Wattys 2023 Boot Camp

Something Wicked by @pixelmum

Logline

Jason Torres, a former henchman turned reluctant hero, teams up with a handsome cop to dismantle the nefarious criminal organization that left him for dead, but as revenge gives way to romance, secrets from Jason's past and dangers in his present threaten to destroy everything he loves.

Blurb

Get out of jail, get yet another crappy criminal henchman job, get his hotshot lawyer ex-girlfriend back. Oh yeah—and get a murderous demon exorcised from his head. Jason Torres has his route back from rock-bottom perfectly planned out, right? That is, until he gets catapulted head-first into a police investigation into his ex-employers, the mysterious and deadly Saudi criminal organization, Alcor.

The police think they've hit the jackpot by exploiting criminal trash like Jason to take down Alcor, except Jason has conveniently forgotten to mention a few details: his innate ability to attract chaos, his inconvenient possession by a bloodthirsty demon, and the fact that he's falling in love with his handsome new police partner, Dante Russo. The biggest, deadliest secret? Jason's relationship with Alcor's sadistic boss is more than strictly professional, and she doesn't like sharing. 

~Chapter One~

So apparently I'm on a warship

CARIBBEAN SEA, July 26

Consciousness hurt.

A lot.

The roar of a diesel engine. The distant swish-swish of waves. My gummed-up eyes opened to a meshwork of burlap, chinks of hazy light streaming in where the fabric had thinned. My wrists and ankles were bound.

Wepa. Half-dead and tied up inside a warship with a fucking bag on my head. This was a new low.

After an embarrassing episode of panicked squirming and sucking in fraught lungfuls of swampy cabin air, I lay still and silent. Didn't need the Marines to realize I was awake and fuck me up. Well, fuck me up even more.

Inching my zip-tied hands to my neck, I clawed at the knotted rope that secured the bag. Not a single one of the hard little knots budged. Every tiny movement had the burlap scraping at the patchwork quilt of cuts on my face. I was in terrible shape.

Approaching voices rang against the steel of my cabin, or cell, or wherever the fuck I was. I lay corpse-still.

"Corporal, please show Senator Hayes the detainee."

"Yes, Ma'am. He's right here."

The scrape of a hatch opening, and white sunlight pierced the bag's meshwork. A welcome ocean breeze wafted through the burlap.

"Oh my! Er...very good! Er...cover him up! Er...is he all right?"

Perturbed white-lady noises. I guessed that senators didn't see the likes of me too often.

"First Sergeant Kate Jones reporting, Ma'am. He'll recover."

Now this lady right here sounded too fucking pleased with herself.

"You're sure he's American? He looks..."

Say it, lady. He looks too brown to be 'Merican.

"We're sure, Ma'am. No identified name, but intel confirmed that he was the only American operative working for Alcor. The only non-Saudi, in fact."

"No identified name?" The click of high heels on deck. Looked like the good senator couldn't get the fuck outta my vicinity fast enough. "What did they call him?"

A little snigger from the sergeant. "It's funny, Ma'am. Aside from the Alcor tattoo, my squad recognized him from his clothing. The Saudis called him Ahmar. Ghul al'Ahmar."

"What is that in English?"

"The Red Demon."

Curse that fucking name. But incarceration had a silver lining; no fucker in jail would ever call me Ahmar.

"The CIA will find his name soon enough."

"Ma'am, the Alcor case is being transferred from the CIA to María Police Department for logistical reasons."

Ah, fuck no.

Back to María? Who'd have thought I'd reach an even lower low? Talk about adding insult to injury. Kinda poetic, though, returning to the shit-hole city where I'd first fucked everything up.

"Will he cooperate with María PD?"

If I hadn't been half-dead and full-terrified, I'd have laughed. Like fuck was I gonna cooperate.

"Inspector Payne is excellent, Ma'am. She'll flip him."

Whatever. This Inspector lady hadn't met me.

"I'm sure he'll implicate his superiors in Alcor quickly enough to escape a murder charge."

Wait.

What?

Murder charge?

What the fuck? They'd gotten it all wrong! I was being dragged back to the States on a smuggling charge, wasn't I? I didn't fucking murder anybody!

Oh yeah.

Of course.

Except for those men I murdered.

Well, shit. I was soon to be a convicted murderer. The lowest low.

But it wasn't me who killed them. It was the Demon.

My burlap prison closed in on me. Wave after wave of unconsciousness beat against my head. Hopefully Inspector Payne was the kinda lady who believed in demons. 

Translations:

Wepa! - Puerto Rican Spanish, "hooray/congratulations/awesome!" Kind of like a vocal fist-pump

Ghul al'Ahmar - Arabic, "Red Demon"

Ahmar – Arabic, "red"