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“It’s your job. I’m trusting you. Don’t fuck it up. I need you alive, Samuel.”
“I’ve got it.” There was no other option.
Hours after Micah left my apartment, I was standing in the gym again, surrounded by the people I’d gathered over the years. People who would do anything for me. Joriel stood off to my right. It felt good to have him here. We’d done countless jobs together over the years, but what we had wasn’t something built by time and experience. Joriel was my brother in every way that counted. And I wanted him here even if I couldn’t trust him one hundred percent at the moment.
“I’m happy with the progress you’ve all made while I was gone. Starting next week, I want you going out in groups to take out the lower-ranking demons. You see any royals, get out. Come straight to me or Joriel.”
I saw Joriel wince out of the corner of my eye. It wasn’t just Micah who didn’t trust him—he didn’t trust himself.
“Thomas, Daphne, and Jules, stay behind. Everyone else, I’ll see you later.”
The room cleared, leaving me and Joriel alone with my three chosen.
I looked between them. “Daphne, I want you to be ready to tail Nathaniel’s wife, Sierra, and their baby if needed.” Daphne had never met my brother or his wife. Nathaniel wouldn’t suspect she worked for me if she appeared in Sierra’s life. And I’d do anything to make sure this time he wasn’t a part of the fight. He’d earned his normal life with his family.
“You think the demons are part of a revenge plan?” Daphne asked.
“I want them protected regardless. Demons don’t travel in packs unless they’re following someone’s orders. I don’t care who is behind it or what they want, they’re too close to Nathaniel’s family. No one touches a hair on Sierra or her daughter.”
Daphne nodded.
“Jules…” I couldn’t believe I was about to say this, but I had to cover all my bases. “How well do you know Piper Amato?” Jules was my main bouncer for Youngblood. He had more contact with the club’s patrons than any of my other men.
“I’ve seen her at least once a week for the past two years. I think I know her pretty well, but you never know what secrets a woman’s hiding.”
“Could you play bodyguard without her being suspicious?”
Jules frowned at me. “What about Nacio?”
I refused to visibly react to the question. “What about him?”
“Just seems like he’d be the less suspicious option.” Jules shrugged.
“I’m asking you,” I said, my voice flat. Asking Nacio would require admitting why I wanted a guard for Piper. And I didn’t even want to admit that to myself. But I didn’t have a choice.
I remembered the way Nathaniel had looked after the fight he went through to get Sierra back. That fight nearly killed him. I didn’t want to ever go through that with Piper, didn’t wantherto go through it. And if I was being honest with myself, I cared about her. I would save her if someone came after her, and that was a weakness I couldn’t afford.
Jules held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, man. I’m sorry. I can do whatever you need.”
“Good. You and Daphne are free to go.” I turned my attention to Thomas. “I need you ready to come with Joriel and me to do some surveillance tonight.” It was time to figure out who was leading the demons and get rid of them.
* * *
It wasdark by the time we arrived at the storage unit where the demons were camping out. It was more than half an hour away from Youngblood by car, and not my team’s usual MO. Boston had enough for them to deal with most of the time. Usually they ran tech, got me rental cars, tracked down info, and worked with contacts in other places around the world. But everyone was trained to deal with flesh-and-blood demons no matter how rare it was for the humans to come face-to-face with them.
This was new territory. A year ago, Nathaniel, Joriel, and I would have taken out this den of demons together. Maybe we would have interrogated a demon or two for information. More likeIwould have interrogated a demon or two.
But a year ago, everything was different.
Nathaniel wasn’t married to a human, and he didn’t have a newborn Nephilim at home. Joriel had never been to Hell or made a deal with Lucifer.
Now I had to worry about demons going after Nathaniel’s family, about if or when Joriel might betray us.
I palmed my spiked club, keeping it in small cylinder form. If everything went according to plan, we wouldn’t need any weapons tonight. But in my experience, things rarely went according to any plan that didn’t involve weapons.
Thomas stood beside me with iron stakes strapped everywhere he could fit them. Out of everyone I’d ever trained, Thomas was the best. Probably because he started young. By the time I met him, he was already good with a knife and had perfected the art of being invisible despite his six feet of height.
“Some light would be nice,” I said to Joriel.
