J Ward - Crave

As she fell silent, he took a step forward. And then another. Around the table he went, until he was by her side.

When she looked up to him, he carefully brushed back a strand of hair from her face. “I’m not going to ask if you’re okay, because how could you be.”

“Have you ever felt… like you don’t know your own life?”

“Yeah. And that’s what got me to change.”

Well, that had been the first step. He was starting to believe that she was the second. And between her father and Jim Heron… three was the magic number. God willing.

“You know what?” she said. “I’m really glad I met you.”

Isaac recoiled. “How in the good Lord’s name can you say that?”

“You were the key that unlocked the lies.” She went back to staring at Jim Heron’s picture. “I feel like without you it would never have come to light. Only something so shattering…”

As she let that drift, he stepped back. “Yeah. That’s me.”

She nodded absently, turning the page and getting lost in the faces of men who were just like him… men who had ruined her family.

Shattered it.

Were the operatives who had killed her brother in there? With notes?

Somehow he doubted her father would put her through that.

“Can I bring you some wine?” he asked before he made himself go.

Grier smiled a little. “I’m surrounded by it.”

“True enough.” He should have offered coffee. Water. Beer. An oil change. Anything he could do for her or give to her to ease her.

Well now, on that note, there was an improvement he could make. He could leave her.

“I’ll be upstairs.” When he got to the door, he looked back. She was buried in the dossiers, brows tight, arms in her lap as she leaned forward over the table.

Yeah, leaving her was going to make things so much better.

He turned away and took the stairs up to the kitchen two at a time. Pausing at the base of the back stairwell, he listened. Not a sound. Which made sense if her father had locked himself up in a secured bathroom.

Shit, he couldn’t believe that he was going to shine a light on Matthias. But then sometimes natural death was too good for someone. Better that they rot behind bars or get lit up like Times Square in an electric chair.

It was almost as if he was supposed to have met Grier and her father at this precise junction in his life-that the pair of them had been preordained to show him a way out that was far more honorable than what he’d planned.

Jim Heron was going to be important as well, however.

Palming up one of his guns, he slipped out the back door into the garden.

Sidestepping the motion-activated light, he waited in the shadows without making any noise, and sure enough, one of Jim’s pals stepped up a moment later. The instant he laid eyes on the guy, it was clear the vibe remained off: This one with the braid had the tight lips and hard stare of a man who still didn’t know where a member of his team was.

“Jim not come in for a landing yet?” Isaac asked. Even though the answer was clearly, Fuck no, given that expression.

“I’m hoping you can see him in the morning.”

Isaac glanced at his watch. “I don’t know if I’ve got that kind of time.”

“Make it.”

Easy for him to say. “Will you let me know if he shows?”

As the guy nodded once, Isaac got pretty frickin’ worried. “Is he all right?” When the man shook his head slowly, Isaac cursed. “You going to tell me what’s doing?” Silence. “You know, FYI, people think he’s dead.”

“All I can say is… right now, he wishes he was.”

Adrian watched as Eddie talked to Rothe up near the back door, and whereas Ad was usually nosy as hell, he didn’t care what they were saying.

Nigel. Cocksucking Nigel.

Mr. Holier-than-thou-aboveboard.

Who was more than willing to let his best asset get used and abused by the enemy just because he was too much of a little bitch to roll up his sleeves and pound Devina into the ground.

Meanwhile Jim was gym equipment for a bunch of pervert assholes.

Man, he just didn’t get this do-nothing. If one of his boys was captured and he could spring them? Didn’t matter what he had to do, what sacrifice there was to make, where he went: He would get the sorry sonofabitch back. And yet where was their boss man? Having dinner.

Made a guy want to feed Nigel his dessert right up the ass.

Adrian rubbed his face so hard he nearly sanded his nose off. The trouble was, Devina’s little workshop wasn’t accessible to him and Eddie unless they jumped through her mirror-otherwise she had to take you there herself… and she released you only when she was good and ready.

And not before.

That was why they’d gone to Nigel. There was a rumor that the archangels could go down to Hell under certain circumstances-no one knew exactly what those dandies had to do or how it worked. Bottom line, though, was that those four lightweights were their only hope-

As if he knew his name was being taken in vain, Colin appeared from out of nowhere, the dark-haired archangel poofing it up right in front of Adrian’s face.

“Shit!” Ad hissed while he leaped back and caught himself on a bush-which promptly broke in half under his heavy body.

He landed like a bag of sand, but didn’t stay there. Springing up, he was all about the what-the-fuck: Those boys didn’t usually show up willy-nilly on the Earth. “What are y-”

“I got him out.”

Ad blinked, the English language suddenly escaping him. Wait a minute. Did he just hear-“Jim? You’re talking about Jim?”

“Is out.”

“But Nigel said-”

“I’m not discussing that. I got the chosen one out of Devina’s lair and I left the poor sod off at your hotel-he needs care.”

Eddie came over. “You got him out? But I thought Nigel-”

“I have to go.” Colin stepped back and started to fade. “Go help him. He needs it.”

“Thank you,” Ad breathed, both relieved and sick to his stomach: the recovery from one of Devina’s seshes was a bitch. Mostly because the memories were just too damn vivid.

Colin shook his head as he disappeared, his voice all that lingered: “It just wasn’t right.”

“I’m going to the hotel,” Adrian said, unfurling himself to take to the air. “Don’t let Isaac out of your-”

Eddie grabbed his arm hard. “Let me handle Jim.”

“No.”

“You’re not up to this, Adrian.” Eddie’s grip held him to the ground, that big hand squeezing into bone and muscle. “And you know it.”

“The hell I’m not.”

Breaking free, he took three running leaps and winged up into the air, grabbing onto the night and propelling himself west. The flight back to where they were staying was bumpy and rough-but not because of the wind. It was more like Eddie probably had a point, the SOB.

When Ad got to the Comfort Inn & Suites, he wanted to just barge into their rooms through the walls, but he decided not to chance it: Given that his inner Kit Kat wrapper was loose and flapping, he landed on the lawn and stalked in through the lobby. He had a feeling he was just too scatterbrained and nauseous to successfully push himself through wood and concrete.

The problem was, he knew exactly what kind of shape Jim was going to be in.

As he hit the lobby, a chirpy woman behind the desk “Good evening, sir”’d him, but he waved her off and broke into a jog. There was no waiting for the elevator; a couple was checking in with their kids and they had a cart full of luggage. But even if there had been a clean shot, he wouldn’t have been able to wait for so much as the doors to open for him.

Up the stairs. Two at a time. Sometimes three.

When he got to the top floor, his ticker was going a mile a minute, and not just because he’d exerted himself. He didn’t have a key to Jim’s room, so he took his own and slipped it in and out of the lock of his crib.