"Dubai. Target down." Marlee, breathing hard. "Took longer than expected. Oswald had a panic room. Thiago's hit but mobile."
"How bad?"
"Through and through, left arm. He'll live."
"Get out. Medical team is standing by at the extraction point."
"Copy. Dubai out."
Two down. One to go.
Jinx releases my hand, stands, crosses to the window. The city spreads below us, lights glittering against the dark water of the lake. Peaceful. Beautiful. Completely oblivious.
"All targets eliminated," Jagger continues. "Teams, begin extraction. Jinx, Asher, you're clear to move on the Board. Song is standing by to release the documents."
Jinx turns from the window. His face is calm, composed, but his eyes are blazing.
"Let's go end this."
The cathedral is ancient, its stone walls blackened by centuries of candle smoke and prayer.
We enter through a side door, and head down narrow stairs worn smooth by generations of feet. Through passages that smell of mold.
Jinx moves ahead of me, silent as shadow. He's dressed in black, weapons concealed beneath a tailored jacket. He looks like what he is: a killer walking toward his destiny.
I follow close behind. My weapons are a reassuring weight against my ribs. Whatever happens in that chamber, we're walking in armed.
The passage opens into an antechamber. Stone walls, iron torches, a single heavy door carved with symbols I don't recognize. Old magic, maybe. Or old money pretending to be magic.
Jinx stops. Turns to face me.
"Before we go in," he says. "I need something."
"What?"
He closes the distance between us. Takes my face in his hands. Kisses me, deep and desperate, like he's trying to memorize the taste of me.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
"I needed that," he breathes. "I needed you. Before I walk into that room and become something else."
"You're not becoming something else. You're becoming what you always should have been."
"A Custodian. A shadow king. The very thing they wanted me to be." His laugh is bitter. "Poetic, isn't it?"
"Fuck poetic." I grip the back of his neck, hold him close. "You're a work of fucking art."
He's quiet. Then his hands slide down my chest, fingers working at my belt.
"We have time?"
"We have three minutes, so you better suck good."
He drops to his knees.
The stone floor must be cold, must be hard, but he doesn't seem to notice. His fingers free my cock, already half-hard from the adrenaline and the proximity and the sheer intensity of him.
"I want to taste you," he says, looking up at me with those dark eyes. "I want something good in my mouth before I go in there and spit poison. I want your cum splattered on this floor, desecrating everything they are."
