Page 29 of Lovesick Gods (Lovesick #1)

Mal was on his way home from another stakeout with Dom when he decided to stop by Andrews’ Electronics to check on Priestly.

It was the next week, a little earlier than Priestly said he’d be finished with their amplifiers, but it didn’t hurt to get a progress report.

Plus, it gave Mal an excuse to walk a few extra blocks around the neighborhood to make sure Dunkirk wasn’t lurking.

Lucy had spotted him the night Mal was last with Danny, throwing a wrench into his plans for the evening.

Dunkirk had high-tailed it when he saw Lucy, but she’d insisted that Mal meet her.

She’d followed him as best she could, but by the time Mal caught up with his sister, she’d lost track of Dunkirk heading into the heart of the city toward his father’s territories.

He was looking for Carla, and he wasn’t going to stop. He knew she didn’t have long before the baby was due. It meant he might get reckless, dangerous, and throw aside the truce that currently resided between the Titans and the Irish.

Mal’s mind was in three different places as he entered the electronics shop—Zeus, the heist, and Sean Dunkirk’s idiocy. Mal didn’t mind mixing business with pleasure, but business and unpleasantness was plain annoying. Unpleasantness that disrupted his pleasure was even worse.

A couple other customers were in the shop today, so when Arty spotted Mal, he nodded and said, “If you’re checking on your order with Priestly, he’s in the back.”

Offering his thanks, he slipped quietly through the curtain. Priestly was hard at work at one of the tables, tinkering with a thin black cuff using the tiniest set of tools Mal had ever seen, like the kind used to fix a screw on a pair of glasses.

“Ask and ye shall receive. That mine?” Mal said.

Priestly didn’t look up. “You’re early.”

“Not expecting miracles, Hart. Just checking in.”

“A few more days, then you can test it. Otherwise, breathing down my neck doesn’t make me work any faster.” Finally, he glanced up after setting the cuff aside. “Unless you have a complaint about the aesthetics, and in that case…too bad. I like what I came up with, and I’m not changing it.”

Mal snorted. He had an MO with the people who worked with him, who were closest to him—they challenged him every step of the way but were loyal to a fault.

Craning his neck to inspect the cuff, Mal noted that it could easily be mistaken for a fashion statement with its delicate design. It was nothing like the power-dampening handcuffs the police used or the amplifiers the feds gave their pet Elementals.

The governments of the world didn’t like people with powers living free. Elementals either stayed in hiding, registered and lived with dampeners permanently, became criminals, or agreed to use their abilities in defense of their country.

“Why, my dear Prometheus, what have you been up to lately?” Priestly said with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. “Or should I say who ?”

Straightening instantly, Mal hadn’t realized that his stance while examining the cuff allowed one of his many marks from Danny to peek out of his shirt. “That’s personal, Hart. And I’ll ask that you not tell my sister about it if you see her before I do. Though she suspects I have a regular.”

“Didn’t think you dated.”

“I don’t. Conflict of interest most of the time. This is recreation only.”

“Lucky you. I could use some recreation,” Priestly sighed wistfully.

“Any particular reason you’re not pursuing any?” Casting his gaze toward the front of the shop, Mal didn’t mean to get involved, but he couldn’t help his curiosity. Lucy said it was his big brother complex, which he vehemently denied.

Priestly took a moment to process what Mal had implied. “Please. Arty is so…lowbrow.”

“And you’re a snob. I know. But every beauty needs a tumble with a beast now and again. As long as he’s a gentle beast in the bedroom, or else I’ll have to ice him on your behalf.”

That pulled a real smile from Priestly; Mal always managed a few. “I can take care of myself. But thanks. The thing about you, Cho,” he pushed back from the table and summoned some of his flirtatious nature, “is I can never tell if you’re the beauty or the beast when it comes to your sex life.”

“I like to play both sides,” Mal said honestly, “depending on my mood. And my partner.”

“Is that a cultured versus uncultured rebuttal or a sign of your sexuality?” Priestly eyed him just shy of devilish.

Chuckling, Mal leaned in closer to the kid. “This beast you want nothing to do with, Hart. Trust me.”

Priestly rolled his eyes as if disappointed, but Mal could read deeper into his tells; he didn’t want Mal other than harboring a passing crush. But Arty… “Well,” he interrupted Mal’s thoughts, “whatever beauty does have your attention, they certainly don’t have much restraint with their mouth.”

That was true enough. And Danny was indeed a beauty. Endearingly charming. Sexy. Not to mention dirty. And sad.

Mal shouldn’t be affected by that knowledge.

Shouldn’t want to know the reasons behind the darkness in the depths of Danny’s eyes these days or why his smile quivered, struggling to be real.

Mal had thought he was reading too much into it, imagining that his hero had some edges to him that hadn’t been there before—until the other night.

The glass. The way Danny’s careful facade had cracked like the shards and he’d been honest with Mal for a moment—really honest. Mal’s affair was with Zeus, but Danny had made a brief appearance that night, before sliding effortlessly back into his masked persona.

Mal could…use that. Yes. That’s what he should do with the knowledge that Danny was faltering enough with some aspect of his life that he’d chosen to seek solace in an enemy. Mal could turn that to his advantage if things got complicated. He could… He…

“Cho?”

Mal looked up to find Priestly staring at him, amused but also questioning. Mal didn’t know what he would do about Danny. He didn’t have a plan. He always had a plan. He needed to come up with one, and quickly, but when he was with Danny, his usual common sense and meticulous focus eluded him.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket, and he avoided Priestly’s stare by checking it. Speak of the devil.

You free tonight? Danny had texted.

“Just focus on finishing those amplifiers, Hart, and the comms,” Mal said, tucking his phone away until he could answer Danny privately. “I’ll be back with Dom soon.”

“You got it, boss,” Priestly said. “This heist will be one to remember.”

Mal didn’t doubt that for a second.

?

Danny clutched his phone in his hands to keep from throwing it. It had only been a few days since he and Cho were last together, but while blowjobs on Cho’s sofa had been nice, hot , they weren’t enough.

Can’t tonight. Tomorrow?

Patrol. Can’t miss it again. Not after a second heist yesterday from our mystery thief.

Long lunch break?

Danny exhaled a laugh as he swiftly responded, You obviously don’t know what it’s like in a police station.

Actually…

Somehow, Cho still managed to make Danny smile, but it was the promises the man made about what he’d do to Danny the next time they were together that kept him up at night.

I’ll find a time. Keep me posted if anything changes for you.

Eager, Sparky?

The captain’s been riding my ass all week. Would prefer it was you.

Keep thinking about me. Maybe I’ll call later and ask what you’re wearing.

Danny nearly did throw his phone, because Cho’s teases only made it worse. He sent back a middle finger emoji and Cho responded with a smiley face. Dick.

Setting his phone aside, Danny got back to work. The Invisible Man, as Andre had taken to calling the new thief in Olympus, had struck again, leaving almost as much lacking evidence as the first case. They had only two things to go on.

The first was the location of the heist, Olympus City Glassworks: a glass and mirror shop, small, but with enough expensive merchandise that their safe held a great deal of cash during the day.

Which was part of the mystery; the heist had taken place before the manager brought the money to the bank, during shop hours. It had to be an inside job.

But then came the second clue: a Virgil Labs business card planted inside the empty safe; generic, no one’s name on it, but enough to act as a calling card that yes, this was the same thief as from the previous week.

Captain Shan had insisted that all of the Virgil Labs employees be vetted a second time, while Danny and his father also looked into the glassworks’ list of current and former employees. They’d split the list in two, which wasn’t long, but Danny was only halfway through his portion.

Pausing in the grunt work, Danny peeked at a different set of files on his desk, hidden beneath a stack of evidence forms—a few old case files on Malcolm Cho.

Anything that had happened this past year, Danny knew intimately.

He and Rick had even gone after Cho once as the Elemental Task Force, though while they’d been able to pin the case on Cho, they hadn’t caught him.

There were several other cases from before that time that Danny knew about, but he’d purposely dug up a few reports he wasn’t familiar with in case he could use anything to his advantage.

Pulling out the files, he looked at them now.

The first was an old B&E from before Cho was known as Prometheus.

He and Dominque Drake had been caught red-handed by police attempting to break into a home in one of the ritzier neighborhoods of Olympus City.

Drake had injured several officers, but Cho held back from doing any permanent damage.

He’d given up once they were surrounded.

With his powers, he easily could have escaped if he didn’t care about collateral damage.

It was instances like that that had made Danny so sure Cho wasn’t all bad when he first encountered him as Zeus.