Jonah’s pupils dilated, his hands spasming over Cas’s, once more giving him a look that made his insides shiver and his dick throb. “Once this conversation is over, we can discuss your diplomatic skills. Now, talk.”
Cas deflated, realizing it was a losing battle. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with what were you doing in Russia?”
Cas shook his head. “Exactly what I said when you were spanking me in a massage parlor. I was working.”
“For who?”
“Come on, J. You know how this shit works. I don’t know names. It’s all done on the darknet. No names. No details. Just enough to get the job done and an account number to send the money once the job’s over. All I can tell you is they were Turkish and they asked me to go to Russia for the job. I told them I didn’t need to leave the Ukraine to do what they wanted, but they insisted. For the money they offered, I would have gone to Yemen. So, I got on a plane.”
“What was the job?”
“Hack into a corporation called Global Data Systems and retrieve a list of names.”
Jonah frowned. “That’s it?”
Cas gave him a pissy look. “Do you know how hard it is to crack a system like Global’s? They’re a private military contractor with billions of dollars worth of overseas contracts. They basically supply armies to small foreign governments.”
“So, this was, what? A list of operatives or contacts?”
Cas shook his head. “That’s just it. It was a list labeled as their softball team roster, only it was buried in a bunch of garbage code, and there are at least fifty names on it, none of whom work for Global. So, clearly, it’s all bullshit.”
“So, who are they?” Jonah prompted.
Cas rubbed his hands over his face. “As far as I can tell, they’re all just random people. A teacher. An accountant. A welder from Boise. The closest I came to anything influential was just a couple of ivy eating, boat-shoe wearing, drink-spiking, dude-bro douchebags. A mid-level congressmen, some judges, but mostly literal nobodies, and nothing that ties any of these men together as far as I can tell.”
Jonah frowned. “What was the price tag on this job?”
“A lot,” Cas muttered, gaze skating away from Jonah’s.
“Cas…” Jonah said his name like a warning.
“Fine, half a million paid out in bitcoin.”
Jonah exploded, slamming his fist down on the mattress hard enough to send the plates rattling on the tray, coffee sloshing over the rim of the cups as Jonah pointed a finger in Cas’s direction. “What the fuck, Cas? What do Madi and I always say about high-stakes jobs like that?”
“High reward means high risk,” Cas recited, tone bored. “But that’s kinda the whole point, Jonah. I wanted one big paycheck before I headed back to the States.”
“Why? I would've given you money if you needed it.” Jonah shook his head, still furious. “I would’ve taken care of you.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me,” Cas snapped back before taking a deep breath and letting it out. “Not like that, anyway. I don’t want to depend on you financially. How can you not get that? I wanted to pay you back for all those years you took care of me.”
Jonah looked poleaxed. “What? I don’t want your money. I have more money than I know what to do with. I wouldn’t have taken it. I won’t take it. That’s not—” He broke off, like he was searching for the words. “Ilikedhaving you around,” he finally said, his words as weighted as a marriage proposal.
Cas stared at him, stunned. “You did?”
Jonah shook his head, like he couldn’t understand how it wasn’t obvious. “Don’t act like you didn’t know. You were one of us. You didn’t do what we did, but you were part of the group. The family. Me, Madi, Red, Levi, Sadie.”
One name stuck out among the others. Madi. Cas tried not to let his name spoil Jonah’s confession, since he knew for a fact Madi had never thought of Cas as one of them. Not once Cas turned eighteen and was still hanging around. Madi had made it clear in a million little ways as often as possible that Cas wasn’t welcome, all under the guise of worrying about him.
Still, Jonah’s admission rattled Cas. It probably wouldn’t seem like a big deal to most normal people, not after two years of living together and another five apart, and especially not after what had happened downstairs just moments ago, but Jonah had spent those two years with Cas sleeping on the couch acting like every new day he found Cas there was another day of solitude sacrificed.
“I didn’t.”
Jonah’s face was a thunderstorm as he seemed to contemplate Cas’s words. He saw the moment Jonah remembered they had bigger problems than their past life together. “Did they ever say why they wanted the list?”
“They asked me to meet them at an abandoned apartment building in Moscow. When I got there, they stuffed me in a room with a giant man named Brutus, who was to be my kidnapper/butler, and they asked me for a list of supplies to build the system I needed. Literally two seconds after Brutus informed his people that I had retrieved the list, Russian stormtroopers busted through the door and shot Brutus dead, spraying a lot of bullets but only hitting him.”
