Play Dirty (Wages of Sin #2) - Neve Wilder Page 0,8
microscopic needle inside the lancet. When he stepped away for Cortez to get past him, the man hadn’t even noticed what Az had done. There wasn’t so much as a speck of blood. Az was halfway through the lobby when he heard somebody screaming about needing an ambulance.
After retrieving his bag from the bathroom, Azrael made his way to his room. In the morning, he’d swing by the morgue to get the evidence needed to collect the money. For now, his husband was waiting for him in their suite. Az imagined he’d have a lot to say.
2
Madigan
The second Madigan heard the click of the hotel door’s lock, he straightened in the club chair he’d dragged from beneath the window and set down his glass of Scotch. It’d done nothing but fuel the burn inside him, anyway.
“Honey, I’m home.” Az’s voice carried a lilt of irony that both grated on Madigan and turned him on.
He cocked the gun in his hand as Az stepped fully inside.
Az chuckled as he shut the door and took a few steps forward before canting his head. “Ahh, I do think someone has missed me.” Madigan noted a flash of hesitation he’d have missed completely had he not stared so deeply into those dark eyes on far too many occasions prior. “You put me out for a month last time I opened the door to you and your gun. At least be so kind as to aim for the other shoulder. It’s unsportsmanlike conduct to hit me in the same spot twice.”
Madigan’s stony expression cracked into a sardonic smile. “Do we have a code of ethics now?” Az made Madi’s skin crawl as much with irritation as desire, and he despised the fact that he’d gotten addicted to that exact sensation. Azrael seemed to have the same gift with alchemy where Madigan’s emotions were concerned as he had with inert chemicals. Madigan had fucked an entire army of men trying to prove otherwise. The closest he’d gotten was Jonah, but that had been different, too. That had been an attempt to…he didn’t know what. Settle down? Except, men like him, Jonah, and Az didn’t settle down—or so Madigan would have said until Jonah had run off to Belize with his pretty little hacker boy.
Madigan relaxed his grip on the gun, satisfied with the tension pulling Az’s shoulders. “Don’t you get bored with the same old trick every time? No real skill required. Just chemicals.”
“Don’t you? With your big gun, too far away to truly experience the thrill of a job well done.” Az lifted a brow and prowled closer, his gaze following Madigan’s hand as he traded the gun for the glass of whiskey and took a long swallow. When he set it down, he didn’t pick up the gun again, but Madigan smiled inwardly for Az’s laser focus. They’d learned each other well over the years.
“I did the guy in Beirut with knives.” Two strategically thrown from behind a display of rugs in a market, one buried in the nape of the man’s neck—just to be sure—as the market broke into chaos.
“And I did the man in Paris with a Glock.”
“Funny, I heard it was Prichard who did that job.” Arguably one of the weakest mercs out there. Madigan gave him another couple of months at most before someone put him out of his misery. Last year Jonah and Madigan had spent a month cleaning up the fallout from a job Prichard had botched.
Az’s moue of utter distaste told Madi his comment had hit its mark, though.
He grinned and pulled a knife from the sheath strapped to his thigh, the walnut burl handle gleaming as brightly as the high-carbon stainless steel blade.
Az stepped between Madigan’s thighs, eyes on the glinting silver even as he reached for the glass of whiskey and took a small sip. He let out a soft murmur of satisfaction. “Still with the expensive whiskey.”
“I’ll put it on your tab, along with the room. Seems fair.”
“You shot at me. I think you owe me the drink, at minimum.”
“What was it you said when you walked in? I missed you? Consider that earlier bullet me blowing you a kiss.” Madigan winked and rolled forward onto the edge of the chair, drawing the flat of the blade up the inside of Az’s thighs and watching the dilation of his pupils. It was one of the few things Az had little control over, and god, did Madigan love to exploit it.