“You’re still angry.”
“I’m fucking allowed to be. Gerard was a friend.”
And that’s why this whole mess hurt so goddamned much. Being lied to like this hurt a hell of a lot more than the shit he’d gone through with Ethan in a way.
“You lied to us from the day we first met you until you had to come clean about your past. It’s a little hypocritical for you to be pissed at Gerard for being in the exact same position you were once in,” Sage said as she turned away.
“I hate lawyers,” Patrick muttered, a curl of unexpected shame bleeding through the anger he still carried.
“Yes, I know, but you can’t hate me. I’m pack, and your dire.”
“Is this where you tell me it’s a shitty job but someone has to do it?”
Sage didn’t look back as she walked away. “It’s an honor, despite the shitty pay. Now quit being an asshole looking for a fight. I’m not giving you one.”
Patrick collapsed his mageglobe, letting the silence ward fall away. He hurried after Sage, managing to catch up with her in the stairwell. He grabbed her shoulder, keeping his touch light, and she paused where she stood with feet on different steps, looking back at him.
“You’re right. I don’t hate you,” Patrick said, wanting to make sure she knew that.
Sage nodded. “I know.”
“I’m still mad.”
“Yes, I know, but be mad at the people who deserve it. Gerard never told you his real name, but he still gave you one that mattered. Most fae wouldn’t give you anything at all to call them by. The fae can’t lie, they never say thank you, and they never apologize.”
Patrick’s grip tightened a little before he let her go with a heavy sigh. “Gerard said he was sorry.”
Sage reached for his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Then he meant it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t. But the only one who can believe him is you.”
Sage let his hand go and started back down the stairs, and Patrick could only follow after her. They came back into the crowded apartment. The Hellraisers were huddled together in a group, with Gerard standing a little apart, no expression on his face. Wade was in the kitchen eating a sandwich. Jono stood with Emma, Leon, and Marek, though no one else in her pack was present.
Patrick caught Jono’s eye before turning his head to look at Gerard. They stared at each other in silence for a long minute, everyone else waiting on them. Patrick wasn’t ready yet to accept anything his old captain gave him—apologies or promises—but he wasn’t about to let Gerard run off and fight alone.
Patrick was angry—and he knew enough about himself to accept he was being a hypocrite here—but emotion wasn’t ever rational when it came to family.
“Are we doing this?” Gerard finally asked, breaking the silence.
Patrick nodded slowly. “Yeah. We’re doing this.”
“Great,” Wade said from the kitchen. “What are we doing?”
Marek sighed deeply in a put-upon way as he pulled out his cell phone. “Funding terrorism again.”
* * *
“Boys,”Carmen practically purred from her spot where she sat on a stack of weapons crates. Standing to either side were two men who looked more affiliated with Lucien’s Anahuac Cartel than his Night Court.
The sexual desire Carmen exuded warmed the cold warehouse in the Lower East Side better than any steam heat could. Patrick still cast shields over their small group, pushing back against Carmen’s attempt to mess with everyone’s heads.
Naheed closed the door behind the last of the Hellraisers and locked it, giving Patrick a silent nod in greeting. Despite the cold weather, she’d foregone a scarf, showing off the necklace of bite scars wrapped around her throat. As a favored human servant to Lucien and one of Carmen’s bodyguards during the day, Patrick wasn’t surprised to see her.
“I thought you were joking when you said we had to deal with her again,” Arthur muttered as he scowled in Carmen’s direction.
“You know I don’t joke about Lucien,” Patrick replied.
