Holding Out for a Fairy Tale Read online

  Published by A.J. Thomas Books, LLC.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Holding Out for a Fairy Tale

  © 2014 A.J. Thomas.

  Cover Art

  © 2014 Brooke Albrecht.

  http://brookealbrechtstudio.blogspot.com.

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only

  and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact A.J. Thomas Books, LLC, at [email protected].

  Printed in the United States of America

  Second Edition

  October, 2019

  Ray smiled against the other man’s lips, laughing as they crashed through his bedroom door and tumbled onto the bed in a tangle of limbs. He pulled the man on top of him, so he was wedged between the man’s legs, then ran his hands up thighs and over denim. He bucked his hips up, enjoying the friction of the other man’s ass against him. He was about to pull his date down for another kiss when he saw the uneven shades of gray silhouetted against the door. He rolled for his gun.

  He didn’t spare a moment. The only person who had a key to his apartment was over a thousand miles away, and he had never come into Ray’s bedroom, even when Ray had wanted him to. Ray grabbed the loaded Glock he kept under his pillow and rolled off the bed, firing into the dark doorway. Knowing he only had seconds, he rolled into a low crouch against his closet door and lined up for a second shot. The gray outline of the intruder had moved.

  Ray was vaguely aware of his date screaming, but he could block out the noise. He focused on the moving shadow. Whoever it was, they were fast, evading the first shot by lunging to the side, putting Ray’s date between them.

  “Stop shooting or she dies,” a callous voice shouted in the darkness.

  “That’s a man, you moron,” Ray snapped.

  “A man?”

  Ray’s date started screaming again, and in the darkness, Ray could see him kneeling on the bed, right where he had been before, with his head jerked back painfully. “Okay, then. Stop shooting or he dies. And really, Raymond, if I wanted you dead, I’d have killed you years ago.”

  He knew that voice. From childhood memories of sun-drenched basketball courts and a hundred lazy afternoons at their grandmother’s house, Ray would always know his cousin’s voice. Unfortunately, he knew Alejandro Munoz well enough to have no delusions about the man. Alejandro would have no qualms about saying he was there to talk and then shooting him in the head the moment he let his guard down. Of course, he also wouldn’t hesitate to shoot through the man he was using as a human shield either.

  He pulled the slide on his pistol back to shift another round into the chamber. Keeping the pistol trained on the bulky outline crouched behind his terrified date, Ray sidestepped toward the door, hoping to get a clear shot. Alejandro turned Ray’s date to stay behind him.

  “I’m serious, Raymond. I need your help,” said Alejandro.

  “I won’t help you.” Ray spat the words he felt as if he’d been repeating for a lifetime. “Get the fuck out!”

  “It’s not about me.” Alejandro’s growl made the man frozen between them yelp, his head jerked backward even farther as Alejandro’s fingers tugged at his hair. “You know everything is blowing up? That those Garcia fuckers are trying to push me out?”

  Ray knew all too well that the Tijuana drug cartel had descended into chaos. The DEA had arrested the last of Ray’s great uncles, who had shared leadership of the most powerful drug cartel in Tijuana, just a few years ago. Now the leadership of the cartel was up for grabs, and all the different families who could claim kinship with the cartel leaders were grappling for power, including Ray and Alejandro’s family, and enemy cartels from other parts of Mexico. The prize was control over the flow of virtually all narcotics pouring into California.

  “I don’t give a fuck. Whoever tries to move in, I’ll arrest them too.”

  “You think you’re safe? You think any of us is?” Alejandro laughed. “They’ve taken Sophia. She vanished on her way to class two weeks ago. Do you want Carmen and her kids to be next?”

  Ray kept his gun steady even though his vision was beginning to narrow as tunnel vision set in. He forced himself to take several long, slow breaths. Sophie Munoz, the youngest of Alejandro’s siblings, was one of his many cousins. Like every teenager, she’d had trouble getting along with her parents and her brothers, and so she’d been shuffled among extended family until she finally settled in and found a place with Ray’s sister Carmen. Sophie had spent most of high school living with Ray’s little sister, helping Carmen with her kids and watching old science fiction flicks with Ray. The extra help had made it possible for Carmen to finish her nursing degree, and in return, Carmen had been helping Sophie through school. Even though Sophie was fifteen years younger than him, Ray and Sophie had always been friends. At twelve, he’d kept her entertained by writing little video games that ran on her graphing calculator. At thirteen, she’d learned enough about Java programming to put those games on her new cell phone, complete with full-color graphic interfaces and expanded levels. She was nothing short of a genius, and since she was the only other member of his family who had resolved never to have anything to do with the Tijuana criminal organization their great uncles had once controlled, Ray had more in common with her than anyone else in his family.

  “Do not threaten Carmen, Alejandro. If anything happened to Sophie, I’d have heard about it. I’m more of a brother to her than you ever were.”

  “You think I don’t know that? I just heard about it,” Alejandro continued. “One of her professors reported her disappearance to the police, and because she’s my sister they handed the case over to the FBI. They’re not even looking for her, just watching me.”

  “Did they watch you break in here? Because if those fuckers are out there laughing, I’m going to shoot them in the head.”

  Alejandro scoffed. “They think they’re watching me….”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I told you, Esteban Garcia’s trying to push me out. I can’t tell you the details, but he set me up to look like a traitor just so he can take over my fucking territory once and for all. I can’t look for her without handing myself over to the feds because they’re hovering around her dorm.”

  “Why would they go after her? She’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “She’s family.”

  Ray shifted to a two-handed grip as his right arm began to shake under the weight of the gun. He sidestepped again, hoping Alejandro wouldn’t notice. His cousin moved his human shield to match him. The man he’d brought home tonight was trembling, probably hyperventilating, and blubbering all over his bed. Ray sighed. He knew he’d have to change his sheets anyway, but he was kind of hoping he’d get laid first.

  “No,” said Ray. “I’m calling bullshit. Sophie’s missing, and you just happen to hear about it before me or Carmen? And you come up with all this cra
p about Esteban Garcia targeting you? You’re trying to start a fight. Is she actually missing, or did you arrange it?”

  “You insult me, Raymond. You think I would exploit my own sister’s kidnapping just to have an excuse to pick a fight?”

  “No.” Ray shook his head. “That’s not your style. I think you would orchestrate your own sister’s kidnapping for an excuse to pick a fight. Especially if it meant going back to the way things used to be.” Back to the ever-escalating violence that shocked every other Mexican drug cartel into leaving Tijuana and San Diego alone. Alejandro had been in his element during those years, indulging every perverse and disgusting creative impulse that arose in his mind. With all of the old leadership in jail, a tense peace had been established, even though the Tijuana drug cartel had become little more than a puppet empire ruled over by their former rival, a massive central Mexican cartel controlled by a drug lord named Esteban Garcia.

  Over the last month, Ray had been hearing rumors that Alejandro’s dealers were trying to track down someone who’d siphoned millions of dollars from dummy accounts they used to launder money before sending a sizeable chunk of the money off to Garcia. Since only Alejandro’s own enforcers had access to the accounts, his own men were all on edge, wondering which of them was guilty and which he would kill just on the chance that they were guilty. Ray knew the smart ones were hedging their bets, making side deals with Esteban Garcia’s enforcers, in hopes of surviving no matter which man came out on top in what was shaping up to be an all-out war.

  In the darkness, Alejandro’s chuckle grew into a full-blown laugh. “I think I should be grateful that you broke with us when you did, Raymond. If you hadn’t betrayed us, poor old Garcia and I would be doomed to be your lackeys. If I thought the way you do, I wouldn’t have to pick a fight to accomplish anything.”

  “Are you really trying to suggest that you’re the victim here?”

  “Raymond, you might not believe this, but I prefer things as they are now. Peace has its advantages. But not everyone likes it. Do you think Garcia is happy taking a cut of everything that moves through San Diego when he can reach out and take it all?”

  Ray narrowed his eyes. “If Sophie gets hurt because of you—”

  “I want to get her home alive and in once piece. Find her. Or at least find out what the FBI knows?”

  “Let him go and get out of my place.” Ray nodded toward the door.

  “When there’s a wall between us.” Alejandro dragged Ray’s date off the bed by his hair. “Hey, when did you start doing men? Did you piss off every woman in San Diego?”

  “What fucking business is that of yours?” Ray followed Alejandro’s movements with the barrel of his gun.

  Alejandro chuckled. “None. I tried a guy once. I didn’t see the appeal. It’s not what I’d expect from you, that’s all.”

  He was glad it was too dark for anyone to see him roll his eyes. “Get the fuck out!”

  Alejandro backed down the hallway, keeping Ray’s date between them. As soon as they made it to the living room, Alejandro threw the terrified young man back toward the bedroom and bolted out the door.

  Ray just had time to move his finger to the trigger guard before his date tumbled into him. He scooped the man up and set him on his feet, then began gingerly touching his hair and back, checking for wet spots where Alejandro might have ripped his hair out. “Are you hurt?”

  “Am I hurt?” The man’s voice was a high-pitched shriek. “You fucking psychopath, you nearly shot me!”

  Ray chewed on his lower lip for a moment. He knew he hadn’t come remotely close to shooting his date. He’d rolled away before firing to make sure the bullet went behind him. He’d pulled the shot too far to the left to actually hit Alejandro just to avoid even the possibility of grazing the other man. The bullet, Ray was certain, would be embedded in the left side of the doorframe. It was possible the bullet casing had hit him when it was ejected from the chamber, but he was pretty sure he’d been far enough away that the casing would be somewhere in his sheets. Still, that wasn’t the type of reassurance called for.

  Ray smirked, realizing the situation didn’t call for reassurance at all. “Blaine, I’m sorry you had to go through this. I know—”

  “Blaine? It’s Bruce!” The man stumbled away from him, his eyes narrowing. His hunched posture straightened, and he dropped his hands to his side. He didn’t relax his curled fingers, but he clenched them into fists at his side rather than holding them up to instinctively guard his face. “You sick fuck! After all that, you can’t even remember my name?” He shoved Ray away from him. “Are you going to call the police or what? And can we turn a goddamned light on?”

  Ray batted Bruce’s hand away from the hallway light switch. “Yes, but wait. Let me sweep the rest of the apartment first. I don’t want to kill my night vision and then walk into a dark room if I’m not sure that it’s secure.”

  “What? Who the fuck thinks like that? Someone broke into your place, held a gun to my head, and you’re worried about your night vision!”

  Ray sighed. Maybe getting the man angry wasn’t the best approach. “I’ll take care of it, okay?”

  Bruce rubbed his hands over his face, obviously disturbed. He eventually took a deep breath. “Okay.” Bruce nodded. “I’ll call the police while you’re—”

  Ray froze as he stepped back into the dark hall. He didn’t want to imagine what the rest of his evening might look like now. Calling in the shooting and the break-in would mean he and Bruce would both have to give statements, and his would have to include an explanation about who Bruce was, why he was in Ray’s apartment, and why he was in Ray’s bed.

  Ray didn’t have anything personal against admitting that he enjoyed the company of men as well as women, but working alongside an openly gay partner for four years had shown him just how little tolerance his fellow detectives had for gay police officers. They had put up with his partner because he’d been friendly, likable, and so much better at their job than everyone else, that anything else would come across as petty, jealous bullshit. But he had also been honest about it from the start. They already didn’t like Ray, but they trusted him enough to be able to work with him. If he came out as bisexual, every officer he worked with would be left wondering what else he had lied about over the years. They would never trust him again. Deep down, he suspected he really was a complete bastard and that their mistrust was probably justified. He tended to color the truth at the best of times. On a professional level, though, he couldn’t afford to lose their trust.

  “Hold off a second,” Ray shifted his pistol to his left hand and took Bruce by the elbow. “It might be best if I call it in. You said you wouldn’t be able to stay the night because you’ve got an early shift. If you’re still here when they show up, you’re going to be stuck giving statements until dawn.”

  “Someone broke into your place and held a gun to my head!”

  “And he’s long gone.” Ray used the same gentle tone he might use with a frightened witness. “I’m sorry you had to go through this, but spending the night being interrogated at the police station will only make it worse. I’m a police officer. I can take care of filing the report tonight. You’ll be called to testify when we arrest him, of course.”

  Ray knew Bruce was already tired, he’d already had a few drinks, and the fight-or-flight response that had him trembling was tapering off. The adrenaline was fading, and Bruce was already starting to crash. He was too tired to argue, too tired to think.

  “You… You can handle the whole police report thing?’

  “Absolutely.” Ray wrapped his arm around the man’s shoulders. “And I’ll call you tomorrow, just to follow up and make sure you’re all right.” He steered Bruce toward the door.

  Ray ducked his head into the hallway to make sure it was empty, then walked Bruce to the elevator, keeping his pistol in his hand as discreetly as possible. “I just wish our evening had gone better. Hazards of a career in law enforcement,” he lied
. “Maybe we could pick up where we left off sometime next week?”

  Bruce gaped at him. “You’re unbelievable. You nearly shoot me, forget my name, and now you’re still trying to get laid?”

  “You’re right, that was kind of crass.” Ray slipped his arm off Bruce’s shoulders. He slipped his hand down Bruce’s arm, took his hand, and kissed his knuckles. “Get some rest. I’m sure you’ll be all right.”

  Five minutes later, Ray had secured his apartment, turned on the lights, bolted the door, and set the intrusion alarm. Having stumbled in trying to get Bruce naked as quickly as possible, he hadn’t bothered with the alarm earlier. He found the spent shell casing in his sheets, right where he expected it and made a mental note to buy wood filler to patch the hole he’d made in the doorframe. Then he pulled out his laptop and began to comb through his cousin Sophie’s social media accounts. The pages and accounts where she had posted hourly status updates since she turned thirteen hadn’t been updated in fourteen days. He tried calling her cell phone, not caring about the time. It went straight to voice mail. He pulled up a GPS application that usually pinpointed her location, but it couldn’t find her phone.

  Frustrated, he tried calling her dorm room on the University of California campus, but there was no answer there either. She had paid extra for a single room, so she didn’t even have a roommate he could question. Despite not being able to get in touch with Sophie, Ray refused to worry.

  He sent a text message to his sister, instead. Thirty seconds later, his phone rang.

  “You are awake.” Ray tried to keep his tone casual.

  “Of course I’m awake!”

  Ray pulled the phone away from his ear as his sister shrieked over the frantic sobs and cries of what sounded like an entire army of worried mothers.

  “Aunt Louisa’s been here going through Sophie’s room since noon. Now she’s crying at my kitchen table. Mama and everyone are here. Do you know Sophie’s missing?”