“What’s the problem?” Jude asks.
“Fuck off,” I growl as my fingers start tapping into the phone.
Me: Did you start the brownies yet?
“Did you know that Lucifer has an official driver now for Sophia?” I ask Jude while I wait for her to answer.
“Yes. I heard he developed a disturbing case of… heartburn after seeing footage of her… driving abilities,” he laughs.
Lucifer and I both have serious fucking anxiety whenever she tries to drive anywhere. Fuck, I nearly had a heart attack when I rode with her the first time.
Sophia thinks she has a driver attached to her because she pregnant, but no. Damon is her driver permanently.
A feminine laugh behind us shakes the visions of Sophia racing erratically around the city from my head.
“You just now figuring out that Sophia needs to carry around a rabbit’s foot with her?” Amanda asks as she leans in the doorway.
Giving Amanda the stink eye, I say, “You could have warned me about her cooking skills.”
“She’s never tried cooking before, how was I to know?” she asks and walks over to us.
Amanda.
Fuck. I thought we were a fucked-up family before, but this chick just cements the whole fucking deal.
Finally I feel the buzz of Sophia texting me back.
Sophia: Yep! I just got done mixing them!
Me: Sophia, you know I love you more than the whole world, right?
Sophia: Duh.
Sophia: Don’t start with me James.
Me: Please let me finish them with you.
Sophia: It was one time. ONE TIME! You act like I tried to kill you on purpose.
Me: Baby, I know you didn’t do that on purpose. But please, let me help?
Amanda, who’s been looking over my shoulder, laughs and says, “Just tell her to calm down.”
“Fuck you,” I growl. “I’m not taking your advice again. Not after you told me to tell her that her pants no longer fitting wasn’t a big deal.”
I’ve never in my life ran from a woman as fast as I ran from Sophia that day.
Shrugging her shoulders at me, Amanda looks over to the fat asshole Jude and I carried up here. “You guys ready to do this?”
Shaking my head, I wait for Sophia to respond.
When she doesn’t, I know I’m in deep shit.
She’s probably putting them in the oven right now.
“If our worrywart over there would get off his phone,” Jude says with a sigh.
“Fuck you,” I growl at him.
Me: Babe, I love you.
Sophia: k
Fuck, she K’d me.
“Let’s get this over with,” I sigh as I slip my phone back in my pocket.
Sophia’s pissed at me. Which means I’ll have to try to eat whatever it is that comes out of the oven.
Fuck.
Grabbing the asshole by the hands, I nod my head at his legs. “Let’s do this.”
The sad sack of shit is whimpering and crying. With the muscle paralysis drug in his system, it’s all he can do. He can’t fight us or try to stop us.
Looking down into his face, I say, “Michael is waiting for his servant, you fat fuck.”
Amanda grins at me as she grabs a leg. “Then we should get him down there as soon as possible.”
We all lift the body up and start to swing him back and forth. The ledge of the roof isn’t too high up for us to toss him over, but his size doesn’t make it exactly easy.
When we finally have him in full motion, we all swing him toward the ledge and let go.
Grinning at each other, we lean over the edge of the building.
Immediately, I get that drop in my stomach that lets me know I just fucked up.
Standing next to the warehouse, Gabriel and Simon are having a heated argument about something.
Unbeknownst to them, a massive body is falling out of the sky at terminal velocity and about to land right next to them.
“Oh shit—” is all I get out before the asshole slams into the ground with a sickening thud.
Skin splits and blood explodes out of what is now a big fat corpse, dousing both Simon and Gabriel with a liberal amount of gore and bits.
Both men stand there for the longest time, staring at each other.
Then they look up.
“Well,” Jude says as he waves to the guys below us, “that’s probably not the best place to toss a body.”
Amanda turns pale and asks, “Think Simon will keel over before he can torture us to death?”
“Not likely,” I say.
When I see Gabriel cracking his knuckles and heading for the door, I get a case of the chuckles. “This is going to hurt.”
I have no clue why, but Amanda starts to giggle as she looks down at Simon.
He hasn’t moved from the spot he’s been standing in. It’s like he’s frozen there.
I think we might have broken him.
Jude turns to face me.
A whining sound is the only warning I get before a red bloom of blood bursts from Jude’s right shoulder.
The crack of a sniper rifle comes only a second later.
Amanda screams as she tackles Jude to the ground.
I duck down behind the ledge, shouting, “Sniper!” as loud as I can.
Hoping they can hear me on the ground but not chancing it, I yank my phone out of my pocket and dial Simon.
“Where did it come from?” Simon asks a second before I hear the door of the building slamming behind him.
Thank fuck.
“West of here,” I say.
I’d lift my head up and take a peek around if I wasn’t so fond of living.
“Stay up there. I’ll see if Uriel can get out of the building from the east and sneak up on them,” Simon says.
“Got it, but I don’t have a rifle up here. Any chance you can get someone to bring me one from my trunk?” I ask quickly as I scoot my way over to Amanda and Jude.
Amanda has her hands pressed against Jude’s shoulder to stop the bleeding, but it doesn’t seem to be working. “Call our new doc, Jude’s been hit.”
“How bad?” Simon asks.
“Bad, but he won’t die,” I say.
“We can’t stay here. I’ll have Nathaniel meet us at the compound,” Simon says.
Dropping the phone, I move Amanda’s hands out of the way and push hard on Jude’s shoulder.
Fuck.
Blood seeps between my fingers.
There’s so much I have to take my shirt off and use it to help staunch the flow.
Looking up at me, his face pale, Jude says, “Lucifer is going to be quite upset with me.”
“Yeah?” I ask him. “Why’s that, brother?”
Jude lets out a deep sigh. “I’ve been shot, again.”
“Well, I mean…” I say, trying to figure out a way to look on the bright side of things.
Just as I’m about to open my mouth, he says, “This does put a damper on the barbecue for next weekend.”
“About that… I mean you can maybe still make it, but you won’t be cooking the hotdogs.” I wink at him then push harder on his shoulder to keep pressure on the wound.