#ockiss2025

Bill turned white as a sheet, staring wide-eyed for instruction. Percy just sighed.

“Let him in,” he said.

He rushed away. The door clicked open, but Percy heard it slam against the wall anyway. Henry’s furious, thundering footsteps shook the air, and he was menacing when he found what he was looking for. Percy stood tall, staring into the mirror instead of turning around, and his face contorted with rage.

“How dare you,” he growled.

“How dare I what?” Percy replied, flat and emotionless.

“How dare you sit there like a high-hat flapper instead of explaining to me what the fuck is going on here?”

His blood boiled—Henry knew what it meant when he wore his hair like this. He knew exactly what he was saying. Percy knew it was what he wanted, but he whipped around with burning eyes.

“You should be thanking me is what’s going on,” he spat. “I cleared out that rat infestation by my Goddamn self, you ungrateful sap.”

“Thanking you?” Henry took a threatening step forward. “I had a plan to take care of it quietly, and you—“

“They would have seen it coming a mile away, and we would have been back to square one.”

“I already set-up the Goddamn sting!” Henry roared, throwing his arms out wildly. “The chief was for it! We would have cleaned them up in one fucking afternoon, and now I have to explain why my wife was out there ruining our operation!”

Percy almost laughed. “You’re worried about the fuzz?”

“Our reputation with the fuzz.”

“Oh, please. Our real enemies heard my message loud and clear—they would have bought their way out of yours.”

Henry dragged his hands down his face. “So, that’s it then? Decades of work we’ve put into getting the police on our side—gone? Because you wanted to play with a pistol?” Percy opened his mouth, but Henry kept going. “All because you wanted to get one over on a tiny, tiny piece of our opposition? All because you couldn’t let the negotiator handle this?”

Percy cut in, “The negotiator needs to learn when his skills are unnecessary.”

“And you need to learn your place.”

Oh, that was it.

Priscilla whipped her pistol out of the holster under her arm and let her hat flutter to the floor in one motion. As her hair tumbled out of its misshapen bun, she pointed her gun right over Henry’s heart.

He put his hands up, as though he were innocent. As though his palms weren’t stained with just as much blood as hers, because it was the color of ink instead. They both knew what kind of business this was—Priscilla was at least willing to embrace the truth. She did what she had to do to get things done. And Henry? Henry went around all his problems.

Not this time.

“Remember the woman you married,” she warned. “I haven’t.”

“You’re really pulling a gun on me for this?” he asked, volcanic rage turned to calm, placating words.

“I am.”

“For what? For the crime of wanting to make sure our business can keep thriving? For wanting to keep our influence intact?” He let out a single, breathy sound of laughter. “For wanting to keep you safe? You’d shoot your husband for that?”

“I’ll do much worse if he doesn’t get off my Goddamn back.” Priscilla pulled back the hammer with a click. “I can run this city with or without your help. Remember that.”

Henry hung his head, but she knew him too well to see it as an admission of defeat. She kept the pistol trained on him, finger hovering over the trigger. It was silent in the safehouse, the quiet violence of a dying season.

Then, Henry took a step forward. When Priscilla didn’t threaten him further, he took another. He kept going, step by step, until he pressed himself against the barrel of her gun. It was lodged between his ribs now, too tall and too close for her to truly strike his heart.

“Do it, then,” he muttered, staring down at her with dark eyes.

Priscilla caught her breath, a single moment of hesitation. It was all he needed.

Henry grabbed her wrist and wrenched it to the side with one hand, and fisted her hair in in his other. She would have cried out from the strength of his grip, had he not crushed their mouths together in a kiss as bubbling hot as his rage.

It melted her. She almost dropped the pistol, fingers going limp around the handle, as she succumbed to the warmth of his touch. It was true that Priscilla could have run this city without him, she might even be able to run it better without his meddling. But, oh, she didn’t want to.

Henry loved her so desperately he was willing to risk his life at the end of her hand. When his fury got too much for him—for the both of them—the only thing he could think to do was kiss her, and she was weak for it. The way his angry lips scraped across her own, how her gasps for air only drove him to kiss her harder, deeper, longer… She’d gladly infuriate him every day of her life if it got her this.

There wasn’t anyone else like him. Nobody else could make her hate them one minute, and fall even deeper in love the next.

When he finally gave her room to breathe, she was sure he saw the love in her face. That she’d only done this for him. That everything she did was to keep her dearest husband intact in his favorite office, doing the paperwork he loved so much. Henry loved her enough to risk his life, and Priscilla loved him enough to kill.

“If you come back to the house tonight,” Henry told her, low and raspy, “I’m going to lock you in the basement and board the door shut.”

“Enjoy eating dinner alone,” she replied.

He sighed, frustrated, but let her go. Priscilla stumbled, dizzy, and he stomped his way back out the safehouse door. She watched him go with hungry eyes, only interrupted by Bill and Luther. The two goons crawled out of wherever they’d been hiding during their argument, and stared at her.

“Oh, don’t be such pikers,” she chided. “He’ll be ringing the hotel phone by tomorrow morning, begging forgiveness.”

Privately, she knew she’d have forgiven him by then too. She turned back to the mirror to fix her hair again, smiling to herself. The moment he calls, she’ll be halfway out the door already, desperate to get back home to him. They’ll stay wrapped in each other for hours, wondering how they could have ever been so angry.

Her heart fluttered at the thought. Perhaps she could convince him to lock her in the bedroom instead.

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