Chapter 29

TWENTY-NINE

The peaceful reprieve lasted barely a day. Paris's momentum inside his father's organization was halted by a freeze on the Cirillo funds. Mary had traced the action to Charlotte Taylor, Vincent's human accountant. Mac had a file on her already; she'd been cooking the books for Vincent for years, moving his money around to keep it sheltered. If anyone had the inside track on where Vincent's money was and how to tie it up, it was Charlotte.

It had taken another day to arrange a meet. Mac was against it, suspecting a trap. Mary would eventually hack through the wall. But Adam, the traitor, had sided with Paris in the no-time-to-waste camp. Which was how they found themselves in a back office at Club Sutro, a relatively neutral site, and thanks to Kai's and Icarus's connections, one they were able to access in the middle of the afternoon, limiting collateral damage if things went sideways. Which they always did.

Paris seemed to sense that, his loafers wearing a hole in the carpet at the far end of the room where he paced. Adam, Icarus, and Robin were more comfortable with the inevitable chaos, lounging around a table in the corner, topping up their caffeine, while Mary sat behind the desk, furiously typing on her laptop.

Mac pushed off the front of the desk and crossed the room, making a barrier of himself in Paris's pacing circle. "You don't have to do this," he told him, as he smoothed down the lapels of his suit jacket. "We can send Adam out to negotiate."

"The Devil?" Paris scoffed. "You know that's what they still call him, right? They'll think we're trying to trap them ."

Robin set aside his mug. "I fail to see the problem."

Paris's jaw clenched, and Mac bit back a laugh. Robin worked everyone's last nerve, even Paris's. "Look," he said, stepping around Mac to address the table. "Folks are on edge. They know I'm working with you. They also need to know there won't be reprisals."

"She's also holding your accounts hostage," Adam said.

"Which is the trap they won't see coming," Paris said, then asked Mary, "How long do you need?"

"Ten minutes," she replied.

"Question is," Robin mused, "do you want the money for yourself or for the cause?"

"Which is it, Robin?" Paris snapped, irritated to outburst. "You don't believe me because we thought they'd all fallen in line? Or because they didn't?"

"Hey," Mac said, stepping between them and cupping Paris's cheek, waiting for his brown gaze to settle back on his. "I know it feels like he's the enemy, but he's not."

"We've all been there," Icarus said, earning a growl from Robin. Which in turn earned a raspberry from Icarus. And like a popped balloon, the tension in the room deflated, everyone except Robin chuckling.

Paris inhaled deep, then exhaled, letting more of the tension go as he shook out his shoulders. When he righted his gaze, he was calm once more, confident, the spat with Robin doing some good it seemed. "We've seen it already. When we talk to people, when we let them be heard, we get more information out of them. We add allies. We learn how to win this." He nodded. "I can do this."

Mac was sure of it. Sure of him. And sure that if he didn't kiss him right then, he'd regret it. In front of everyone, he pulled the man he loved into his arms and kissed him deep, hoping Paris sensed all the pride and confidence Mac had in him. To pull this off, to pull anything off he set his mind to.

Paris kissed him back, his lips curving into a smile against his, the two of them parting when cat calls and whistles erupted. In his arms, Paris laughed with the joy, the warmth that had brightened Mac's world these past few weeks. And more, according to Paris. "You should see your aura right now," he whispered at his year. "I can't wait to get home so I can paint it. So you can see it too."

Mac couldn't wait either.

And neither could reality, interrupting the happy moment. "Eyes on Taylor," Mary said.

Lounging ceased. Adam and Robin shot to their feet, Icarus too, the latter coming around the table to hook his arm through Paris's. The both of them were stylishly suited, though Icarus stood several inches taller in his stilettos. "You ready to go?"

Paris would meet Charlotte with Icarus, their best fighter, at his side. Jason was already in the main room, behind the bar with Kai, and Adam, Robin and Mac would join them, fanned out to block the exit doors. Jenn and Abigail would shift from their positions on the floor to the room here with Mary, as guards and backup.

"Last line of human defense," Paris said with a sharp nod, then tucked the folders Mac handed him under his arm. Ammunition, for when he needed it. One last stolen kiss, and then their group strode down the hall to the main room, Paris and Icarus continuing to the lone table in the center of the dance floor where Charlotte Taylor waited, two men—shifters they'd already identified as her usual entourage—standing guard behind her.

"This is the company you keep now?" she said, her dainty nose turned up, her brown hair twisted in a bun at her neck.

"This was always the company I kept." Paris lowered into the chair Icarus pulled out for him and set the folders on the table. "You're holding my money hostage."

"Your money?" She scoffed. "You think you should be the heir? A worthless layabout who stole from his own father? You don't know the first thing about running a business."

"So you want the money for yourself, then?"

"We're the ones who earned it."

We , Mac noted. As in the royal we, or the we that included the two shifters behind her, or a larger we of more defectors?

Didn't matter for Paris's response, though, the strategy planned. "You're right," he said, and Charlotte reared back, her eyes wide with surprise. "I don't know how to run the finances," he said to her, then to the two shifters and whomever they were also standing in for, "And I wasn't the one my father sent into battle. So no, I don't know how to run his business, as he did. I'll need your help, all of you, to run it a different way."

"And how's that?" she asked, leaning slightly forward, giving away the interest she hid behind her skepticism.

"The way my father should have. By affording you the protection you came to him for in the first place." He opened one of the folders, pushing it toward her, and Charlotte paled. "You came to my father for protection for your daughter, a witch who inherited your late husband's magic. What did Vincent make her do instead?"

She hesitated, fingers splayed on the edge of the picture of her daughter.

"He's gone, Charlotte," Paris said. "My father can't hurt your family anymore. Let me help you. Let me help her."

"Potions," she said after another moment. "Killing ones. They've made her sick too."

"And you, Frankie," Paris said, as he glanced up at the blond shifter behind her. "You're a psychopomp. You should be delivering souls to peace, not to the highest bidder." He opened a different folder. "My father found you and offered you protection from a gang who sought to kill you instead of having their souls delivered. What did my father have you do instead?"

He cast his hazel gaze aside. "Deliver them to a giant." Wallace Boyle, if Mac had to guess, another reason Paris had lobbied for recruiting Charlotte and her guards.

"I won't do that," Paris said, conviction and earnestness in his voice. "I'll give you the protection he promised."

"And if we disagree?" the other shifter asked.

"You leave here unharmed."

"And your money?" Charlotte said.

"Is mine now, regardless."

She cursed, then snatched her phone out of her purse, tapping the screen a few times before glancing back at him with an incredulous glare. "This was a trap."

"To free my money, yes, but the offer to free you is also very real."

Through it all, Paris had kept his voice even, calm, gentle almost. No smirk, no victory smile, just the caring, empathetic human who was offering a lifeline, and Charlotte, Mac was sure, was ready to take it, but then Frankie said, "It's too late."

She whirled around in her chair. "What do you mean it's too late? This is a good deal. Better than the other one."

Icarus had shifted forward, muscles coiled. "What other one?"

"I thought it was a trap." Frankie's hazel eyes shifted from Icarus to where Jason had hopped the bar, then to each of Robin's, Adam's, and Mac's positions, all of them moving closer. "I already said yes."

"You were supposed to wait!" Charlotte yelled.

But her bellow was barely audible over the sound of metal ripping apart above, an opening torn in the roof, followed by a rain of fireballs.

Paris yanked on the bond, and Mac's gaze collided with his frightened one. Only a second before Icarus covered his head and hauled him out of the chair, dragging him back toward the bar where Jason stood churning out fireballs of his own.

Mac mentally calculated how fast he could reach them, by foot or wing, but then his math was rearranged by Wallace Boyle falling through the hole in the roof, the giant's feet hitting the floor with a massive rumble. A firefight ensued, cutting off Mac's path, as Jason and Wallace exchanged shots, the latter's height and breadth growing by the second, the tattoos on his skin coming to life, weapons and beasts on the cusp of materializing into this reality.

"Where's the medium?" he bellowed.

A shifted Robin launched at the giant, aiming for his knees, while Adam aimed a shot at his head. Neither attack landed, Wallace deftly maneuvering out of the way—toward where Icarus stood over Kai, Paris, and Charlotte behind a wall of fire Jason had erected. A wall the giant would likely walk right through if Mac didn't do something.

He didn't have a clear path himself, not one that wouldn't push the giant closer to the vulnerable, but he did have a clear path to call in reinforcements so that he, Robin, and Adam could get a better shot at Wallace.

Arms raised, tapping into the two ancient magics that ran through his veins, he recited the words of his ancestors, calling down the wind. And on the next gust that blew through the opening in the roof, Liam led a wave of ravens and crows, all of them flying at the giant's head, disorienting him and causing him to stagger back a step.

Almost enough for Robin to take him down, for Adam to take another shot.

"Seasamh síos!"

Mac went down on one knee, the order issued with power, with magic greater than his own, and the rest of the corvids obeyed too, falling away from the giant, whose gaze locked once more on Paris.

Mac swung his own gaze the direction of the call, to the top of the bar where a certain missing warlock stood wielding a crossbow.

"Stay down!" Atlas yelled for everyone else's benefit.

Right before he unleashed a bronze arrow that sailed through the air and into Wallace Boyle's chest, putting an end to another giant.