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“Get moving. Go to your office before you sit back down at the tables. Definitely before any girl’s mouth accidentally falls on your dick. I need the security contractors.”

“I said I will. Putting an end to your bitching and moaning, that’s motivation enough.”

I hear a muffled exchange on his end, then Cris saying, “No, it’s my brother. Yeah, the weird one. No, he’s not single. Actually, I don’t know anymore. Hey Luca, how’s the wife?”

“I will murder you and bury you in the desert,” I bite off through clenched teeth.

He laughs. “Okay, okay. And Luca?”

“What?”

There’s a pause, and when he speaks again, his voice thickens with booze and sincerity.

“I love you, asshole. You pretend to be all hardass, but at the end of the day, I think you just want to keep us safe.”

He has no fucking clue.

Also, he will hear about this when he’s sober.

“Find the contractors, Cris.”

I stab the red button on-screen and disconnect. My black dagger ring catches my eye and I run my fingers over the etched design slowly.

Despite his juvenile fuckery, he’ll come through. He knows what time it is by the tone of my voice.

That’s the thing in our family.

My brothers might be colossal, selfish assholes, yet they’ve never let me down when it counts.

I just wish my own putrid fucking brain wasn’t disappointing me tonight, and Sylvie, too.

I have to undo that last train wreck of a conversation.

Somehow, I’ll make it up to her. Somehow, I’ll prove I can bring up my mother without becoming an armed grenade.

I linger in the alley a minute longer, staring at the folder in my hand.

Lisa Behn. Chicago. Security Specialist.

It feels like I have mice chewing wires in my head. I just can’t make the connection, not without Cris.

I hate that I haven’t spent a full night at home all week. I’m starting to get how a vampire feels when he hasn’t had blood.

Unfortunately, the vamp who really matters is Rennick.

If that butcher doesn’t get his pound of flesh mighty soon, he’ll come for mine, and he will carve up everything I love like a jack-o’-lantern.

Back in the warehouse, I debate whether to pull another all-nighter or go the fuck home and try to win back an angel.

The office is quiet.

Just the hum of the air conditioner and the distant clank of the night crew working the warehouse floor. A green banker’s lamp casts a weak pool of light over my desk. Everything outside that circle looks darker than it should.

The folder sits open in front of me, Lisa Behn staring up from the page.

I’ve read the file six times.

I’m still at Cris’ mercy.