Page 186 of After the Burn

“Caesar.”

He turned. “What?”

The man slowed when he saw me, and his look was slightly awed. “We found Jonah.”

Silence.

I leaned my head back. My night was about to get worse.

Caesar stared at him impatiently. “Well, where is he?”

“In her cage.” The little shit pointed in my direction.

Every eye came back to me.

Wren made a tiny sound beside me.

Don’t do it.

Her lips twitched.

Caesar stepped closer. “What happened to Jonah?”

I shrugged as much as the man holding my arms would let me. “He made a bad decision, and I called him on it.”

The guard continued without being prompted this time. “He was strangled.”

Caesar’s gaze shifted to the leather strap on my wrist. As he reached out, I jerked my arm back. Immediately, a second man joined the first who was holding me, and together they kept me still.

Caesar caught the end of the leather and slowly unwound it. “You killed him with this?”

I stared at him defiantly, “Yep.” I popped the ‘P’.

Wren coughed into her shoulder, and Caesar turned toward her. “You got something to say?”

“Nope.” She popped the ‘P’.

If my stupidity didn’t get us killed, then it looked like hers might.

His attention returned to me. “So not only did you break out, but you also killed one of my best men to do it.”

Screw it, in for a penny, in for a pound. “And two men by the warehouse.”

Wren cleared her throat.

“One of them was her kill,” I corrected, tilting my head toward my crazy friend.

“Teamwork makes the dream work,” she told him, her expression serious.

Caesar’s jaw tightened. “And you attacked Nash.”

I looked at the man in question and smirked at the blood still running down his face, his wrist already swelling. “Yep.”

Nash surged forward, but one of Caesar’s men stopped him.

Watching the man who would’ve annihilated me before the meteor shower, now need protection from me, was becoming one of my favorite things.

Caesar looked between all of us, and for the first time since I’d arrived, his smug king act slipped. He’d brought me inside thinking he owned the situation. Now three of his men were dead, Nash looked like I’d thrown him down a flight of stairs, Wren had fooled everyone, and I’d been wandering through his compound with a knife.