Chapter 12

We entered the balcony on the Hell and Sachie dropped the six of hearts she'd been about to place on top of the house of cards she'd built. "What happened?"

"Silas is safe," Ezra said. "I portaled him to a guest room to have a shower, change, and get his bearings before we reconvene." He reclaimed his throne-like chair and frowned at the structure now occupying most of the small table on the balcony. "I wasn't finished with my game of Solitaire."

"Yeah, you were," Sachie said. "You had two moves, tops. I spared you the humiliation of losing."

I raised an eyebrow at Sachie, but she shook her head. Our plan had not advanced while I'd been gone.

Ezra waved his hand through the tower, collapsing the structure before deftly sweeping the cards up to shuffle them.

"Are you just going to ignore us while we wait for Silas?" I said. "Rude."

"He needs to press his dominance to prove his ego wasn't hurt when you fucked him and fucked off," Sachie said, deliberately goading him.

I flinched. It was true that I had shared those details with my best friend and that Ezra likely expected it, but it felt tawdry having them flung out like that, especially after our adventure in Tokyo.

"I'm pretty certain I was the one who left first," Ezra said mildly. "Again."

Had I been looking at my ex instead of at a woman in an orange ball gown down on the casino floor trying to untangle one of those metal ring puzzles that magicians used, would I have seen the bland expression that went with his tone, or did Sachie's comment produce the barest flash of anger? Or hurt?

Regardless, Sach and I had agreed she'd handle things and I was fine with that, because I wasn't going to rile Ezra up until we were alone.

Cherry cracked an eye open.

Not like that , I chided.

She huffed quietly in my head.

The double doors connecting the balcony to some other room opened, but Silas hadn't joined us.

I gritted my teeth.

"A woman who isn't a fan of the illustrious Ezra Cardoso?" Delacroix said. His voice, while gravelly, had a mellifluous beauty, much like the swell of a stormy wave. One best seen from afar. He wore his favorite wool fisherman's sweater and there was a starfish stuck in his windswept salt-and-pepper hair like he'd set it there while looking for something else and then forgotten about both items. "Today is truly an auspicious day."

"Funny," Ezra muttered.

Aw . Trouble in paradise, kitten? Then I remembered Ezra's fatigue when we'd first arrived, not to mention the shedim who attacked him, and tamped down my smirk. Was our partners-in-crime escapade the first time he had someone fighting alongside him versus fighting against him since he'd become Lord of the Copper Hell? At least he'd have Silas with him now, but it had been weeks of Ezra navigating this fragile power balance by himself.

"Who are you?" Sachie demanded.

Delacroix blinked. "What?"

"Sorry," she said. "What. Is. Your. Name?" She spoke each word slowly and loudly, the way some people did with her.

I bit the inside of my cheek so I didn't laugh.

Ezra guffawed.

The demon looked from his partner to mine, his brow slightly furrowed like he wasn't sure if he was being pranked. "Delacroix," he snarled.

"The shedim." Sach snapped her fingers at him. "Make yourself useful and get me a drink."

His mouth fell open.

This truly was an auspicious day.

Also, my bestie was my forever hero.

Delacroix scritched his stubble with a nicotine-stained finger. "Drinks are only free for players."

Sachie laughed. "Like I'm going to play any game here. Basic tenet of gambling. The house always wins."

The demon gave an unrepentant grin. "You're awfully quiet, girl detective," he said to me. "Nothing to say to Cardoso at your big reunion? Don't want to do your little song and dance and slash out at each other?"

"Yeah, they're the worst for that." Sach waved a hand at me. "Get it out of your system so I don't have to hear you bitch about him later. Just make it short so we can conclude our business and get back to work."

"Fuck off," I said and turned back to the balcony railing.

Sach wasn't being a bitch. I simply hadn't given her the signal that I'd found our plant on the gaming hall floor, so she was buying me time.

This bird's-eye view made my task of watching the door to the portal foyer a lot easier.

Sach and I had reconsidered involving Darsh, phoning him on our drive to the Play Palace. We hadn't changed our stance on him coming for the jailbreak part, but since he was excellent at extracting information, his job was to discreetly suss out from the patrons at the Copper Hell whether vamp mobs were using shedim secretions to manufacture drugs, or if someone was matchmaking demons with humans.

It made sense that Ezra was keyed to everyone's comings and goings like Calista had been, though apparently, he'd tightened things up. In the event that Ezra was around when Darsh entered through the portal, Sach was supposed to keep Ezra distracted enough to allow our friend through undetected.

I crossed my fingers. Whether the old guard or the new, the Powers That Be at the Copper Hell did not take kindly to Maccabees poking around.

Sachie was committed to her assignment, currently laying into Ezra for going rogue on our last case and killing the vampire we were supposed to rescue. "Enjoy betraying the team, did you?"

Delacroix chuckled, so she tore into him as well for ordering the hit in the first place.

I gripped the railing, my pulse skyrocketing at the thought that my father would commence destroying my best friend, but he laughed harder. Fucking perverse shedim.

Where was Darsh? He hadn't been able to tell us what disguise he'd rustled up, but since we couldn't risk any magic glamor being stripped off him when he went through the portal, he'd promised to use a physical costume.

Had Sach missed his entrance, and he was already here doing recon?

I discounted the portly man by a mah-jongg table as too short and the guy with red eyes engrossed in a checkers game as too obvious.

"I'm not standing around," Sachie said. "I'm going to get that drink." She paused. "Unless you've got a problem with that?"

With my back turned, I couldn't tell if she was speaking to the shedim or the Prime, but my focus was on the floor.

Darsh's last visit to the Hell had resulted in physical injury, and we'd pressed upon him that he didn't have to help us, but he'd blithely dismissed our concerns, saying it would be fun to go in right under Ezra's nose and play spy.

Delacroix was busy gushing over Sachie's moxie. Well, as much as the evil spawn gushed, which was to offer her a tour of the Hell.

Ezra chimed in to bitch about this not being a social call.

A slender woman with a demure fall of blond hair and a smart gray silk dress strode out of the foyer into the casino.

I leaned forward, cataloguing her stance—and her height. At almost six feet, she was tall to begin with, yet she wore the extra inches in her stilettos in confidence.

She studied the games laid out before her, tapping one French-manicured nail against her leather clutch, then took the final chair in a game of bridge, nodding coolly at the other female vamp opponents.

Game on.

"You're not going off with Delacroix, Sach," I said, turning away from the railing and fiddling with the back of one earring. "He'll mess with you. That's what he does."

Sach caught the signal. Her eyes twinkled.

"Ooh," Delacroix mocked. "The girl detective is profiling me."

"Hardly a challenge," I said. "Ezra, go get Silas."

"By all means," Ezra said, crossing his arms, "let me dance to your tune like a trained monkey."

That wasn't what I meant, but I wasn't about to apologize to Ezra in front of Delacroix so I leaned into it and pressed my hands to my heart. "Is it my birthday?"

"Hilarious," Ezra said drolly. "I have a few questions for you first." Did he now? He waved Delacroix off. "Go away."

The shedim sucked on his cigarette. "You were the worst business decision I ever made."

Ezra gave a crooked grin. His amusement in these situations was more infuriating than Sach's. And that was saying something. "Then kill me."

He and Delacroix exchanged a long, tense look. Great. One more mystery to add to the list where my ex was concerned. I didn't particularly love him having secrets with my demon daddy, even if neither was aware of that relationship.

Nor did I approve of Ezra taunting the shedim to do to him what Delacroix had done to Calista.

The demon snorted and looked away first.

"Not today?" Ezra shrugged. His initial encounter with Delacroix ended with my ex imprisoned in watery bindings and agreeing to kill Calista. Now the shedim was the first to cave? What did Ezra have on him? "Ah well," he said. "Give us twenty minutes, then you can return Sachie unharmed."

"Delighted to have your permission," Delacroix snapped.

"And I'm standing right here," Sachie added in the same tone of voice. "You're such a dick." A stake appeared in her hand. "Please give me a reason to come after you."

"Enjoying the scarf I made you?" Ezra said.

"Love it. But I don't need another one, which means you're expendable." She pointed the sharp end of the weapon at him. "Remember that," she said, and followed Delacroix into the elevator.

"You got a scarf?" the shedim said with an annoyed frown.

Ezra waited a moment after the doors closed. "They're bonded against me now. He won't touch her."

I blinked. "That was all an act?"

"Everything here is an act, Aviva," he said wearily.

I dug my nails into my palms. He had Silas now.

"Also," he said, "I wanted alone time."

I waved at everyone down on the casino floor. "I do not think that means what you think it means."

Below on the gaming floor, the woman in gray calmly played bridge and chatted with her tablemates.

Ezra pointed at the light green tinge to the air encasing the balcony. "This area is soundproof, but let's keep away from prying eyes." He rose with a fluid elegance, gathered up his deck of cards, and sauntered to the double doors off the balcony.

I followed him into his private lair with only a small falter in my step. But a metric ton of curiosity.

Two brown leather sofas flanked a wide coffee table. Behind one couch stood a bookcase bolted to the charcoal-colored wall, its neatly ordered titles tucked safely behind glass. Moonlight streamed in through the picture windows looking out over the ocean, sending cool beams over wooden planks worn shiny with age, while logs stacked carefully in the small fireplace tempted with promises of cheerful flames and soothing crackling.

It smelled like Ezra, along with a not unpleasant clove-scented tinge of cigar smoke.

"Private enough?" He flicked off the overhead light, leaving only a floor lamp behind one of the sofas to provide illumination.

The masculine space could have come off as heavy and dark, but it was livened up by personal touches: a beautifully crafted chess table whose pieces were in mid-play, an antique wine and bar cabinet, and a rich watercolor of a couple's erotic embrace, which hung dead center over the mantel.

Ezra dropped onto the sofa and tossed the deck of cards on the coffee table. "I could do anything to you and no one would be the wiser. No one would hear you scream."

A vein in my forehead throbbed at his cat-who-ate-the-canary smile. "Back at you."

His smile widened and his hand drifted to one of the buttons on his shirt. "You want to make me scream?"

"In your dreams." I scoffed.

"Often, mi cielo."

My heart skipped a beat. Memories of our past flooded my brain, and for a moment, I was transported back to a time when we were happy. When he'd whisper that endearment in my ear as we lay tangled in the early morning light. Part of me yearned to be his sky once more, but not like this. Not when it was only unleashed to knock me off-balance.

I shifted my weight, seeking center. "If you had normal intentions toward me, you wouldn't have ghosted me for two months."

"I didn't mean to let it go that long." Ezra rubbed a hand over his head, his expression contrite. "I had to secure my position here first. I couldn't risk contacting you when it would have been seen as…" He shook his head.

An exploitable weakness?

"Will you sit down?" he said. When I didn't move, he motioned at the club chair across from him. "Please?"

This was my chance to press him for some long-awaited answers. I just hoped I didn't regret asking the questions.