“Mm-hm. And you’re Nathan Accardi.” He lifted something with whipped cream and caramel to his mouth and sucked on a green straw. Nathan tried very hard not to stare at the way his lips wrapped around it.
“H-How did you know?” he asked, taking a sip of his bitter brew and biting back a grimace.
Storm leaned in, his eyes obscured by his sunglasses. His hand slid across the formica table and tapped Nathan’s guild ring. Nathan’s mouth went dry when that warm finger brushed his scarred knuckle. He was thirty-three years old. He couldn’tswoonlike this.
Storm’s heather gray shirt pulled tight across his chest as he sat back and draped one arm across the back of the booth. A shoe knocked against Nathan’s, and he tried not to outwardly react.
“So,” Storm said, “is this legit?”
“What?” Nathan asked, not following.
“This.” Storm gestured between the two of them. “The truce. Is it legit? Are your people really ready to play nice with us?”
“Ye—” He stopped, recalling Sloan’s guarded expression, Mark’s shaking head. It took him a moment to find the right words, finally settling on what he felt was most honest. “I want it to be. It was my idea. Sloan approved it for his own agenda, I’m sure, but I hope it’s the beginning of something different. I don’t want there to be sides.”
Storm leaned in. “What’s Sloan’s agenda?”
Nathan blew out a breath. “If he has one, he hasn’t told me about it. I think he wants to use this as an opportunity to get information about you guys, or maybe he just wants the truce to fail so he can say we tried and shut me up once and for all. But I’m hoping I can use it as an opportunity to show him and everyone else that we can all work together.”
One corner of Storm’s mouth quirked. “That’s very optimistic of you.”
Nathan hid behind his cup. “I don’t feel very optimistic these days, but thank you. I think.”
Storm’s easy, lopsided smile didn’t waver, and Nathan felt like a bug under a magnifying glass.
There was another reason Sloan had approved this meeting, so Nathan focused his attention on the next piece of business rather than the way that smile made him feel. He swallowed hard, remembering blood and viscera on pavement. He wouldn’t be forgetting that awful footage any time soon. “There’s something else.”
Storm’s head tilted, bathing his pale hair in golden sunlight.
“There’s been a murder. I floated the idea of the defectors having connections to the demonic world that we don’t have, and that’s another reason Sloan gave me the green light to contact you all for a truce, hoping you might know something about it.”
“What kind of murder?” Storm asked.
Nathan couldn’t hide his discomfiture. “It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. A young man was killed. We don’t know how exactly. Sloan was given the CCTV footage by a police friend who recognized it as an unusual death.”
“And you watched this footage?”
Nathan nodded, staring into the middle distance. “His chest exploded. An eyewitness claims she saw what looked like a hand emerging from his chest cavity just before he died.”
“Ahand?” Storm repeated, looking scandalized.
Nathan nodded again, pushing his coffee away. The acidic taste would do nothing for his nausea.
Storm stroked his sharply cut jaw. “Hm. I’ll talk to the others. Any chance you could get us access to that footage? It might help if we could see it for ourselves. Some of the demons are older than others. Talon or Shadrach would probably be your best option for a lead. They’ve been around for a long time.”
“Yeah, I’ll talk to Sloan. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind sending me a copy of it, if it would help.”
Storm tipped his head back and to one side. Nathan got the impression he was being studied. “Good. Now, tell me why you cared enough to suggest a truce between us to Sloan. Why do you care if there are sides?”
Nathan blinked. “Alex was a member of my squad. Luke Morgan sacrificedsomuch for the cause. Ira Faer was always kind and friendly, if a little quiet. They’re all good men. Whatever circumstances led them to leaving the guild, they don’t deserve to be killed for it. It’s enough that Alex and Luke were banished. But targeting them when they’ve done nothing wrong? It’s not like they’re plotting to attack the guild. There’s no law that says we can’t quit or retire, even if it’s never really been done before. They should be left alone. Whatever choices they make once they’re gone are their business. They’re not hindering the guild’s activity, so it shouldn’t matter.”
“What do you think about the choices they’ve made?” Storm asked.
Nathan faltered. “What I think doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. I want to hear what you think.”
It took him a moment to find his voice. “Why?”
