Free Dirty Secret by Rhys Ford Page B

was willing to bet I had a better body. A simple word from Kwon, and Jae could lose business. It was a risk to challenge him on his own turf. I was willing to take that risk. I’d wallowed in a bitter stew about Rick and Ben before I met Jae, and while I still hadn’t totally broken free of what I’d been soaking in, I wasn’t going to let Kwon edge in. From where I stood, I had more to lose than he did. Much more.
    Kwon said something in Korean, and I smiled, shaking my head at my lack of comprehension. He smiled back, a slithering grin that did nothing to warm me to him. He repeated what he said in English, slowly, as if I wouldn’t understand him. “Have we met?”
    “No, not yet,” I replied softly. Holding my free hand out to him, I smiled. “I’m with Kim Jae-Min, the photographer. We’re Scarlet’s friends. Pity she couldn’t make it today. She’d have loved to see Dae-Hoon’s boy.”
    It was a masterful manipulation of the conversation. I was rather proud of it since it was something I rarely pulled off. My words got a range of effects, first a stiffening of Kwon’s shoulders and face when I mentioned Scarlet, then curiously, what looked like a slight fear creeping into his cold eyes. He got a hold of his emotions quickly, but his limbs betrayed his uneasiness, jerking awkwardly as he turned away.
    I would have liked to enjoy that moment more, and I would have, if the shooting hadn’t started.
    There was a clapping sound, a short reverb, and then screams, loud screams followed by terrified shouting. I caught the smell of blood and panicked, grabbing at Jae to pull him down under me. His camera tilted, falling from his hands and onto the grass. Grabbing at the edge of one of the tables, I yanked it onto its side, hoping the metal top would provide us with some sort of protection.
    Like all shootings, everything happened quickly. There was no time to react with anything more than instinct.
    And human instinct always seems to start off with panic.
    I had the right to panic. I’d found Jae unconscious, and bleeding from a gunshot graze a few feet from his cousin’s dead rent-boy. I already had a bad track record with boyfriends and guns. Panic was fully within my God-given rights, right up there with the pursuit of happiness and extra cheese on my carne asada fries.
    “I’m okay,” Jae murmured reassuringly. “I’m fine… I’m okay, agi .”
    I started breathing again.
    My hands skimmed over his body, searching for any injury. Speckles of blood dotted his cheekbone, and my heart froze. My thumbs smeared the blood, raking the spray into uneven lines. Cradling the back of his head, I held him to my chest, waiting for my heart to start up again, willing it to catch a beat… anything to begin feeling again. My fear chilled me down to my bones, and I couldn’t keep my fingers from trembling as I ran them through his hair.
    Even hidden behind a patio table, I felt exposed, but he lay on the ground under me, letting my hands touch his chest. I needed to hear his heart… to feel it pumping under my fingers.
    I must have looked insane, because he cupped his hands to my face, ignoring all of his rules and fears.
    “ Agi , I am okay,” he said again in that husky purr that warmed my guts. “We have to help. I think Helena’s hurt. I saw her bleeding, I think. Maybe David… I don’t know.”
    There was silence around us, broken by whimpers and gasping cries. I slid off Jae and peered carefully around the upended table. Kwon was stirring nearby, his legs tangled up in one of the mission-style folding chairs set on the patio. Other party guests were hiding behind what they could, most taking cover behind tables and the potted juniper trees lining the outer edges of the patio. A few feet away from us, Helena Kwon lay in her fiancée’s arms, blood turning her crimson dress nearly black. David rocked her, his hands ineffectively pressing against the wound in her side.
    The diamond bracelets on her