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Adam crossed the room at a more human pace. He leaned a shoulder against the wall near Nate and waited for the cop to catch his breath. “Icarus says you’re a good cop, an honest one, even if you are lying to your husband about where you are tonight.” Nate looked as chastened as his fear would allow, eyes downcast before darting back up, jumping between him and Icarus. Adam gave him something else to focus on, holding the folder out to Nate. “This is everything you need to arrest and convict Vincent Cirillo.”
What little color Nate had left in his cheeks fled. “He’s untouchable. Fuck, that man scares me more than you three.”
“He’s enslaving other people’s magic, not to mention murder, arson, and a dozen other crimes.” Adam nodded toward the folder in Nate’s hands. “All documented in there.”
“Your husband is a shifter, isn’t he?” Robin asked from where he’d sprawled on the chaise.
“My wife was a coyote,” Adam said. “She was the twin sister of my friend over there. My husband had magic too. Magic that’s in me now. They tried to stop Vincent and died for it. I almost died too.”
Icarus withdrew his hand and stepped back, giving Nate room to breathe, room to settle into the reality he hadn’t chosen but was his now too, regardless. “How many other people are we gonna let die, Nate?”
“Or,” Robin said, “we can tell your husband about your fang-banging fantasies.”
Icarus hissed over his shoulder.
Nate, however, was oblivious to the back-and-forth. The good cop, as Icarus had promised, was flipping through the file on Vincent, taking in all the evidence assembled. He reached the end, then glanced again at Adam. “You were a cop?”
“Before I was a widower.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” He glanced past Adam to Robin. “Both of you.”
A good cop in more ways than one. There was a heart beneath his badge and playing to it was the right call. “We don’t want Vincent to add anyone else to that list. Will you help us?”
“There’s a district attorney I work with. He’s good. If all this”—he lifted the file—“checks out, I think I can convince him to issue the arrest warrant. But the charges won’t stick. Cirillo has all the judges in his pocket.”
“We just need you to get him inside a holding cell.” Adam pushed off the wall and stepped to Icarus’s side. “We’ll take care of the rest.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Adam foundIcarus by the window in Cormac’s study, the vampire’s attention shifting between the early morning dark outside and the phone in his hand. No one had slept since returning from the city, Icarus included, and that phone had stayed in reach the entire time, through his change of clothes into sweats and a tee, through their debrief and an express meal, through the walk he’d taken around the reflecting pool. He hadn’t taken a shower yet, but Adam bet Icarus would find a way to take the phone in there with him too. He was clutching the damn thing like a lifeline. To whom? Adam had two guesses; he started with the less likely. “Are you afraid Nate is going to change his mind?”
“No.” Icarus stepped away from the window and sank into Cormac’s battered office chair. “I’m afraid we put him in the line of fire.”
Adam circled the desk and rested back against its edge. “You may not believe it”—he nudged Icarus’s knee with his—“but you’re a good person too.”
He tossed the phone on the desk, then slumped back in the chair. Eyes closed, he tilted his face to the ceiling and sighed. “Keep lying to yourself.”
It wasn’t easy tearing his gaze from the long smooth column of Icarus’s throat, the sharp line of his jaw, the weariness beneath the vibrating tension he rarely let anyone see, but the answer to Adam’s earlier question—the guess he’d figured more likely—was right beside his hip. An encrypted chat was open on the phone screen:You’re late, from Icarus, the only message from four hours ago, andAre you okay?the only one within the past hour. “Is that your chat with her?”
“Should’ve been, but she missed check-in.”
“Would you expect her to answer at midnight or four in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to send someone?”
“If we don’t hear from her by daybreak.” He righted his head and opened his eyes. “Neither of us are the most reliable.”
“You obviously care about her more than anyone.”
Icarus shrugged, the nonchalance fake as hell.
Adam pressed, hoping Icarus’s weariness would create an opening for another question that had lingered since they’d first discussed his sister. “Why did you leave her?”
Icarus leaned forward, retrieved his phone, and tapped at the screen a few times. He handed it back to Adam, open to an encrypted picture of a blue-haired Icarus in combat boots, jeans, and a leather halter, a young woman with tan skin like Cormac’s, long green hair, a nose ring, and hazel eyes lined in kohl, and another young man who looked nothing like the alternakids beside him. He was white with rich chestnut hair, sky blue eyes, and everything about him—from his pressed dress shirt and khakis to his neatly trimmed hair with its perfectly coifed wave—shouted wholesome boy next door.
But the way the three of them had their arms over each other’s shoulders, together with the smiles on their faces and the obvious affection in their eyes, led Adam to the obvious conclusion. “Another sibling?”
