Page 116 of Heart of Thieves

“Do I look like I need rescuing?”

“You look like you’ve seen the wrong end of a knife, brother,” Enzo says. “Hate to break it to you.”

“You’re just bitter you’re the ugly half of the Devious,” Nic says, and then smirks at his own joke. “Hate to break it to you.”

I stifle a giggle, and Enzo shoots me a glare. “Sorry,” I say, grinning.

“Don’t lie to me, Laundromat.”

“Laundromat? Really?” Nic asks.

“It’s a nickname,” I say, echoing what Enzo said when he first started calling me random L words. “A charming one.”

“Did he tell you that, too?” Nic levels my gaze with a mock-serious one. “Because he’s lied to you before.”

The mirth in the room fractures, like a bucket of ice water has been dumped over our heads. Enzo stiffens at my side, but I don’t break eye contact with Nic.

“That makes two of you,” I say.

Nic holds my gaze. I cross to him, unbuckling the restraints and yanking him upright. “Come on. We’ve got to get back to Nocturne’s game before midnight, and we’re not leaving you here to get eviscerated again.”

“We’re not?” Enzo mumbles.

“No. We’re not.” I shoot him a glare, shoving Nic’s arm in front of his face. “Grab his hand.”

Enzo frowns at his brother’s outstretched fingers, and Nic curls them into an obscene gesture inches from his nose. Enzo scowls. “Are you seven years old?”

Nic chuckles to himself. “Oh, you know what sort of seven-year-old I was.”

“Oh, right, I remember. A stick in the mud with another stick up his ass.”

Instead of rising to the bait, Nic snorts. “Isn’t he funny, Lola? Probably a coping mechanism for being the ugly brother.”

“Okay, you two,” I huff, digging my own hand into Enzo’s jacket and pulling out a hunk of voratium, which I then shove into Enzo’s palm before forcing him to grasp Nic’s wrist with the metal between them. “Save the childish bickering for when we’re not running late.”

I rush to Enzo’s other side and take his remaining hand, where he still holds the voratium he used to bring me here in the first place.

Enzo grimaces. “I’m already regretting this,” he grumbles as the voratium turns icy.

As soon as we’re through the wall, Enzo releases us, and we dart up the stairs, taking them three at a time. A door slams somewhere nearby before we reach the landing, and footsteps echo around the corner.

The blood drains from my face. I grasp both Enzo’s and Nic’s arms just as a broad figure comes into view at the top of the stairwell, but Nic, apparently woozy from blood loss, trips, skidding down several stairs.

Enzo yanks me into an alcove, turning us both noncorporeal as my father catches sight of Nic. I want to leap to his aid, but Enzo’s grasp on my arm is like a vise.

“Oh, hello,” Nic groans, pulling himself upright. “Did you bring me my cashews yet?”

“Would you shut up about the damn cashews?” my father snaps, eyes alight with barely concealed rage. “How did you get out?”

“Maybe you should have your locks checked.”

Magnus grasps Nic by the collar, ramming him against the wall and digging the barrel of his pistol into his throat. “You don’t want to tell me where she is? Fine. Why don’t we test just how immortal you truly are?”

Panic strikes through me sharp and quick. Is Nic going to cast an illusion at my father to get him to stop this? Torture him right back, the way I’ve heard stories of him doing with his glamours? Or, at the very least, try to escape? But if he could, he would have surely done so by now. Is he out of voratium?

Nic holds his ground and keeps his mouth shut, fear and defiance tangling in his eyes. I focus on his magic, and it’s clear he’s not using any of it.

“Last chance, Sinclair,” St. James bites out, cocking the gun. “Do you have anything to tell me?”