Cas quickly finished his shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. He didn’t bother getting dressed, instead wandering out into the living room where Lux straddled Briar’s lap, both now shirtless. She gave him a beckoning glance, but he shook his head, heading for the kitchen. Inside the fridge, he found leftover pizza in a plastic baggie with yesterday’s date neatly scrawled in Briar’s perfect handwriting. He pulled it free, holding it up. “Can I?” he asked.
“Yeah, what’s mine is yours,” Briar said, words ending on a moan as Lux did something to the side of her neck.
Cas ignored the two, heating up the pizza then carrying it into Briar’s bedroom, making himself comfy on her bed and switching on the television. He chewed, contemplating his situation as he watched Archer. Had those Russians been after him? Were they still after him? Was all this about the ‘softball list’ that was clearly not a softball list? If so, Cas needed to find out why and quick. If they wanted the thumb drive, there was a very good chance they’d know he was back in the States and come looking. It was why he’d chosen Briar’s place. Despite her connection to the criminal underworld, she was a makeup artist and run-of-the-mill drug dealer, and one that was far, far removed from anybody in Cas’s world. Nobody knew she existed. Not even Jonah.
Cas wished he’d asked for the wifi password before the two of them had gotten all hot and heavy. He briefly considered asking anyway, but he was exhausted. The flight had taken hours, and he was going to visit the Red Queen tomorrow. If he didn’t know anything, then Cas was fucked. It was possible Cas was fucked anyway, he supposed. He’d tried to find out information about the names from the list while he was still on Russian soil, but he’d turned up next to nothing on any of them.
They were all seemingly nobodies, criminally speaking. Some had ties to people who might be considered powerful in small local circles, but most were nobodies. Not nobodies like Jonah and Madigan. Not nobodies who were somebody in the darkest parts of the underworld. People who held day jobs as teachers and accountants while living their real lives in the shadows of the underworld where they tortured or killed for a living. Cas knew how to identify those people. Hell, after seven years, it was easier to spot them than those just living their mundane lives.
So the question remained: Why would somebody pay six figures and then try to kill Cas all to get their hands on a list of people who made a softball list seem like a darknet red room? It didn’t make any sense, and Cas hated unsolved puzzles.
Restless and horny, Cas contemplated jerking off but knew his thoughts would only betray him. He gazed at the door for a long moment before leaving the room. Both Briar and Lux paused when he appeared, then resumed writhing against each other when Cas didn’t rush to join them. His cock had taken an interest in the way Briar and Lux moved in the practiced rhythm of two people who knew just what the other liked, though.
When Briar caught sight of Cas watching, she nudged Lux, who bit his lip before rising from Briar’s lap and crossing the room. He slanted his soft pink lips across Cas’s, tongue probing, coaxing Cas to kiss him back.Fuck it. Cas cupped Lux’s face, deepening the kiss as heat spiked through him. When he felt his towel fall away, he didn’t fight it, just let Lux pull him toward the sofa.
Cas closed his eyes, doing his best to push all thoughts of Jonah away, but it was like he’d tattooed himself onto Cas’s flesh until it seemed like the only way to set himself free was to burn it off. He’d give anything to be able to excise Jonah from his thoughts as easily as Jonah had exiled Cas from his life. But then, everything had always come easily to Jonah; he was a monster, and monsters didn’t have friends, only connections.
Cas had spent the last five years trying to become a monster, too, trying to teach himself not to care. Some part of Cas thought maybe if he could become a monster like Jonah, maybe Jonah could love him then. Only a monster could love another monster. Right?
5
Jonah
After the third time Jonah banged on Madigan’s door and didn’t get an answer, he shoved his phone into his back pocket and dug through his wallet until he found a keycard he hadn’t used in months.
Waving it in front of the little green eye, he waited for the beep then yanked open a heavy, sliding door that would’ve easily been at home in a meat-packing plant. The utilitarian door belied a swanky, sleekly tiled entryway where Jonah stopped and waited, listening to the whir of a white noise machine and, faintly, a few soft groans.
He didn’t have to wait long; Madigan enjoyed a dramatic entry. He gave it a few seconds later, prowling down the long hallway toward Jonah like a sleek predator. He was shirtless with a light sheen of sweat glazing his shoulders.
A pair of black drawstring pants hung low on his hips, displaying the shadowy vee of abdominals the vain fucker was so proud of.
“Jonah, what a surprise.” Madi inclined his chin with a toothy grin, as if he hadn’t buzzed Jonah in at the building’s entry minutes earlier. No doubt he wanted Jonah to ask what was going on in the back room, but Jonah wasn’t in the mood for that game.
Madigan stuck out his hand and when Jonah took it, turned it into a simple embrace sealed with a back clap, his voice low and velvety in Jonah’s ear. “You look like you haven’t been sleeping. Can I make you some tea?” He stepped back when Jonah shoved him, teeth raking his lower lip and grin still in place as Jonah fought one of his own. Madigan had made him one of his ‘special’ teas before. It had been…an experience. And probably illegal. No, absolutely illegal.
“No tea.” Jonah shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto the console table, Madi’s shrewd gaze following his every movement. “Something else. I need to borrow some of your gear for a job.”
“That calls for a different drink.” Madi considered a moment, then turned, waving Jonah along after him. “Vodka for bargaining.”
“We’re bargaining, now?” As they passed into the kitchen, Jonah glimpsed the open doorway of the bedroom: a bare back, arms stretched up toward the ceiling. He looked away.
“We’re not fucking anymore, therefore, we bargain.” Madigan pulled two glasses from a cabinet and handed one to Jonah.
Jonah hadn’t expected anything less. Madigan wasn’t the type to give something away out of sheer generosity. Still, his reasoning caught Jonah off guard. During their last encounter months before, Madigan had given no indication that he cared whether he and Jonah slept together ever again, and their arrangement, by Jonah’s understanding, had been purely of convenience, stress relief, and mutual trust.
But he didn’t miss the way Madi’s gaze had gone razor-sharp as he’d spoken. Jonah couldn’t tell whether it was hurt or resentment, though.
“Fair enough,” he said mildly, and held his glass out for the pour, then clinked his rim against Madi’s and took a small sip. At least he was sharing the good shit. Jonah thumbed over his shoulder toward the bedroom. “Broadening your horizons, huh?”
Madi exhaled a quiet, amused laugh. “Experimenting, yes. It passes the time. You know I hate being bored.”
Jonah knew it well. A bored Madigan was a dangerous Madigan. He and Cas shared that trait, though Madi’s solutions tended to have longer-lasting and deadlier repercussions. Or used to. If Cas was bored, he… Jonah pulled his thoughts up short. Cas didn’t belong in them right now. If ever again.
He took another deep swallow of the vodka, trying to remember what the hell Madi called it. The label was in Russian, which Jonah didn’t know for shit. “I need to borrow a rifle. A good one. A quiet one. Four days. What would you want for that?” Jonah didn’t keep a lot of sniper rifles anymore, while Madigan had what amounted to a mini arsenal of them, most custom built.
Madi hopped onto the counter and turned his glass in his hands then whistled low. “You want to borrow the Intervention?” It was his pride and joy, a precision-built, cream of the crop, bolt-action rifle with an entry-level cost of $10k boosted to $15k once it’d been outfitted to his exacting specs. Jonah never could’ve justified costs like that—not when a fucking shoestring worked just fine for him. But that was why Madi usually took more elite targets. Jonah preferred to be close.
“That’s too big. I was thinking of the one with the sixteen-inch barrel. Did that suppressor ever come in?”
