Cas scoffed, but his smile was soft. “Don’t forget who saved who, buddy.”
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“Don’t ever give me a reason,” Cas countered.
Jonah shook his head, though he was grinning. “Jesus Christ, you’re stubborn.”
“But you love me.”
“I do.” All traces of teasing vanished as Jonah rubbed his thumb over Cas’s lower lip and followed the line of his neck down to the hollow of his throat.
“I love you, too.” Cas hummed, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as Jonah’s lips teased over sensitive skin, raising goosebumps. “Can we get out of here now?”
“Fuck yes.”
Epilogue
Jonah
Jonah parked a block from Wired. He’d gotten halfway down the sidewalk before he stopped without turning around and waited for Madigan to fall in step beside him, which he did moments later with a shake of his head.
“It was that rock I kicked accidentally, wasn’t it?” Madigan scowled. “Christ, is your hearing really that good?”
Jonah chuckled. “Nope. Think you just trip my dickhead meter when you’re within thirty feet.”
“Right. You realize you owe me so many favors right now it’s not even—” He bit off the rest as another man came around the corner, heading toward Wired’s back entrance from the other direction.
“That’s Azrael,” Jonah offered, since Madigan’s features had pinched with what he gauged as wariness.
“I know who it is.” Madigan snapped his gaze back to Jonah. “I wasn’t aware you knew him. You’re not exactly known for your broad social circle.”
Jonah shrugged. “Met him once. Heard plenty from Sadie. He’s good at what he does, and he happened to be stateside. You don’t like him?”
“I think he’s reckless. Arrogant as hell, too. Undeservedly so, if you ask me. At least from what I’ve heard.” When Jonah snorted, Madigan fixed him with a glare. “What? I’m not reckless.” Jonah arched a brow in response, and Madigan dragged in a noisy breath, nostrils flaring. “And I’m only arrogant because Iamexceptionally good at what I do.”
Azrael’s mouth curled in a smug approximation of a smile as he approached, extending one deeply bronzed hand that Jonah gripped briefly. “Good to see you, my friend,” he said in an accented baritone. His gaze moved to Madigan next, flickering over him in a brief but decisive assessment, before he offered him an impassive nod.
As the trio reached the door, it swung open before Jonah could grab the handle, and the manager greeted them with a smile.
“Evening, gentlemen.” Hannah gestured them inside. “You’re the first to arrive. Follow me.” After Jonah had talked to Levi, Levi had not only agreed to contribute to their start-up fund for the deadpool but had offered the use of Wired and Red’s other clubs for anything they might need. He’d also emphatically agreed that Red would’ve wanted Cas to have access to all of Red’s tech and contacts and had offered his blessing with shining eyes when the idea of carrying on Red’s moniker was floated.
Hannah led them not to Red’s old office but to one of the club’s private rooms, where the shades had been pulled. On one wall, a large screen glowed black, the open webpage displaying a pop-up window with a clock, the numbers ticking down in red. “I’ll be back with drinks.”
Madigan flung himself into a chair and stared sullenly out the window, ignoring both Jonah and Azrael. When Hannah returned, it was with another man and a woman, along with a tray of drinks that she set on a table before excusing herself.
“I was expecting Sadie to be here since she extended the invitation. You’re her brother?” the woman asked, eyeing Jonah carefully.
“Yes. Jonah. And you’re Mina.” Jonah offered his hand for a shake. “She had to leave, but she’ll be watching remotely, like us.”
Jonah offered his hand to Damon, too, the second of Sadie’s invitees. Jonah actually had no idea where, specifically, Sadie was. She’d stuck around long enough to ensure Jonah didn’t need backup when he delivered Diamantis’s head to Ivan—an act of goodwill he’d hoped would get the Turks off his back. He’d waited until the recut video of Cas’s death had filtered through the underground rumor mill. They’d reshot it in parts and removed Sadie’s presence, using a masked Madigan as the executioner instead—which entailed no small amount of back and forth snipes between Madi and Cas. Jonah probably should have stepped in at some point, but Cas had no trouble holding his own and, well, it’d been an amusing turn to an otherwise dark undertaking. Even considering Jonah’s baseline tolerance for the morbid. But more importantly, it appeared to have worked.
At exactly twelve p.m., the clock on the screen disappeared, replaced by an animated image of a young girl with black hair and red lips, dressed like she’d just stepped from a deck of cards. Jonah kept his expression blank, but Madi rolled his eyes before giving Jonah a look that screamed ‘seriously’?
A voice began to echo around the room. It was somehow both a woman and a child’s voice, and strangely robotic. It gave Jonah the creeps. A look around the room told him he wasn’t the only one.
“The Red Queen bids you welcome. Underneath your seats, you’ll find a list of names. Those on this list have been found guilty of committing unspeakable crimes against the innocent, and as such, the Queen has demanded their lives as payment. With this list, you will find a value assigned to each high-level target based on the difficulty of the kill and their standing in society.”
They each reached beneath their seats to pull free the manila envelopes taped beneath. Inside was a sheaf of papers containing the kill list, their monetary value, and what proof of life the Red Queen needed to verify the kill.
