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I kicked him hard in the side, sending him flying.
Then I dropped down on him, knee on chest, then pressing my hands around his throat like he had done to Rynn.
His body thrashed.
His eyes bulged.
But then, slowly, he went limp.
I didn’t let go.
Limp didn’t mean dead.
In the end, he was a bloodied pulp, and my knuckles were aching as I rose up to the sound of slow, deliberate applause.
And there was Jai Xú.
“Very eye-for-an-eye of you,” he said as I approached my cut, and slipped it back on. When I looked again, he had a cigarette between his lips, and was holding an ornate silver lighter flicked open in his hand as a few of his men moved into the room carrying something in little red and yellow bottles.
Accelerant, I had to imagine.
They sprayed a healthy amount over the man whose name I didn’t know, didn’t care to know, that I’d just killed.
“You should get going,” Jai said as his men rushed out of the room, and Jai casually walked closer to the body, took a long drag of his cigarette, then dropped it down on the man’s body.
The flames were almost instantaneous.
Big and angry.
But Jai just stood there, watching them lap at the body for long enough that I debated going over there and grabbing him and pulling him away.
Eventually, though, he took a step back, turned, and walked out of the room.
I followed, smelling more accelerant in the main area of the warehouse, noxious enough to make me hold my breath as I walked through, then out the door where I sucked in some fresh air before making a beeline for my car.
I didn’t say anything else to Jai or his men.
I figured my business with them was done.
I didn’t drive all the way back to the club, choosing instead to drop in on Teddy to let me wash up there.
“Cato,” Teddy greeted me as I walked into his penthouse.
Now, sure, Rynn had a penthouse.
But there was a difference in Rynn’s kind of money and Teddy’s kind of money. The “old money” sort. Coffers so deep that it would be borderline impossible to spend all that money in his lifetime.
Rynn’s living, dining, kitchen, and guest room could probably fit into Teddy’s living room.
The kitchen was off to the side, everything industrial and fine quality.
His penthouse was much like the man himself. Effortlessly classy.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Teddy not completely put together. He had a suit collection—vests, pocket squares, ties or bowties, and cufflinks included—that made it so I rarely saw him in the same one twice.
He had a cream one on this time with a slightly darker, patterned vest beneath.
He didn’t, for once, have one of his many hats on.
