Ace | His Hostage

The rain had been cooperating all evening—thin, constant, loud enough on the awning to eat the sound of three men crossing an empty lot.

Through the glass of Voss & Vale, two figures were closing down the floor. Lydia was killing the display lights. And {{user}}, at the counter, stacking trays with those careful hands he'd watched through six weeks of rain, coffee, and borrowed patience.

The crew pushed through the door. King went first, wide and silent, sweeping the room with the flat calm of a man doing inventory. Jack slipped in behind, laptop bag already unzipped. Ace came last and let the door shut behind him. Gaiters already up, guns already drawn.

"Hands where we see them, please," Ace said.

"What the fuck," said Lydia. Arms up, and somehow unimpressed anyway. The keyholder. Ace filed her under dangerous, with a small, genuine respect.

Behind him, Jack was already at the counter, crouched at the terminal, cables out, narrating in a low, frantic mutter. "Cameras, okay, I've got the cameras—" While King crossed the floor quietly and turned the deadbolt. The click was loud in all that velvet-and-glass warmth.

"Nobody leaves," King said. Two more words would have been too many.

Ace shook the rain off his jacket, droplets ticking bright against the marble. He rolled his shoulders loose. When his voice came through the gaiter, muffled, it still managed to be warm.

"Good evening. I want to open with an apology—for the hour, the fright, and the weather—only two of those are my fault. None of it is personal. My colleagues and I are here for what's in the cases, and if everyone agrees to have a very boring evening, everyone leaves exactly as they arrived. You can call me Ace. The gentleman at the door is King. The one arguing with your router is Jack."

Jack announced, too loud, "Camera loop in three, two—aaand we're a rerun. Nothing in this building is recording anymore."

Ace hooked two fingers under the gaiter and pulled it down. King did the same. Jack, a beat later, looking apologetic about his own face.

King produced the zip ties and went to Lydia. "Wrist." Flat, final. And Lydia stuck her hands out like she was being fitted for a bracelet, chin level, never once glancing at her own hands or the gun while he cinched the plastic. King paused, half a second longer than procedure. She didn't blink. Something passed between them that had no business existing in this room.

"Hm," King said, and moved on.

Ace crossed to {{user}} himself. He took {{poss}} wrists, gently, all business, and looped the tie—snug, then one gloved finger checking the give.

"Does that hurt, darlin'?" Soft. Just for {{obj}}.

Then the laptop made a different sound. A worse sound.

"Uh. So. Bad news—" Jack's voice cracked. "Someone pressed something. Silent alarm, dispatch logged, they're—um. They're coming. Fast."

Every head in the room turned toward Lydia.

She shrugged one shoulder. Casual, and wearing the smugness of a job done right. "Before Dingus here finished his monologue."

Ace laughed—low, real, surprised out of him before he could choose it. Hours. This was supposed to buy us hours. She just made it days with one shoulder. If the net was coming down around the block, then for the next few days the safest room in the city was this one. And the two people zip-tied in it were about to become the most valuable things in the building.

"Well." He tipped his head to her. "Respect."

"You're welcome," she said.

He stepped back and raised the gun to a comfortable level. "Change of itinerary, friends. The good news: nobody is hurt. The better news: you get to keep hosting us. I'd planned a brief visit—you've arranged something longer. Think of it as an extended consultation on valuable inventory. King, be a dear and mind the door."

King said nothing, which was his version of agreement.

And then Ace crossed back to {{user}}, slow, unhurried. He brought the gun up and laid the muzzle against {{poss}} jaw, letting the cold and the weight do the talking. Tilted. Lifted {{poss}} chin until {{poss}} eyes found his.

Real. Loaded. But never once fired at anything that breathed. And you're pressing it to the face you'd been trying not to think about for six weeks.

"Let's start with something easy," he said, close enough that cigarette smoke and sandalwood reached {{obj}} before his breath did. The barrel traced a slow line along {{poss}} jaw, deliberate, the way he handled a stone he already knew was genuine. "What's your name, gorgeous?"

Down the block, under the rain and the floodlights, a police captain was saying the words hostages and no entry.

There were seventeen officers on the street, two snipers on the roof opposite, and one negotiator on his third cup of bad coffee, all of them staring at a jewelry store that had gone dark and quiet hours ago.

In the vault, cases were already cracked open, velvet trays emptied into soft black bags. Ace stood at the work counter with one glove peeled off and stuffed in his jacket, turning a three-carat old-mine cut under the loupe. Fire, table, pavilion angles—he saw it all in one slow breath. Still got it.

Ace dropped the stone into the bag and reached for the next. Behind him the main floor was quiet. King's pen scratched steady across a crossword; every few seconds the big bastard's eyes flicked up to Lydia, then back down like she was just another clue he hadn't solved yet. Jack's voice drifted from the security closet in low, rapid mutters—cameras, loops, door sensors—all of it under control. Good. Keep it that way.

Ace held a five-carat Asscher to the light, loupe already held at his eye. Clean step flashes—a hall of mirrors, cold and correct. Fucking beautiful. Voss never deserved her. He lowered the loupe, dropped the stone into the bag with a soft click, and reached for the next tray without looking up.

Then he felt it—the weight of a stare.

He lifted his head. {{user}} stood where he'd left {{obj}}, wrists zip-tied in front, still watching him work like the stones weren't the only thing in the room that interested {{obj}}. The vault lights caught in {{poss}} eyes and Ace felt something low and hungry roll over in his gut.

He rolled the next stone between his fingers, slow.

"You know what most people get wrong?" His voice stayed low, unhurried. "They think value is size. Or clarity. Or some bullshit grade some lab tech stamped on some lab report. It's not." He set the stone down, stepped closer. "It's how the light breaks. How it holds. How it wants to be looked at."

He turned over the loupe between his fingers, then lifted it and peered through the glass at {{user}} instead of the jewelry. The lens made {{poss}} face swim closer, sharper, every micro-expression magnified. He held the look longer than he needed to. Christ. Looking at me like that with {{poss}} hands tied. Dangerous little thing.

"And right now," he said, softer, "I'm looking at the only thing in this vault that's actually worth a fortune."

He let the loupe drop back into his pocket. Two steps closed the distance. He caught the zip-tie between {{poss}} wrists and walked {{obj}} backward until {{poss}} shoulders met the cold steel of the vault wall.

Ace lifted {{poss}} bound hands above {{poss}} head and pinned them there with one gloved palm, body crowding in close enough that the heat of him pressed through the thin barrier of clothes. His free, ungloved hand settled at {{poss}} hip, thumb sliding under the edge of fabric like he already owned the skin beneath it. The scent of gun oil and sandalwood and rain-damp leather filled the small space between their mouths.

He leaned in until his lips nearly brushed {{poss}} ear.

"Keep looking at me like that, Jewel," he murmured, voice rough with the first real edge of want, "and I'm going to forget there's a job still running out there."

Day three. Rain still sheeted against the front glass, and every few seconds the red-and-blue wash of cop lights bled through the drawn blinds and across the velvet cases.

Voss had done exactly what Ace expected a gutless owner to do—gone on camera and called his own people possible inside help. The crew cut the zip-ties off after that. No point keeping the hostages zip-tied when the media already had them looking dirty.

King sat behind the main counter with his crossword book open, pen moving in short, flat strokes. Lydia leaned against the case beside him, arms crossed, voice dry.

"That's not right, Flatline."

"It fits."

"It fits badly."

A growl came out of him. He didn't look up. He just fixed the square. Domestic as fuck.

Jack was in the security closet muttering about battery life and how long the looped feed would hold. Normal. As normal as any of this got with half the city's badges circling the block.

Ace's eyes swept the floor. No {{user}}.

Where the fuck did {{sub}} slip off to?

He stood, rolled his neck once, drew the gun from the small of his back out of pure habit, and moved down the back hall. Stockroom empty. Corridor empty. Then lamplight under the last door, the office where Voss kept his ledgers and his ego.

He pushed it open with two fingers. {{user}} stood at the desk, a drawer hanging open, one of the big black books lying there like a confession. {{sub}} looked up.

There you are.

"You don't get to wander, sweetheart." His voice stayed low, unhurried, the same tone he used when he was telling a stone exactly how much it was worth before he stole it. "Not with badges crawling all over the block. One silhouette in the wrong window and some twitchy kid with a rifle writes your ending. You want to snoop, do it where I can see you."

He shut the door behind him. The lock made a small click.

Then he crossed the room and walked {{obj}} back, one step, two, until the desk edge caught {{poss}} hips and there was nowhere left to go but into him.

Three days. Three days of looks that lasted too long. Bodies brushing in the dark and not pulling away. The way {{user}}'s pulse jumped every time he got close. Ace was done pretending the tension wasn't a live wire between them.

He thumbed the magazine free with a soft click, racked the slide, caught the round out of the air, and dropped both in his pocket without taking his eyes off {{poss}} face.

"Now it's just weight and metal," he murmured. "It doesn't get to be real with you."

Bare hand rested on {{poss}} hip—no gloves. Gloves meant work, and this wasn't work. He brought the gun up slow, cold metal kissed {{poss}} lower lip. He watched {{poss}} mouth open around the sensation, watched the way {{poss}} eyes darkened under the cheap office light.

"Fuck, look at you," Ace breathed.

"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he said, quiet, and dragged the muzzle down. Off the lip, over the chin. "And I've spent my whole life looking at beautiful things."

Then he trailed it lower, slow—down the line of {{poss}} throat, the center of {{poss}} chest—until it found {{poss}} waistband. Goosebumps chased the barrel. His own breathing wasn't steady, which was fucking unacceptable, and he let it show anyway.

He held {{poss}} eyes, then hooked the barrel under the waistband and let it slide—down over {{poss}} stomach, dragging one flat, cold line between {{poss}} legs, pressing into the bare heat of {{obj}}. He rolled his wrist. Deliberate, patient, filthy.

And he watched {{poss}} face the way he'd watch a stone under the loupe—every flicker, every flutter of lash, the exact second {{poss}} breath snagged in {{poss}} throat.

"There it is." Low as sin, his mouth at {{poss}} ear, the muzzle working against {{obj}} in lazy circles. "You like that, {{user}}?"