He was very aware of Gideon rubbing his back with his own shaking hand.
“He’ll be okay?”Joey asked.
“He’s at Garcia’s right now.After shift, we’re on for setting up a security system.”
Joey nodded, thinking of Garcia’s sweet little house in Queens.So domestic.Natalia did the gracious holiday dinners at her gracious family house.Clint had a house—and a husband, apparently—he kept secret and safe in Long Island.Gideon’s apartment was too small for the unit, especially now that its population had grown.But Garcia’s house in Queens—they’d gathered there the last nine months.It had been the den-mother house they hadn’t known they’d needed.You could eat pizza while sitting in front of the coffee table at Garcia’s house in Queens.
Theyhadto make it safe.
“You okay?”Gideon asked.
“No,” Joey said, thinking about the many eyes that could be on them right now, hating those fuckers who were just waiting for them to show their throats.He turned toward Gideon and fisted his front collar before dragging him, unresisting, until their lips touched.
Gideon must have felt like he did, because their kiss wasn’t soft or comforting—it wasmonster, destructive, and angry.
And Joey pulled strength from it, the kind of strength that could lay waste to armies.
Bad guys didn’t know that a kiss could do this, because bad guys didn’t know shit.
They separated only to breathe, leaning their foreheads against each other as they panted into air that would soon be stifling.
“Gideon?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m tired of this shit.”
“Same.”
“Those guys watching us?My dad’s?The Sons of the Blood?”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s kill ’em.”
Gideon’s smile was as thin as his features, feral, a wolf showing his teeth.“Knives or guns?”
“I don’t care.”Joey laughed, and it was not a nice sound.
As Gideon started the car and pulled away from the curb, Joey caught sight of a guy in flannels and jeans, with a lean face and yellowing skin, glaring at them as they passed.
He had lank hair and a badger’s mean eyes, and he hawked spit at them, probably hitting the back quarter panel as they went.
Joey flipped him the bird behind his back, but he filed the face away.He had a feeling he’d see it again.
THEY DIDN’Thave long to wait.The team worked feverishly—even Crosby, whose eyes were practically swollen shut from the beating he’d gotten.Three days after Crosby was carted home, unconscious, Joey and Gideon were late.The plan was that after logging out, the team would leave their work phones in their offices and take their burner phones with them as they all took different routes to Crosby’s house in Queens, but Gideon was going to stop by Shake Shack first, the better to grab food for everybody.
“Shake Shack?”Joey asked.“Couldn’t we just order pizza at Garcia’s place?”
Gideon gave him that thin wolf’s smile.“We could,” he said innocently.“In fact, we may want to do that anyway.But you know.There’s something I want to check out at Shake Shack.”
“What?”Joey asked, but he was belting up anyway.
“You know how the warehouses are about two blocks behind that strip with the Shake Shack and the frozen-yogurt place, right?”
“Yeah?”
“I… I want to check some shit out at those warehouses is all.Just….”Gideon’s shoulders twitched.“You know, our nice civil engineer?”
