-yellow petals popping against an ocean-blue sky.

  “I’m a private investigator. I work for Stonewall Investigations.” I pulled out my wallet and grabbed my card, handing the matte-black card to Hazel. She took it, the confusion on her face washing away.

  “I… you can help?”

  “I’ll try to.”

  A blush broke through the light makeup on her face. Her gaze dropped down to her sandals. “I can’t… I mean, I can. I can pay you, I just don’t think it’ll be—”

  I made another on the spot decision. “Don’t worry about the payment.”

  “No, I wouldn’t want that. How much are we talking here? Like three hundred?”

  Hazel was lowballing the estimate by a few thousand, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t paying me. Thankfully, my bank account was doing fine. The means by which that money had landed in my possession was something I’d never wish upon even the worst of enemies, but it allowed me to work for free for the rest of my life if I wanted to.

  I didn’t want to, of course. But for Hazel, I figured I could make an exception.

  “I’ve got some time for a pro bono case. Let me work on my karma.”

  God knows I need to.

  Hazel arched a recently done eyebrow. A silver ring at the end of her brow glinted in the sunlight.

  “Okay… thank you, Mr. Hudson. Eh, Detective Hudson. Really, thank you. I’ve been feeling so uncomfortable in my own apartment. I’ve been wanting to move out, but with my mom being sick, I haven’t had the money, time, or the energy to figure it all out. So I’ve just been dealing with it.”

  “Well, hopefully I can help put an end to it.”

  “Hopefully.” She adjusted the purse strap on her shoulder. “So I live with two guys, Sam and Jesse. Sam’s my best friend since forever ago, and we’ve lived together for the past three years. Jesse used to be a distant friend, and when we first moved in together, things were fine. Then he started hanging around with a really shitty crowd, and everything changed. He turned into a creepy drug addict, and I’m pretty sure he graduated to full-blown drug dealer not that long ago.”

  “What makes you think Jesse’s stealing your underwear?”

  “I know it’s not Sam, for sure. Like, a thousand percent sure. I’ve caught Jesse snooping around in my room once before, about a year ago. He didn’t have anything with him and said he had heard a weird noise inside my locked room, so he wanted to check things out. So I know he can pick the lock, and I know he’s got no qualms about going into my room without me being there. Plus, he’s the poster child for ‘creepy panty thief.’ It has to be him.”

  “You mentioned his friends?”

  “Yeah. Three of them specifically: Andrea, Julie, and Nick. They all seem to actively despise me for some reason, and none of them really speak to me. I’ve heard Nick say a few transphobic things when he walks by me, which I try to ignore. I don’t let meth-mouthed losers get into my head… but still. It’s not great. Whenever they’re over, Sam and I just leave the apartment.”

  “Which is a good opening for someone to break into your room.”

  Hazel nodded. “I don’t know if any of those three are involved, but I’m almost willing to bet my life on the fact that Jesse is the creep that’s doing this.”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  Hazel’s smile was a big one. “When can you get started?”

  I glanced down at my watch but didn’t bother to actually check the time. “Right now.”

  3

  Sam Clark

  The elven knight on the screen fell into a fiery lava pit, pushed by the dragon currently flapping its wings and spewing flames all around the arena.

  I groaned before cursing up a storm. “Shit, shit, oh, come on! Damn it. Icey, where the hell were the heals?”

  IceyPriest238 popped up in the chat, apologizing profusely, saying that his cat disconnected the keyboard.

  I rolled my eyes and shot a look at the camera on my laptop before cracking a smile. “It’s all right, Icey. Just pop me a rez so I can get back in there.”

  “And buy a mic before your cat ends up holding you
r dumb ass hostage.”

  That was JuliusCharge98, an orcan warrior who had a short temper and a large vocabulary made up of mainly curse words. I’d been playing with him for three years now, and we’d become really good friends, even though we still hadn’t gotten the chance to meet in person.

  “Will do,” Icey typed into the chat box.

  I shot a glance at the small window in the corner of my screen, showing how many people were viewing my stream. Tonight was a good night, I had to admit. Unnecessary death aside, I had a total of fifty-five consistent viewers. That was a jump from the five or ten I’d been getting since I started streaming six months back.

  My keyboard clacked and clicked as I jumped back into the game, occasionally answering a question or two one of the viewers would have for me. A warm breeze came in through the open window, rustling the white plastic blinds, stained yellow with age. Outside, someone must have been having a party by the pool because loud reggaeton was beginning to compete with the sound of my spells being cast.

  “Can you guys hear me all right?”

  “Yeah, of course we can hear you. Oh fuck, that twat-wad blew me up!” Julius flew off the screen, his character icon flashing red. “Oh, are you talking to your fans?”

  “I don’t have fans,” I said, adjusting the headset so that the mic was closer to my mouth. “I have Samsonites.”

  It was a play on my username: Samsonite23.

  “Right, forgot they’re called Samsonlice.”

  “Samsonites.”

  “Samsonlice.”

  “Nites.”

  “Lice.”

  “Boys!” SilkAura7 shouted into her mic. “Can you two focus on the boss please. I’m running low on mana and patience.”

  “All right,” I said, sitting up in my chair and causing it to squeak loudly in the process. “Let me just buff Julius real quick annnd… okay! Let’s beat this mother—”

  My computer crashed, the screen blinking black before shutting down.

  “—fucker!”

  I tapped on the keys and clicked the mouse furiously, hoping it would come back alive and I’d still be in the game, not dead but thriving, maybe with a hundred new viewers.

  Yeah, that’s what I hoped for. What I got instead was another hard crash, the computer’s fan whirring loudly as it tried booting back up before sputtering out, the screen staying dark and my friends’ voices no longer in my ear.

  “Damnit. Damnit, damnit, freaking dammit.”

  My frustration bubbled up and manifested in me slapping my cheap wooden desk, the thin legs wobbling a bit underneath the pathetic blow. I grabbed both edges and steadied it. With both eyes closed, I filled my lungs with air and tried to remember this was all just the beginning. Someday soon, I wouldn’t be playing on a laptop that could barely handle Microsoft Word, much less War of Worlds. I’d be making enough off my streams that I could buy an entirely new setup and upgrade my whole situation. And then, once my production value went up, that would only draw in more and more viewers. I wasn’t exactly sure what day that would be, but it didn’t matter. I just knew it was coming. It helped put things back into perspective. I opened my eyes, for a brief second expecting to see the game back on my screen.

  The laptop was as dead as a doorknob.

  Why is that even a saying? Since when are doorknobs ever even alive?

  I leaned back in the chair, almost causing it to tip over. I latched onto the scratchy wood table, miraculously avoiding a splinter.

  A series of doorbell rings made me jump out of the chair. I almost tripped over a discarded pair of gym shorts, half falling on my bed, using the mattress to push me back up. I bounced on the wall and through the open door, like a little Ping-Pong ball. The rings filled the apartment. I walked past Jesse’s room, his door open. He was lying on his bed, flicking up and down on his iPad, completely unmoved by whoever was at the door.

  I rolled my eyes, passing Hazel’s closed door, and entering the cramped, dim living room. We lived on the second floor and faced toward the center courtyard, meaning the other buildings in our apartment complex blotted out the sun pretty much throughout all hours of the day. There was one twenty-four-minute span in the afternoon where I’d get a dash of sunlight through my bedroom window, but that was it, and only on days when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Which, in Miami, cloudless days were about as common as snow days.

  I reached the door and looked through the peephole. There was a man standing there, his face distorted and extra round, his electrifying blue eyes magnified and made even more intense.

  I was suddenly very confused. He certainly wasn’t the mail lady, nor was he the two angry trolls we were unlucky enough to call next-door neighbors, and those were about the only people I expected to be ringing on our door out of the blue.

  Now he was knocking, his fist rapping hard against the door.

  I opened and looked up into those lightning-blue eyes. Now that he wasn’t behind a dirty lens, I could see even more detail inside them. They were the color at the center of an impossibly hot flame. A blue that shifted and danced and swirled in whatever ways it wanted to, regardless of whether or not light was hitting his eyes.

  They effectively rendered me speechless.

  “Sorry for the intrusion, but does Hazel Rose live here?”

  Holy shit, is Hazel dating this beautiful specimen of a man, and if so, why is she keeping him a secret from me?

  “Yeah, but I don’t think she’s home…”

  “I know she’s not. Hazel’s at work.”

  Oh damn, okay, this guy even has her schedule memorized.

  His tone was clipped, and his posture told me he wasn’t here to play around. His shoulders were stiff and his jaw jutted out, highlighting the sharp lines that drew a perfect square.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” I asked. I wanted to simultaneously help this man with absolutely anything he needed but also tell him to come back when he didn’t look so pissed off.

  “I was hoping you could answer a few questions. You’re her roommate, correct?”

  My eyebrows drew together. “Correct… What is this about?”

  “I’m Rocky Hudson, a private detective working for Stonewall Investigations. Hazel hired me to look into a problem she’s been having. I’m wondering if you might know about it.”

  I positioned myself in the center of the doorway and crossed my arms. “Your tone seems pointed.” I cocked my head. “Are you thinking I did something?”

  “I have no idea who did anything. Right now, I’m just trying to get some answers.”

  He crossed his arms, too. I couldn’t help but notice the way his biceps pushed against the sleeves of his black shirt. His right arm had a colorful sleeve of tattoos, a blast of reds and pinks and blues and greens. I glanced quickly at them, spotting a whale and a tree, its roots wrapping around the whale’s tail, but I wasn’t able to pick anything else out without openly staring at him.

  Which, I mean, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, all right?

  “How long have you known Hazel?”

  “Fifteen years. Since we were six years old. We’ve been through plenty of shit together. I’d never do anything to hurt her.”

  Those piercing blue eyes pinned me to the spot. As much as I wanted to close the door on this man, I knew that even if my muscles were working properly, I still wouldn’t have closed the door.

  “So you didn’t steal anything from her?”

  “Steal? Are you joking? Of course not.” And then realization hit me like a two-ton hammer. This was about Hazel’s underwear going missing, straight out of her bedroom. When she told me this, we both instantly began to suspect Jesse may have been involved, but I didn’t know she’d go out and hire the sexiest private detective in all of the United States.

  Possibly even the entire northern hemisphere.

  All right, let’s say the sexiest private detective in the entire world, just to be safe.

  I looked over my should
er, seeing that Jesse was still in his room, but the door remained open. I stepped out into the humid hallway, closing the door behind me.

  This did two things: one, it made sure that Jesse couldn’t overhear anything I was about to say, and two, it put me straight into the intoxicating cloud of whatever cologne Rocky was wearing, his scent a mixture of woods and leather and pure, unadulterated, unfiltered, raw sex.

  At least I think that’s what sex smells like.

  We were too close. I took a step back, feeling myself hit the closed door. It still wasn’t as much space as I would have liked, but it would have to do.

  “All right, let’s talk,” I said, looking up into those blue orbs and finding that my knees were beginning to go weak. He clearly suspected me. His thick eyebrows were drawn together, and his lips were tilted into an annoying slant.

  An annoyingly sexy slant that I felt myself wanting to kiss right off.

  4

  Rocky Hudson

  I wasn’t so sure about this guy. We stood in the hallway of his apartment building as he gave me a short rundown on his and Hazel’s relationship with their roommate Jesse, who they both suspected. He sounded authentic and wasn’t giving me any signals that set off my internal lie detector. He had great eye contact, confident posture, an even tone.

  He also had a bright smile and a couple of freckles that dotted his face like small, starry constellations, matching the light behind his amber-brown eyes. They were magnified underneath the thick lenses of his tortoiseshell glasses, allowing me to see the tiny flecks of gold and yellow inside those mesmerizing eyes.

  Not that any of that shit matters.

  I caught myself thinking about Sam’s features and quickly shut that down. My focus had to stay on the case, not on my dick twitching in my briefs.

  “So do you get it, now? I’m not the one you want to check out.” Sam pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the closed door behind him. “Your guy’s in there.”