Page 15 of Play Dirty

“Greek, hmm? How…ironic. Who taught you to cook?” Madigan shook the excess water from the pepper and began chopping it, keeping an eye on the shifting muscles of Az’s bare back, the sleek curves disappearing into the low-slung linen pants, as he took the knife that’d landed closest to him and sliced the beef.

“Me. My mother wasn’t much for cooking. We usually had a cook wherever we went.” The movement of the knife through the meat was surgically precise, and, in conjunction with the lilt of Azrael’s voice, Madigan had to remind himself to keep chopping and not get caught up in the hypnotic effect of both. “My mother wasn’t much of a mother, in fact. I left home as soon as I could. You?”

“How old were you when you left?”

“Sixteen.”

“Where did you go?”

“To look for my father.” Azrael took the bowl of vegetables Madigan handed him and then slid bits of meat onto the skewer.

“Did you find him?”

Madigan and Azrael have never spoken of their families. They’d rarely spoken of anything of substance at all. Madigan knew basic facts, but he didn’t know what kind of music Az liked. Or if he liked music at all. Madigan didn’t even know if Az had a home base or a place he returned to regularly. It seemed safer that way. He suspected Az knew he had a place in New York, but he wasn’t actually certain. Madigan had dead end addresses all over the country. When he tried to imagine Azrael with a home, he struggled. For some reason, that bothered him. Madigan required very little in the way of personal relationships, but he had what could very loosely be called a chosen family. People, at least, he could trust if he needed to.

“I did. My father wasn’t hard to find. He’s famous. Or he was. Before he met an unfortunate end.”

“Famous?” Madigan echoed.

“Hm,” Az replied, and Madi thought that might be the end of the conversation, but then Az continued, “Assad Arain. Nobel Prize-winning chemist and nanotechnologist. He was not at all interested in seeing me, his son from his previous failure of a marriage. His Jewish son was, as you can imagine, unwelcome among his devoutly Muslim Pakistani family. He had a new family, one with the correct pedigree. I was the mistake. His only mistake, to hear him tell it.” Az set the skewer aside and started on the next. “Your turn now.”

“To what?”

Azrael angled toward him with a rumbling laugh, a scintillating gleam in his eyes. “We’re exchanging information, are we not? I believe it’s called conversing. Commonly practiced in many cultures worldwide. In fact, a cornerstone of any civilization. And it’s your turn. Where is your family?”

Madigan hesitated, tempted to remind Az that they didn’t particularly fit into the social norms of any civilization, then shrugged. “We have similar stories, how about that?”

Az pointed the tip of his knife at him. “Expand.”

Madigan focused on sweeping a bunch of chopped parsley into a little pile. “My da was involved with the IRA back in Ireland. Who’d have guessed such a thing considering the exemplary human I’ve turned out to be, hmm?” He paused to brush the rest of the parsley from the side of his hand. “My mom was an American tourist. Fell in love with him while traveling overseas, I suppose. I was born in Ireland. We were there for three years before coming here.” He glanced up, surprised to find that Az had set his knife down and was listening raptly. “A year later, they were both dead. Murdered in their bed.”

“By the IRA? And left you alive?”

“Not the IRA.” Madigan shook his head. “I had enough sense to hide when I heard the commotion. Didn’t move for hours. I remember the morning light coming in through the window, how it looked different. It never looked the same again.” He cleared his throat. “I saw them in their bed and ran outside to a neighbor’s house.” So much of it was a blur to Madigan now, whether time had faded the memory or he purposely blocked it out. He remembered only sunlight and red and the coolness of the sidewalk under his bare feet as he ran.

“Anyone figure out who murdered them?”

Madigan set his knife aside. He had enough chopped parsley now to supply a restaurant. “I did, later on. It was a couple of hitmen. I never found out who hired them, though. Doesn’t matter, I suppose. One was already dead by the time I was able to do anything. The other was half senile in a home. Talked a bunch of gibberish. Never stopped talking.”

“Who raised you?”

“I was passed around to aunts and uncles, eventually turned over to a group home. I wasn’t exactly easy to handle. Again, I’m sure that comes as a shock.” He smiled wanly.

“Is that how you met Jonah?”

Madigan glanced sharply over. Azraeldidknow more than he’d given him credit for. “Jonah came later. I roamed around for a while doing odd jobs after highschool, then joined the Army. Did a stint there and was trying to figure out what to do next. I met Soren at a bar one night, saw him strangle a man in the alley. He didn’t even seem to care that I saw. Walked right up to me where I was taking a piss against the wall after and looked me up and down, told me he’d find me if he needed to. I believed him. I asked why he’d strangled the man rather than using a knife or a gun. Soren said strangulation was specifically requested. So then I asked him if he made good money taking requests like that, and when he said yes, I asked him if he’d teach me, too. I met Jonah through him.” There was a little more to it than that, like the fact that Soren had initially said no, and Madigan had hounded and followed him until Soren had finally put a knife to his throat. It was only when Madigan tilted his head back, giving Soren the full expanse of his throat, that he’d acquiesced. Madigan had still spent the fist couple of years convinced that at any given moment, Soren might turn around and kill him.

Az seemed to weigh all of this in silence before nodding once and saying, “I appreciate you sharing that with me. I’m very sorry about your parents,” as he dried his hands off on a dishtowel. Then he strode over to the island, invading Madigan’s space without warning. He licked the tip of his index finger before swiping it through a bit of parsley on the cutting board and sucking it clean, his shoulder brushing against Madigan’s in a way that was oddly soothing.

“You’re a strange man, Azrael.” Madigan wiped the knife and set it aside just as Az twisted to face him and skimmed a finger along his jaw. Goosebumps broke out over his shoulders immediately. Thank fuck, he was wearing a shirt.

“You’re strange, too. Know what else I am?”

Madigan straightened abruptly when he realized he’d automatically tilted his head to the side to give Az access to his neck. “What’s that?”

“Patient.”

Yep. He should’ve known better than to ask. Az’s smile widened as Madi caged him against the island. God, the man could turn even a smile into a weapon. “You are that. But I’m incredibly stubborn.” He gave himself approximately five seconds to soak in the sensation of Az’s body against his.