Fishy Riot, page 19
“Micah went to the house?” Taylor turned to look at Joel for clarification.
“I went with him. Some ASIS agents took us. They were very nice about it.”
“What does very nice mean?” Clay dipped his finger in the spaghetti sauce and licked it clean, but his attention was sharp and focussed on Joel.
“It means we had steaming hot agent sex in the bathroom,” Joel announced, deadpan. “Stop being a jealous twat. I took Micah to get some of his stuff because he wanted it. That’s what it means.”
“Sorry.” Clay leaned in to kiss Joel’s cheek, but Joel still looked annoyed.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Taylor looked over at Sietta, thinking of all the legal documents Sietta had read since his emancipation. It must have been beyond irritating to do without glasses.
“It’s not that bad, I just get a headache if I read too much without them. I’m not blind or anything. My prescription’s only out by about point five.” He shrugged as if it were nothing, and to him a headache probably was. Taylor sighed and ran his finger along the top edge of the left glass.
“You were wearing these when we met,” he mumbled, equally as transfixed by them now as he was then. It put off that whole geek vibe, which Taylor had never liked until the moment he laid eyes on Sietta Salisbury.
“I was? Oh, right, on the ferry, I was studying downstairs…. You remembered!” He sounded so damn pleased, Taylor had to wonder if anyone had ever remembered anything about him.
“If you come in your pants in my kitchen groping a pair of glasses, you are not staying for dinner,” Joel threatened, looking between them as if they’d defiled his kitchen in some way.
“That’s super gross,” Micah muttered where he was standing in the lounge, watching them. “The doing it in your pants thing, not the hugging thing. I’m gay. Obviously I don’t care if you’re hugging or whatever.”
“Mind your own business,” Sietta snapped, his tone harsh. Taylor jolted because it was the first time he’d heard Sietta be anything but kind, generous, and understanding with his brother. But he thought of what Sietta had said in the garage, and he wondered if Sietta was only now beginning to realise what he’d lost, and what had been given up.
“Okay, mister cranky pants.” Micah rolled his eyes and went back to the couch, starting a new single-player game. Sietta didn’t relax against Taylor until the music was starting to drive everyone half mad in the otherwise quiet room.
“I think we would rather go home, we’ll grab some takeaway or something on the way,” Taylor told Joel softly, and Joel didn’t bother to say anything. Sietta took the hint and went to collect his things.
“I’ve got shift tonight. We’re doing another round of arrests,” Clay said softly while Sietta was in another room. “It’ll be all over the news in the morning.”
Annoyed he wasn’t going to be part of it, Taylor nodded and clapped Clay on the shoulder, squeezing hard.
“Be careful. Make Mendel watch your back.”
“Of course,” Clay agreed, but he was looking at the bandage, and Taylor didn’t bother saying anything else, wrapping an arm around Sietta when he came back in and leading him out front to the car. Taylor sighed in the driver’s seat and stared at the townhouse with its out-of-control garden, its old terrace front, and Joel’s mini coupe in the driveway, Clay’s Hilux on the street.
“He’ll be okay.” Sietta laid his hand over Taylor’s on the gearstick and stroked his fingers. It soothed in all the right ways, and Taylor started the car and got them moving back across the city.
“Are you….” Are you okay was a stupid question. Of course he wasn’t okay, but Taylor wasn’t sure how to ask.
“I’m okay. It’s okay to ask. I don’t mind. It’s kinda nice.” Taylor was left to wonder, not for the first time, if anyone had ever cared enough to ask.
They were quiet as he drove, but not awkward. Sietta seemed tired and watched the sun setting while Taylor focussed on the road and getting them home safely.
They were halfway there when Taylor deliberately turned down a series of streets, frowning as a SUV continued behind them on the obscure trip. Once he’d driven in a complete square, he knew the SUV was following them and swore under his breath. Sietta sat up and stared at him, following his gaze to the rear-view mirror and then turning to get a better look at the car behind them.
“You’re kidding….” He looked again as if the vehicle might magically disappear, but it was still there. “They’re following us….”
“They are.” He didn’t bother saying anything else because Sietta already had his belt on and he didn’t know the answer to any of the other questions he might ask. Who were they? What did they want? What was going to happen?
Taylor voice-activated his phone and told it to dial headquarters, quickly informing them of the situation, and that he was heading to them in case it escalated.
He took a sudden left and sped up the ramp back onto the main road, hoping the traffic would slow them down, but peak hour had finished and the road was relatively clear. He put his foot down, trying to get some distance between them, but as soon as they hit the main road, their tail did the same, catching them quickly.
“Dammit…. You need to start thinking about who’s trying to kill you.”
“Excuse me?” Sietta gaped at him.
“Seriously. What’s on the stick, what wasn’t on it, what do you know that someone might want you dead over?” He swerved around another car and sped up, trying to outrun them.
“Now? You want to have this conversation right now?” Sietta jerked against the seat belt as Taylor dodged another car.
“Yes, I need the distraction. Think about it!”
“You need a distraction, in the middle of a fucking car chase? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You swear when you’re scared… good to know.” He deliberately hit the brakes and watched their tail sail past, smirking as he slid behind another car and took the exit, amused when their tail tried to turn and go in the opposite direction up the highway to follow them.
“I don’t know anything! Anything I knew is on that USB!”
“Then maybe it’s got nothing to do with what’s on the stick,” Taylor pointed out. “What else do you know? What did you overhear, or see, or who do you know?” Taylor was starting to think it had nothing to do with the USB, that Sietta’s face being all over the news was just a nice cover for what was really going on.
“I can’t believe you want to talk about this in the middle of a car chase!” Sietta threw his hands up in the air. He was a spectacular distraction, which was good. The more distracted he was, the more Taylor drove simply on instinct, which was a good thing when you had sharp instincts. Clay often said he drove like a grandma, and would deliberately distract him so he would speed up and drive like he wanted to compete in NASCAR.
“What else do you know, Si?” He deliberately jerked the wheel to grab Sietta’s attention, amused by the scowl Sietta sent his way.
“Wine? I was locked in a fucking wine cellar, so I guess I know wine?”
“I don’t think anyone is trying to kill you over wine. Something else!” The tail was back, lights on high beam, probably in an attempt to blind them while driving. That was kind of clever; he’d have to remember that.
“Clearly you don’t know wine. That shit’s expensive!” Sietta snapped, but he was thinking. “I don’t know! I know my family, the butler, the crazy fucking doctor?”
“The doctor’s a good angle. You’ve ruined his career, he’s going to prison… but I don’t think he’d hire goons to run us off the road. I doubt he’d even know how to do that. Not to mention hiring people to shoot you. Tell me about the butler… seriously, who even has a butler these days?” He reached for his phone and hurriedly texted an SOS message to Hale. It was completely illegal, but he didn’t have time to explain to Sietta what he needed done. Hale could get the rest of the details from Headquarters and would know what to do.
“Wankers, like my rich fucking parents, obviously.” Sietta scowled while he sent the message. “You know it’s illegal to text and drive, right?” But he was still thinking. If Taylor hadn’t been attracted to him before, he would have been now. Sietta was angry but calm under pressure, able to follow orders, and had adjusted how he sat so he wasn’t being thrown against the door anymore, braced against Taylor’s seat and the window, and trying to do as Taylor wanted. Think. Maybe it was the adrenaline, but Taylor wanted to pull over and fuck him senseless. As soon as he got rid of the jerks following them.
“No, he’s old, loyal to the point of obsession, but he lived in the house. He doesn’t have those kinds of connections, I’m sure of it.”
“Okay, that leaves your immediate family. Your dad’s in a cell, as is Anders, but your mum and sister are out on bail. Do they have those sorts of connections?”
“Maybe?” Taylor hated the flicker of fear in Sietta’s eyes, but he was proud of the way he took a deep breath and got back to thinking about it. “It’s possible.”
The SUV rammed the back of them, and Sietta swore as Taylor put the pedal flat, trying to keep his focus ahead, looking for anything that could hit them other than what was behind them. The last thing he needed was to collide at this speed.
“Mum… I don’t know, she is just as involved in Dad’s stuff as Dad is. She’d know everything. Viola, I honestly don’t know much about. She swans around at all the socialite events, has a new guy on her arm every week, but she keeps to herself… It’s hard to know what she’s thinking, and she avoided me. Hates me, I think.”
“Hates you how much?”
It made Sietta pause, looking out the window, for a moment entirely removed from the chase until they were rammed again and he closed his eyes, whispering something under his breath that Taylor didn’t catch.
“What?”
“A lot, I guess. I told you, it’s hard to say. She’s never really talked to me much, always just did her own thing. I don’t think I’ve seen her in years. Do I think she’s capable of killing me? I guess? But I’d have no idea why.”
“Why would she cut you out like that?” Taylor was really curious. If his own father hadn’t been willing to kill him, why would his sister? Not that his father hadn’t wanted to kill him. Johnathan Salisbury had simply assumed it was likely he’d get caught, which did tend to happen when there was a body. It had been smart to keep him in the basement instead, except he’d taken him out of the basement to show off. Sietta could definitely have caused a scene. That had been a stupid move, but they’d thought him cowed and under the thumb, so to speak. Fools.
“I don’t know. She’s homophobic sure, but she hated me way before that. She’s… weird. She was never involved in a conversation, always thinking about something else, and she never had much empathy. I remember her horse broke its leg and had to be put down, and you’d think she’d never seen the animal, she cared so little.” A shiver ran through Sietta.
Taylor grunted but was focussed on their tail, checking their location, judging the timing as best he could and suddenly slamming the brakes on and jerking the wheel. The SUV nicked the back of his tray and was knocked sideways without enough time to compensate. It careened off into the side of a warehouse building. Taylor slowed down and pulled over, watching in the rear-view mirror for movement.
Sietta was frozen, curled up in his seat, clutching his belt with white knuckled fingers, staring at nothing, wide-eyed. He exhaled suddenly and turned to scowl at Taylor.
“Why the hell didn’t you do that in the first place?” Sietta huffed at him. It was ridiculously cute.
“Because they wouldn’t have been here in the beginning,” Taylor pointed out reasonably, watching the squad emerge from the shadows and surround the vehicle. The doors of the crashed SUV opened, and one of the perps got out, the other screaming for help in the front seat, trapped by the crushed metal. Served him right, but Taylor hated the idea of the lawsuit he would face for causing the crash. Still, that was what the department lawyers were for, if it came to that.
“Where were they… wow, they came out of nowhere….” Sietta watched through the window as an ambulance arrived and the crew cut the second man out of the SUV. The riot van emerged from an alley with a police car, and they drove off, escorting the ambulance. A third car pulled up behind the Hilux, and Taylor got out to speak to Hale.
He was at the rear, examining the damage, and Taylor crossed his arms as he stood beside him, taking it in.
“Coulda been worse.” Hale shrugged. “Least it’ll be covered by insurance.”
“Coulda not happened,” Taylor argued, wishing he could go follow the ambulance and beat the crap out of the idiots.
“Got any ideas on why it did happen?”
“Sietta thinks his sister could have something to do with it. I don’t think it’s to do with the USB. The AFP are focussing on that, but I think this is different. Something about it feels off.”
“Alright, I’ll look into it. Everyone else is out on the second round of arrests. I brought in a skeleton crew to back you up, but you got here right on time, so it was fine.” The warehouse was a predetermined dump zone for chases. Close enough to the station that a team could mobilize into position in under ten minutes, but in a deserted area where no bystanders could be hurt. They were trained to draw in chases and knock out a tyre. There were enough old tyres lining the buildings to ensure that only the worst crashes would result in injury or death, but it was the best preventative, short of not having chases to begin with.
Sietta appeared on Hale’s other side, standing back a little and looking Hale up and down, a slightly startled look on his face as he took in the black overalls, utility belt, armoured vest, boots, tactical gear, balaclava that he had rolled up around his forehead to show his face, helmet, goggles…. The riot squad always looked like the bad guys when you didn’t know any better. It wasn’t Sietta’s first time seeing them, but it was his first time seeing them outside of his house raid. Taylor expected him to point out how badass the uniform was, not….
“You’re really short.”
Now that he mentioned it, Hale and Sietta were around the same height. Which wasn’t short, really, unless you were standing near a Jameson. Taylor smirked at Hale’s disgusted look.
“Be careful out there,” Taylor ordered, moving back around to the front while Hale wandered back to his squad car. Hale waved and disappeared while Sietta climbed back in the Hilux and stared at Taylor’s profile.
“Sorry about your car.”
“Not your fault.”
“Oh, I know. You could’ve shot that tyre out back before we even hit the highway and they never would’ve rammed you. That’s totally on you.” He put his seat belt on while Taylor frowned darkly at him, but Sietta ignored him. That he was able to ignore him was impressive in itself, that he did so was even better. Weariness suddenly swamped Taylor as he came down from the adrenaline high and started the car.
They were quiet on the drive home, quiet as they got into the apartment, but when Sietta went to put the kettle on, Taylor grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bathroom, leaving the light off, using the street light outside to see as he carefully stripped Sietta naked and pushed him into the shower. His own clothes were removed quickly, and he stepped in behind Sietta, then wrapped his arms tight around him, closing his eyes and letting the water run over them. Soothing away the vestiges of the chase and leaving them tired and shaken.
Someone wanted Sietta dead. They’d tried twice now. They didn’t care that he was with a police officer, or they didn’t know, but either way Taylor was the only thing between them and what they wanted, which was going to put a target on his back if he wasn’t careful. That would put a target on Clay’s, and that was not acceptable if Taylor could find a way to avoid it. He needed all of his attention on Sietta and couldn’t afford distractions.
He would have to call Joel and tell him what happened and make sure an officer was still stationed to watch Micah. It would be an AFP officer, so he should call them as well and make sure they were aware of what had happened, and his suspicions that it was unrelated to their investigations into the ministers.
Sietta pulled back, his hands running over Taylor’s abs, fingers teasing through each groove like a ladder, slipping lower and lower until his fingers trailed along the length of Taylor’s cock as it slowly rose.
The way Sietta watched every shivering response made him harder, and Taylor carefully pushed Sietta up against the wall, giving him something to lean against. Taylor knelt, running his own hands down Sietta’s sides, settling on his hips and holding him firmly in place, watching Sietta’s face as he licked a long swipe along Sietta’s length.
“Oh my God,” Sietta gasped, eyes wide and unblinking as Taylor engulfed his cock in warm, wet heat, for the first time in his life. His head fell back hard against the wall, eyes hooded as he continued to stare down at the sight of Taylor on his knees sucking him off.
Sietta was beautiful. Taylor had never seen anything as perfect. Long dark hair stuck to soft caramel skin like wild strands of silk, moving in the rivulets caused by the running water as if it were a living thing. In the dark the blue of his eyes was shadowed, like the ocean at night, his lips red and swollen where he had bitten them. Taylor sucked harder, wanting him to give up control.
“Stop… I’m going to… oh… shit!”
Salty, creamy liquid spilled into his mouth, and Taylor swallowed, letting his tongue lave and swirl around Sietta’s sensitive head, causing him to squirm and cry out, trying to push him away and hold him close at the same time.
Taylor finally released him as he was going soft, and rose to stand over Sietta, pulling him away from the wall and back into a tight embrace. Taylor ran his hands up Sietta’s back and into the thick black hair, rubbing at his scalp, winning another loud moan.
“I’m going to assume you liked that.”
