Jonah put a hand up. “Look, we’ve both made a lot of money over the years, but nothing that could fully fund something like this.”
Cas deflated. “Fuck, you’re right.”
“I could throw in.” Cas and Jonah both stared at Madigan. He rested his elbows on the armrest of the chair and steepled his fingers, leaving only the middle two pointing up as he smirked. “I can’t fund the whole damn thing, obviously, but between the three of us, there’s our startup fund while Cas sees if he can make the other bit about draining the finances of the targets pan out.”
“I could talk to Levi, too.” Jonah grimaced as he shifted around, then gave Cas a wan smile when he reached over and helped him stretch his leg out. Cas could tell he was starting to fade again. “We all know Red was sitting on an empire, and Levi’s got his own money. I’ve got an idea he might have a vested interest in donating to a cause to dismantle the operation that resulted in his husband’s death.”
Silence stretched, then Madigan shrugged. “It’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”
“Can we circle back to the part where I have to die?”
Madigan pushed out of the desk chair. “If you’re dead, no one will come after you.”
“Yeah, astute reasoning, Sherlock.” Cas rolled his eyes. “What I mean is, if I’m dead, never to be seen or heard from again, who’s going to helm this deadpool? You and Jonah? Jonah, do you even know how to access the darknet?” He took Jonah’s grunt as a negative.
“The Red Queen can run it.”
Cas was starting to worry that maybe Jonah’s injuries had made him a little addled.
“Hear me out,” Jonah insisted. “That’s the whole point of those names, right? Casper? The Red Queen? They’re protection. Only a handful of people knew who and what Red was. Three of them are in this room. He always said he wanted you to take over eventually. I heard it, you heard it. He thought of you as the son he never had. No one cared about computers and coding like he did, except you. Think about it. He left that back door into his system for you to find. You have access to everything he had access to. Don’t you think he’d want you to use that however you could?”
“Fuck,” Cas said softly, thunking his head back against the couch. He wasn’t going to cry, especially in front of fucking Madigan. He steeled himself with a deep breath. “Maybe so.” The room seemed to stretch out before him, Jonah and Madi getting farther away as he tried to process it all. Jonah touched his thigh lightly, as if checking in on him, and Cas nodded to show he was okay. Or, at least, that he would be.
“Congratulations. You’re the next Dread Pirate Roberts,” Madi snarked then turned to Jonah. “So, do you want me to start working on setting up the deadpool or figuring out how we’re going to kill Cas?”
Jonah flinched at the words. “Cas can worry about the deadpool, you worry about how to make Cas disappear.”
“No. I’m not leaving you,” Cas snapped, panic welling up inside him. “I’m not. You can’t just ship me off now that you’re done with me.”
“Hey, stop,” Jonah soothed, putting a hand on Cas’s chest. “I’m not leaving you. Okay,” he backpedaled. “I might be for a few weeks. But just long enough to make your loss look convincing. Then we’ll meet somewhere nobody will ever find us.”
“But what about Wired?”
“Levi will handle Wired. You can have a set up ten times this size if you want. We just have to tie up all these loose ends. I promise.”
“Speaking of loose ends. It’s Sadie,” Madi said, accepting the video chat before handing the phone to Jonah. Cas crowded closer to Jonah so he could see.
Sadie was back in the Barrow Heights warehouse and wore a tank top Cas imagined had once been white but was now soaked through with so much blood it could probably be wrung out like a dish towel. Blood was smeared across her face and hands and even between her teeth, as if at some point she’d actually used them. Jesus.
“Hey, brother. Happy to see you’re alive.”
“Where is he?” Jonah said, bypassing the niceties.
“Who?” Sadie grinned. “Oh, him?”
She panned the camera around the warehouse to the man in the chair. Cas swallowed the bile rising in his throat. He assumed it was Diamantis, but there would be no way anybody on earth would recognize him as such. Sadie had clearly been taking her time with him, exacting her revenge for the things he’d done. His face was a pulpy mess. One of his ears was missing. Cas buried his face against Jonah’s throat when he saw the pool of blood beneath the chair. It wasn’t any of his business. He didn’t think Sadie would give Diamantis anything he didn’t deserve.
“Have your fun, but don’t waste too much time on him,” Jonah said. “I need to know he’s dead.”
“Fear not. I don’t imagine there’s enough blood left in him to kick up much of a fuss. It’s no fun when he’s not screaming. I was just about to put him out of his misery. Care to watch?”
Cas didn’t look, but he could feel Jonah nod, hear the way Sadie’s knife sliced through Diamantis’s flesh and the gurgling sounds of his final breaths. Then Jonah ended the call.
“I’ll get started on making Cas disappear,” Madi said before slipping out of the room.
As soon as he was gone, Cas carefully wrapped his arms around Jonah and kissed him, pouring all his emotions into it. His fear, his rage, his panic, his relief. “Is it really over? Are you really out for good?” He stared up into Jonah’s eyes.
“We’reout for good. You only hack from the safety of your new lair, where I can protect you.”
