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Home. It had been. A place of so many firsts, of so many hopes and dreams, of so much love. He looked out the window, looked back in time, then shut his eyes and the door on his memories. It was fitting in a way that it was gone now. It was one less thing tying him here.
Icarus removed his hand. “You know, at first, I thought Adam was the real you, and this was the Devil, but they’re the same, aren’t they?”
Adam returned his gaze to him and nodded. It wasn’t exactly how he saw it, but close enough. Adam was both the face the Devil needed and the Devil’s keeper.
“I thought so.” Disappointment flashed across Icarus’s face, but fast on its heels was determination. “All right, what does Adam, aka the Devil, need Icarus to do?”
“Stop picking fights with Robin.”
Icarus laughed out loud. “Have you met your friend?”
Adam chuckled. “Fair, but he’s set in his ways at this point. He’s an asshole, but a loyal one.”
“What does he do exactly?”
“He’s an assassin.”
Icarus startled to full attention. “How’s that work with a cop and ex-cop as friends?”
Adam shrugged. “Worked even less with a twin sister and brother-in-law who were feds.”
Icarus covered his gaping mouth with a hand. “Deborah was his sister?” Adam nodded, and Icarus squeezed his knee again. “Deborah and David were the feds on Vincent’s trail?”
“He’s responsible for their deaths.” They’d had a perfect night at Club Sutro, a perfect anniversary celebration, and the next day, his spouses were dead by Vincent’s hand. “They were building a case against him. Were close to shutting him down on a federal level. They had juice beyond YB.”
“Vincent couldn’t have that.”
Adam nodded. “The federal case died with them, and the more YB was cut off by the ongoing war, the more Vincent’s power grew. He thinks he’s invincible. Might be trying to make himself magically so, depending on what he’s planning for later this month. Either way, Robin and I can’t let him get away with it.”
Icarus narrowed his eyes, and his forehead creased, creating the putting-it-together expression Adam caught on his face from time to time. “So you, Robin, and Cormac have been carrying on Deb and David’s work? Building a case and disrupting his organization?”
“And rescuing those who need it,” Adam said. “Destroying his stores of magic, cutting off his source of funds, interfering with his business.”
“So those warehouse fires and gunfights I hear rumblings about?”
Adam pointed at himself. “Not all the time, but some of the bigger ones. Disruption to the point of destruction.”
“Because that’s what he’s done to you.” Icarus unfolded his legs, stood, and began to pace the room, hands on his hips below his sweater. “Are you stealing from him too? Is that what pays for the whiskey and meals at Benton’s?”
“No. Inheritance, my pension, and the Devil pay for those things.”
Icarus paused in his circuit, hip and brow cocked.
“The Devil solves problems for people,” Adam clarified.
“Problems that typically involve Vincent Cirillo?”
Adam shrugged.
He rolled his eyes and resumed his pacing. “And the casework?”
“Makes Mac feel better. We’ve been building it for an opportunity like the one you brought us. We can use it to get Vincent where we need him.”
“In jail.”
“Like I said, makes him an easier target.”
“For the assassin. Makes sense.” He stopped in front of Adam, head tilted. “But you had him right in front of you earlier today.”
