Play Dirty (Wages of Sin #2) - Neve Wilder Page 0,12

Madigan assumed he must be on speaker since Jonah’s resulting growl came immediately.

He grinned as he disconnected and then packed his things. Eight minutes later, his phone chimed with an encrypted message. Madigan ran the program, got the number, and punched it into his phone. He went through the complex question and answer session before the monotone voice asked him to hold and he was transferred to a line that crackled with static. Cas better not have fucked him over. Madigan wasn’t too proud to fly to Belize and interrupt their lovefest. Hell, he needed a vacation, anyway.

A second later, a different voice came over the line, this one deeper but equally monotone. Madigan hated the cloak and dagger bullshit most hackers insisted on, but he kept his patience as the guy made him perform the same series of questions and answers before finally asking what he needed.

“I have ten aliases I need you to immobilize completely and immediately. As in within the next half hour.”

“Immobilize…” the guy repeated so slowly Madi wondered if he was high.

“Deactivate, freeze assets on, whatever you like to call it. One of these names will be traveling today. I’d like it to be difficult for him.”

Once they agreed on a sum and a method of transfer, Madigan hung up and wired the money over. His next call was to room service, where he ordered a full breakfast to be delivered to the balcony. No need to hurry himself now. He considered a shower, then stretched out in a lounger instead. He’d showered last night. Actually, Azrael had showered, and Madigan had interrupted him by pressing him to the tiled wall and fucking him before collapsing into the bed. Close enough, though, even if no soap was involved.

He idly scraped the corner of his thumbnail over a flake of dried cum and gazed up at the cloudless sky with a lazy smile. Jets came and went in glints of silver and white contrails that streaked the horizon, and somewhere out there, Azrael was about to have a very long day.

3

Azrael

It was three in the morning when Az finally made it to Rio. What should have been a six hour flight had taken three days thanks to somebody hacking Az’s accounts and getting him put on a goddamn watchlist. Instead of boarding a plane in Miami, he’d almost found himself arrested. Luckily, he never traveled without a backup plan. One outfit change and an abandoned suitcase later, he managed to escape the airport without detection.

It was his own fault. He’d left the clue for Madigan to find, hoping if he ‘stole’ another kill from him, it would make him more amenable to the deal Az planned to offer. He’d thought Madi might use his aliases to hobble Az, but he hadn’t expected to be cut off at the knees. That was Madigan, though. All extremes. Why walk when you could run? Why hit if you could stab? If Az had thought their little games had endeared him to Madi, this exercise in patience had pulled the veil from his eyes. Or perhaps, in a world where two people enjoyed fighting as much as fucking, this was a love letter? It wasn’t as if Az had ever spent more than one night with anybody but Madigan, but that hardly made them an epic love story.

Az shook his head as his cab crawled through the streets. Even at three in the morning, revelers were still out, crowding the pavement. Through the tempered glass windows of the cab, Az could hear the feverish beats of music. There were men and women in costumes mixed with people dressed like they’d spilled out onto the streets from the clubs. It was too late in the year for Carnivale, though.

“What celebration is this?” Az asked the driver in Portuguese.

The man gave him a curious look. “Halloween.”

Az scoffed. Yes. Halloween. How could he have forgotten? He blamed it on his throbbing headache. Once more, he looked back out the window, noting the revelers with fresh eyes. His seventy-two hour detour had left him too exhausted to think straight. He just wanted a stiff drink, a shower to wash away his days of travel, and a comfortable bed.

Az supposed it said something that Madigan was still there. Carlos Silva was long dead, with a perfect hole smack between his eyes. He’d seen evidence of it himself when he’d had the body removed from the morgue. Madi never missed a shot, and his entry wounds