A Drop of Moonshine

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Fifteen years later

Thorn washed his hands in the kitchen sink, stepped over the middle-aged body cooling on the checkered floor, and made sure he hadn’t stepped in any blood by lifting and glancing underneath his shoes before going out into the hallway. He lingered to watch the photos on the wall by the mirror for a second—three smiling children. Thorn sighed as he pulled his phone from his pocket. One of those kids had used their sanctioned kill to get their dad a one-way ticket out of this world.

Sometimes Thorn wondered if the government was right in their assessment. From his point of view, it was hard to see how giving everyone one authorized death kept the violence down. Life wasn’t pretty, and many people deserved to be terminated but, more often than not, it was a family member or someone who had been a close friend who ordered the kill.

Thorn didn’t understand it, but he guessed he didn’t have to—it wasn’t his job to understand.

A key turned in the lock. He grabbed his gun and aimed it at the door.

A woman carrying a grocery bag stepped over the threshold. She noticed Thorn and screamed; the bag hit the floor with a thud.

Thorn lowered the gun. “Sorry…Perhaps you should come back a little later.” He ran a hand through his hair. According to the file, Godfrey Cobb lived alone. There shouldn’t be any women with grocery bags and keys to the apartment.

“Who are you?” She gripped the collar of her jacket, her eyes wide as she glanced around.

“I’m…” He could hear Kannan’s voice in his mind and tried to come up with a way to say who he was without saying who he was. “I’m from the Liquidation Bureau. We’ve received a termination application for Mr. Cobb. I’ve executed it.”

“Godfrey? Godfrey!”

He caught her right before she managed to rush past him and into the apartment. “Sorry, ma’am, but you can’t be here right now.”

Sobbing, she clung to him, her fingers curling around the fabric of his jacket. Thorn awkwardly pointed the gun at the floor. No one ever touched him other than Kannan, and having her this close was a threat, but he didn’t want to shoot her by mistake.

He had to get her out of here.

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask you to leave. The clean—” He couldn’t say cleaning crew. “The…the…” What the hell should he call them?

He didn’t have to come up with a suitable name for them. One second, he was cradling a grieving woman, the next she kneed him in the balls. At first, he believed maybe it wasn’t too bad, but then the impact traveled from his balls to the pit of his stomach. Crippling nausea overtook him, and he couldn’t do a single thing when she pushed away from him and ran into the kitchen.

Somewhere far away he heard her wail. It was followed by tearing sobs, but all he could do was lean against the wall to prevent himself from curling up on the floor. Each breath was a struggle, his insides were knotted, and for a second, he doubted he’d ever be happy again.

With a growl, he punched the digits on the phone. He timed his breathing with the signals and waited for the dispassionate voice on the other side. The ringing was replaced by crackling.

“This is agent 2630. Case number 2222-15426874 has been terminated. I need a cleaning crew ASAP because some fucker forgot to mention another person is living in the apartment.” Thorn gritted his teeth and waited while the silence ticked on.

“Address?” It wasn’t the same voice he’d heard for the last fifteen years, and the hairs on the back of his neck tingled. He had no idea who the person on the other end was, didn’t know if it was a man or a woman, an agent or a civilian. No one had told him and since Kannan hadn’t questioned it, he hadn’t either.

“Check the case file.” Thorn held his breath.

“Right…erm…Agent Thorn Hull, Bishop’s Way seventeen. I’ll send a crew right away, sir.”

Sir? What the f**k is going on? “Right, we might need an officer or something.”

“Are you in danger, Mr. Hull?”

Mr. Hull? He glanced at himself in the mirror and sighed. “No, she’s in shock, but I don’t think she’s dangerous.” The sobs kept coming from the kitchen.

“I see…” Thorn could hear the man, he was almost certain it was a man, tapping on a keyboard. “I want you to leave.”

“To leave?” It wasn’t as if Thorn wanted to hang around but…He leaned back until he could see the woman. She was draped over the body on the floor, her face buried against his chest, and her shoulders shaking from crying.

“Yes, leave. People are unpredictable in situations like this, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. The crew will be there in five minutes.”

Thorn pushed away from the wall. He should tell the woman he was leaving.

“Are you out of the apartment yet?”

Thorn tugged at his hair. He hadn’t thought the man was still there. “No, not yet.”

“Leave now. Don’t hang up until you’re outside.”

Thorn stared at the door. What the hell is going on?

“Mr. Hull, this is for your safety. Leave now.”

Thorn silently closed the door behind him, pocketed his gun, and walked down the stairs. The sun was shining outside, highlighting the dirty buildings and the cracks in the sidewalk. He reached for the gloves in his back pocket, put them on to hide his tattoo, and leisurely strolled down the road.

* * * *

Sid Barker tapped the airlock on one of his demijohns hidden in the old barn behind his house. The bubbles had slowed considerably, maybe stopped altogether. He crouched and stroked Cognac’s head. Cognac yawned and rolled over on his side.

“You lazy beast.” Sid pushed at him, but it was almost impossible to move an English mastiff who didn’t want to be moved.

He stayed there, patting Cognac and watching for bubbles in the airlock until his legs grew numb. “Come on, boy. We need to check the canisters too.”

Cognac growled. At first Sid laughed, then he heard footsteps on the gravel outside. His heart jumped to his throat, and he hurried out of the room. The lock clicked into place, and he pushed a hay bale in front of the door. The canisters were in a second room closer to the door.

“Sid, you in here?”

Sid almost sagged in relief as Jeb’s voice echoed through the barn. “Yeah, I’m here.”

Jeb appeared in the doorway and Cognac, the traitor, trotted over to him. “Sorry to come unannounced.”

Sid raised his eyebrows and watched as Jeb spoke to the dog.

Sighing, he stepped closer. “He’s a lousy guard dog.” He wasn’t. Sid couldn’t imagine his life without the big brute, but when it came to Jeb, Cognac was a lousy guard dog.

“Nah, he’s such a good boy.”

Sid nodded, but his heart didn’t calm down. Jeb coming without notice didn’t happen, Jeb coming after dark without calling ahead made his gut knot. There wasn’t a curfew exactly, but the government advised against going outside after sundown. The likelihood of any agents spotting Jeb out here was small, but he had to go back into the city at some point. If they saw him, they might think there was a need for a questioning—Sid would have to keep him overnight.

“What can I do you for?”

Jeb stood and pushed at Cognac—successfully pushing him away was rare, but this time Jeb managed. “I…It’s business-related.”

“I figured.”

“I don’t want to push you into anything. I know you’re on a dangerous level as it is, but I could use some more…and more often.”

“More? Christ, Jeb, if they catch you, you’re dead.” If they caught Sid, he was dead too. He drummed his fingers against his thigh. His gut turned hollow and his ribcage shrank.

“I know. And if they catch me, you’ll go down too. I have no illusions of being able to withstand torture for any length of time, not even for you.” He winked but most of the color had left his face.

“Goes both ways, babe.” Sid tried to make light of it, but they were both aware of what they were facing, and the Death Squad was nothing compared to it.

Cognac gave a small whine and came to push lightly on Sid’s leg. “It’s all right, bud.” Sid rested a hand on his head—one of the things he liked best with having a huge dog, apart from it keeping people at a healthy distance, was that he didn’t have to bend down to pet him.

“I…erm…I have a new client—it’s best you don’t know who—but they’d heard of the West Oak Moonshine and approached me.”

“They’d heard of it?” The concrete under his feet shook. While it was good his products were liked, he didn’t want the name—which he’d given as a joke—to be known.

“Yeah, I don’t know how. I’ve never written it on the bottles. I draw the oak tree, but it’s not a name I say in mixed company.” Jeb’s dark eyes searched the joists, his black hair curling around his ears, and the stubble on his cheeks darker than most days. Sid remembered what he looked like in the morning, how he looked when he was worried, tired, sick, when he climaxed, when he was enjoying the afterglow. The images left an ache in his heart. What he was seeing now was somewhere between scared, stressed, and exhausted.

“Come on, I need to scrub some potatoes before I can take you to bed.”

Jeb grinned, but it wasn’t the carefree grin Sid was used to. “You’re sweet to offer, lord knows I could use the stress relief, but I can’t stay.”

“It could be an offer of a place to sleep, we don’t have to fuck.” Though Sid’s c**k gave a disappointed shrug as he uttered the words.

“Scott would cut my balls off if I didn’t make it back.”

“Ah…Still seeing him then?” Sid wasn’t jealous. He and Jeb had been down that route, and Sid loved him as a friend, but no amount of f*****g would ever make Jeb something other than a friend. A friend he cared a great deal about, a friend he’d be willing to go through a lot of trouble for. And while there was plenty of tenderness, there would never be the right spark. They were good in bed or had been back when they went to bed together, but what they did there didn’t deepen their emotions for one another. Sid loved him, but not in the way someone loved a spouse, and the feeling was mutual.

Jeb grimaced. “For a while. I don’t think it’ll last more than a few months.”

Sid wrapped an arm around Jeb’s shoulders and walked them toward the door. “No happily ever after?”

“Is there ever a happily ever after for guys like us, Sid?”

“One day. I’ll buy a farm, a real one—not a hut about to fall on my head, and I’ll sweep you off your feet.”

Jeb chuckled and leaned his head against Sid’s shoulder in a resigned manner. “If I’m alone when that day comes, I might let you.”

Sid guided him to an old, scarred table in the small kitchenette in the corner of the barn. It was nothing more than a bench and a small sink, but it was where he scrubbed all the potatoes and apples for his brews. “Sit here and talk to me while I work. What’s this new deal about?”

Jeb sighed and started talking. Doubling his production would be near impossible. Where he’d get the ingredients without bringing attention to himself, he didn’t know, but could he afford to say no?

The water was cold, and it didn’t take long before his hands ached from it, but he kept on scrubbing. One potato after the other, then he went about shredding them. Jeb sat quietly at the table, his head resting in his hands, and Sid suspected there was more going on than he let on.

“Are they threatening you?”

He shrugged. “Not really, not the most pleasant guys, but I could say no. And they don’t know who you are, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“I wasn’t worried about me.”

“My knight in shining armor.” Jeb gave him a tired smile. “You don’t have to do it, Sid. If my finances weren’t what they are, I wouldn’t bring it up, but with the increased fees for the liquor license, I have to either expand what I sell off the record or turn the bar into a lunch restaurant without any alcohol. I can’t live off it in its current state.”

Money, it always came down to money. The government controlled everything, and made sure you only got enough to scrape by, if that, no matter what business you were in. Unless you were government-employed, of course.

When Jeb had first opened The Broken Bottle, he’d have to renew his liquor license once a year, now it was once every quarter, and they increased the cost every time.

On paper, Sid was a potato farmer, but if anyone believed he could survive as one, they were stupid. He sold a few pounds of potatoes to Jeb’s restaurant every year, mostly to have something to report to the tax agency, but no one could live off what he made. Even if he sold every single potato he pulled from the ground, it wouldn’t have been enough.

“I’ll do it, but it’ll take a few weeks before I can deliver. The apple wine in the glass demijohns is about ready. I checked it right before you came. It’ll be cloudy unless we let it rest for a month or two, though. And I have another batch on the way in plastic canisters.” He gestured in direction of the apple wine room. “Some of the potato liquor is ready to be filtered.” He motioned at the heap of potatoes on the rickety kitchenette counter. “And I’ll get this batch going tonight. The potato vodka is much quicker to make than the wine, a couple of weeks and then I can filter it. If I have ingredients, I can up that production pretty fast.” He didn’t have ingredients.

Jeb searched his eyes, then he nodded.

Sid hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.