Page 5 of Justified (Ruthless Vigilante #1)

“Yeah, I’m hungry. It’s only one in the morning. We can go to that twenty-four hour diner down the block. I can grab a burger and you can eat whatever you want to eat. Knowing you, you will probably get a bowl of oatmeal.”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t want any damned oatmeal. But sure, we can go. First, let me contact our employer and let him know we have the package.” He pulled out his burner phone and made the call.

Ooh, the package . Jordan was really into this spy-type shit.

For me, it was a way to get money on the sly without having to worry about taxes taking what little I already had.

I gave my blood, sweat, and flesh for my country already.

Now, it was all about my slice of the pie.

I rose out of my chair when Jordan ended the call. He stood to his feet, stretching.

For a nerd, he was sexy as fuck. He was shorter than me, about five-eight, with a slender build like an Olympic swimmer and an ass I loved stuffing my face and cock into.

His hair was shaved on the sides with a bit of an afro at the top, like the way a lot of young, black, twenty-something males liked to style their hair these days.

It looked great on him. We weren’t boyfriends, more like fuck buddies, but our unconventional relationship worked.

He was free to see who he wanted and so was I.

We walked side by side out of our warehouse home and down the street to the diner.

There was a slight swish to his hips as he walked, which was what a group of pieces of shit gay bashers targeted when they decided he was the one to fuck with six months ago.

I was leaving a bar that night and was still a little under the effects of the liquor I’d consumed when I heard the commotion.

I walked in the direction of the noise until I saw them.

I fucking hated when bitch ass bullies picked on people they thought were weaker than themselves.

Now, at the time, I hadn’t known Jordan from a hole in the wall, but I couldn’t just continue to walk by with my head down when I saw four men stomping the shit out of him as he cried for help and begged them to stop.

Jordan was terrified for his life as he screamed, cried, and tried his best to shield himself from their vicious blows and kicks.

I came up behind one of the tall turds and punched him hard in the back of his head and he hit the ground like a sack of rocks.

That caught the other douchebags’ attentions and they thought to combine their efforts against me.

Super strength and invincibility really did come in handy when taking out human sewage.

I fucked them up good that night, killing one, but the bastard had deserved it.

Shouldn’t have pulled a knife on me. I made him eat that motherfucker…

literally. I snatched it from his hand and jammed it down his throat.

The last punk left standing ran when he saw all of the blood pouring from his friend’s mouth.

I let him go, though I could have chased after him or even have used the same knife I’d just killed a man with to toss at his ass.

But I decided to give him a second chance.

Maybe he’d change his ways. If I ever saw him again and he was still fucking with people, I would end him.

As for Jordan, he had been beaten up pretty bad, but didn’t have any health insurance, so he was afraid to go to the hospital.

Fortunately for him, I happened to know a little bit about patching up wounds, so I’d taken him home and mended him up.

I’d let him sleep off that spectacular ass whooping in my bed, while I’d taken the sofa.

The next day, we got to know each other a little bit more.

We talked and I told him about my abilities.

I didn’t know why I’d trusted him with the truth at that time, but I just had.

He saw me as his hero, but I was nobody’s hero.

I just didn’t like seeing bad people get away with the crap they did.

For instance, I would have gladly kicked his parents’ asses for disowning him for being gay and leaving him without a penny to his name.

Perhaps he should have waited until he’d finished college before he came out to the bigots that were lucky enough to birth a child into the world.

Too bad they didn’t appreciate that gift and turned on him.

I wondered how they would have felt if he had died that night, murdered like a rat in the street by the same kind of people they turned out to be. I wonder.

Anyway, he didn’t have any place to go, I kind of wanted to fuck him, plus, I really liked him, so it was a perfect match.

We’d been together ever since and as it turned out, he was a fucking genius where technology was concerned.

Thanks to him, I was able to intercept the escort agency Mr. Henley had hired last night.

That was why he was waiting for me in the lounge of that upscale bar.

As for me, I didn’t really get computers like that.

I knew how to search and play games on one, but that hacker shit was a foreign language to me.

Good for us, Jordan spoke fluent JavaScript and Klingon.

Getting back to the present, I held the door to the diner open for him, and he walked in.

I followed behind him and we took a seat in one of our favorite sections away from the big windows.

The waitress came over and took our orders.

On the walk over, we had already decided what we wanted to eat, so there was no need to look over menus.

She walked away to give our orders to the cook and I slouched in the booth.

“You look pretty sexy in that Star Wars t-shirt,” I said, winking.

Jordan looked down at his faded shirt and scoffed. “You’ll say anything to get laid.”

I snorted. “Did it work?”

“Maybe, but definitely not here.”

“Oh, come on, where’s your sense of adventure? We can go into the bathroom, there’s hardly anyone in here,” I suggested, noting the one other customer sitting several tables away from us eating his meal.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Are you serious, or are you joking and I’m just reading the signs wrong?”

I gave him a wickedly seductive smile. “Depends. Are you willing to give it a go in the bathroom?”

“No,” he said without hesitation.

Damn. “Okay, then I was joking.” I gave him an innocent smile.

He laughed and shook his head. “You can save the charm you think you have, it doesn’t work on me.”

“Now who’s lying?”

He smiled at me this time. “I’m glad we came here, because now that we are, I’m actually feeling hungry.”

“See, told you.”

“Yeah, Yeah.”

I winked. “So, when do we meet with our employer tomorrow… I assume it’s tomorrow.”

He nodded. “Seven o’clock.”

I frowned. “In the morning?”

He nodded again. “Yep.”

“Shit. Who picks that ungodly hour for a business transaction?”

“Businessmen with things to do. They wanted to meet at six, I bought you an extra hour of beauty rest.”

“Are you coming with?”

He shook his head. “I’m the brains behind the brawn. If shit goes south and they try to double cross us, I’ll just get in the way. You’ll be able to kick ass better on your own. As much as I love seeing you do it, it’s safer for me to stay in the shadows.”

He had a point. Jordan couldn’t fight to save his life, in spite of me trying to teach him basic self-defense tactics. His fucking nerd ass was hopeless. I sighed. “Fine. But I’m going back to sleep when I get home.”

“Fair enough.”

We chatted about some other random bullshit like movies we wanted to see and TV shows that were new coming this fall season until our food came.

Then, for me at least, it was all about devouring calories.

I had to be careful not to eat like this all of the time.

Sure, my metabolism burned like a furnace, but I could still gain weight and I happened to love my eight-pack washboard abs.

Jordan had a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon and fries.

When I finished my meal off, I started eating the fries I knew he wasn’t going to eat.

He knew it too, which was why he didn’t bother to protest.

“Okay, you ready to go?” I asked, swallowing the last fry.

“Yeah, let me just pay the bill.”

I called the waitress over and she started making her way towards us just as two white men dressed in dark hoodies entered the diner and took seats at the counter.

Now, they could’ve just been here for a late meal like we were, but my cretin-factor senses were tingling.

Better known as my intuition. I didn’t trust this duo. I looked at Jordan.

“Maybe you should go to the bathroom and stay low.”

“Why?” he asked, looking up from his wallet.

God, sometimes he could be so fucking clueless, like a deer caught in headlights in the face of imminent danger.

I gestured with my eyes towards the suspicious two and he finally caught my drift.

He got up and walked into the bathroom like I’d told him to.

If bullets were going to start flying, I didn’t want him in the way of their trajectories.

I sat back in the booth casually, not wanting to let the two men think I was on to them.

Our waitress returned with the check and I thanked her.

I looked at it, our meal had been under twenty-dollars, which was why I enjoyed eating at these family-owned establishments.

They understood not everyone was rolling in dough, but needed a full meal.

The exact opposite of some of those fancy-schmancy restaurants downtown where you pay an arm and a leg and get a pinky finger for a meal.