"Did you just say I'm a good cause?" I teased. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you like me."
He snorted. "You're okay. I came to say good morning. Some of us have to get to work."
"I really should," I said, making a face at my men, knowing they weren't going to back down.
Truthfully, I didn't try too hard. I could use a day off, or three, and breakfast in bed never hurt.
Immediately following that thought, I started to eat more carefully. It'd be my luck if I choked on a piece of egg.
Like I said, chickens are predators.
"You're going to stay here and you're going to relax. We're keeping an eye on the front door," Cass said.
"And the fire escape," Boner added, reminding me of our first kill together. I was about to slip inside when he appeared on the fire escape and insisted on helping. We'd been almost inseparable since.
"No one's going to get in here without us knowing about it," Boner continued. "Archer even had a good look around for any gas canisters we hadn't noticed before."
"I didn't find any," Archer said. "No sign anyone's been here but us since Danforth."
His lips turned down. It was six months since Solomon Danforth tied him and Boner to chairs in this apartment and tried to kill us all. We killed him instead. Eros, he'd calledhimself. He was fifth on my list. Hypnos was sixth. Zeus was the last.
I should stop thinking of him as Zeus. He didn't deserve such a cool nickname.
"No one would dare," Boner told him. "They'd end up in the acid bath. Or the torture box. Or the…" He paused, looking up toward the ceiling. "I'm still thinking."
"It's okay. We understand." I knew he wanted to be creative, but they'd end up dead one way or another.
"You remember that part inStar Warswhere Han Solo ended up stuck like a statue?" Boner said slowly. "What if we could do that, but with resin? All we'd need is a tall perspex box. Something a person could stand up in." He mimed being inside one, sliding his hands up the sides of a box, as far above his head as he could reach. His gaze following.
Jules closed his eyes and shook his head. "I wish I could say that was the most fucked up thing I ever heard. It's almost at the top of the list, but there's other shit before it."
"Thank you." Boner grinned. "I thought it was pretty inspired. We could turn them into works of art."
"They'd be identifiable," I pointed out reluctantly. Nothing said 'suspicious' like the face of a missing person on display for everyone to see.
"Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't," he said, still thinking. "I bet there's a way."
"I'm sure you'll think of something," I assured him. I took a bite of toast and washed it down with coffee.
"I'm getting out of here before I end up insane like the rest of you." Jules gave me a long, lingering look before disappearing.
"What about you guys?" I asked. "Don't you have work to get to?"
"I'm leaving it to my assistants for a couple of days," Boner said. "You're more important."
"If the restaurant is closed, I won't be working there," Cass pointed out. "I have some other things I can do from here."
"I'm going to work on my screenplay," Archer said, stepping into the space Jules recently vacated. His shoulders relaxed with fewer people in the relatively small room.
He wasn't one for crowds, especially when he was still clearly thinking about Solomon Danforth. If anyone needed to talk, it was him. Boner too.
My crusade to rid the world of seven evil predators had taken its toll on us. We'd all been through and done a lot. I doubted there was enough therapy in the world to help us recover from it.
"We'll also be busy spoiling you rotten," Boner said. "Once you've finished eating, it's time for a nice hot bath, a foot massage, a few orgasms, a rom-com movie and some ice cream. In no particular order."
"That sounds like the perfect day," I said, finishing up my eggs without becoming a chicken-related fatality.
"Funny, mine too," he said, pretending to look surprised. "Maybe I should close down the gallery and spend my days making sure you have everything you need."
