Ducking free of the room, he stepped through the back door, got out his phone, and hit up Adrian.
The angel answered on the first ring. “What’s up?”
Jim rubbed his aching eyes. “When you went to see Colin, back in the beginning of this—you asked him who the soul was, right?”
“Yeah. And he told me it was that Duke Phillips guy.”
Jim shook his head wearily. “I don’t think that’s it. I don’t know … what exactly did Colin say?”
“Look, Jim, seriously? All I was interested in was the intel—”
“I think we’ve been tracking the wrong guy here.”
“Impossible. Under what scenario would Colin be incented to lie?”
“Just what did he tell you?”
“I don’t remember—I asked him who it was, we went back and forth because he didn’t want to tell me. Blah, blah, blah—and then he said …” There was a long pause. “Oh, shit.”
Exactly, Jim thought, closing his lids. “What.”
“He said he couldn’t go all the way. He could only get me halfway there—I took that to mean that all he could do was ID the guy, and he couldn’t help in the field.” There was a pause. “Exactly what the hell’s going on where you are?”
Jim looked through the windows into that living room, where Duke and his lady friend were hugging it out.
“They’re brothers,” Jim said. “And I’m pretty sure Duke’s nothing but the triggering agent. The other one … the evil one’s the soul.”
“I’m coming right now—”
“No! You can’t leave Sissy alone.”
“Then I’ll bring her with me.”
“Never. She is not a part of this—are we clear? Stay the f**k home—”
“Fuck you, Jim—”
“Devina got into our house, okay? She got into my room, and not just once, but several times.”
There was a loooooooooong pause. “What the f**k? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t find a moment.”
“You didn’t think it might be important enough to pull me aside? Like, for a split second?”
“I didn’t know until this morning when I almost f**ked her, okay?”
“Oh, shit.”
“That just about covers it—”
Abruptly, Jim stopped talking and turned around. Sure enough, standing right behind him, the demon had made an appearance. “Ad, I got company. Stay where you are.”
As he ended the call, Devina didn’t smile. Didn’t oil on up to him and start stroking his cock. She just stood apart and stared at him—and that was the scary thing. He much preferred her unstable and flying off the handle.
“So, have you thought about my suggestion,” she asked after a moment.
“No.”
“Liar.”
Jim quickly did the math. He was willing to bet his left nut that the crossroads was happening right here, right now, whether it was here in this house or somewhere else. And if he was right, and Duke was not the soul, then he’d had no time to try to influence that other brother—and there wasn’t going to be any.
This was the consequence Nigel had been so upset about. This was the culmination of Jim’s decision to focus on Sissy. This was the payment for the distraction he’d entertained.
Damn it. He’d really f**ked this round up, hadn’t he—and there was no going back.
So he had two choices. Either he tried to find Duke’s evil half somewhere in the city, and pray like hell that he could talk some sense into a guy he knew nothing about. Or…
“Let’s go,” he said.
Her perfectly arched brows rose. “Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“To do what?” Now she trailed a delicate hand along the tops of her br**sts. “Are you going to f**k me?”
“No. But I’ll talk about the future.”
“We can do that here,” she muttered with a bored tone.
“No.” Because if he couldn’t influence the soul in these last few minutes, the least he could do was make sure she didn’t, either. He had no idea what she’d done in this round, but—
“You want me away from this house, don’t you,” she drawled.
“You were the one who brought up that bright idea about quitting.”
She laughed with an edge. “Jim, you know me well enough by now that I’m a lot of things—but never, ever stupid. You want me somewhere else? That’s only happening one way.”
In the pause that followed, he thought of Sissy. And as she came into his mind, the black hole in the center of his chest became filled with a ringing, nearly crippling, pain.
The demon took a step forward. “You and I can both leave here together. But only if it’s to do what I want.”
From out of nowhere, a full-body flush of total-nasty hit him hard. Which was a new one: In all the course of his life in XOps, he’d never had a problem with any kind of torture. He’d been subjected to it once or twice, and hadn’t dwelled on the shit. And the same had been true in this war with Devina. Whatever she’d done to him, and what he’d done with her out of hatred—none of it had stuck in his head for even a moment after they’d parted.
This, however, was going to kill him. If he went with her now, if he did what he knew she was going to ask of him, he was going to die a little on the inside.
Funny, he hadn’t been aware of being alive.
Sissy had brought that to him, however. She had opened him up—and that was why this was going to be the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“Where,” he heard himself say.
“I think the Freidmont Hotel. Yes, I’ll get a suite there, and I think that would be perfect for what I have in mind.” There was a long silence between them. “So are we leaving. Or perhaps you would like to have me here?”
Yes, he had made a mistake in overfocusing on Sissy in the beginning. Yes, it had caused terrible, unforeseen consequences. And yes, to make amends … this was what he had to do.
“Fine,” he said.
Now the demon truly smiled, her red lips parting, her eyes lighting with an unholy joy. “You first, angel mine.”
What. The. Fuck.
From G.B.’s position across the street and down a couple of houses from where he’d followed Cait to earlier in the night, he couldn’t believe what the f**k he was looking at. Duke had come to her front door and she’d been all pissy and shit—fine, good. But now, inside the house, spotlit in that front window, she was hugging him like that?