Changing Fortunes (BoyxBoy)

Part 1

"A hundred thousand credits? You've got to be fucking kidding, Balint!"

He wasn't. Especially when he said the magic word that made Cam want to slap him.

"But it's an opportunity, kiddo!"

Everything was an opportunity to Balint, his partner in crime. "Yeah? For who?" Cam demanded.

Balint gave him those puppy dog eyes that always melted Cam's heart. "For us, baby."

Cam rolled his eyes. That was Balint's answer for everything. The money they made was for them so eventually; they would never have to work again and could just lounge around on the beach in some deserted island and fuck like bunnies. The only problem was that the money was never enough and Balint liked to spend it on stupid stuff as fast as they made it.

Like the silver studded cap he had on his head now. Him and his fucking caps!

"Did it ever occur to you to wonder why the take was so high, dumbass?"

Cam didn't even wait for Balint's answer because he knew it. Balint didn't wonder. Balint didn't care at all, as long as the money was in his hand by the end of the job. And if the money wasn't, there'd be two hits for the price of one.

Balint may be easy going and charming but he didn't fuck around when it came to money and neither did Cam.

The money wasn't the only red flag. "Sarin, Balint? You know his rep, why would you ever accept a job from him?"

"Because this one is a no-can-miss, buddy. Easy. Easy money."

Cam was beginning to sense a deja-vu happening. "You really think it's just a hit on a troublesome kid?"

Balint pouted; something he always did when he saw that Cam was going to fight him. "Of course not."

Cam waited for the other shoe to drop.

"We're going to have to take out his boss, too."

"His boss?" Cam exclaimed, completely floored by Balint's blindness to anything that even reeked of danger as long as the coinage was high enough. "His boss just happens to Ardoin Baptiste, one of the most powerful padrones in Sargot City and from what I've heard; it'll be hard enough to ice the kid."

Balint had said that Sarin's official reason was that this kid was a fox in Sarin's henhouse, stealing the chicken right from under him. Cam had been in this business for a good many of his twenty one years and as profitable as Sarin's Pet trade was, he knew that this hit was personal: a smackdown for the unpardonable sin of fucking around with Sarin's property.

"Cammie, Cammie," Balint shook his head, "so negative. Just think of the palm trees." He planted kisses on Cam's neck. "Think of the waves."

Cam sighed, trying to ignore Balint's lips. "Think of the rumors."

Balint's fingers unbuttoned Cam's shirt. "That's all they are, Cam-Cam. Rumors."

Rumors like the owner of the club known as the Nocturne was actually the head of the Underground: an outfit whose main objective was to overthrow the World Association of Superior Persons and who had also become one of the major crime syndicates in the area. Chances were that Baptiste's enforcer was probably as much of an assassin as Cam and Balint were, or Sarin wouldn't be so hot to get rid of him.

But it wasn't those rumors that made Cam edgy; it was the other ones that were said in hushed tones as if to say them was to bring evil upon themselves. Things like some people went into the Nocturne but didn't come out. Tales of beautiful boys and girls who lured the unwitting into their beds -- and to their deaths. Whispers of mutants. Demons. Monsters.