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“Find out what you can from this Emrick,” I said.
Ilsa stared hard at me even as Ray stood. “We have no intention of taking on Emrick’s job.”
“Again, I’m not asking you to. I need to know what Emrick thinks Tate’s next move might be or where he might be if I can talk to him…”
“You don’t seriously think you can reason with Tate?” Frank stood too.
Slowly, I followed suit, only so I could be eye-to-eye with Frank, and while I expected to find anger there, all I saw was sympathy. I must be a pathetic figure in his eyes for him to have such empathy for me, something Frank is hardly known for.
“We’ll find out what we can,” Ilsa said, taking Ray’s hand and leading her from the office before I could get another word in.
Frank continued to stare at me even as the door clicked behind them. After a moment of silence where you could almost hear the air beating against your eardrums, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Maybe we could’ve dealt with this.”
“How, Frank? You can’t kill him. You’re bound by the rules just as I am.”
Again the silence and again a moment where we stared at each other. I knew he was thinking of the time I had lost control of my demon and violently killed a handful of men. But I was nothing more than animal at that point, and no matter how many times Frank drilled me about that night, I couldn’t tell him how I had ended up hours outside of the city and at that drug lab.
And I hated the idea as much as Frank did that an out-of-control demon was simply another of God’s pawns, and those men were destined to die.
But there was a level of comfort in that explanation because it took away some of the guilt. Not all of it, but enough.
So this brought us back to Tate. I knew that one day this would come back to haunt me, and I had tried so hard to stop myself from getting close to another human. Then there was Jacob, leaning against the desk in his father’s office, his arms crossed over his chest, eyeing me as though he could see what I was thinking. Physical attraction turned into lust and then morphed into something more when this man had insisted there was something in me worth saving, and he was the one to do it. He had made me feel I was worth caring for, made me laugh for real, and in moments forget I was a demon underneath this skin and think maybe my life on Earth wasn’t entirely a lie.
Frank had said nothing because he didn’t know what to do any more than I did. Talking to Tate was my only chance, and I simply had to hope there was enough humanity within him to see reason. He hated me for severing the bond and thought because I was a demon, I would approve of his behavior, and maybe we could go on some fucked-up outings together, hunting and hurting innocent people. How disappointed he was to learn the truth—the first demon he’d ever encountered was nothing more than a coward running away from his true nature and had come to Earth not to seek thrills and mess with humans but to live amongst them, and as much as I can be,beone of them.
He hated me, and I feared he would take it out on Jacob.
Ray and Ilsa had to be able to help because I didn’t know what else to do.
Ray and Ilsa stopped by shortly afterward to tell me that Emrick—a fallen angel who ran the largest underground crime syndicate in the city—was on his honeymoon. When my eyebrows shot up, Ray snorted. “Yeah,what the fuck,right? Whatever. Apparently, he’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Right. Well, I’m coming with you when you go.”
They looked like they were about to argue with me, then thought better of it and simply shrugged and left, promising to be back tomorrow.
Was I crazy to think that I could reason with Tate? That he would leave me with any choice but to kill him? And if he pushed me that far, I would then never be able to see Jacob again. Maybe that was his plan, and when it came time for us to face each other, either my punishment would be death or be torn from another human I had grown to love.
JACOB
It was only after some serious nagging that Mike admitted to me what had him so rattled. Nagging wasn’t really my style. I preferred the subtle approach, and if I could, gently guide someone in the direction of making the best decision for them. But that didn’t work on Mike, and he’d stayed refutably tight-lipped until I’d annoyed him into telling me by literally following him around as he got ready for work and tugging on his sleeve. I’d won only when his look of worry morphed into amusement before shifting again into frustration, and he’d thrown his arms up and forced me to sit before telling me about his ex.
He didn’t give me much, only enough information to know that he was a dangerous man—like I couldn’t tell that myself from the scars draped over Mike’s body—and had somehow found out we were dating and could be coming after me. Mike said his plan was to find Tate first, but in the meantime, he would hire some security to watch over me. While I wasn’t sure I was particularly keen on the idea of having a bodyguard, Mike seemed genuinely disturbed, so I didn’t argue.
At Mike’s insistence, I’d taken a sick day off work and stayed in his apartment all day under strict instructions to answer the door forno one. Mike had an interesting collection of books, and I wasn’t much of a reader, but I ran my fingers down the leather-bound spines of some of the oldest appearing books, sliding a few out to take a look. He had volumes on the occult and supernatural creatures, which might make me nervous if they took up too much of his collection. But Mike’s collection also included classic literature as well as a few dozen modern murder mysteries from well-known authors and some not. Possibly my favorite find was the ancient-looking encyclopedias, which I’d initially been interested enough to flip through but couldn’t concentrate on them and the language style used.
He had no books on cars.
So, I watched television.
Breaking long enough to discover a chin-up bar in Mike’s closet and using it for a short while. Then I couldn’t get the image out of my mind of his topless form, lifting himself effortlessly, the lines of his muscles on display as he worked out, sweating…
That distracted me for a good while, though it felt distasteful to masturbate in Mike’s home while he wasn’t there, so I didn’t.
Around three o’clock, I decided I would cook him something for dinner. While I expected to find a sad, bachelor refrigerator, much like my own, I was surprised at the array of fresh ingredients available. The picture of Mike was becoming clearer with each revelation, and it all seemed to be solidifying the image I already had of him—someone who was in some sort of self-imposed exile. So, he kept himself busy reading, viewing a large film collection, working out, and cooking elaborate meals, all to distract from the fact that he was alone. Mike had fine taste in music, art, and food, judging by the line of cookbooks on the kitchen counter, but he kept to himself.
Was that purely because of Tate? Perhaps what was happening now was exactly as he feared. I hated the idea he had shut himself away from the world out of fear of an ex who could come in at any moment and destroy him for even daring to have happiness.
Mike was larger than life, a powerful force of a man—intimidating, dark, and incredibly sexy.
