Free Without a Net by Lyn Gala

gays or gender fluid, it always came down to a group of insecure people hiding in the shadowy corners of society. If Jackson got nailed, the other haters would go running for deeper, darker corners. However, if these assholes thought they had a safe haven, then they’d come out into the open like cockroaches in the night.
    “Maybe,” Greyson said. “Look, I don’t have a lot of answers here. This got out of hand a lot faster than I expected. We’re the third agency to try to get someone inside this shade club, and we’re the first to do it. That makes it more difficult, because now we’re trying to run the op against Huda at the same time we’re trying to work the kidnapping-and-slavery case. I thought you’d be stuck haunting the edges of the club without seeing anything particularly interesting.”
    “I did better than you thought.”
    “You did better than anyone thought, so yeah. Huda is trying to take credit for that, by the way. He says it was his idea to send in a sub instead of a Dom. Apparently he thought it would be less threatening.”
    Ollie was about to work up the steam for a rant about how his sexual orientation didn’t make him one ounce less threatening, but the captain held up a hand to stop him.
    “We’ve already established that he’s an idiot, so don’t take it personally. The other agencies weren’t willing to try the sub angle, and after a night in there, I think you know why. Those folks are hard on their subs.”
    “And Lieutenant Huda sent me into the middle of it. I can’t figure out if he hates gays or subs or both. He’s twisted.”
    “If he thinks subs are weak, yeah, he’s twisted. I played around with the dynamic when I was a teenager. I think most people do some sort of experimentation, and the subs I met were tough as nails. But then I get the feeling Huda and Jackson don’t go out of their way to meet many subs or many gays. So, what are we doing with this whole operation?”
    Ollie’s guts untangled a little as the captain gave him his clear and unambiguous support. That was what Ollie had needed tonight. He offered the captain a wry smile. “Which operation? The stakeout at the club or the sting against the lieutenant?”
    “I’m pretty sure they’re one and the same. Are we pulling the plug for now and trying later?”
    Ollie wanted to say yes. Then he could walk away from this whole screwed-up investigation and let someone else worry about dirty cops and fucked-up sexual dynamics. He wanted that, but he couldn’t seem to say it. “I don’t know.”
    “Well, I want you to keep something in mind. You’re a good cop—a good detective. I’ve seen what happens when good cops lose themselves to guilt, so can you handle it if we have another kid vanish?” Greyson studied Ollie.
    Ollie also wanted to deny any sort of emotional entanglements at all. Cops were supposed to put the job in a neat little mental box, but he never knew a good cop who didn’t care too damn much. “Probably not,” he finally admitted.
    “Most good cops can’t sit back and do nothing, especially not when they have the opportunity to do something,” the captain said softly. “So you tell me, what can I do to make this easier?”
    “Convince the suspects in the club I’m a switch and I should be able to do the domming?” Ollie asked with an overly bright smile.
    Captain Greyson snorted. “I’ll get on that. In the meantime, anything else?”
    So Ollie was doing this. He hoped he was not going to look back and say that this was the moment where it all went wrong. “The panic switch on my thigh is not a workable solution. The edge of the patch was curling up when I got dressed, and I couldn’t reach it most of the night. If I’d had a serious situation, I had no way to call for backup, and while I trust Kemboi, he’s not the one sitting on the microphones all the time. I don’t want my life in Jackson’s hands.”
    “That’s a reasonable concern. I have a tech geek out in