Conah appears in the room. I lean up from my crouch and look at him.
“She’s on the way.”
I nod my head. He gives me a sad look before disappearing back into the void. I asked him to let me deal with this alone.
Last night, while Erazel and Tanisha were summoning Gadiel to get answers, Hamon and Conah were scrounging the underworld looking for Akathol’s estranged daughter.
Imagine my surprise when Conah came to me nearly an hour ago and told me they’d finally found her.
The door to the apartment opens, and Unina walks in. She startles when she sees me.
“Hey, Boss. What are you doing here?” She walks further into her home, placing her purse down on the table in the foyer.
She turns to me, taking in my appearance and my lack of acknowledgment of her. I see it. The moment she realizes I know her secret.
Before she could say anything, I ask. “How long have you been plotting against me?”
Her lower lip shakes, and her eyes water. I didn’t give a shit about her tears. There isn’t a being on my payroll that I don’t treat like family. Not one of them can say I wouldn’t go to war for them. Once I figured you were part of my family, you had my loyalty. This shit hurts.
Her gaze moves away from me to the wall on my right. “I can…. explain.”
“I’ve given you every fucking thing. You were a got damn call girl before I hired you and made you the third most important person in my district. I brought you into my inner circle andtreated you like family, and you do this shit to me?” I roar my last three words, which causes her to jump.
The evidence was right in my face. The only other person who would have unlimited access to my portals and who crosses them is Unina.
When I put the heavy ban on who and what can come across my portals, she had to get creative. That’s why she brought her father over. Some low-level demon with no report and no record of passing through the portals. He was squeaky clean.
Had it not been for Khiva adding all the extra spells on the portals, Akathol would’ve been long gone before the damn thing would’ve started malfunctioning. We never would have found him.
And it made sense that he didn’t recognize Unina in that room because he’s been missing from her life since she was an infant. The plan was damn near foolproof.
“I’m so sorry, Raziel. I didn’t want to do it.”
I didn’t want to hear about what she didn’t want to do because she did it. There wasn’t an enemy she could’ve faced that I wouldn’t have been willing to stand ten toes down for her with. Even if that enemy was the king himself. Her bullshit lies meant nothing to me.
“How long?” I ask, gritting my teeth.
She wipes her tears. “From the beginning,” she whispers.
I shut my eyes to tamp down the anger and the betrayal I’m feeling.
“I needed a way out,” she goes on to say. “You’ve been away from the underworld for too long; you don’t know what it is like for a lirid child with no father.”
Lirids were female demons. They were usually the offspring of a lirid and some other demon. Demons desire lirids for their energy. Male demons feed off them, using them to damn nearget high. There are entire brothels filled with lirids. Even human men seem to get a rush from them.
“I was lost working in that awful whorehouse. When he came to me with an offer of freedom and independence, I had to take it.”
She looks down at her hands.
“He fed me, was kind to me, and never used my body unless I offered it. It wasn’t until I got this job that I realized why he wanted me.”
She wipes at her face, but more tears fall.
“He knew you would offer me the job. Even told me to tell you my story about being an abandoned baby that didn’t know my parents. He said you would eat it up.”
My hands fist at my sides because she was right. She was a scrawny little female demon with no parents and no hope, and I immediately felt sorry for her. I offered her the job right on the fucking spot.
“I wanted to be loyal to you,” she goes on to say. “I tried so hard. But…I—”
