I knew the way to his office by heart now—same grimy hallway, same cracked blue-checkered linoleum flooring as before. The air in the station was always stale and clung to the space like ghosts of every dirty secret Parsons had ever buried here.
His office was barely larger than a closet. An oversized oak desk dominated the space. A full map of the city of Lovelen adorned the white wall behind it. Little pins scattered the landscape like bullet holes. On both sides of the map, there were two overstuffed filing cabinets that never completely closed because of the numerous papers Parsons had crammed inside. I took my usual seat in the uncomfortable, curved wooden chair. It was cool against my bare legs, sending a slight shiver down my spine.
Parsons closed the door with a sharpclick, then turned on me like a vulture ready to descend on its next meal. “You’re not supposed to show up here unannounced, Acelynn. What if someone from the Knights saw you? How would you explain that away?”
“I wouldn’t. I would be dead.” I didn’t even flinch. “But I’m not. And you’re going to forge the paperwork for the estatetransfer for me, so it looks like everything’s set when the papers get sent to the law office down the street to obtain my dear old, estranged aunt’s house.”
“You don’t give me orders,” Parsons snapped. “I’m the one who decides how this operation runs, and I will make the calls as I see fit. If you don’t like it, I can toss your ass in a cell and let you rot.”
I smiled slowly and stood. “Guess that means you don’t want to hear about my appearance at the roundtable last night?”
That stopped him cold.
“Sit. Down,” he growled out. I obliged, reclining casually in the chair as he stalked around the desk to lean back against it in front of me. He waved his hand once in annoyance for me to continue.
“Patience, Parsons.” I swirled my finger around the charm on my necklace—the spade pendant that nearly got me killed. “The diner incident this morning. Club-related. I just happened to step in and saved the Knights’ darling girl in the process.”
I paused my motion, plucking the charm up between two fingers, holding it up for him to see. “And this was apparently enough to put a target on my back. Think maybe it would have been smart for someone in this department to tell me that my family’s symbol would cause not one but both of the Mordred siblings to question me about it?”
“No.” Parsons’s lips quirked up at the corners. “Your ability to keep yourself alive is not my concern.”
“Of course it’s not,” I muttered, slouching lower in the seat.
“Stop pouting.” He scowled at me, annoyance sharpening his words. “Next time, use the burner to give us a heads up on your arrival. That’s what it’s for.”
The burner phone he had mentioned was shoved in a duffel that I had dumped at the temporary house I was using as my “aunt’s home.” There was no way I was walking around withthat loaded bomb in my pocket. Not when I was so close to the Knights. If I was going to use the device, it would be the only time it was used, and then Parsons would be replacing it, which I assumed he would get tired of rather quickly.
The detective narrowed his eyes at me when I didn’t continue quickly enough for him. “That all? You spoke to the Knights about a charm? That doesn’t build a case against them.”
“Not quite,” I said, lips spreading into a devious grin. “I got a job.”
Parsons blinked slowly at me. “A job?”
“Atthe Queen’s Table,” I said nonchalantly, as if it was the most normal thing for me to utter in this situation. “Behind the bar.”
“You are bartending at the Knights’ bar? Just steps away from where they conduct their club dealings?” His jaw tightened as if he were unhappy with this progress. Which didn’t make any sense, considering Parsons was the one who had pushed so hard for me to get something on the club.
I nodded once. “Astoria hired me this morning. Said I had the fire that they could use behind the bar, and Nolan vouched for me. So…I’m in.”
I smiled at him, letting him believe that was what had occurred in the bar. Parsons didn’t need to know that Kaius was the one who had offered me the job. It would make him too eager. And I didn’t need him breathing down my neck just yet.
“That’s dangerous.”
“Thought you didn’t care about my safety,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the man. Parsons stared at me, like he couldn’t quite decide if I was brilliant or if I had a death wish. Probably both.
He snapped out of his trance, a smirk toying at his lips. “You’re going to make that man fall in love with you so you can unravel all of the Knights’ secrets, aren’t you?”
I licked my canines slowly, letting the fantasy of Kaius being at my mercy bloom in my mind. “Even better. I am going to make the King of Lovelen beg me to love him…and then I’ll put a bullet between his eyes.”
CHAPTER NINE
acelynn
Cotton candy huesstreaked across the desert sky. My back pressed against the shingle rooftop, watching the sunset bleed into molten gold over the cactus-studded horizon. The cool kiss of my beer touched my lips, a sharp contrast to the heat clinging to the day.
Nothing compared to an Arizona sunset.
My thoughts drift back to a time before Logan, before everything went up in flames. Back to when he and I would sneak up onto a random roof with a handle of whatever cheap liquor we could scrounge, trading secrets for stars until the bottle ran dry.
