The lobby was dark aside from the light filtering in through the windows, the front desk attendants already on the phones where a line was queuing up and people milled around in confusion. Jonah raced to the stairwell just as the generators kicked on.
“She was still standing when they pulled the curtain. Fuck, I’m sorry, J.”
“Get down here, Madigan.” Jonah took the stairs two at a time, gun drawn. “What do you see, Cas?”
“You in the stairwell. Nothing else right now. Wait.” He paused. “North stairwell, man by himself descending. Think it’s Pritka, but I can’t be sure. He’s moving fast. There’s a…ummm, parking garage entry on the third floor and another exit at street level that lets out on the left side of the hotel.”
Jonah yanked on the door at the third floor. “Cas, can you—” The lock clicked open before he’d even finished the sentence. “Christ, you’re good.”
“Told you.”
“Madigan, get your ass to the twelfth floor. Find Sadie.” Jonah raced down the hallway to the stairwell on the other end.
“Guy’s going into the garage.”
“Can you keep eyes on him?”
“Yeah, he’s heading west,” Cas said. “Looks like there’s another stairwell over on the far side of the garage. I’ve got the street cams pulled up. Doesn’t look like he’s got a ride coming for him yet.”
“He will. I see him.” Jonah yanked open the door to the garage in time to spot the dark-haired man loping toward the opposite corner. He lifted his gun and squeezed the trigger, heart thumping double time when the man crumpled. “Got him in the thigh. I’ll find a car, secure him there, and then—”
“Jonah.” It came from his left side, a voice he hadn’t heard in its raw, natural state for years. Funny how it was immediately familiar. Funny how it made his stomach twist the same way his old boss’s used to.
He was on his back in seconds, pain flaring red at the edges of his vision, left knee on fire. His head lolled to one side, and he heard Cas shouting in his ear but filtered it out and tried to focus. His gun lay five feet away near a tire.
Pritka’s footfalls sounded, steady and unhurried, as he moved around Jonah, swinging the crowbar in his hand lightly. “This is always my favorite part of the movie. So evident to the audience what will happen next, and yet, our man can’t give up, can’t stop trying. Here, let me help you.” Pritka nudged Jonah’s gun a foot closer and frowned when he didn’t reach for it. “So tired already? Giving up so soon? That won’t do.”
“Stubborn,” Jonah grated out. “You’ve got the drive. You don’t need anything else.”
“Yes.” Pritka smiled condescendingly. Jonah curled inward as Pritka landed a swift blow of the crowbar to his ribcage. “But I prefer to be the one doing the blackmailing, which means I need you and Sadie out of the way, too. It’s not personal. How about another foot?” He nudged the gun another six inches closer, but Jonah still didn’t reach for it. “Go ahead, have your hero moment before I run out of patience.”
Jonah’s gaze flickered between Pritka and the gun, a dull haze creeping into the edges of his vision. His right side was warm, and he wasn’t sure if it was blood or nerve endings reacting to trauma. That was familiar too, the way pain cast a veil over everything. In seconds, there’d be endorphins to blunt it.
He rolled onto his side with a groan, and Pritka smiled. “There we go. Now, stretch. You can do it. It’s very close.”
Jonah dragged in a breath that seared through his entire body. He reached his arm out at the same time he threw his weight forward, good knee digging into the asphalt as he lurched toward Pritka instead of the gun. The knife he’d pulled from his boot arced toward Pritka’s side.
Pritka cursed and tried to leap back. For a second, triumph spilled through Jonah in a flood of adrenaline. He felt his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Felt his mouth curling in a savage smile. He saw the sapphire eye of Belize flicker across the backs of his eyelids. He would see it in person soon.
Then there was a loud pop and it all went dark.
27
Caspian
“Jonah? Jonah!” Cas stared at Jonah’s crumpled body and the shadowed figure of the man Jonah had called Pritka standing over him. It didn’t make any sense. Jonah had the jump on him. He had been two seconds away from sending a blade through that piece of shit’s ribcage, and then he’d gone sprawling.
Pritka must have help. One of his goons had to have caught up with them and attacked Jonah from behind. Maybe a guard that Madi and Sadie hadn’t seen? Cas’s hands shook as he watched black blood spread out beneath Jonah’s prone form. Was he breathing? He leaned closer, like that would somehow be enough to fix the dated camera’s grainy black and white graphics enough to see the rise and fall of Jonah’s chest, the one that would tell Cas whether somebody had just ripped out his still beating heart while he watched. How much blood could Jonah lose and still come back to Cas? How big did the stain beneath Jonah have to be for Cas to decide that nothing else mattered?
He let out a scream of rage, sweeping the piles of empty energy drink cans onto the floor.
“Cas, what’s happening?”
“Where are you? Jonah’s hurt. He’s bleeding. Get to the garage!” Cas could hear the panic in his voice, but he couldn’t stop it.
Tears streamed down his face, but he brushed them away with a noise of frustration even as he sniffled. Fuck. They were going to get out of there. They were going to go to Belize. Jonah was going to retire, and they were going to spend their lives teaching kids to surf or selling coconuts. Whatever the fuck expats did in Belize.
“We’re on our way, kid. Relax. Jonah’s too stubborn to die.” Madi’s voice was as calm as a summer lake, like he was talking to somebody balanced on a ledge, threatening to jump. Maybe he was. It felt like he was. He didn’t want any of this without Jonah. Fate brought them together, and he’d be fucking damned if they were going to rip him away now that Jonah had told Cas he loved him. Fuck. He wiped his eyes and nose with his forearm, trying to focus on what was happening in front of him.
