3
The Demon's Devotion
The ledger room called to me like a siren song.
Three days. That's how long I'd been in this manor—long enough to learn the rhythms of the household, the creaks of the floorboards, the hours when certain residents were occupied elsewhere. Long enough to grow restless and curious and dangerously bored. Long enough to notice that the door at the end of the east corridor, the one with the tarnished brass plaque readingLedgers & Records, was always locked.
I'd asked Selene about it during one of our meandering conversations. She'd smiled that knowing smile and said, "That's where Darius keeps the family business. Nothing that would interest you, darling."
She was wrong. It interested me immensely.
Because here's the thing: I was stuck in a supernatural mafia manor with no clear exit strategy, surrounded by creatures who could kill me without breaking a sweat. Knowledge was power. And if I was going to survive—maybeeven thrive—in this impossible situation, I needed to know exactly what kind of empire I'd stumbled into.
So on the afternoon of my third day, when I knew Darius was in a meeting with some shadowy associate in the west wing and Lucien was patrolling the perimeter and Selene was brewing something complicated in her workshop, I made my way to the locked door at the end of the corridor. I'd swiped a bobby pin from the bathroom earlier, and I'd spent an embarrassing amount of time watching lock-picking tutorials on my dead phone before the battery had given up entirely.
This is a terrible idea, I told myself as I knelt in front of the door and slid the bent bobby pin into the keyhole.This is the kind of idea that gets people killed in horror movies.
But I didn't stop. I jiggled the pin, feeling for the catch, my heart pounding so loud I was sure the whole manor could hear it. Sweat beaded on my forehead. My fingers cramped. And then—click.
The lock gave way.
I eased the door open and slipped inside, closing it softly behind me. The room beyond was dim, lit only by a single window with dusty panes. Rows of filing cabinets lined one wall, their drawers labeled with cryptic codes. A massive oak desk dominated the center, covered in papers and leather-bound ledgers and strange artifacts that hummed with faint energy. The air smelled of old paper and ink and something metallic—like magic, or money, or both.
My heart was racing. My hands were shaking. And I was absolutely, undeniably thrilled.
This is it, I thought, moving toward the desk.This is where I figure out what I've gotten myself into.
I flipped open the nearest ledger. The pages were filled with neat, precise handwriting—Darius's, probably—listing transactions that made my eyes widen.Artifact #467: 50,000.Cursed mirror smuggling: 75,000. Venatori Fight Circuit fees: 120,000. Protection payments—territory 7: 30,000 monthly.
"Holy shit," I breathed. "They really are a mafia."
Another ledger detailed routes and schedules—shipments of magical contraband, drop points, contact names. A third contained what looked like intelligence reports on rival organizations: the Blackburn Coven, the Iron Fang Pack, the Shadow Court. There were notes about alliances and betrayals, debts owed and favors called in.
I was so absorbed in reading that I didn't hear the door open behind me.
"You have curious fingers, Lizzie Saltz."
I spun around, my heart leaping into my throat. Azrael stood in the doorway, his white hair luminous in the dim light, his golden eyes fixed on me with an expression I couldn't read. He was dressed simply—black trousers, a white shirt open at the collar—but there was nothing simple about him. The air around him shimmered faintly, like heat rising from summer pavement, and I could feel the weight of his presence pressing against my skin.
"I—" I swallowed hard, clutching the ledger to my chest like a shield. "I was just—"
"Snooping," he finished, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. The click of the latch sounded like a prison sentence. "Yes, I can see that."
"I wasn't going to take anything." The words tumbled out in a rush. "I just wanted to understand what's going on. I'm stuck here, and nobody tells me anything, and I thought if I could just figure out what you guys actuallydo—"
"Knowledge is power," Azrael said softly. "And you feel powerless."
I blinked. "Yes. Exactly."
He moved toward me with that fluid, predatory grace that all of them seemed to possess. But where Lucien's approach felt like a threat and Darius's felt like a judgment, Azrael's felt like... curiosity. Like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve, and he wasn't sure yet whether I was dangerous or merely interesting.
"You could have asked," he said, stopping a few feet away. "Selene would have told you some of it. Darius, perhaps, if you caught him in the right mood."
"I didn't want the sanitized version. I wanted the truth."
"The truth." His lips curved in that faint, devastating almost-smile. "The truth is that we are criminals, Lizzie. We smuggle artifacts, we run illegal fighting rings, we traffic in information and influence. We have killed people. We will kill again. Does knowing that make you feel more powerful, or more afraid?"
I met his golden gaze and didn't flinch. "Honestly? A little of both."
