Fuck-wit? “Oh,” Arlo said, as if that all made perfect sense.
“Has Holden been texting you?” Calliope asked suddenly.
Arlo shook his head as if she could see him. “No. Well, he Snapchats me. He doesn’t want a paper trail.”
“If you’ve been messaging him today, keep messaging him. Do everything as you normally would.”
Arlo frowned. “I broke up with him yesterday.” Looking at Dimitri, he said, “He…he threatened to kill me. After this”—he pointed to his mouth—”he put a knife to my throat. The look on his face… I knew he meant it. I got away by doing what I always do. Placating him. And once I was in my car, I told him we were through. To stay away from me. I threatened to go to the cops. I lied and said I had proof of what he’d done.”
“It’s okay, sweetie. We’re going to get through this. As a family,” Calliope said, sounding so much like a mom—well, not his mom, but a mom. A good mom. A real mom—that he almost started crying again.
“Okay, don’t forget to finish closing up and lock the doors. Stick to your routine. Don’t forget to text me your location when you decide where your alibi spot will be. Make sure you shower and change any bloody clothes and stuff them in the bag with the body before you go have fun.”
Fun. Would this be fun?
“Got it,” Dimitri assured her.
“Okay, good. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom,” Dimitri said, like he’d done it a thousand times before.
Arlo couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard those words from anybody. Ever.
There was a beep as Dimitri disconnected the call, and then warm hands were burning through the skin of his cheeks. “Hey. It’s going to be alright. We’re going to be alright. I promise.”
Arlo looked at him. “I want to believe you. But, statistically, the numbers don’t add up.”
“What?”
“Every time I’ve told myself in the past that things would be alright, I was right exactly zero percent of the time.”
Dimitri’s mouth slanted over his, the soft slide of his tongue parting Arlo’s lips in a kiss that made his toes curl.
When he pulled back, Dimitri said, “Things are different this time.”
“Why is that?” Arlo asked, pulse jumping and cock now pressing against his zipper from too many kisses that led nowhere.
“Because now, you have me.”
The address provided by his mother led to a warehouse in a rundown part of town, close to the port but far enough away that it was near deserted this time of night. A few people loitered outside of an all-night grocer and a couple stood outside of a sleazy bar with a blinking neon sign, but other than that, it was the normal transient community, pushing carts and bicycles piled with their belongings. None of them looked too long at the sleek Mercedes as Dimitri drove by. Nice cars in this neighborhood meant one of two things—somebody was profiting off of criminal activity or somebody was partaking in it. Nobody wanted to be a witness either way.
Arlo followed Dimitri in his less flashy Toyota Celica. Dimitri kept eyes on him in the rearview mirror, half afraid he would look back and find him missing just when he finally made him his. Dimitri’s dick throbbed as he thought of the way Arlo would look at him, eyes wide, lips parted, pink tongue constantly darting out to wet his full lower lip nervously. Dimitri now knew what that tongue felt like against his, how breathy Arlo got when he was being kissed thoroughly. His mother told him they needed to be seen in public, but all Dimitri wanted to do was find a dark, isolated place to finish what they’d started inside the coffee shop only a couple of hours ago.
Would Arlo let him? Dimitri wanted to strip him bare and kiss every inch of him, wanted to swallow every moan as he mapped the planes of his body. He knew they should focus on the dead body in the trunk, but Dimitri had imagined burying himself in Arlo for as long as he could remember. Arlo starred in every one of his jerk-off fantasies, and there were many.
They just needed to get through this night. If they survived until morning, maybe then he could show Arlo how much he wanted him. They just needed to dump the car, create an alibi, and, somehow, stage a crime scene. Dimitri now understood why his mother had worried about him in the past. Murder was so much work. Well, murder was simple. Getting away with it took work.
The near silent engine of the Mercedes continued to purr as Dimitri put it in park and went to the small panel on the left, punching in the code given to him by his mother. The metal door rolled upwards at a snail’s pace, until Dimitri hit the gas, the roof barely clearing the door. Once inside, he stepped from the vehicle, looking back to where Arlo sat with the engine still running.
Dimitri held up a hand, letting Arlo know he should stay there. His mother had said to just leave the car and go create an alibi, and Dimitri would do that, but something about her plans threw him. She’d given her instructions with confidence, but he couldn’t shake the feeling she was struggling to get him out of this.
Dimitri returned the seat to its approximate location, examining the seat for any stray hairs or fibers, before closing the door just as Arlo jogged up to stand beside him.
Dimitri gave Arlo a stern look. “I told you to stay in the car.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” Arlo said, jutting his chin forward in an adorably stubborn look.
Dimitri rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop his lips from twitching in a smile. He wanted to press Arlo up against the car door and kiss him. Fuck, he was so keyed up, he wanted to bend him and fuck him right there. There was some kind of divine retribution in that, right? Fucking Arlo on the hood of Holden’s overpriced toy?
Dimitri shook the thought away, pulling the gloves and hairnet free and stuffing them in his jeans pocket.
“Rookie mistake,” a deep voice said from the darkness.
The warehouse lights blazed on, temporarily blinding Dimitri. He shoved Arlo behind him, blinking until the amorphous blobs before him took on the shape of people. Many people. Dimitri was most definitely outnumbered. Had his mom set him up to be ambushed? What the fuck?
There were three men who sat on a sturdy metal table and five more lounging against various sturdy fixtures.
The one with freckles and brown hair said, “Is he trying to hide the little one behind him? That’s so cute.”
“Who are you?” Arlo asked over Dimitri’s shoulder.
One of the men grinned at Arlo. “Us? We’re the A-Team. Who are you?”
Dimitri knew who they were. He knew them by name. It honestly surprised him that Arlo didn’t. These men weren’t exactly the Kardashians, but they made the papers almost as frequently.
Dimitri looked over all of them. The hot dark-haired one with the pale blue eyes was Adam. The baby. The former model. The brown-haired boy beside him was his boyfriend, Noah. The red-head was Atticus. A doctor. The man who stood beside him was his husband, Jericho. The twins were there, too. Asa and Avi. His mother called them the murder twins.
But it was the last man who caught and kept Dimitri’s attention. August. At first glance, he looked like nothing special. The nerdy professor that the outside world thought him to be, but Dimitri knew he was the most dangerous one of all. The one who enjoyed torture, who enjoyed opening people up to see how they worked. Yet, his husband, Lucas, stood beside him, looking up at him with puppy eyes.