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My stomach drops through the floor, landing somewhere in the sub-basement. “Who? Legal?”

”No. First Division Management.”

My essence shrivels so fast I nearly pass out, stimulant be damned. If I had anything in my stomach to give, then it’d be splattered onto my own feet

“I’m not going,” I croak, digging my heels into the floor, which is pathetic considering I have zero traction and less muscle mass than a starving cat. “I’ll stay here. I love the Oubliette. Really. It’s growing on me. Minimalist chic.”

Veraxia sighs. “Oh, brother. You have no choice whatsoever. You are a summoned asset.” She nods to the Wardens. “Move him.”

I’m hoisted, dragged, and practically thrown out of the blinding white and back into the labyrinth of the office complex.

They shove me into a glass elevator where Veraxia punches a code into the panel with trembling fingers, and the doors slide shut with a pneumatic hiss. We shoot upward with a velocity that turns my insides into a slurry, passing by every floor including my own, punching through the sulfurous clouds, right toward The C-Suite.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Veraxia turns on me, her eyes wide and frantic, and starts aggressively smoothing down the ruined, blood-crusted hem of my shirt. She tries to wipe a smear of grime from my cheek with her thumb, but only succeeds in smearing it further.

“Stop it, Vee,” I hiss, swatting her hand away.

“Shut up,” she snaps as she grabs my chin, forcing me to look at her. “Listen to me, Malachi. Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not make jokes. Do not be you. If you embarrass me in front of Her, I will personally file the paperwork to have you thrown into the sun. I will skip the committee review and do it myself. Do you understand?”

“Understood.”

The elevator dings, and the doors open into a cavern of polished obsidian and floor-to-ceiling glass that looks down on the Ninth Division. Up here, it’s just silence and the hum of terrifyingly efficient air conditioning.

Flanking the door are two monstrosities—eight feet of jackal-headed muscle and gold-leaf armor, holding halberds that look like they could split an atom.

And then, there’s the desk. A slab of black stone the size of a landing strip. The chair’s high-backed, leather, and turned away from me, facing the infinite void outside.

“Malachi Aurelian Virezeal,” the voice echoes through the room. “Torture Administrator of the Ninth. Veil-jumper. Realm-breacher. Demon-killer. Tram-breaker.”

I flinch at the last one. That was one time.

The chair spins slowly.

“Mortal lover.”

Long, gleaming red hair spills over the shoulders of a tailored black power suit—the kind of cut that costs more than my entire department’s annual budget. Her lips are painted a slash of violent crimson. And curving out from her temples, sleek and black as oil, are massive ram’s horns that frame her face like a crown.

She stares at me with eyes that are older than the dirt on my boots, and raises a hand, gesturing to one of the chairs.

“Sit down, please.”

My knees give out before I can decide to move, the leather chair creaking beneath me as I very shakily take a seat opposite Satan.

“You have been... disruptive,” she says, the words rolling off her tongue like smoke as she raises a perfect, terrifying eyebrow. “Your sister here wants to liquidate you. She claims you’re defective. She says you bonded with a mortal, caused significant havoc in the Ninth Division, and generally treated our dimensional barriers like wet tissue paper.”

I whip my head around, despite the stiffness in my neck muscles.

“You wanted to liquidate me?!” I snap, glaring at Veraxia, who completely ignores me.

I know I’m a pain in the ass. I know I treat the employee handbook like a suggestion box. I know I fucked with a lot of the rules. I know I’m the demonic equivalent of a paper jam in a very expensive printer.

But liquidation?

That’s not a firing. That’s an unmaking. We shared a womb, and she’s trying to have me shredded into confetti without so much as a warning memo.

I am seething, the heat of it coiling in my gut and radiating out to my fingertips. I want to flip the desk. I want to set fire to Veraxia’s stupid suit. I want to file a grievance with HR, burn down the HR department, and then salt the earth where it stood.