I inwardly snorted a laugh. Yeah, at a price.
Also, the fact that Zed's use of sir had caught on with other people was annoying the shit out of me. But it was better than ma'am, so I let it happen.
"Very well. You can both go. But keep your ears to the ground and your eyes open. Someone isn't finished making their point." I turned my attention back to Joseph, who was sweating and pale but watching me with an intensity that said he still thought he'd make it out alive to report back to his boss. Poor fool. He’d been a dead man the second I’d made him as a fake Wraith.
Vega, Ezekiel, and their men murmured pleasantries and left the crypt without even glancing at Skate's body. It was nothing new for our way of life.
"Thank you, gentlemen," I told Cass and Archer. "I trust you'll both keep me informed if you hear anything of interest."
Neither one of them made any move to leave, despite the clear dismissal in my tone. Instead, Archer leaned forward and rubbed a thoughtful hand over his stubbled chin.
"You think this has something to do with the Lockharts." It was a statement, not a question. He knew full fucking well that's what I was thinking. What I feared was true.
Cass drummed his fingertips on the table. "The death of your boy last night was a definite message," he commented, his rough, gravelly voice too damn welcome in my ears. I'd truly thought my afternoon with Lucas had kicked my Cass addiction, but clearly, I was wrong.
"I'm aware," I snapped, a thread of anger evident in my tone. It was frustration at myself more than anything, though. "Zed filled me in."
"I could have run you through it myself," Cass pushed, not dropping the matter like he badly needed to. "My calls weren't going through though." His dark gaze caught mine, and I had to fight to keep my calm, emotionless, supreme resting bitch face in place. Fucking hell, when had my crush on him gotten so out of hand?
I wasn't playing games though, not when I had a slippery spy to torture and kill. "Thank you, gentlemen," I repeated. "You can go."
Archer knew when to back down and pushed back from the table. "I'll dig around a bit," he told me, despite me not asking for his assistance on the Lockhart matter. "Maybe someone survived."
I shook my head. "They didn't."
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "All the same." He gave a nod to Zed, who returned it. The history between us all had Archer sitting awfully close to friend status for both Zed and me.
Cass was slower to rise from his seat, and I breathed a small sigh of annoyance.
"Actually," I said before he got to the door, pausing him in his tracks. "I've had enough of the Wraiths. I don't think another change of leadership is going to do them any favors here."
Cass arched a dark, scarred brow at me. "What would you like done, Hades?"
"Absorb them into the Reapers or kill them. Your choice. But as far as I'm concerned, Shadow Grove belongs to the Reapers now." I gave a small smirk. "With the exception of my venues, of course."
Cass dipped his head in acknowledgement. "Of course. I'll get it done." His gaze remained on me for a beat longer than necessary, then he left silently.
As the footsteps of all our guests faded away from hearing, I drew a deep breath and turned my attention back to Joseph.
"Hello, Joseph," I said with a saccharine smile. "I think it's time we got to know each other better."
9
Several hours later Zed and I emerged from the crypt covered in blood and no better off for our efforts. Joseph had proved a harder nut to crack than I'd encountered in a long time and ended up taking his boss's identity to the grave with him.
The only useful thing we'd learned from him was that the Wraiths had been flipped over a month ago.
I grimaced as I peeled my blood-soaked gloves off on our way through the main bar’s construction zone. They were leather fingerless gloves with metal woven into the knuckles, a Christmas present from Madison Kate last year, designed for maximum impact with minimal damage to my hands. They were easily my second favorite accessory, after my Desert Eagle.
"You feeling better, boss?" Zed asked, leaning against the rough stone wall beside the main entrance. We needed to wait on our cleanup crew to arrive before we could leave. It wasn't the smartest thing to do, leaving bloody corpses unattended on my own property—especially not with the current state of cleanliness in the local law enforcement.
I frowned at Zed, tucking my gloves into the pocket of my jacket. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He gave a too-casual shrug. "Sure seemed like you had a lot of pent-up anger to work out there. I can't remember the last time you beat the crap out of someone that thoroughly without a weapon." He paused, scrutinizing me. "Wouldn't have anything to do with why you turned your phone off today and shacked up with a barely legal stripper boy, would it?"
"He's twenty-one, Zed, and what did I tell you about throwing stones inside your glass house? Pretty sure that perky blonde you picked up in August was barely even out of high school." I gave him a judgmental grin, but I really had worked off enough of my built-up tension that he wasn't irritating me. Not while there was no one around to hear us talk like this. Like friends.
Zed just rolled his eyes but gave a smug grin. He was a fucking man-whore and had zero qualms about who knew it. Hell, I was at least ninety percent sure he had an exhibitionism kink. He was also gorgeous, so it was no freaking wonder he picked up women so easily.
"So... did you fuck Cass out of your system, then?"
Ugh. Of course he knew exactly what I was doing. Goddamn fucker knew me way too well.
I breathed out a long sigh, giving a mournful shake of my head. "I thought I had."
Instead of making a smart remark like I expected, Zed just watched me from the corner of his eye for a long moment, then huffed a sound.
"Fucking shoot him, then. You don't need that shit taking up space in your brain, boss. Plenty of other guys out there are more than willing to throw you around a room if that's really what you want."
I snickered a laugh. "Trust you to remember the shit I say while I'm drunk."
Zed just arched a brow at me, then pulled a rolled blunt from his pocket. He lit it up, took a drag, then handed it over to me. He watched me with a weird look on his face as I placed the spliff between my lips and inhaled deeply. As usual, it was way more weed than tobacco, but that was how we both liked it. We never smoked enough to get properly high, but a light buzz every now and then, particularly after torturing and killing a motherfucker, was nice.
"You're acting weird tonight, Zed," I told him when I passed the cigarette back. His fingers brushed mine as he took it, and he frowned abruptly. "What gives?"
"Nothing," he replied, a clear lie. I squinted at him with accusation, and he grinned as he placed the cig back between his lips. "Nothing for you to worry about, boss," he amended.
"If you say so," I murmured, noticing a familiar white van on its way down the street. "Robynne's here."
We made no move to leave, though, staying where we were to finish the shared spliff while our cleanup crew pulled into the loading zone and started unloading their equipment from the van.