Page 38 of Angel I Am Not

“Wait. Who am I supposed to find next?”

He opened it and glanced over his shoulder. “Check your phone.”

Then he walked out, leaving like he hadn’t detonated the entire fucking apartment on his way through.

Silence settled behind him. Nick stayed where he was for several seconds, staring at the closed door. His claws slowly receded, but his tail remained wrapped around my ankle as if that part of him had decided I wasn’t going anywhere.

I stepped around the edge of the counter and stopped near him. “Nick.” His gaze lifted to mine, some of the darkness in his eyes receding almost immediately. I glanced toward Luc’s closed bedroom door. “Is he okay?”

“No.”

The answer came so fast I nearly laughed, except there wasn’t anything remotely funny about the way Nick was looking at that door. “What happens when he gets like this?”

Nick rubbed both palms over his face before leaning back. “Usually? He disappears until he figures out how to put everything back where it belongs.”

I frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means Luc hates being blindsided more than almost anything.” Nick’s mouth twisted. “Dante just made him feel stupid.”

I looked toward the door again, remembering how still Luc had gone before he walked away. “Because he’s Pride.”

“Exactly.”

I came closer, stopping in front of Nick because every instinct in my body wanted to crawl directly into his lap and I didn’t think any of us needed that problem right now. His tail tightened once around my ankle when I stopped.

“Can we just not go find them?”

Nick’s expression shifted, some of the fury disappearing.

“If we don’t give Dante whatever result he’s looking for, then he gets to keep dangling this deal over my head.” I wrapped my arms around myself, hating how small my voice sounded. “Which means I’m still tied to him instead of being able to decide what I want.”

Nick leaned forward again, forearms resting against his thighs as he looked up at me. “He doesn’t own you.”

“Tell him that.”

His mouth twitched at that, but the humor didn’t last as the bedroom door opened behind us. Luc stepped back into the room, his expression calmer than it had been before, although that meant absolutely nothing when it came to Luc.

If anything, the calmness looked worse. His hair was slightly disheveled from dragging his hands through it, but otherwise he had put himself back together so completely that if I hadn’t watched him leave, I might have thought nothing happened.

“I’ve also never heard of Dante changing the terms of a deal,” I said as he approached. “But I’m starting to wonder how much he can hide inside the wording without technically changing anything.”

“He didn’t change it,” Luc said as his jaw flexed again before he stopped beside the couch, one hand settling against the back of it rather than reaching for me. “That’s why I’m pissed.”

Nick let out a bitter laugh. “Dante has always preached about honesty. Trickery, misdirection, technicalities? Fine. But altering a deal would go against everything he’s ever taught us.”

“And he didn’t alter it,” Luc added. “He let all three of us assume he meant something else.”

“That’s worse.”

“For Pride?” Nick looked toward his brother. “Yeah. Probably.”

Luc flipped him off without looking, and despite everything, I snorted. Some of the tension finally broke, just enough for me to breathe again before my phone vibrated inside my pocket and all three of us went still.

“Oh, fuck off.” I dragged it out and stared at the unknown number on the screen. Of course. The message was short.

The Devil

GLUTTONY.