“Lucifer is currently preoccupied.” Caim snickered and flipped over one of the cards. A red king stared up at us. Bael whooped. Stolas scowled.
“Preoccupied how exactly?”
Stolas shot Bael and Caim a stern look. “These two talked Phenex into setting a little trap for him. The idiots. It’s going to blow up in all of our faces.”
My heart flipped. Uh oh. “Do I even want to know?”
Caim’s eyes flickered with a wicked glint. He was always the more lighthearted, easygoing one of the bunch, but I couldn’t forget he was a demon at heart. He had a wicked streak, just like the rest of them. He just never aimed that darkness at me.
“Phenex went to your old apartment and grabbed some clothes from your hamper.” Stolas’s expression darkened. “He brought them back here, waved them all around, and then took off toward the Brooklyn Bridge.”
I sat up a little straighter. “You mean he stole my dirty laundry?”
Stolas held up his hands. “Sorry, Mia. It wasn’t my idea.”
Wrinkling my nose, I shook my head. “Okay, it’s a little weird, but it’s also not a bad plan. If he catches my old scent, maybe he’ll stop suspecting I’m, well, me.”
“Might be okay if they left it at that,” Stolas grumbled.
Caim grinned. “Lucifer refuses to cross the East River. No one knows why, but I’ve got a hunch it’s because it dims his powers somehow. So, we’re dangling some bait in front of him. Some delicious bait. If he wants to get to you, he has to go on that bridge.”
“And when he does, Phenex and Valac will destroy him,” Bael said with a satisfied smile.
Dread dropped like a stone in my gut. “Wait. They’re going to try to destroy him?Now?Az doesn’t know about this, does he?”
“Ah.” Caim winced. “Not yet. We were afraid he’d rush in there and try to do it himself. I’ve seen the expression on his face for the past couple of days. He’s two seconds away from completely losing his shit.”
“But you’re his family. His Legion. He trusts you more than anyone.”
“Exactly.” Bael palmed the table and stood. The table groaned beneath him when he leaned forward to capture my eyes. “We will protect him with our lives.”
I flushed, fear tumbling through me. I knew they were only trying to help, but Az wouldn’t like this. Not one bit. If they were going to take on Lucifer, he’d want to be there. To protect his Legion, if anything. I couldn’t bear to think how much it would hurt him if he lost another member of his family. Morax’s death had almost destroyed him. I hadn’t been there when it had happened, but he carried the remnants of that pain with him even now.
“This is a bad idea.” As much as I loved these guys, I had to tell Az. “How long ago did they leave for the bridge?”
Caim cocked his head and smiled. “You actually care what happens to us, don’t you?”
I threw up my hands and stood. “Of course I do, you idiot. You six demons are my family now, too, whether you like it or not.”
The words popped out of my mouth before I’d even had a chance to think them through. Family? These guys? The demons of Hell’s Kitchen? But the truth of it hung heavily on my tongue. Sure, it had been an impulsive thing to say in the heat of the moment, but I’d meant every word. When I looked at these guys, they felt like home.
Maybethatwas the real reason I was so desperate to stay in New York. It wasn’t the city calling my name. It was the Legion.
No time to think about that now. Phenex and Valac had gone rogue, and I had to tell Az before they got themselves destroyed.
“Sorry,” I told Caim. “But you know I have to tell him.”
“Tell him what?” an eerie voice rang out from the open door.
Everything within me tensed. Bael sat hard on his chair and Caim winced. I did my level best to keep the panic off my face, but I knew my scent would be thick with it. My hands moved as if they had a mind of their own. Pulse tripping through my fingers, I flipped over the next card on the pile.
It was a ten of spades.
I let out a low whistle. “See, Stolas? Caim is cheating. That’s the third time in a row he’s had the perfect hand. Somehow, he’s rigged the deck. I thought you’d want to know.”
For a moment, no one said anything. Hopefully, no one took a close look at their hands. I had no idea how my brain had conjured that little story, but I hoped to hell the others would go along with it. Lucifer knew I hadn’t been talking about cards when he’d walked through that door, but it didn’t matter. This was all part of the game, I realized. He wanted to see how long it took before I cracked.
Well, he’d have to do a hell of a lot better than this.
