Dealing in Death: A Death and the Devil Extended Novella

by L. J. Hayward

  Taking the reprieve, I muttered, “We need to talk about this penchant for smacking you’ve developed.”

  “Oh, do we, old bean?” he asked in his mocking British accent.

  Two could play that game. “Bloody oath, cobber.”

  Jack cracked up but still somehow managed to grab my towel and yank it off before I got out of range. His laughter dried up in an instant.

  “What is that?” He pointed to the fading bruise on my right hip.

  “Just an old bump. It’s fine now.”

  “Come here.” Jack didn’t wait for me to obey but caught up to me and studied the discoloured patch.

  It was on the anterior part of my hip, spreading over the top of my arse check. He’d taken me on my back earlier and had apparently missed it then.

  “This was more than a bump. What happened?”

  “I slipped during tai chi.”

  He looked into my eyes and after a moment, nodded. “Okay. Do we need to get some matts?”

  “No. It was a stupid mistake. I won’t make it again.”

  I loved him and I was lying to him.

  Despite the ups and downs proceeding it, dinner was good. The butter chicken tasted just as perfect as always and Jack’s mood was wonderfully light and teasing, buoying me along with it. He did raise an eyebrow when I refused seconds, but rapidly decided he didn’t care when I took him to the couch and divested him of his shorts.

  “Again?” he asked as I stripped off my own and straddled his lap.

  “Again,” I confirmed, hand wrapped around us both and stroking.

  “Jesus,” Jack whispered. “How did I get so lucky?”

  That nearly derailed the whole thing, but he kissed my throat and all thoughts of confessing everything vanished in a wave of heat. His hands roamed all over me, from knees to thighs, across my flanks, tracing ribs, over my shoulders and down my back to grip my arse and pull me closer. All the while, Jack murmured his desire into my skin with lips, tongue and teeth.

  We were both rock hard within moments and I couldn’t wait.

  Jack laughed when I retrieved the lube I’d stashed in the cushions earlier. “Always prepared.”

  “One of us must be,” I chided as I coated his cock and then shifted over him. His hands spread me wide, fingers grazing my hole, nodding against my chest as I guided his cock into me.

  I took him in slow and deep, glorying in the pressure, in the feeling of fullness, of completion. Jack groaned and pushed up as much as he could.

  “Fuck. So good.”

  Agreeing with a frantic nod, I rolled my hips. Both of us moaned loudly as his cock found my prostate. I did it again, and again, and Jack started reciting every swear word he knew, in English, Hindi and what may have been Thai.

  “Language, Jack.”

  His laugh choked off into a strangled gasp as I rose up and slid back down until he was buried to the hilt. “Do that again.”

  So I did and the swearing started up again. I alternated between thrusting, rolling and simply grinding down as hard as I could. I needed to feel him as deep as possible, wanted to be able to feel him when we weren’t together. My cock rubbed over his ridged abdomen, slicking it with pre-come. Jack held his hand over it, keeping it firmly against him. He didn’t squeeze or stroke or tease, just made sure I got the friction of his flesh.

  I wanted to kiss him. So much. Everything else he gave me so willingly and so often, so why not a kiss? I gripped his hair and pulled his head back, staring at his parted, wet lips. I’d needed his cock inside me, but his mouth, that I wanted with an aching desire almost as deep.

  Jack’s eyes opened and locked onto mine with a physical jolt I felt in every fibre of my body. I was going to kiss him. Then he moaned, “Fuck me. Ethan, please.” He thrust his hips and hit my prostate.

  “Jack,” I gasped. “Yes.” The bone deep craving to kiss him was still there, would always be there, but right now . . . this was nearly as good.

  I rode him hard. Not fast, but deep and thoroughly, making sure every inch of him was inside me with every thrust. Every nerve in my body was alive and sparking. All the messy and wild emotions I’d felt in the kitchen flooded my veins and all I could do was hold Jack while they crashed through me. His arms kept me in one piece and his voice grounded me. I rode him and my own chaos until he groaned out, “Ethan!” and we came together.

  I ended up belly down on the couch, Jack on his side, pressed into the back cushions so there was enough room I didn’t tumble off. The blinds were pulled back on the balcony doors and I gazed at the sparkling lights of the city while Jack traced the scars on my back. We’d been quiet since our orgasms, moving in sync until we were comfortable together. It was just our breathing, the occasional creak of leather and the distant hum of Sydney at night. I had the tube of lube in my dangling hand, flipping it idly, end to end, the action soothing in its predictability.

  “Ethan?”

  The soft word roused me from a half-drowse. “Hmm?”

  Jack’s hand stroked down my spine. “Are you happy?”

  I bumped my hips lazily under his touch. “Extremely.”

  A light smack. “I’m serious. Are you happy here? Living with me, doing this domestic thing.”

  Setting the lube down, I caught his hand and brought it around so I could hold it to my chest. “Extremely.”

  “Me too.”

  I kissed his knuckles. “You seem much happier with work lately.”

  “I don’t know about happy. Resigned is probably more accurate.” He sighed. “It’s weird work. I’m a field asset. I find the information for the analysts to study. Or I act on what the analysts have worked out. I don’t do the analysis. But that’s all I’m doing now. Adam adds something to the profile and we spend two days going through all the evidence and statements looking for anything to do with it. Then he gets a different idea and it’s back to the start.”

  “Sounds tedious.”

  “It is and it isn’t. It’s fascinating watching Adam pull all these disparate elements from different sources and create this image of a whole person he’s never met.” Jack’s hand tightened around mine. “This killer, he’s like none I’ve ever come across before. He’s precise and methodical while breaking into the scene, but when he kills . . . It’s manic. Anyone with the skills and knowledge to break and enter like that knows how to kill cleanly. The multiple stabbings isn’t consistent with a killer who takes the time to move the victim to the shower first, so he can wash away evidence.”

  Jack continued to talk through the case but I stopped paying keen attention. Multiple stab wounds, use of the shower to remove evidence . . . it sounded familiar. It was only when I remembered Jack saying previously that the killer used Bible quotes that it all slotted into place.

  While we lay there, I sent a message to Seven, demanding she respond, but got nothing back before Jack decided it was time to move things to the bedroom. He curled around me in bed and was quickly asleep. No longer able to even doze, I sent more messages to my silent sister, finally starting to worry.

  Why would Two do a job in Seven’s territory? I had, but that had been a tactical decision due to the psyche of the target. If the job was simply to execute targets under the guise of a serial killer, then I saw no reason why Seven wouldn’t be able to perform the job.

  At two a.m., Seven pinged back.

  “Are you all right?” I demanded silently, worming my way out of Jack’s slack embrace and going to the living room.

  “I’m not dead at least.” There was no inflection in her words to hint at her mood.

  “What did he do?” Neither of us needed to say his name.

  After a pause, Seven sent, “Broken arm, cracked ribs, bruised larynx.”

  I sank down onto the couch where Jack and I had been so happy only a few hours ago. “When did he hurt you?”

  “Two months ago. I’d just received the order for the two Sydney targets and was preparing when he found me.”

  Long eno
ugh she would be close to fully healed by now, thankfully, yet it meant there had been no recourse but to send someone else on the job. Two had likely volunteered to be the Judge even as he wiped Seven’s blood off his hands.

  “He’s using the serial killer cover you set up in Melbourne,” I told her.

  “Naturally.” This time there was a wry twist that made me chuckle, even through the growing darkness of realisation.

  There was only one reason why Two had disabled Seven so he could come here. I had stopped him once from hurting Jack and Two did not like being told no.

  “Be careful, One-three,” Seven said seriously. “He’s even more unhinged than usual.”

  “I know.”

  “Leave. Don’t let him catch you.”

  “I can’t.” I wouldn’t leave Jack unprotected while Two was after him. My only course was to convince Two to go home and forget both of us.

  The silence stretched out so long I wondered if she had cut the connection, disgusted with my refusal to see reason, but then she sent, “Good luck,” and this time, I knew she was gone.

  I sent a message to Nine, letting her know I’d contacted Seven and what Two was up to. Her response was rude and scathing but comforting all the same when she ended it with, “Call when you need me to fish your ass out of hot water.”

  Dejana called the next day and I dutifully returned to the sniper’s nest. The best way of finding Two was to let him come to me and since he’d already found me twice while with Dejana, it seemed the quickest way. It took two sessions in the nest before he appeared.

  “You’re losing your touch,” he said as he crawled up beside me, keeping out of sight of the client in the office across the street.

  “I saw you on the street.” I didn’t shift my eye from the rifle site. If he’d wanted to sneak up on me he wouldn’t have let me see him or hear him exit the stairwell.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  The current client finished her business and left. Dejana sat still, patiently waiting for the next one. She kept variable length windows between meetings and didn’t tell me what they were, expecting me to be on constant watch. While we waited, Two rolled over and clasped his hands over his chest, looking up at the blue sky through his sunglasses, heaving great sighs every now and then. I ignored him.

  “Is this what you really want to be doing, One-three?” he eventually asked.

  Two wasn’t talking about lying on a roof, covered by a tarp and pointing a rifle at various underworld targets. I didn’t take the bait. The whole point of the exercise was to get Two out of the country, not let him inside my head.

  “You’re one of the best,” he continued. “We were always better than the others. That’s why I helped you when we were children. I knew you could be nearly as good as me, but only if you let me show you how.”

  The sole of my left foot itched. Two had tried his hardest to possess me back then. He had very nearly succeeded.

  “I thought you were leaving once your job was done,” I said as Dejana’s next client entered the office.

  “And I will.”

  What game was Two playing? Seven had said there were two targets and Jack talked about two victims of the Judge in Sydney. Did Two believe I wouldn’t be able to find out he was lying?

  “It’s just that I worry about you, little brother. You never were . . . robust in matters of the heart. Remember what happened with Eleven? You didn’t cope very well at all.” His voice dropped to a pained whisper. “When I saw your back after the whipping . . . You could have died. Because of your foolishness, I nearly lost you. I don’t want to go through that again.”

  I locked away every memory of Eleven and the months following his death and focused on the man sitting opposite Dejana. He wore a respectable suit and carried an attaché case, though he left it on the floor beside his chair. There was a small bulge in the top left of his jacket that could be an ill-concealed weapon, or a large billfold. Dejana showed no sign of concern.

  Two rolled over and produced a pair of small binoculars. “You’re going to have to kill this one.”

  He was right, and had it been Two with the rifle, the man would already be dead.

  “Will you tell him tonight? When you go home to him and he asks about your day, will you say, ‘I shot a man today’?”

  My finger curled around the trigger of the rifle. The target hadn’t made any suspicious moves but I could feel the coming action all the same. There was a sense of preparation to the angle of his torso, the spread of his legs. He was all but telescoping his reach for the weapon.

  “Do you think if you eat enough of his butter chicken he’ll finally let you kiss him?”

  Bang!

  I shot the client just as he went for his weapon. Dejana barely had a chance to signal before the window glass crazed into a million fractures and the bullet ploughed through and hit the bridge of the man’s nose. He died instantly and I was up and moving before he’d even fallen out of the chair.

  Two was after me a hair’s breadth later, a knife in one hand, expression blank. I parried his thrusts with the rifle, giving myself room to break away. Dropping the cumbersome weapon, I drew an Eagle.

  My brother froze, but a smile curled his full lips up. “You won’t shoot me.”

  I settled into a shooter’s stance, gun hand supported in the other. As I had with the target, I aimed for the bridge of Two’s nose. It was instant death.

  “You won’t shoot me,” he repeated, firmer. “You don’t have the guts to even try.”

  Then he came at me.

  Unlike the previous fight, this one was brutal. It felt as if Two was really trying to kill me. Which was something I’d rarely feared from him. I’d learned very quickly that Two’s only understanding of how to deal with his emotions was through pain. I disagreed with him, so he hurt me until I stopped.

  My sisters were right. I should never have let Two get this close. This fight had to stop before it got any worse.

  I knocked aside a vicious thrust from the knife with my forearm, earning a slice in the material of my suit jacket for my troubles. It didn’t reach skin but Two’s other fist connected with my ribs. I barely deflected the next slash from his weapon and Two pressed the advantage, driving me backwards. Before I knew it, my back was to the wall of the plant room. The point of Two’s knife landed in the hollow at the base of my throat.

  Everything went still, our gazes locked through the dark lenses of our sunglasses. All it would take was a single thrust and I would be dead. I lowered my head.

  After several long heartbeats, the pressure of the sharp blade tip lessened, then Two stood back and sheathed the knife.

  “You will come home with me,” he said. “You’ve played with the spy for long enough. It’s time you returned to what you were born to be.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  Two laughed, short and bitter. “Remember the last time you said that to me? Remember what happened not even two weeks later?”

  I shook my head, still not meeting his gaze. “I mean it this time. I’ve quit. I’m staying here with Jack, forever.”

  “Why?” He sounded honestly perplexed.

  “Because he’s the only one who’s ever made me happy.”

  The words were barely out of my mouth before Two slammed up against me again. Forearm across my throat, the point of his knife pressing into my ribs, Two breathing hard, lips peeled back from clenched teeth. His knife hand trembled, as if he had to restrain it forcefully.

  “He doesn’t love you, One-three. He can make you all the curries you want, but he hasn’t taken you to his special place.” Two sneered at my startled gasp. “You don’t know about it, do you? The place he goes to think and cry. You have nothing to stay for. You will come home, even if you have to crawl to do it. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “I won’t do it.”

  “Oh, you will. You’ll have no choice.”

  “What do yo
u mean?”

  Two backed off slowly, letting the tip of the blade drag down my torso, tearing a ragged line in the cotton of my jacket. “You’re not the only one who can set a trap, little brother.” He smiled, turned and left the roof top.

  As the door closed behind him, a message pinged into my implant. Knowing it was from Two, I opened it, bracing for whatever he wanted to torture me with.

  It was a single image of two men at a table in a pub. Surrounded by the golden light of low wattage bulbs, they looked intimate as the blond leaned in close, and the other man laughed, his Indian features lit up with genuine amusement.

  Dejana’s clean-up crew took care of the client’s body, as they had that of the shooter at the park. She thanked me for my fast action by releasing another lump sum of money and hinting she wouldn’t require my services for several days at least. This attacker had gotten too close and she needed to find an uncompromised location for her meetings—and root out the source of the threat.

  All of which was perfectly fine with me. I had more important matters to deal with now.

  I made it back to the garage without picking up a police tail, so I tucked Victoria away out of sight and took the Monaro out. She had been ready to go for a couple of days and only required a set of new tyres before she was perfect, but right then, I needed a car not easily connected to me.

  Driving past the Surry Hills LAC, I found Jack’s Ninja. I kept an eye on it for the rest of the afternoon, making sure he didn’t leave early.

  The pieces had finally fallen into place. Why Two had ensured he took the job in Sydney and why he was still here even though two victims were dead. One of those victims hadn’t been a sanctioned Cabal target. It was so obvious now. The army captain had been killed simply to draw Jack into the search for the Judge—the search for Two.

  Two had set a trap, and Jack was his target.

  Jack emerged late in the day, accompanied by the other man from Two’s image. Blond, handsome, not quite as tall as Jack. Unwilling to show the first picture to anyone else, I snapped an image of him with my implant and sent it to Seven with a request for ID. It had to be Adam Quinn, but I needed to be certain.