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I clenched my jaw and thought of Zaq.
* * *
Aboveground, the bars and restaurants of Rue St. Denis were packed. People spilled out into the sidewalk tables, sipping beer or nursing soup-bowl-size cups of coffee. Through the open doors came the jangle of music overlaid with laughter and rapid French.
I turned down the street that led to my rented apartment. I was nearly there when I received a text.
I glanced at the screen, surprised to see it had come from my father. He’d gone dark when he left for Paris. He suspected we had a mole, someone high in the Kral Syndicate hierarchy who was feeding intel to the slayers. He’d ordered both me and my brother Gabriel to keep communication to a minimum.
But Father had attached his personal code, so I knew the message was legit.
Go home. The woman is of no use to us.
Disappointment stabbed through me. I didn’t want to leave Montreal without seeing Zoe, even if it was just so I could tell her to her face what I thought of her.
But that was selfish. Father wouldn’t have called me back to New York if he didn’t have new intel about Zaq. Maybe he needed me somewhere else.
Will do, I typed back, and picked up my pace.
I hadn’t flown directly to Montreal—that would’ve been suicide. The Tremblay Syndicate would’ve been on me like fleas on a dog. Instead, I’d taken a flight to Toronto and rented a motorcycle for the five-hour drive to Montreal. If I was lucky, I could catch a late flight out of Toronto and be in New York a little after midnight.
Right before I reached the brownstone, my phone pinged again. This time it was from Gabriel.
You are needed in New York ASAP.
I frowned. The code was Gabriel’s, but it appeared to come from the number my father had just texted me with.
The hairs on my nape stirred.
The phone pinged again.
You there?
I hurriedly typed a response.G? That you?
Of course.
Suspicion crawled up my spine. Something felt off. That wasn’t how Gabriel talked—or texted. He’d say something like,WTF—who else could it be, you ass?
Only five people in the Kral Syndicate had access to my current phone number: Gabriel; my father, Karoly Kral; his lieutenant Tomas; and two high-ranking enforcers. All trusted members of Father’s inner circle.
I was beginning to think the first message hadn’t been from my father, and I sure as hell didn’t believe the second had been from Gabriel.
Suspicion turned into full-blow alarm. I turned off my phone, shoved it into my pocket and kept moving past the brownstone, zigzagging downside streets every few blocks until I was a half mile from the rented apartment. Ducking into an alley, I removed the SIM card and tossed it into the bushes. Just to be sure, I ground the phone to pieces beneath my heel and dropped the mangled bits into a trash can.
To return to the brownstone, I slipped into the shadow dimension and waited outside the building until someone exited so I could enter while still in the shadows.
My apartment was the only one on the third floor. I dropped back into the physical world to unlock the door. The effort had drained me and left me a little dizzy—a side effect of spending too long in the shadow world, especially with my magic at a low level.
I bent over, sucking breaths, until my head cleared, then moved cautiously through the apartment. Everything was as I’d left it—the blinds closed, nothing out of place. If someone had entered while I was out, they were damn good.
I tossed the garment bag and shoes in a closet and grabbed my laptop. Even using a special password and Krals-only backdoor that Father had had the techs build into the Syndicate’s programs, it took me a good two hours to hack into our files, taking care to conceal any identifier that could be traced back to me.
It took another few hours to be completely sure, but I confirmed that Zaq was still missing, and my father in Paris, searching for him.
Goddamn it to Hades. Someone was trying to get me back to New York, or away from Zoe—or both.
It had to be the mole. If only I knew who—and why.
