Bounty

S
he’s hot
, at least. Maria Cappelli has huge eyes, perfect tits, and legs for days. If only all my marks were so stacked.

I shove her up against the door of her apartment, knee between her legs, my insistence at her hip. She presses kisses along my neck, tongue tracing my tattoos, the sharp edges of her nails digging into my back.

“Let me in,” I growl. She moans and smiles, twisting open the knob behind her back. We tumble through the apartment door, with her grasping at my belt for dear life, pressing her breasts against my chest.

Yeah. I’m in.

I grab her waist and muscle her over to the bed, unhooking the straps of her dress from her shoulders as we go so I can pull the sparkly, sheath-like thing to the ground in one swift tug. She’s light, no trouble just tossing her down on the bed.

Screwing bounties isn’t my usual M.O. Usually I’m hunting down men. Hardened criminals. It’s a rare treat to chase down a perp with such perky… assets. Maria Cappelli skipped town on her court date for a serious charge of insider trading. The irony with these types — so clever, and yet so stupid.

I unbuckle my belt and let my erection spring from beneath. Grasping it, I pump once while she watches, licking her lips, staring at its size. A lot of women get intimidated by my cock, but she just flushes with excitement.

Sexy. No harm in enjoying this, right? One last fuck before I turn her little hotrod ass over to law enforcement. We both know why I tracked her down, where this has to end.

And if she doesn’t, she’s just deluding herself.

Plush lips wrap around my cock, hot and wet, soft fingers cradle my balls. Her ass in the air as she bends over my package, her hair spilling everywhere.

“Take your panties off,” I growl, and she happily complies, hooking her fingers around the red thong, peeling it off her round ass with one hand.

Not bad.

I let her work on me, urging her on with my fingers in her hair, guiding her head up and down along my length. She works herself, too, and I can hear how wet she is. She lets out a dirty moan around my cock and I’m hard as a rock now, my balls tight, hips bucking. I push her off me, hooking my hands around her hipbones and push her over the bed. I lay my hand along her spine, and she bends over further, her pert little ass in the air, letting her cheeks split so I can see the pink folds of her wet sex.

I hover the head of my cock over her entrance, letting it push against her, my tip rubbing against her clit, teasing her.

“Oh, fuck,” she says, and tries to push back into me, but I move with her. She bucks her hips in need.

“What do you want,” I say. I love to hear it out loud. “Tell me.”

She bites her lip for a split second, writhing at the end of my cock before finally giving in.

“Dear God, I want you to fuck me. Please. Please, fuck me.”

I thrust into her in one quick movement, ignoring her shrieking ecstasy. I pump into her, hard and swift, driving towards the finish. She begs me for harder, deeper, so I pull her back flush against me and slide in further, grinding from deep inside her. I wrap my hand around to rub her clit, pressing on the bud that will make her scream.

We don’t last much longer after that. He cunt tightens around my stiff cock, her body goes rigid and shaky.

My orgasm is good. Winning turns me on.

She screams though hers, so I’m gonna assume she’s satisfied, too.

Maria lays back, alternately moaning and giggling with her post-orgasm glow, her eyes shut. I lie back with her for just a moment before sitting up to locate my pants.

“Thanks, sugar,” she says, waving one well-manicured hand in the air, not looking at me as I hike my jeans back over my hips.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” I say, fishing for my phone. I stride casually around her desk, and begin snapping photos. Automatically uploaded to the internet. Then I text Detective Liu.

“C’mon babe,” she calls out to me. “Come cuddle.”

“I don’t cuddle,” I say mildly.

“Fucking asshole,” she says, half insulted, half laughing. “Come here,” she insists again, raising her arms to me like a two-year old.

“Hmm. Detective Liu and Agent Vicente are already on their way,” I say, casually, re-buckling my belt. I pick up her dress from the floor and toss it at her. “You might want to be wearing clothes when they arrest you.”

“You goddamn asshole,” she swears, clutching the dress against her.

“Hey, babe. It’s not my fault you decided to steal thousands of dollars from your shareholders and screw your sister out of the business. That’s on you.”

“But, at the bar —“

“I never said I wouldn’t finish my job. Just that I wouldn’t mind a lay, first. You said you were game.”

“You — you motherfucker!” she shrieks, lunging to her bedside table, ripping open the drawer and fumbling with something metal.

A gun.

She points it at me, trembling, finger unsure on the curve of the compact semi-automatic. Even as she holds it out, I can tell she hasn’t held it much. She hasn’t even flipped off the safety.

“Don’t make me disarm you,” I say, bored, but not unkind. I feel kinda sorry for her — I probably shouldn’t have slept with her. But it’s tough to date, with my job. I need all the action I can get. Even if it isn’t always the most satisfying, it’s better than nothing. “I wouldn’t want to hurt you. Just put the gun down.”

She hesitates, fingers still fumbling around the safety. Quickly, I snatch up a pillow from where it’d fallen, and throw it at the gun. She squeezes the trigger but nothing happens, as expected. I lunge for her and quickly grasp her gun-hand wrist, wrenching it over her head until she lets out a little shriek and drops the semi-automatic on the bedspread.

“Whoa, now,” I say, scooping it up and tucking it into my belt with my left hand, shifting my grip with my right to be a bit gentler on her shoulder. “You should really be more careful with these. There are safety regulations, you know.”

“Fuck you,” she says.

“Hey, that really hurts my feelings, darling.” I release her and move away, back towards the door, watching her for movement, my hand hovering over my own side piece.

“You really should put on that dress,” I remind her, gesturing to the pool of sparkles crumpled over the edge of the bed. “Or maybe something more comfortable. Go on, I won’t stop you.”

She doesn’t listen.

She’s still in her underwear when they cuff her and bring her into the precinct. I do feel a bit bad about that, but I
did
warn her.

W
hile Maria Cappelli
is being processed, none other than Agent Michael Vicente, FBI extraordinaire, sidles up to me. The man looks slick as fuck in his dark black suit, very MIB, very 007. Tall, dark hair, and wild, sharp features. Classy, and pretentious. He flips off his sunglasses and tucks them neatly into his breast pocket.

“Nice bag,” he says, jerking her head to where Maria Cappelli just disappeared, frog-marched between two detectives and calling for her lawyer. “We’ve been trying to bring her in for months now.”

“I know,” I say. “Sometimes you just can’t beat pure sex appeal.”

He grimaces. “You’re an asshole, Copperhead.”

I shrug. He’s not wrong. “Gets the job done.”

I’m a licensed fugitive recovery agent. A bounty hunter. The guy the feds call when regulations stop them from doing what needs to be done. Without a conviction, there's only so much law enforcement can do, while still sticking to the letter of the law, themselves. Especially if a fugitive crosses international lines, even the feds don't have powers of arrest. No jurisdiction.

I have no such restrictions. I have very few restrictions at all, so long as I don't get caught.

Vicente squints at me.

“Is there anything you wouldn’t do for a bag?”

I think for a moment. I’ve lied, cheated, broken the law, slept around, and caused a whole lot of property damage in pursuit of bounties. I’ve even killed in the line of duty, though I was the one who was ambushed, and the D.A. didn’t press charges. There’s not a lot I wouldn’t do to bring in a perp, particularly given my relatively cozy relationship with most of the law enforcement agencies in this town.

“Nothin’ near kids,” I say at last. “I’d rather wait than take someone in with kids around. Other than that, nah. Don't think so. Nothing I wouldn’t do to bring the bad guys in.”

He stares at me a moment longer, then breaks into a classic Agent Vicente grin — sudden, and just a little bit feral. “Perfect. I’ve got a doozy for you. Ever heard of Devlin Sullivan?”

“Is there more than one Devlin Sullivan?”

“Nope.”

“So then you mean the presumed head of the Irish mob in Boston, millionaire-gangster Devlin Sullivan?” I try to keep my breathing regular — but I heard he’d been arrested and then managed to skip town. Of course I’ve heard of him.

“The very one. His first court date was last week.”

I shrug and examine my nails, as if I hadn’t been following the case very closely through multiple channels. “Oh yeah, I heard about that.”

“Yeah. Posted cash bail and scarpered.”

“Why’d the judge give it to him? Obviously a flight risk.”

“Bail schedule,” we say together, and Vicente barks out a laugh. It's a classic problem with judges and bail — there are certain rules even judges can't break, which lets criminals like Devlin Sullivan back on the streets, even if it's obviously they're going to get the fuck out of dodge. the gears of the justice system.

“Yeah,” Vicente continues. “They couldn’t get him on a capital offense, so the only thing the judge could do was make the bail astronomically high. But I guess Devlin Sullivan has a hundred million cool ones just lying around.”

We both shake our heads. It's almost unheard of. There have been other bails that high, a handful of insider trading cases, gross corporate fraud. It's most definitely the biggest bail self-posted in organized crime history. If he posted that much, his network must be even bigger than the feds know.

“Shit,” I say. “Could be clear into Ireland by now.”

“More like Ecuador, by now," Vicente says.. “And with a jurisdiction squabble and no bondsman on the case, FBI wants to call in some hired help. Under the table, of course. Freelancers, if you will.”

“Me.”

“Yeah you, Copperhead. Wasn’t my idea.” A lie — Vicente always brings me the best cases. We’ve been working together for about six years, now, and it’s a winning partnership. I get the jobs done quick and neat (usually), and Vicente makes sure he’s got “extra funding” and everything is kept below-board so neither the FBI or I get in trouble.

It usually just comes down to a price negotiation, and whether I have space in my ongoing caseload for whatever he wants me to do. He knows anyone would jump at a bounty this big, but I’ve still got to play it cool. Make sure I don’t get taken for granted, that I’m still commanding the respect (and compensation) that I’ve earned. He came to me first. That's no accident.

“It’ll be dangerous,” I point out.

“Of course it will. And we’re on a time-crunch. His last court date is in January. If he misses that, it’ll be all over the news that we’ve lost him. That he’s in another country. Then we can’t extradite him, can’t take him on the down low. You catch my drift?”

“Yeah. Four months to catch him. So what intel do you have?”

“We have some. Not a lot that would be admissible in court, nothing to get a warrant on. But we know about a few potential laundering locations, a few fronts for the gangs, a few names. This guy’s got a massive network, so you’ll have to get in closer, get someone in his crew to trust you, or get a tap on their phone, trace it to the big guy.”

“Maybe,” I say, but I’m shaking my head. “It’s never the number two men, it’s never the other gangsters. Those guys have their shit on lock. You gotta get intel from the peripherals, from the collateral damage. Wives, secretaries, friends.”

“And I guess that’s why we’re calling you in, Copperhead. It’ll take smarts, and it’ll take your experience. And whatever it is you have that passes for charm.”

“Hey fuck you,” I say. “Women love my charm.”

“And men too, I’m sure,” he says, laughing.

I shrug. “No one’s immune to the Copperhead charm.”

“Hey Liam.” He looks me dead in the eye, now. Serious. “You’ll be risking your life. But if you bring Sullivan in… it’ll be the biggest bounty of your career. By a landslide. Standard ten percent.”

He’s not kidding. Enough for me to get out of the bounty hunting business and start something new. Yeah, I like to brag about my bags, all the danger I’ve been in, the good I’ve done for the city. Fuck it, I’ve served this country. And I’ve enjoyed my work. But I’m ready to be done with it. Too much collateral damage.

This is my shot to make something of myself. Something else.

“Alright, Vicente, I’m in. Gimme the details.”

“Well, we have a lead on one money-laundering shop. He's got dozens, of course, but this one we're pretty sure of. It's a smaller enterprise, maybe just a few hundred k a quarter. It’s the one we’re most sure of. Bluebird’s Boutique. If you can figure out who’s cooking the books, and who they work for, maybe get a tap, it’d be a start.”