Page 4 of The Bounty (Redemption Inc.)

Three

Only one job.

That one job was going on twenty-eight days now and had included stops clear across Europe, all to end up in the most horribly predictable place possible.

Vienna.

At one of Wags’s favorite pubs, no less.

He should have just parked his arse here to start and waited for the bounty to come to him.

He’d put out the call to his connections, bartenders included, and Ernie, who owned this particular pub near Vienna’s city center, had called him yesterday about a person fitting his bounty’s description.

Sure enough, as Wags slid onto the stool behind a waiting seltzer and lime, he spied his target in the adjoining game room, shooting pool with a couple of guys, tourists if the maroon West Ham kits they wore were any indication.

Wags had to hand it to the kid. He’d covered his tracks well, using his forgery skills and stash of cryptocurrency to stay a step ahead of Wags and the other law enforcement agencies—and criminals—after him.

So why risk exposure now? Did he think himself far enough ahead?

Granted, he’d used fake papers to enter the country, but neither he nor exhaustion had changed his appearance much.

Long, dark top strands that fell over the shaved sides of his head, kohl-lined eyes, a scruffy beard, and painted nails.

Even shy of six feet, he stood out, and Austria was the second most likely place where someone would recognize Blaine Anthony.

He was the son of a once powerful US congressman, Stewart Anthony, who’d been a presidential hopeful and surrogate son to the late Charles Sanders, an Austrian trafficker in philanthropist’s clothing and the head of the criminal organization Wags had helped Marsh and Levi take down.

With Blaine’s help. Blaine was supposed to be in protective custody pending the conclusion of his father’s prolonged circus of a trial and pending his own sentencing for fraud and digital forgery, but he’d slipped his leash a month ago.

“That your boy?” Ernie asked, his Aussie brogue thick, as he slid a steaming-hot Scotch egg and basket of golden-brown chips in front of him.

He dipped one of the crinkle-cut potatoes into the ramekin of ranch—bless the Americans, and bless Ernie for his Aussie, British, American mashup of a pub—and popped it into his mouth. “That’s him. He showed up yesterday?”

Ernie nodded. “Hustled a couple of regulars last night. Targeting the tourists tonight,” he said, the good humor fading from his brogue. He rested his forearms on the bar top, leaning closer and lowering his voice. “Would appreciate you getting him outta here before more serious trouble follows.”

Meaning Ernie knew exactly who he was, even if the tourists didn’t.

Wags picked up one half of the egg. “Let me just savor this taste of ho?—”

Raised voices in a dialect he knew well carried from the game room, the tourists tossing their cues onto the pool table and crowding into Blaine’s space, reaching for the wad of bills Blaine had snatched off the rail.

Wags cursed. The last thing any of them needed was for Blaine to draw more attention.

Regretfully surrendering the piping-hot egg, Wags snagged another chip from the basket before sliding off his stool.

He skirted the edge of the dance floor, then weaved through the audience gathering to witness a potential brawl.

Wags couldn’t let that happen.

Taking a gamble and channeling every bit of Marsh he could muster, he covered his Cockney with a Texas drawl and sidled beside Blaine, throwing an arm over his shoulders and eyeing the two Hammer fans. “There a problem here?”

“Your son hustled us,” the more brutish of the two East Londoners spat.

Wags opened his mouth to try and deescalate the situation, but Blaine swerved in a different direction, snaking an arm around his waist and nestling closer against his side. “Not my dad.”

The implication was clear, and the shock that painted the tourists’ faces was priceless.

Would have made Wags laugh in any other circumstance.

Almost made him cheer in this case when the two strangers took a step back.

Wanting another of those, Wags kissed the side of Blaine’s head, playing along with his ruse. “Did you hustle them, baby?”

Blaine’s shrug was pure rich-kid insolence, and the brutish one’s fist clenched. Wags needed to end this now.

He kept an arm around Blaine but dropped the fake accent, unfurling his real one. “I’d think a couple of guys from the East End would know better.”

The brutish one blanched, but the tall, skinny one lifted his chin. “Doesn’t change the fact that he hustled us.”

“For how much?”

“Five hundred euros.”

Wags caught the nice job that was on the tip of his tongue, opting instead for diplomacy. “You should have known better,” he reiterated to the Hammers, then to Blaine, “And you shouldn’t have gone so high. Give ’em back two-fifty.”

Neither party looked happy, but they’d avoided a brawl. Blaine handed back half the money, and the onlookers dispersed. With his arm still over Blaine’s shoulders, Wags directed him toward the back exit. “Let’s get out of here.”

Once they were in the alley behind the pub, the door slamming shut behind them, Blaine surprised him again, maneuvering around to his front and dropping his voice several octaves. “So what do I owe you for that?” He gazed up at him with dark, bloodshot eyes. “A little hand action? A blowjob?”

Heat and awareness exploded between them, and Wags rocked back on his heels.

He wasn’t blind. Blaine was an attractive man, compact and leanly muscled, with a firm arse that Wags had most certainly not noticed when he’d been bent over that pool table.

Like he also hadn’t noticed the exposed strip of smooth, pale skin between the waistband of his jeans and the hem of his hoodie.

Because Blaine was his target, a case file.

And Blaine had absolutely zero idea who he was.

Risky on all counts. Riskier even than the tourists he’d just run off.

“Maybe I rescued you out of the goodness of my heart.”

“Don’t,” Blaine said. “I tried that. Never works out.” He closed the distance between them, forcing Wags back a step, then another, until his back hit the wall.

“So back to my original question…” He flattened his palms on Wags’s abs and coasted them up his torso, fingertips under the lapels of his denim jacket, hands spreading closer to his nipples—and fuck, if he teased them, Wags would have no hope of not rutting forward.

There’d been no one since he and Philippe had separated.

His body—his cock, more precisely—was fighting his brain for control of this situation.

Take Blaine up on his tempting offer, or do the right thing and take him into custody. Get him to safety.

Blaine pressing his hard body along his, the impressive length of his cock against Wags’s hip, was not helping.

Wags bit his bottom lip, libido racing. Fuck, what a young man with stamina could do with a piece like that.

How it would fill his mouth, heavy on his tongue.

How hard and long he could fuck him with it.

And what the hell did a young man like Blaine see in a washed-up, middle-aged divorcé like him?

His mind latched on to that last question, to those undeniable facts, and he forced out the words he needed to say to defuse the escalating heat between them. “We shouldn’t. I’m fifteen years older than you, and?—”

Blaine rocked his hips forward. “That doesn’t—” He froze, eyes growing wide. “Wait, how do you know how old I am?”

“Blaine…” His eyes grew wider still, and Wags realized his slip. Two pieces of information—age and name—a stranger wouldn’t know. “Shit.”

And the runner was off again, ripping out of his arms and toward the street.

He barely made it a few steps, though, before two men appeared from around the corner, blocking his exit.

Distinctly not tourists. Big and muscled, with tattoos on their knuckles and weapons in harnesses beneath their coats.

Cursing, Blaine spun back in Wags’s direction and did the last thing Wags expected, pinning him against the wall again and craning up so his lips brushed his cheek, his whisper hot in Wags’s ear. “Can you protect me from them too?”

And then Blaine’s lips were on his. Chapped and warm, firm and demanding, forcing Wags to open for his tongue that swept inside, tangling with his in a groan-inducing kiss that Wags ached to drown in.

Like he ached to run his hands all over Blaine’s body, to bury his face between those firm cheeks he’d most certainly noticed, to ride his arse and spill his come all over it.

“Now they won’t suspect you,” Blaine whispered against his lips before ending the fantasy and ripping himself out of Wags’s arms again. He darted back inside the bar, leaving Wags a lust-fueled mess.

Alone in the alley, facing down the pair of advancing thugs.

But as lust-dazed as Wags was, he realized what Blaine had just done for him.

Provided cover. So when he swaggered into the way of the two men, he played it up like he’d done inside with the tourists, pretending to be drunk and left hanging.

Not a stretch, his erection fighting a war with his jeans.

“I didn’t even get his name…” Pouting, he fell back against the door and stroked his cock, going for more shock value.

And just like with the tourists inside, he got the reaction he wanted. The thugs rolled their eyes and turned on their heels, exiting the alley and rounding the corner toward the front of the pub.

“No use!” he called out. After twenty-eight days, he knew the drill. Blaine was long gone. And this time, Wags had been the one who helped him escape. He rested his head back against the door and closed his eyes. “Fuck.”