“It’s none of your business,” Brutus spit at Cas. “You don’t get paid for being nosy. Give me the drive.”
“Point of order, I haven’t been paid yet. You don’t get this thumb drive until I get confirmation you sent the money.”
Brutus leaned over Cas menacingly. “What’s to stop me from just taking it?”
Cas turned to face the man, arms folded across his chest, his expression bored. “Well, see, my system is set up to respond to a series of keystrokes that only I know. You may have heard of it before. It’s called a password? But, unlike your vintage Nokia phone there, if I don’t type in exactly the right keystrokes every twelve hours, it triggers my system to send an email to the CIA as well as Global Data Systems letting them know they’ve been hacked and by who—you, not me, of course—and how to fix the chink in their armor so nobody can do it again, which I imagine would be real inconvenient for your people,” Cas explained. “Conversely, you could just wire my fucking money and we can go our separate ways.”
They stared at each other for a long moment before the big man sighed. “I’ll let them know.”
Caspian grinned. “I thought you’d see it my way.”
Cas palmed the thumb drive, stuffing it in his pocket and placing another in the usb port while Brutus was distracted. As soon as that wire transfer went through, he was taking the first plane back to the States. If his Russian field trip had taught him anything, it was that he needed a home base, a place that was always waiting for him, a place like… He shook the thought away. He couldn’t even think of his name without it causing a sharp pain behind his ribs. His name was an infection in Cas’s blood, a fever he couldn’t sweat out. A disease that spread as time went on until, sometimes, Cas wished it was fatal.
Despite everything, Cas would go back to the city, back tohiscity. Where they’d met. Where Cas had let himself believe he was safe and loved and cared for. But Jonah only cared about Jonah. Cas winced at the thought of his name. Dammit. Even after all these years, after everything. He’d still go back to their city, and he’d deal with the fallout then, no matter how painful.
A loud bang and splintering wood ripped Cas from his thoughts, his chair toppling over backward as he bolted to his feet. A muzzle flash temporarily blinded him, and then Brutus was on his back, a thick, dark pool growing and spreading beneath him.
Cas had just enough time to note three men stood just inside what used to be the door. Their faces were obscured by black balaclavas, and they wore green camouflage pants and thick black coats. All of them were armed and turned on him at once, like machines. The man in the middle began to shout orders. Russians.
Cas ducked, a bullet whizzing past him to lodge in the wall over his head, chunks of drywall peppering his face like rock salt as he slammed his fingers down onto the three buttons meant to destroy the powerhouse system he’d spent two weeks building. He didn’t stop to mourn the loss, lurching toward the window as it shattered, glass exploding outward. Jesus fuck. He’d been in some dangerous situations. He’d been stabbed, hit with a baseball bat—hell, a man in Haiti had even come at him with a machete—but he’d never faced three armed gunmen.
He dove through the near empty frame. A jagged piece of glass impaled the puffy coat he’d taken to wearing inside the frigid apartment, but, thankfully, it didn’t pierce his skin. The rickety fire escape protested as Cas landed on his back with a grunt, the air leaving his lungs in a whoosh. He didn’t have time to worry about its sturdiness. Diving over the railing, he stifled a cry as he landed and his ribs connected with the metal trash can below. Fuck, that was gonna leave a mark.
Cas jumped to his feet, snow crunching under his boots as he took off running. The frosty air stole his breath until it felt like jagged ice crystals formed in his lungs, but he drove his body to keep moving. Maybe they were right behind him, or maybe they were still in the apartment. He wasn’t taking any chances.
He ducked into a darkened alcove just long enough to pull the thumb drive from his sleeve and slip it into his boot. After a moment, he darted back out into the street, almost taking out a couple, shuffling miserably through the snow. “Prostite, prostite,” he mumbled as he passed.
Around the corner, the bright blue sign of a dance club glowed like a beacon in a sea of warehouses and nondescript concrete structures. He ducked inside the club without hesitation and was immediately accosted by the scent of sweat, cigarettes, and stale booze. He slipped past the bouncer unnoticed, his attention taken by a girl in a skirt far too short for a night that cold.
Cas ditched his coat and hat at an empty bar top and slipped onto the crowded dance floor, the swell of people instantly enveloping him. When a girl’s arms circled his waist, he smiled despite his lack of interest, spinning her away from him and pulling her back against him so he could watch the door instead of having to watch her hands.
If they came searching for him in there, he’d just look like another drunken twenty-something reveler in jeans and a t-shirt, his shaggy dark hair falling over his eyes, his arms, hands, and fingers covered in tattoos, like much of the crowd. The words inked on his skin were hidden by his clothing, so nobody would realize they were in English.
The girl reached her hands back, looping them behind his neck and rubbing her ass against his crotch, before glancing over her shoulder and giving him a look that let him know she was up for more than a dance. Any other night, Cas might have at least considered it, but his ribs were aching and images of Brutus’s bloated corpse still danced behind his eyelids, so he pretended not to notice.
Cas let her drag him back to the bar where he did shots with her and her two girlfriends. They were both welcoming, sharing that they worked at a strip club a few blocks away, and encouraging him to come visit them some night. With each passing shot, his ribs hurt less and the adrenaline of outrunning armed Russians faded away until his tongue felt like a spongy grape and his brain was comfortably numb.
On his fifth shot of bottom shelf vodka, he clinked his glass with the three girls’ and cried in English, “To Brutus. Rest easy, you pervy fuck.”
“To Brutus,” they parroted.
He hadn’t liked Brutus. Hell, given a chance, he would have killed the motherfucker himself, but it was a bitch move to pull a shock and awe on their fucking door and shoot a dude dead in the face with an assault rifle. These guys had no code, no integrity. Maybe Cas was an idealist, but it just felt like today’s killers had no style, no signature. Jonah had blamed it on the mercenary trade. He said the military turned out killers like it was a factory. But private militias, military contractors like Global Data Systems, they were all in it for the money.
But not Jonah. Never Jonah.
Jonah. Jonah. Jonah. Cas mouthed his name, always loving the feel of it on his tongue—fucking Jonah. He’d been an artist. Cas turned his shot glass over, chin resting on his fist, trapped in his own memories. Watching Jonah shoot with catastrophic precision, watching him bare-chested and sweaty, sweatpants riding low on his hips as he’d pummeled the heavy bag on the roof… Cas had loved every minute of it. Jonah. Cas sighed for the thoughts of rough hands and long elegant fingers, the way Jonah would sit on the floor by the window in the apartment flicking that butterfly knife open and closed, deep in thought. He’d had no idea Cas was always watching those big hands move all the while imagining them on his body.
Cas had been so young. So young and so fucking stupid. Maybe that was why Jonah had tried so hard to lock Cas out of his life, his thoughts, his job. He’d begged Jonah to teach him, to make Cas a killer, but Jonah had refused. Cas was too naive, too innocent—too young for so many things he would have begged for if Jonah had given him half a chance. But Jonah never had. Sure, he’d taught him to fight, to shoot. He’d taught him a million ways to protect his body but never one to protect his heart.
Cas waved the bartender over, and once more, he poured liquor into four shot glasses. He raised his glass. “Fuck Jonah,” he yelled, his voice barely audible over the music.
“Fuck Jonah,” his new friends cried.
He tipped his shot, letting it burn its way down. “Fuck you, Jonah,” he muttered under his breath. “Wherever you are.”
2
Jonah
