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Arrest Me [Sekah & Prythian]

Sekah

Star
Joined
Jul 25, 2021
Location
Your mom's house.
Taiga was at a scientific presentation held in the music hall really intended more for professionals in the field, seated up in a private box in the VIP section. He'd wanted to be alone today, and what that meant in mafia terms was going out with only one bodyguard, instead of five. Besides, Martin Palmer was a violent, physically imposing gorilla with a thunderous scowl and heavy eyebrows above his eternal shades. He looked like no one you wanted to mess with.

Taiga was watching the talk with greedy eyes, a small notebook in his lap with neatly printed lines of Japanese, his mother tongue, as he sketched down notes about the presentation.

His highest level of schooling was only high school. He'd been kidnapped before he went to college. Things like this, events open to the public, reading academic journals thirstily, were the only way he could sate his curiosity about the world, and desire to know more about the cutting edge advancements of the day.

Taiga sighed, pausing to take a sip from his complimentary bottle of water and replace it when the door behind him to the private box slammed open.

"Down on the ground!" a cop shouted, the ringing voice and cracking door drawing the attention of all the scientists and enthusiasts out in the half-full audience. The speaker turned on the podium, his surprised exclamation echoing over the speakers.

Most of the magic-sealing darts hit Palmer, who stared at them with his brooding eyebrows high. In his surprise at his loss of magic, the cops had time to stream in, guns at the ready, pointed directly at Palmer and Taiga's vitals.

"Get on your knees, hands behind your head," a cop said. Taiga obediently put his hands behind his head, his notebook sliding out of his lap as he knelt prettily.

Martin followed a moment later, his knees thunking on the ground like they were made of wood. Prison was usually finite; a bullet was permanent.

The anti-magic dart was still embedded in Taiga's shoulder. The wound burned. The loss of his own hidden magic was sickening, made him nauseous. His stomach churned. He refused to show it, because that would be a very grave mistake.

You didn't let it be known that you were an unregistered magic user and get away with it scott free.

Officers cuffed Martin, reading him his rights, explaining his warrants. Two counts of assault and battery against a woman Taiga recognized as Palmer's girlfriend.

Taiga's lips pulled down in a frown. He closed his eyes for a moment, unexpectedly sad. Martin's arrest probably wouldn't stick, and he'd be welcomed back into Gula's folds as a hero.

The girlfriend had caused the apprehension of a Kairos Vice Lord. She would die. Any children would die. Every relative she had would die, too. Granted, Taiga knew he'd be understaffed and had nothing on his person or in his car they could book him with—and there wasn't probable cause for a warrant. He had no idea who this girlfriend was, and they wouldn't get anything on Palmer other than that unless they found drugs in his apartment or something similar. None of it had enough to do with Taiga that a warrant for his home would be justified. On top of that, he saw no less than two Kairos informants in the milieu of cops coming and going. If a warrant was begged for and issued, Gula loyals would have gone through and disposed of anything prosecutable long before the cop cars wailed up the driveway.

A cop came up with his gun out. He ordered Taiga to stand, and turn. He grabbed Taiga's wrists and pulled them down to cuff them.

"Am I under arrest, officer?" Taiga asked lightly.

"You've been found in the presence of a suspected felon. We have probable cause. We'd like to bring you down to the precinct to question you." The cop began a pat-down. "Your name, sir? Do you have your driver's license on you?"

Palmer had been relieved of his gun, taser and a knife. He was being led away.

The scientists were all gawping up, many standing. Cops were overseeing an emptying of the cavernous building.

"I'm Taiga Hisoka," he said and watched the ripple go around the cops. The brave ones looked excited at potentially nabbing a Kairos Vice Lord. Most suddenly looked queasy, aware of the threat of three generations of revenge.

The hands of the officer patting him down froze on his hips. A startled little oh flew out of his mouth.

Taiga finally smiled. "Don't lose my notebook, please, officer," he told the man bagging up his science geek notes for evidence.

The cop patting him down still had his hands on the dainty swell of Taiga's famous hips.
 
It was his first quasi-arrest, which was diverting. He'd been in cuffs many times—that part, at least, was perfectly familiar. The anti-magic dart still poked out of his shoulder, a round splotch of blood spreading on his black suit from the nagging, painful wound.

Taiga's eyes were drawn by the commanding voice, amusement in their black depths. He had a small, meaningless smile on, just taunting them all, teasing them with the fact that they were so close to him, had their hands on him, and legally—legally, they had to let him out into the water to swim back to the helpless fish to tear them apart with the callousness of any shark.

He knew the rising stars of the cops in New York—when you're a criminal, knowing who is trying to catch you is a good trait—so he knew this man.

But that wasn't the only reason he knew this man.

He'd talked about him, you know? His big brother, Sterling.

Taiga indicated his inclination to be obliging with a minor nod of his head, that fake little smirk he'd had to practice in the mirror still out. God, what a maddening expression for many. "Captain MacKenzie. A pleasure to put a body to the name. Hate to do this to you, of all people, but . . . "

The pat-down, which the captain's voice had galvanized back into action, now finished. It brought out nothing more exciting than his wallet, his keys, a gold lighter, and a packet of luxury cigarettes. No weapons, no receipts.

As for Taiga's expression, it shuttered into his best poker face. Smooth and empty and almost inhuman—there was no way to tell if he were pleased or upset, scared or nervous. He had perfect control of all his features.

"I would like the counsel of my lawyer. Please call Cravath, Swaine & Moore at 212-474-1000." He named one of the most prestigious law firms in the world. "My lawyer's name is James E. Canning."

The cops had no choice. It was illegal to speak to him until his lawyer showed up. Taiga, for his part, said nothing, calmly ignoring them all and preternaturally graceful if any cops tried to make him stumble as he was moved out to the wagon and transported to the station.

An hour later, James E. Canning, senior attorney of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, walked into the stone-silent interrogation room they'd put Taiga in, dignified despite his hurry. He was a perfectly pleasant man with white hair who looked to be someone's grandfather. There was nothing oily or sleazy about him. Just looking at him, his smile invited trust. You could almost feel the charisma that had made many juries pardon guilty men who'd been caught red-handed.

No sooner did he arrive than he squared off against the cops. "My client is injured," he said, sounding so righteous a few cops dipped their eyes in actual shame, pointing out the stiff spot around the dart still in his shoulder, the spots of blood staining Taiga's white collar. "Are you denying him medical treatment?"

A medic was called, and the dart finally removed. After that, Taiga just leaned back, face still utterly controlled, and watched the goings on.

For the next three hours, he said not a single word. All the questions they tried to ask him, all the intimidations they attempted, he seemed to the cops barely to notice.

Oh, he did notice them. He was alert and aware and following every line of questioning and attempted push to gain information that would lead to probable cause for a warrant.

But the cops couldn't hold anyone without a warrant and without a reason to arrest more than four hours, and no matter what they tried, merely being in the presence of a man suspected of a felony meant less than nothing when no part of that felony could be linked back to Taiga.

They reached the end of the holding period, and Mr. Canning, Esq. made a point of checking his 25,000 dollar watch. "You have not produced a judge's warrant." Most of the cops in the room looked tired, but despite talking for three hours straight, Mr. Canning looked fresh and innocent as a daisy. "You have no more ability to hold my client. I assume you will follow the law, and let him leave?"
 
Taiga smiled. "But I wouldn't have missed this for the world, Captain," he assured him.

He got up and dusted himself off, brushing by the cops who'd just spent four hours trying to pry something useful out of him.

When the mobster and his lawyer were gone, Tisu Bagci leaned back and groaned.

"What a cock-sucking bitch," someone snarled.

"Language," Tisu reminded mildly, and several men laughed at him. He walked up to the Captain hesitantly, a silent, strong support at his back. He crossed his big arms, as stolid and huge as a boulder, and just as steady. "He got away, looks like. Do you want to come into the back room and have some coffee, Ster—Cap?"

Taiga, meanwhile, was offered documents in the impound lot, but of course he didn't just sign. With the competence of any businessman, he read what he was about to print his name to. Leafing through the sheath, he found it wasn't a trap, and the lines of his name in kanji were formed at the bottom.

That done, he was brought down into the impound lot and his car unhooked. Taiga unlocked his flashy two-seat blue Lamborghini and spent a moment unfolding a pair of designer sunglasses, which he pressed to his eyes.

He had to get back home and muster a security detail before he got shot or kidnapped for the second time in his life.

The door closed, the Lamborghini slid out of the parking lot and up to the top of the lot.

The brief catching of Taiga Hisoka was over quick as it'd begun, and with no sense of cosmic justice, Taiga was belting along with Vroom Vroom by Charli XCX as his blue Lamborghini hugged curves and roared down the streets. It had begun to rain, so the top was up.
 
Tisu grunted once, his face somewhat impassive, but he reached out and clapped Sterling on the shoulder before the captain left. His hand was big, and warm, but the force of it was enough to make a man stagger.

He watched Sterling leave, stepping out of the emptying interrogation room to follow his retreating form. He didn't know why. Something about the man's affect, something about the way he talked, moved—Tisu felt the need to keep an eye on him.

That watchful, thoughtful gaze traced the last place he saw Sterling, and finally he shook himself out of it. There was a precinct to run; Tisu wouldn't let Sterling's trust in him go to waste.



The music abruptly shut off. Taiga thought his iPhone had disconnected until he realized the gas pedal didn't respond to his foot. The car is malfunctioning, he thought and tried to turn it over to the corner, but the steering wheel wasn't controlling the car's movements at all.

Taiga's heartbeat sped up, wondering if someone had tampered with his car. A turn was coming up, a concrete wall. Taiga tried to direct the car, but it wouldn't—the wheels turned. They followed the road as naturally as if Taiga was behind the wheel, but Taiga's directions weren't halting it.

Taiga took his hands off the wheel and his foot off the pedal. He unbuckled himself. He took off his sunglasses so they wouldn't shatter under a punch and cut into his eyes.

The bulletproof glass was unbreakable. He didn't need the clicks to know he wasn't getting out of this lambo that easy.

His eyes roved the streets to see who the fuck was doing this shit.

Suddenly, his decision to go out today without a weapon was looking very bad indeed. He cursed his luck and kicked the door of the lambo, trying to force it open, trying to escape.

The car was built to withstand crashes. A man's leg wouldn't do jack-shit, apparently. Fuck.
 
"Oh, fuck," Taiga yelped as the car sped full-speed into an alley and started to send him careening towards the unforgiving wall of a concrete warehouse. He grabbed for his seatbelt and tried to click it back in, managing just as the wall came up—

—and the car fishtailed around, the steering wheel spinning, and the car flung around to a stop. Taiga's head snapped down, whiplash hitting him. As the fucking cop captain came over, he rubbed his sore neck and undid the seatbelt, moving into a more defensible position, since the doors opened and closed via electricity, and he thought he might have an inkling on which power this man had.

"Sure wouldn't like to," he said, trying to keep his voice and face light, since he was pretty sure he knew what this was about and this could be unpleasant, and murderous. "But I don't see a terribly clear path out of it, so sure. Let's talk, captain."
 
"This seems a little too extra-judicial to call a lawyer for, don't you think, Captain?"

Taiga clicked the button and the door opened on its own, like a little wing. He made like he was going to get out, set up as if he were, but the moment he was past the point where the car door could be closed and cage him in, he aimed a brutal kick straight at the meat above Sterling's kneecap, intending to disable the leg and drop him to the ground like a stone.
 
His attack grazed by, finding midair, and then a hand on his collar sent him freewheeling out of the car. He slapped the ground, as any fighter knows how to do, to stop himself from being damaged by the fall, and rolled over to try to regain his feet, before a knee slammed into his diaphragm and forced out his breath.

"Oof. Captain, have to say, half the things one does handcuffs are a hell of a lot more fun than I think this conversation is going to be. But fine. I'll play ball."

His hair was falling out of its perfectly slick coif and into loose curls around his head. "Let me up and we can talk this out, dammit."
 
Taiga grunted, squirming under the captain's hand, one of his own going and grabbing over Sterling's knuckles to have some leverage.

"You're going to threaten me with assault of a police officer when your motive is private, petty revenge?" Taiga laughed, though he didn't sound the slightest bit amused. Then he paused, looking Sterling in the eye, weighing him up. "Finn MacKenzie. The boy was kidnapped by Cortez Reyes." He paused, looking up at him, unexpectedly serious. "My ex-husband."

"Cortez took him out. I don't know why," he lied. He was a very good liar, and there wasn't much of anything in the way of tells. "You'll have to ask meu amor's tombstone. Want directions to the graveyard I left him in?"
 
Taiga balked inside. How the hell had he—oh. Right. Electric magic. Probably hacked a surveillance footage or something. "And then I'll reveal to everyone that you're an unregistered magic user, too. You know, after President Trump, they can do the blood test just on suspicion alone."

He crossed his arms. "But I don't care. I'll tell you what you want to know. It has nothing to do with me." It had everything to do with him, but he'd lie to the man for a while about his poor dead little brother, and then they could both be on their way.
 
Taiga grunted as he was hauled up, the asphalt loose and painful under his hand and feet as he stumbled. It was way too damned easy for the man to haul him around, ripping open the car door and throwing him into the passenger seat. That was diverting—Taiga rather thought he was going to end up in the trunk. Taiga started looking around for a weapon, a pistol, a baton, when Sterling reentered, and keyed on the computer.

It was so strange watching a computer operate from someone's mind, fascinating, even. The scientist that Taiga should have been had him leaning forward, looking back and forth between the computer and the technopath, wondering what else he could do with his fantastic powers, and if there were limits to them.

And then he registered who was on the screen, staring him in the face. He leaned back, his face carefully cool, refusing to react, but his heartbeat sped up; his eyes dilated; the fear responses that were just human nature.

"Do you think I have dementia, captain? Of course I recognize my own mother." He paused, his chest tight, trying not to react, knowing he was reacting. When he spoke, his voice was forced. "My family are good people. Not involved with the underworld or whatever you want to call this, not a damn one of them. My brothers are all married, have wives, kids, other than—one." He still missed him, Daiki. So much it ached some days. He'd made a vow never to forgive Cortez for burning his big brother, his wife, their son, who was the same age Taiga was at the time, when Taiga successfully ran away from him. For a moment he was lost in memories of walking back into the hideout he'd escaped from, giving himself up, Cortez's voice still in his head telling him I had to do it, chamaco; you ran. It would happen to any of the merchandise. And touching his cheek, like he cared. His voice had tightened, paused; he hated that it did, but even he, Taiga Hisoka, famous ice queen, was human after all. He turned his heated eyes to Sterling. "You're supposed to be a cop. You took an oath, officer, one I never did. What kind of soldier takes care of a terrorist by visiting his home and targeting his mother?"

His muscles in his jaw visibly worked. He turned away and looked straight ahead. Through the windshield. "I knew him. Years ago, when we were both stupid kids. I don't think you'll be any better off hearing what happened. You should walk away, captain. I don't think you need any more reasons for nightmares. He was taken, he was sold, the man who did it is dead. That's all you need to know."
 
Taiga turned to him, unexpectedly vicious. "I wasn't a piece of shit back then. I was an eighteen-year-old high school senior who got into some great American colleges and ran off to take a plane to America to celebrate. I was so excited to be in New York City and crashing on the couches of people I'd only known online. I was young, and stupid, and reckless, but I wasn't . . . what I am now. Nothing about who I am and what I do was predetermined. You have no idea who I was or who your brother was, either—"

And then he clammed up. He'd said too much. His jaw set and looked back out the windshield. "Apologies. You struck a nerve, Captain." He conceded the point gracefully, like you do in chess.

Then he took out his phone. He fished it out of his coat pocket, and began flipping through it. He slyly attempted to activate a tracker that would let his men know he was in trouble, and where to find him. He found the folder he was looking for. It had been locked behind latent anti-magic tech—Sterling wouldn't have seen it.

But he'd see it now.

"You want to see what happened to your brother? I can show you loads of examples." He scrolled through the videos and found the one he wanted. "You want to see what they do? Here. Any of these videos will tell you. And I don't care about showing them to you, you won't be able to use them as evidence against me."

"They're of me, after all."

"You know, there's over fifty men walking around who think they took my virginity, I was that good at selling it, but they don't actually send you a virgin to those clients; it's always a lie. People don't want a virgin. They don't want a boy to fumble, to not know what to do, to vomit on their cock the second it's in deeper than their tonsils. I was a virgin, and that one," he tapped the video to start it playing and tossed the phone to Sterling, aiming for his lap, "is my first time—even whores have one."

"They lock you in darkness at first—they did then. We don't do this shit now, because I changed it before his body was even cold."

"You don't eat for days. Sometimes they open up the door and give you a little water. They always videotapped every training, because you had to watch them and learn all the habits you were doing that weren't sexy enough and unlearn them. I don't know what your brother's early days were like in his head, but I can tell you we went through it at the same time."

In the video, a door was opened that couldn't have looked out of place in a horror movie, a prison cell in the olden days. Inside, on the small screen of the phone, a boy flinched back and put his hands over his eyes. One arm was grabbed to drag him into the lighted hallway and then his face was visible. It was Taiga, but he was young—shockingly, had a baby face. Young and scared, and nude, bruises stark on his small body, digging in his heels. The boy—it was hard to connect him with the crime boss sitting rigidly beside Sterling—was struck by a brutal punch for refusing to walk.

"You have to ask for everything. Permission to stand. Permission to sit. Permission to go to the bathroom. Permission to eat, permission to drink. Permission to speak. It's to instill in the kid's head that sense of dependence on him."

In the video, the kid suddenly lunged and buried his teeth in his captor's arm. "I was never very good at being obedient. There's sound. You can press it. You want to hear me scream? You blame me for Finn's death? Fuck you. I've faced worse than you in my life. If you want to kill me, kill me. Don't talk me to death."

Manipulation is a difficult skill to learn, and God, Taiga was a master at it. Everything he'd just done, said, other than one moment of slip of control, was intentional. He wanted Sterling to empathize with him. He wanted Sterling to feel the natural horror people did at this, and balk from it, and be dissuaded from whatever plan he had in mind. He was intentionally humanizing himself, and would continue to give all the lurid details Sterling wanted of himself—but not of the end. Not of Sterling's little brother, dead beneath his hands.

Because he had done it. He hadn't had any right to do it. Cortez was furious, and the punishment had been catastrophic. But Taiga couldn't suffer that bitch to live another second. Using something that caused real emotion in Taiga—intentional, to make it easier to act out the scene that would get him out of here, alive, unhurt, and off this man's shit list.
 
"We don't use the hole anymore, Captain, since the new management. People don't go through that. Kidnapping is not our standard entrance fee anymore. I'm not gonna lie and say things are good or glamorous, but it's not usually abject horror anymore, either." Usually—standard—implications that it still happened. Things had gotten better in Gula under his management, but it was still predatory, abusive, people still suffered there. And he didn't have influence over everyone he served and ostensibly controlled—some of his men still did the kind of shit Cortez did, and were too powerful for him to correct. "We don't sell to the kind of Johns who want to leave a corpse, either. Maybe that's what happened to your brother—I don't fucking know." Lie. "I wasn't in a position of power back then. Now what the fuck do you want from me? Huh?"

He never had answered anything on how his brother and him met, or how they'd ended up trafficked together.

"You're barking up the wrong tree. Now what? What's your plan? You want to kill me? You want to ruin me? You think I ought to be a government slave because I have the same affliction you do?" He wanted to make him uncomfortable with the honesty of it. Taiga was doing everything in his power to talk himself out of this car.
 
Taiga watched in the mirror as Sterling's face changed. Relief made him a little dizzy after he succeeded—fuck, what a day that was.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Captain," Taiga said, nodding his head and opening the door. For a second he worried the door would be closed to him, but it opened, and he climbed out with all the haste he could make while still looking pristine. He walked back to his car, already calling one of his men to pick him up. He waited in his wrecked Lambo for his men to respond to the call, which they did. He cursed them out for taking so long, and then he started to tie up loose ends.

It was tying up those loose ends that ended up with him here.

He could have come at any time - when the man wasn't home, when the man was at work.

He could have. But his men had already been through the place at those times. This was about something else.

Taiga always found if you wanted to learn the most about someone, you had to learn about what made them angry - what was worth fighting for - what got them to tic.

He was here, the lock short work, the electric alarms disabled. He started in Sterling's kitchen. Got a sense of the man, his everyday. What sort of things he'd been eating. He hit the office next. He was careful. Gloves, hairnet, everything. He wasn't leaving anything in Sterling's kitchen to find.

Only when he was satisfied of the man, his routines, did he come to the bedroom.

The door was closed. He tried the handle carefully - unlocked, it opened with a long creak. Taiga slid into the room, leaving the door askew. He beelined for the gun his men had informed him of, and put it on the floor in a corner out of Sterling's reach, facing the wall, so he wouldn't get shot tonight. The knife came out in a moment.

He was soft, attempting to cuff Sterling's hands without awaking him, the knife smiling in his hand. He had no electric technology on him at the moment—pure analog. A knife, handcuffs, his own strength, and backup standing outside the front door to rush in if he screamed. They'd worked for Cortez—they could pick his screams from someone else's.

Tying up loose ends in a situation like this required a delicate hand.
 
Since he was up already, Taiga had no fear of manhandling him—and he did, sinking a knee into Sterling's diaphragm and leaning into him with his full weight, the other hand wrenching Sterling's head back by the hair.

"Remember me?" he asked him, voice an indulgent laugh.

He twiddled the knife so it caught the light outside, then pressed it tight to Sterling's jugular, ready to slice his throat.

"Morning, sleepyhead," he cooed to him.
 
"Hmmm, no, don't think I will," Taiga purred. "We have unfinished business. When I killed your brother," he dropped that bombshell with a casualness that was disorienting and stunning, "I regretted that I wasn't doing it on official business and couldn't wipe your whole damn family out for what he did to me. But you wanted to know what happened to little brother, right?" he scoffed.

"How's about I show you, friend? Then you can properly empathize," he told him, wicked words and smile sharp. "I'll do the exact same fucking shit to you I did to him, and then let your parents and cousins and grandparents follow. Sound good boo?"

He was shoving Sterling down. "But, with that power of yours, not gonna keep you alive too long—so why don't you say your last words, before I slit out your voicebox, puta?"
 
"Perpetually, perpetually full of shit. I killed your brother. I had no right to do it, either; God, that was a punishment." He scoffed, laughing at Sterling's reaction. "I killed him, and it was so much fucking fun. I can't wait to show you how much I enjoyed it, by replicating it exactly on you, motherfucker. And you can rest easy knowing every single family member you got will be joining you soon. Don't worry—I'm sure you'll all go to heaven. Shame you won't find that brother of yours there, though."

"Anyway, Sterling-chan—" His knife moved down for a moment, the point starting to dig into the skin right over the cop captain's voice box. "Any last words? You won't die for a while yet, but you're about to lose the ability to speak, love."
 
Taiga froze, his black eyebrows sliding up towards his slicked-back hair.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" he asked, but mostly just to give himself some time to think. The fucking electric magic. Shit. And he hadn't affixed the ward yet, he'd forgotten it in his jacket outside. "Shit," he cursed, seething.

Oh, yeah; he had fucked this one up, that's right.

And that was a fucking understatement. He hesitated, a little stunned at how badly he had miscalculated (he wasn't used to doing that), and his cunning mind tried to find a way out of the situation, racing around the edge of the cage he'd just clamped over himself.
 
Taiga had a moment to realize Sterling's legs were coming up in the dark—only a moment, before the force of them flung him back off the bed, coughing for a moment as his diaphragm spasmed. Taiga took a moment to be glad the knife hadn't stabbed himself accidentally, and then wondered if he wouldn't be better off faking his own death. Already, the snake was trying to slither out of the trap.

But he hurriedly sat up and turned the light on in a nearby lamp, reaching into his back pocket for the keys to the cuffs. The key was inserted into each cuff at a time, one knee on the bed, a surprised, sour look on his face. He swung the cuffs together and dropped the knife on the side table, since he had an inkling he was about to get the shit kicked out of him, and he didn't want to slice himself up, accidentally.

So, actually, the ward was a terrible idea. Good to know. Fuck, Taiga had miffed this.
 
They could see each other now, not just shapes in the darkness. Taiga with his hair slipped back and the hairnet to keep any stray hairs from falling behind that some medical examiner could match his DNA to. He had tried to come in like a ghost. Now, he was warm, and alive, and very out of his element.

Taiga grunted when Sterling stalked him like a lion does a gazelle and pinned him against the wall.

Shit. And his men were going to burst in if he screamed. "I'll talk. What do you want to know?" he asked, voice strained. If he directed it, maybe the whole truth wouldn't come spilling out, reeking like yesterday's lunch.

Holy shit—Taiga had fucked up.
 
The iron muscles pressing against his windpipe, in another circumstance, could have aroused him. Sterling was easy on the eyes, what could he say?

Then Sterling drove a fist into Taiga's stomach. The blunt force slammed him like a motorcycle hitting a stone wall, and he would have doubled over, but for the bicep against his throat.

"Everything," he croaked out. "That's a lot, shit. Okay. We met at a party. I was eighteen, he was seventeen—we were kids. I'd just graduated high school, I was on a joy ride across America to celebrate getting into MIT. It was good times, and your brother was part of what I intended to be my New York hang out. We bought fake ids together, snuck into clubs, went on raging benders in parties. But it wasn't—we were just young and happy-go-lucky, and stupid. I bet if you looked at his facebook you'd see some of the tamer pictures of us. I thought he was my friend."

He choked up there, and it was more than the arm over his larynx. "I trusted him."
 
Taiga growled. "Well, it was a Sunday in May at 2:30 fucken PM—Jesus, I can't give you all the details, we'd be here all week. Your brother wanted to join a gang. I don't know what kind of stupid that kid was, though, considering the gang he picked, or how he chose to get into it."

"Your little brother was a fucking pisser. I—kinda had the same dream, at the time. To take my gambling professional. Become a dealer, a card shark, Avaritia was hiring and I was gonna make it big."

"Only I didn't make it big, now did I? Because Avaritia wasn't hiring, as it turns out. Gula was. And 'hiring' with Gula is—happens way different than with Avaritia, okay?"

"Your brother told me they were holding an open house on the down-low, a place to scout for new talent. I was such a fucking idiot; I was excited. Had my favorite card deck in my pocket and fucking everything. Come in, and it wasn't Avaritia at all, now was it?"

"And if you're thinking your little brother was fucking tricked into selling me to Gula, bastard started piping up about getting paid when I had a gun on my head and was being secured. I laughed when he started screaming. About the last thing I ever did as a free man, before I was drugged. The dumbass little cunt thought Gula would bag one fish when they had access to two? Unlikely."

"I didn't forget, though. It took me a while to have enough freedom of movement to axe him. As far as I was and am concerned, he was a waste of life, your lil bro. Now ask me if I'm sorry I did it, fucker."
 
Suddenly Taiga was flung to the ground, his head rebounding on the wood. "Aw fuck," he hissed out, and grunted when Sterling's foot drove into his ribs. Coughing, he still had his repartee to level.

"I'll rest in comfort knowing your sorry ass is a hairsbreadth behind me, witch," Taiga snarled, his lips lifting from his teeth like a dog baring his fangs. "Your mom loses two sons, one dead and one in the kennel; and you know what? Then she'll know exactly how bitterly my mom's cried for the last decade, you scum-sucking bastard. But you know, after putting away a Kairos vice lord? She won't have long to weep."
 
Taiga laughed, cavalier. "You think I could stop that? You think I even have the power to intercede on her behalf, even if I wanted to? I have people higher up on the totem pole than me, honey. The kind of people who play for keeps and who have an ironclad method of dealing with people like you—would-be heroes. It's not even about me. It's about what I am. You may have magic, but you haven't faced the full might of Kairos. But if you'd like to roll the dice, go ahead, bastard. I think I'll just keep singing your name like a fucking canary until I'm ten feet deep, y'know? There's men outside this apartment. There's people who know where I went, besides them. And if you take me out in cuffs, they won't even need that shit to know you're at fault. I tried to leave once and they burned my favorite brother's house down, killed him, his wife, my nieces and nephew. The only reason he didn't finish it was because I came back. Put me away. Go ahead! Gula will be back on its feet with new leadership in a matter of weeks, and your family will be dead in days. That's my prediction. Want to see how accurate it is?"
 
"I don't give a damn about your consequences, little man," one of the guards said, his hand going to a knife on his belt (Taiga insisted they bring knives, not guns).

Taiga sprung to his feet outside the door. "Message delivered, boys," he said, and laughed. "They always do get testy, don't they? Come on, let's get back."

"You gonna let him speak to you like that, boss?"

"Doesn't matter, I have what I want from him," Taiga bluffed, and walked down the hallway rapidly, so his boys would follow him. Sterling was one misplaced quip away from the bodyguards fighting for their honor—disrespect in the underworld was lethal. It was a weird life, but Taiga knew how to manage egos, and he'd smooth these two's over later.

As long as Sterling didn't act like a total ignoramus and pick a fight with two of the biggest, scariest muscle in Gula that Taiga'd have a hard time persuading them to drop, they were out of there, and Sterling could go hang for all he cared—like he gave a damn if he was never seeing the man again, sometimes enemies dug up dirt on you—a mutual nonaggression agreement was the best way out of it. Honestly, considering the kinds of enemies Taiga usually made, Sterling was a pussycat. Most of his enemies, with dirt like that on him, would have had him eating out of the palm of their hand. Sterling was too much of a goody-two-shoes, it seems, to do more than bait him.

One hit to his face? Taiga barely felt it. Alright, he did, it stung, but it wouldn't be a big deal.
 
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