Page 27 of Dual Destruction

“This isn’t a good look on you, Golden.”

“I think it suits me just fine.”

Sage was too calm, too collected. If my finger so much as twitched against the trigger, it would have blown his face off, but instead he just watched me with a lazy expression that reeked of boredom. He sat there and regarded me with the same tired look, but after a handful of minutes, I started to see his tells. His right nostril flared, the vein that ran up the side of his throat pulsed—visibly, his trigger finger twitched at the second knuckle.

“Who would want you dead?” I asked.

“Besides you?”

I made an affirmative noise in my throat.

“Probably the fuck who stabbed me at the bar,” he said.

“Who else?”

“You tell me, Golden,” he snapped.

Without breaking my focus, I slid the manila folder full of his life story across the table at him. His attention flickered from my face to the gun, to the folder, and back to the gun, before he sighed and reached for the file.

I disengaged the hammer and set the gun down on the table, studying the way Sage schooled his expression while he flipped through the pages. He closed the folder and tossed it back at me, eyes narrowed and expression chilly.

“So, I guess the answer isyouwant me dead,” he accused.

“I could care less one way or the other,” I told him. “You’re a payday for me.”

“Then why am I alive?”

Wasn’t that the question of the hour?

I knew when Sage stumbled into my living room that I could let him bleed out on my floor and take credit for the hit. I would have ended up with a nice paycheck in my bank account and one less dick to think about when I couldn’t sleep at night. Even after I called Ronan to patch him up, I’d had a thousand chances to finish him off. I could have smothered him in bed, drowned him in the tub. I could have blown his fucking head off ten minutes ago.

And yet.

Here he was.

Alive.

“Oh, Golden.” Sage rolled his eyes. “Have you gone soft?”

“I’m just not ready to see you die yet.” I dropped the magazine out of my gun and popped the bullet out of the chamber, setting all of it on the table. “So, like I said, you should eat.”

My coffee had long gone cold, so I carried it into the kitchen and put it in the microwave for thirty seconds. Not a single sound came from the table and I walked back, setting my mug on the coaster, but before I could take my seat, I heard porcelain drag against wood. I shot a glance in Sage’s direction, watching him push his mug toward me.

“Mine’s cold, too,” he said, “and I take it with two sugars.”

“Do you.”

“Go on, Golden. You may have a contract, but don’t forget who’s in charge.”

I snatched his mug off the table.

“We’re not doing this,” I warned, throwing it in the microwave and stabbing the start button. “It’s because you’re hurt.”

“And you care.”

“Because Ronan would kill me if I fucked up his handiwork.” I glared at the microwave while the seconds counted down.

“Who’s Ronan?” Sage asked.