Page 97 of Barristers & Bones

Fenn chuckled. “It usually makes me want to give her a wet willy.” He turned to Luna. “You into kinky shit, Lou?”

Kilian winced. “Fowler, don’t put images like that in my head. She’s like our little sister.” Their obvious familial banter eased something in my chest.

Luna picked up a scalpel in one hand and a long, wicked-looking tube with a sharp end in the other. “You can always try, husband.” Some of my anger dissipated because I fucking loved her calling me “husband.”

Sylvie glanced at Drakos and grimaced. “You had to bring Beelzebub with you.”

Drakos didn’t get in her face for once–he was too busy staring at the tortured, naked, dead body of Lionel Strack handcuffed and zip-tied to the gurney. It looked like they’d been straightening up the prep room when we walked in, but no one had bothered to clean him up.

“Fuuck me, Lollipop,” Drakos grinned. “I think your cousins are a bad influence on you.”

I glanced at Drakos. Why the fuck was he calling Sylvie Spade Lollipop? Luna was right, there was something going on between those two.

Kilian frowned. “This wasn’touridea. I just wanted a nice, clean BTK.”

BTK–bind, torture, and kill. He said it so casually, like this was a typical conversation for them. I studied Lionel’s bloody, mutilated face with the black stitches across his lips and one capped eye. He also had a few stab wounds on his legs, and blood and bodily fluid around his groin area.

“Who’s idea was it to torture him?” I asked.

Luna stepped forward. “Mine.”

Drakos snorted. “There are three Spades standing next to you. There’s no fucking way this was your idea.”

But I studied her, and she held my gaze without flinching. “He bragged about stabbing Misty, and kicking her in the face while she lay bleeding on the ground. Then he told us about some of the other… things they like to do to women. I would’ve done worse if he hadn’t died on us.” Her voice shook a little, and I realized Luna was agitated and likely coming down from an adrenaline high.

Fenn shook his head. “It’s always the ones you suspect the most. He was an evil bastard who deserved a bad end.”

“Is that true?” Drakos asked Sylvie.

She shrugged. “We were all willing to make the psychotic weasel suffer before we killed him. Fenn’s right, some people should be allowed to die with dignity. He wasn’t one of them.”

Kilian winced. “They sucked his testicles out. Luna sliced his scrotum and Sylvie used her trocar.”

Drakos whistled and turned to Sylvie. “That’s justevil.”

Luna absently played with her tracker as she watched me. If she thought it was coming off now that Lionel was dead, we were heading for a fight.

“I think people forget I’m a Spade in all but name,” she murmured.

Seeing Lionel’s brutalized, fleshy body on the gurney gave me grim pleasure, but I was still angry she’d put herself in danger by helping to take him out. I hoped to God Silas and Jerome Strack never found out.

My eyes traveled back down to her boots. “Come here.” She hesitated for a moment, but finally walked over to me.

I kept my arms folded and looked down at her. “Good choice.”

“What happened at your meeting?” she asked.

“We aborted it and blamed police presence in the area. I was five minutes away from selling my soul.”

“I should have told you we had Lionel sooner, but we were a little preoccupied.”

Reaching out, I tucked a few strands of dark hair behind her ear and traced my fingers along her cheek. “At least you don’t smell like formaldehyde today.”

Fenn rolled his eyes. “The selfish asshole died before they could use embalming fluid on him, but he suffocated in his own puke first. Luna, why is it every time you’re involved in a kill, it turns into a clusterfuck?”

The asshole was trying to provoke me again. I tipped my head down. “How many kills have you been involved in?”

“I’d rather not say,” she muttered.

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