“Mind if I crash your little tea party?” Cole stepped in through the garage door, his face and flannel smudged with dirt, a rogue maple leaf dangling from his scruffy beard. Like Aiden, he clearly hadn’t slept last night, but his smile was warm and genuine. When he shot her a quick wink, it filled Charley with hope and relief.
They were good men, Dorian’s friends. And for reasons she still couldn’t fathom, they’d taken her in and made her one of their own, faults and fuckups and all.
“How do you take your tea, wolf?” Aiden asked, brushing the leaf from Cole’s beard.
Cole procured a small bottle of booze from his inside flannel pocket. “I’m easy. Straight from the bottle for me.”
Aiden rolled his eyes. “That’s whiskey.”
“Well itrhymeswith tea, don’t it? Right there at the end?”
“An artistanda poet?” Charley grinned, then held out her hand and gestured for the bottle. “We aredefinitelygoing to be friends, Cole Diamante.”
Chapter Three
Friends.
Charley let the word settle inside her, slowly warming her heart. For all the luxuries her lifestyle afforded, friends had never been one of them.
Until now.
It was yet another gift Dorian had brought into her life—one she wouldn’t squander.
“The grays were confined to the alley,” Aiden said, passing Charley a mug of English Breakfast tea. “There were no other reports of them in Manhattan last night.”
“Not of grays, anyway,” Cole said. “But I got word of something else. Remember that traffic clusterfuck we hit coming off the FDR?”
“Don’t tell me it was more grays,” Charley said.
“Worse.” Cole took a swig of whiskey, then said, “Demons.”
“You’vegotto be bloody kidding me,” Aiden said. “What happened?”
“Turf war, apparently. I got a shifter friend in homicide. She told me the cops are calling it gang-related, but the bodies—nine of ‘em—were charred to shit. No eyes, either. Cops thought it was a bomb or maybe even a chemical attack—that’s why they were blocking everything off last night, searching the cars.”
“Have they identified any of the bodies?” Aiden asked.
Cole nodded. “Four so far. Three are Chernikov’s guys. One is Rogozin’s.”
“Why are demons fighting over turf in Manhattan?” Charley asked. “Isn’t that vampire territory?”
“Indeed, it is.” Aiden dumped some more sugar into his tea and frantically stirred, spoon clanking hard against his mug.
It reminded Charley of her sister, and her chest immediately tightened. Was Rudy feeding her a decent breakfast? What about coffee—did he get her the almond creamer she liked so much? Did she have any books to read? A warm bed?
“Shit storm’s brewin’, my friends,” Cole said, drawing Charley back to the moment just before the flood of worries swept her away. “Better get your umbrellas ready.”
Forcing herself to refocus, Charley poured a splash of Cole’s whiskey into her tea, then said, “I don’t know what’s going on with the demons, but the thing about the grays is weird. You said there were no other sightings in the city?”
“None reported,” Aiden said.
“They weren’t even there when that Silas guy first blurred me into the alley,” Charley said. “They showed up right after he dropped me in the dumpster. Literally a minute later.”
“They must’ve been holdin’ the fuckers somewhere close,” Cole said. “Probably had ‘em right there in the building. If that many grays had come in from outside, you would’ve heard trucks or something.”
“It was definitely a setup,” Charley said. “The timing is too perfect otherwise.”
“But if your uncle wanted you dead, why go to so much trouble?” Aiden asked. “Why not order Silas to do it? Or why not do it himself, for that matter? He certainly had the opportunity.”
