Assets and Liabilities

She felt a hand try to grab her arm so she started kicking and flailing her legs again, modesty be damned. She arched her back and swung her torso like an innocent dolphin caught up in a tuna net. Her foot connected with something solid, a shoulder, or a jaw, and she heard one of the men groan in pain and call her a bitch. If this was her last night on Earth, she would leave happy in the knowledge that she landed at least one blow.

One of the men caught her ankles, and the other grabbed her by her shoulders as they easily lifted her struggling body out of the van. As they pushed her into a kneeling position, Megan's tactic changed from fighting to pleading. She was sobbing under the bag and could feel the snot running out of her nose as she cried and begged for her life. The fact that neither man bothered to reply, told her they were not in a position to grant her any clemency.

Not a religious person by any means, she hung her head and started mumbling The Lord's Prayer, resigned to accept her gruesome fate. The sound of the gun as it cocked inches from her ear sounded exactly like it did on TV. The long silent paused that followed seemed like an eternity, the only sound being the idling van, the crickets in the distance, and the beating of her heart that was about to burst out of her chest.

Two shots rang out and pierced the silence as Megan fell forward in a heap like a ragdoll.

"FUCK! I'm hit," yelled out one of the guys in a definite Brooklyn accent.

"Leave the bitch and get in the van!" yelled the other guy.

Megan was confused. She was sure that the sound of the gunfire was the last thing she would ever hear. Am I having an out of body experience, she wondered? She took a mental triage of her body and didn't feel any pain, with the exception of some minor scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs. She felt warm fluid as it spread across her thighs. Did those idiots shoot me in the leg? But she didn't feel any pain in her legs either.

"Megan...Megan...are you alright?" Megan smiled under the burlap hood at the familiar baritone voice, as it drew nearer to her with each of his strides. He pulled to her feet and ripped the hood from her head. She stared into his twinkly hazel eyes and he hugged her trembling body to his chest.

Megan melted into his embrace and sobbed on his shoulder. She wanted to hug him back but her hands were still bound behind her. He broke their embrace and took a step back and scanned her body. "Are you hurt? Are you shot?" he asked frantically, turning her to and fro to assess for any injuries.

She mumbled under the tape and rolled her eyes at him.

"Prepare yourself, this is gonna hurt," he warned as he pulled the duct tape from her lips.

"OW! FUCK!" Megan yelled as her tongue swiped over her burning lips. She didn't see where the knife came from, but with a quick swipe, her hands were freed as well.

She grabbed him by the head and pulled his face to hers, kissing him deeply. The raw skin around her mouth burned on the rough stubble of his five o'clock shadow, but she didn't mind the pain, as it reminded her that she was still alive.

"Are you alright?" he asked, staring deeply into her eyes, their noses still touching.

"I think I pissed myself," she replied with a laugh, then added, "and I may never sleep again. But yeah, I'm alive, so I guess I'm alright."

"Oh, so THAT'S what that smell is," he joked, as he looked around the Deerfield Landfill. He swept her up into his arms and carried her back to his car. "Let's get you home and cleaned up."

*****

The dark sedan crept along the dirt road of the Overlook Cemetery without the aid of headlights. Twenty years ago, the adjacent property was deemed protected wetlands, until the City Council approved the sale to DeFazio Waste Management for the Deerfield Landfill.

Captain Jones hoped he guessed right, as this was a known location for one of DeFazio's grease-men. He popped the trunk and covered the bulb with his hand as he extracted the hard-sided black case. With military precision and quickness, he assembled the long rifle and attached the infrared scope. He set the bipod on a flat headstone from the 1900s and laid prone on Agatha Kenworthy's grave, just as the van pulled into the landfill.

The left side and rear of the van faced his vantage point, and he fixed his aim on the grainy night-vision image of the driver that appeared in the center of his scope. The intersection of the red crosshairs never left the driver's ear as he walked to the back of the van and pulled open the doors. The other man appeared around the passenger-side corner of the van, and both men tried pulling the kicking and bucking woman from the back.

'Attagirl,' Jones said to himself, as her left foot caught the jaw of the shorter man. He knew he could take both men out from this distance, but he needed to pay attention to their body language, so he knew which one to take out first.

As they pushed her to the ground on her knees, he saw a reflection about 50 yards southwest of the van. He quickly re-aimed the rifle at the moving image and recognized it to be Agent Cassidy. He returned his aim to the shorter man, who stood next to the sobbing woman, with his gun aimed at her temple. He let out a long slow breath and tightened his finger slightly on the trigger.

The muzzle flashes from Cassidy's service revolver temporarily blinded Captain Jones. When he refocused, both men were running back toward the van, and Megan was lying in a heap on the ground.

"Goddammit, Cassidy," the Captain said aloud as he held his breath and waited for the girl to move. When Cassidy hugged the very alive woman, Captain Jones emptied the rounds from the chamber and dismantled the rifle, returning the pieces to the foam cut-outs in the black case. 'Maybe he's still on our side after all,' Jones thought to himself as he slowly drove out of the dark cemetery.

*****

Megan's body slowly cast off the sanctity of a very deep sleep, remnants of the previous night drifted through her conscious like details from a dream, or more appropriately, a nightmare. She blinked her eyes and attempted to adjust to the mid-morning sun coming through the blinds, and inhaled the wonderful aroma of fresh coffee wafting in from the hallway.

Blinds? I don't have blinds! She shot up in the bed and tried to get her bearings. She looked down and noticed she was only wearing an oversized pajama top that barely covered her crotch. The grey sheets and dark blue comforter were not hers, nor were the dresser and closet full of men's suits.

"Good morning sleepy-head," called Cassidy, as he pushed the door open with his foot, a cup of coffee in each hand. "Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life," he joked and leaned down to set the coffee cups on the nightstand.

The sight of Cassidy brought back all the memories and emotions of the prior evening, which played out in her head as fast as the stick figure flip-movies she made in high school on the corner of her notebook pages. She leaped into his arms as he was setting down the mugs, and started kissing his face and neck, muttering thank you, thank you, thank you, in between kisses, her arms on his broad shoulders and her legs wrapped around his bare waist.

Cassidy reached under her to support her weight and clasped his hands together under her naked ass. He attempted his best John Wayne impression and said, "Just doing ma'job, little lady."

Megan felt his hands on her bare skin and looked down at his bare chest, his bottom half covered in the matching pajama pants to the extra-large shirt she wore. "Where are my clothes..." she asked, and then added, "...did we...ummm?'

"If you have to ask, I guess I wasn't that good," he deadpanned and watched her eyes dart back and forth, in an attempt to remember any hints of a night of love-making. He held his straight face for as long as he could, then burst out laughing and dumped her on the bed. He slid in next to her and scooped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her head to his hairy chest. "No, Megan, despite the advice from the devil on my shoulder, I was a perfect gentleman last night."

"And my clothes," she asked and pulled the hem of the shirt down to cover her thighs, which only resulted in a greater display of her cleavage.

"I'm sorry, I only had the one pair of pajamas, so I thought we'd share," he said, enjoying the accidental expanded view of her firm breasts. "I threw everything else in the laundry, but don't worry, I followed the instructions on the labels."

Megan traced her finger through his thick chest hair as he spoke, and noticed a few involuntary twitches from under the light fabric of his pajama pants.

"You know," she said, as she bent down and kissed his left nipple, "I never did get to properly thank you for saving my life." Her hand reached into his fly and removed his hardening cock.

"That's really not necessary Megan," he weakly protested, "I was just protecting my..."

"Asset?" she said, finishing his sentence, as she swung her leg over his hip and placed the large mushroom head of his cock in between the wet lips of her pussy. She lowered herself down on his thick pole and moaned as it pushed its way inside her.

He pulled her down to him and kissed her passionately, as she worked herself up and down his throbbing member. She broke the kiss and sat back up. Then she slowly unbuttoned the pajama shirt while rocking her hips on his lap, his cock still buried deep inside her. His hands were on her breasts before she even shrugged the shirt off her shoulders. She closed her eyes and moaned loudly as he rolled her sensitive nipples through his rough fingers.

Cassidy rolled her onto her back, never breaking their pelvic union, and pinned her arms over her head, thrusting himself more forcefully deep inside her. She curled her ankles around his butt and pushed herself back against him to meet his thrusts. The flood of emotions from the previous night coursed through her brain like a firehose, as her body succumbed to the release of an incredible orgasm. Cassidy crashed his lips down on hers and kissed her ravenously as his cock expanded, and his own orgasm overtook him.

The weight of the full-sized man on her small frame was actually comforting, and she felt protected and safe in his arms. Her legs remained clamped around his back, and she continued to hold him in place, long after his deflated cock slipped out of her. Their kissing and breathing slowed at a similar pace, until Cassidy rolled to his side, pulling Megan with him.

"I've gotta grab a shower and head to the office, babe," he said as he pecked a kiss on the tip of her nose. "There's more coffee in the kitchen, and I can drop you to get your car on my way in."

She reluctantly let him go and sat up in the bed as he went into the bathroom to shower. She took a sip from the mug on the nightstand and spit it back into the cup. 'Why does cold coffee taste so bad,' she thought as she slipped back into the pajama shirt, without bothering to button it, and carried the two mugs back to the kitchen.

She saw her purse sitting on the kitchen table, next to his laptop and opened briefcase. As she dug around in her purse for her cell phone, she couldn't help but scan the tabs on the file folders tucked into the partitions of the top lid of the briefcase. "Known and Unknown Associates" caught her eye, and she looked around the empty kitchen before she pulled out the file folder and started leafing through the black & white photos. Most were of DeFazio meeting with various men, each with a Post-It note next to the face with their name, some of which she recognized from the news footage of DeFazio's arrest. She flipped to the next one, which was a somewhat blurry photo of DeFazio with a much younger woman, only a question mark on the sticky yellow note. Though she wore a kerchief and dark glasses, Megan could tell she was a platinum blonde, just like Ms. Hogan. The date-stamp on the picture was from a little over a year ago.

She flipped to the next picture, which was far clearer, and gasped. It WAS Ms. Hogan. The picture seemed to be taken at an outdoor café. DeFazio was holding a small Tiffany's jewelry box, and she was pinning a diamond-studded earring in her left ear. Even though her face was mostly turned away from the camera, and there was another yellow note with a question mark, Megan recalled complimenting Ms. Hogan on those earrings on the day she was announced as a Senior Partner. Cassidy had to know who Ms. Hogan was, Megan thought to herself, or maybe he was a better shot than he was a Detective. She folded the picture and was about to stuff it in her purse when the voice behind her startled her.

"Did you save any for me," asked Cassidy, as he walked toward the kitchen in only a towel, carrying her freshly dried clothes. She spun around nervously and held the picture behind her back, which caused the opened pajama top to slide off her shoulder, proving him a full-frontal view of her nakedness.

"I was talking about the coffee," he joked, as he bent down and kissed her right nipple, "but if we had more time, I'd have a second cup of you too." Megan let the pajama shirt fall over the folded picture, and then bundled it all up into a ball.

"Do you mind if I take this home to sleep in," she asked, "it smells of your cologne and I think it'll make me feel safer."

"Whatever it takes, little lady," Cassidy said as he kissed her again on the lips, and filled his hands with her naked bottom, "to protect my favorite asset."

"I'll try not to be a liability," she joked, as she grabbed her purse, and her clothes from his hands, and scampered off to the bathroom, holding the bundled up pajama shirt on the top of the pile.

*****

Cassidy's Lexus pulled into the same spot that the van was in, next to Megan's Prius in the parking lot behind her firm. He leaned over and kissed her cheek and asked, "Are you going to be alright?"

"Yeah, I just want to go home and change," she said, "I think I'm going to burn this outfit."

"Just remember to take it off first," Cassidy joked and kissed her once more. He watched and waited until she got into her car and started it, then drove out of the parking lot to the left.

Megan was about to pull out of her spot when she saw Ms. Hogan drive by in her red Jaguar F-Type convertible. She watched the red sports car take a left out of the parking lot, and Megan decided to follow her. She felt like one of the CSI cops following the Jaguar through the city streets and gave herself credit for staying three cars behind her so as not to be detected.

Had she been a real cop, however, she would have noticed the dark sedan three cars behind her Prius.

The Jag's first stop was at Greenberg's to pick up her dry cleaning. 'How ironic' Megan thought. Three blocks later, she stopped at Dansinger Florist and left with a bouquet of fresh cut flowers. 'For me, Ms. Hogan...you shouldn't have,' Megan joked, as she blended in with the traffic behind the red Jag. She followed her to a very familiar neighborhood and watched as she parked in front of the apartment Megan had left less than an hour before.

Megan circled the block and pulled into a spot across the street, just as Ms. Hogan walked to the front door with the flowers. Megan lowered the passenger window and focused her cell phone camera on the doorway as Ms. Hogan rang the bell, holding the flowers behind her back, and looked around nervously while she waited for the door to be answered.

Cassidy opened the door and it appeared as though he and Ms. Hogan exchanged some terse words. Megan held her hand on the shutter button and her iPhone was clicking away as Ms. Hogan handed Cassidy the flowers. He pulled her to him by the lapels of her business suit and planted a passionate kiss on her lips. She pushed him back into the apartment and kicked the door closed, never once breaking their kiss.

'What the actual fuck,' Megan said to herself, as she flipped through the photo gallery and tried to make sense of what she just witnessed.

*****

Inside the apartment, the tall woman questioned him in between kisses, while she unbuttoned his shirt.

"Did we get what we needed from her?" Anne asked as she pushed his shirt off his chest.

"Everything, we needed, and more!" Cassidy replied, his raised eyebrow clearly defining what he meant by 'and more.'

"I knew you could charm her into stealing those files," Anne added while she unzipped and lowered his pants, "and out of her panties as well."

"Once I register her as a confidential informant," he moaned as his cock sunk into her warm wet mouth, "nobody will suspect you when that bastard is finally arrested. The first part of our plan is coming off without a hitch."

Anne took his cock out of her mouth and looked up at him disappointed, "You showered? I wanted to taste her on you."

"I had to you kinky bitch," Cassidy explained, "I told her I needed to go to the office to get her out of here before you came over."

"Good thinking," she replied. Then added, "But you have to answer the door quicker, you know that jealous bastard watches my every move."

"And you love to be caught," he razzed, as he pushed his throbbing cock back into her mouth.

While she continued the blow job, Anne Hogan thought back to the last time she was caught by DeFazio and it made the ache between her legs much stronger.

*****

She had answered a late night booty-call from her ex-husband, who wasn't even supposed to be in town. DeFazio had been distracted by business and it had been several weeks since poor Anne had had any intimate contact, far longer than she was accustomed. When the call came in from her husband, she knew it was risky, for both of them, but that just made the booty call that much more enticing.

Anne had made her ex-husband cum twice, and he returned the favor threefold. Had the circumstances been different, they might still be together, as the sex was never their problem. In fact, he was hung like the proverbial horse. Unfortunately, her ex-husband was the reason she was in this mess with DeFazio, which is also why he was forced to leave town.

Her ex-husband Rob had a gambling problem, which Anne never knew about until he nearly bankrupted them. He was also into DeFazio for more than two-hundred grand of gambling debts, which had ballooned to over three-hundred grand due to the missed payments. If she hadn't forgotten her cell phone at home that fateful day, Rob would have long since been dead.

An hour after she had left for work she returned home to get her phone. When she walked in, DeFazio and two of his thugs had Rob's head in a noose which was suspended from the exposed beams in their great room. Rob's toes were barely touching the kitchen chair, on which he stood.

When the door to their apartment opened, Rob shook his head in an attempt to warn his wife to turn and run, but instead, she charged into the living room begging DeFazio to spare his life, before she was restrained by one of his men.

"How does a degenerate gambler wind up with such a brave and loyal woman?" DeFazio asked the dangling man rhetorically. Anne continued to plead and promised she would make things right, whatever it took. That offer, coming from the strikingly beautiful young businesswoman seemed to pique DeFazio's interest, as he lounged on the floral-patterned couch.

"Strip," DeFazio commanded. Rob shook his head violently at his wife and attempted to speak from behind the duct tape which sealed his mouth. One of the thugs shook the chair and told him to be quiet. Anne quietly removed her skirt and blouse and stood defiantly in front of the older mobster. Sure she hated her husband for getting in so deep and putting her in this position, but she also loved him and didn't want to see him die.