Zayd glowers. “I’ve always known how to speak, jackass.”
“Well that makes things more convenient,” Dev chirps.
Stryker shakes his head in disbelief. “He spoke before we got here. You werethere.”
Devlin shrugs. “Must not have been anything interesting, because I didn’t hear him.”
Zayd looks about two seconds away from punching him in the throat, so I try to diffuse things.
“Soooooooo. This place is… cute.”
Devlin snorts. “As much as I would’ve killed for a place like this growing up, I’m in a much better position now.”
Crossing the room to the fireplace, he puts his thumb to one of the bricks and there’s a soft click before it flips open, revealing a secret panel. He puts in a code and snaps it back into place, and I watch in stunned silence as a section of the floor in front of the fireplace slides away, revealing a dimly lit staircase. It was such aseamless transition, blending perfectly with the rest of the floor, that there’s not so much as a discolored scuff to tip someone off about the hidden entrance.
“Hurry up, it only stays open for ten seconds before shutting as a security feature in case someone’s breaking in,” Devlin says. “Unless you want me to bring you down the easy way.”
Thathas the three of us hauling ass.
We follow him down the winding staircase, my heart lodging in my throat with every step into the dark depths, the walls closing in around me.
I’m not going to be trapped underground. Devlin would never keep me here against my will unless there were people above that wanted to murder me, and even then, he’d get us the heck out of here without breaking a sweat. It’s fine, I’m fine. I can leave whenever I want.
The staircase ends at a heavy steel door that requires another code, and Stryker looks at him in a new light. “Who the fuckare you?”
Devlin beams like he gave him the biggest compliment. “The guy that used to live here was on the FBI’s most wanted list for a decade, so the place is a damn fortress.”
“What happened to him?”
“A fortress isn’t enough to keep someone like me out.” He types in the code and opens the door, glancing over his shoulder. “Coming?”
I share a look with the others. Devlin has never really given me a straight answer aboutwhathe does, and always changes the subject when asked. It’s not like killing people for a living would scare me off; not with who my other mates are. I’m not sure if he doesn’t understand that, or if something else has him holding back from opening up.
“Devlin, what exactly is it that you do for a living?”
“Whatever I have to,” he replies automatically, and I shake my head, not letting it go this time.
“No, I mean specifically. What do you do to make money?”
“Steal it, usually,” he admits without an ounce of shame.
Zayd narrows his eyes. “What do you do in your free time when you’re not with Kiara?”
“The gargoyles and I have an understanding. The wards keep the worst at bay, but after the flaws in their security were exposed six months ago, they called me in to handle the people that slip through the cracks. In return, they let me live here rent free and don’t say anything about my extracurricular activities.”
When we only continue to stare at him, sensing he’s leaving something important out, he eventually breaks with a sigh. “There’s someone that hurt me when I was kid. So it’s become a sort of…obsessionto sabotage him whenever possible.”
My stomach flips, curiosity raging. “That sounds perfectly reasonable in my book.”
The relieved smile that takes over his face makes me feel bad for ever doubting him. But I don’t regret pushing the issue. If the mess with Havoc has taught me anything, it’s how important being on the same page is.
“And the guy that owned this house,” Stryker asks, “is anybody going to come looking for him?”
Devlin waves him off. “Oh, no worries there. I made sure anyone remotely connected to the bastard had a different trail to follow, but buried it so it looked like he was covering his tracks to avoid the FBI. Had a series of houses sold to a man that doesn’t really exist beyond on paper. Social security number, bank statements, school records; a fully fleshed out fake identity that would make the department in charge of WITSEC weep in jealousy. ‘He’ then put it in a trust to be passed down to his son that also doesn’t exist. This place is owned first and foremost by Mercy Ridge, and it was a stipulation of mine that the gargoyleskept it city owned and dub it an outpost for forest rangers so there’d be no trace of me, but not suspicious if someone were to see activity in the cabin. If someonedidmanage to unravel everything, we'd have much bigger problems than the house.”
Stryker blinks at him before throwing his head back with a laugh that shakes his whole chest, slapping Devlin’s hand and dragging him in to slap him on the back. “Happy to have you on our side, you crazy bastard. But I’m going to have to insist on knowing the code before I step through that door.”
“1118,” he says, and reseals the door so Stryker can test it for himself. I breathe a little easier myself knowing I have a way out. Not because I was genuinely worried Devlin was luring us down here to keep us prisoner, but because I didn’t realize until now how afraid I was about being trapped underground again.
