Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
“Yes, I know, you were right.” Icarus sighed, heavy and dramatic. “Do we have to go through this every time?”
Adam leaned against the wall outside the sunny second-floor bedroom Icarus had disappeared into and barely stifled his laugh.
Whoever was on the other end of the line was giving Icarus hell. And he loved it, judging by the affection in his voice. “Thank you for answering the call this time. You saved our lives.”
Adam inched closer to the door, recalling what Cormac had described. Had there been someone else on the scene they hadn’t seen? Adam didn’t think so, but he hadn’t been with them. Maybe this person was there? Or helped in another way?
“I’m fine, I swear, safe and sound,” Icarus said, then after a pause, added, “Talahalusi.” Another pause, then a chuckle. “Yes, I know it’s fucking sunny up here.”
Adam bit his lip. Icarus wasn’t complaining, good-natured or otherwise, about the sun earlier this afternoon when he’d been naked and riding Adam’s cock. He’d basked in the warm rays, same as Adam, enjoying a respite from the characters they had to play.
Which Icarus was shifting back into, same as him. “Do you want to come up here? I think you’d be safe. They’re on our side.” Protective and assessing. “And if they try to hurt you, I can take them.”
So someone more important than what Adam’s team was planning.
The family Icarus wouldn’t talk about? Another vampire, another paranormal, or someone human?
Adam would bet the last, given the protective streak, but then how had that person saved their lives?
Certainly not the Daylight; that had come from Paris.
It must have something to do with what Cormac had seen, but with Icarus’s protective streak, how would Adam ever get that information?
“Fine,” Icarus said, his tone indicating grudging assent.
“But I want check-ins every six, and if you sense anything off, you call me. I’ll get down there as fast as I can.
” Down there as in back to Yerba Buena or somewhere else?
Portola? His bags had been packed last night when Adam had arrived at his apartment.
Was this who Icarus planned to flee to? Or with?
“Love you too. Keep me posted.”
A spike of jealousy kicked Adam in the gut, unwarranted.
Like Cormac had said, he’d known Icarus less than a week.
He had no claim over the vampire, even if Icarus was broadcasting a claim over him.
For protection, because that was his role.
But who else did he have to protect? What if by family, Icarus meant someone more than a sibling?
A partner in Portola? Someone more important than him . . .
“You can come in now,” Icarus said from inside the room, accompanied by the creak of bedsprings. “I can hear your heartbeat.”
Adam pushed off the wall and into the bedroom, finding Icarus sprawled on the bed in the sun. He was perfectly still, not bothering to hide what he was anymore. “I thought you didn’t keep in touch with your family,” Adam said as he moved to sit on the windowsill.
Icarus shifted, staying in the sun. “I never said that.”
“Whoever it was, they were giving you hell.”
Eyes closed, he smiled, soft and fond, affection with fangs. “She always gives me hell.”
“Sister?” Adam guessed, going for the option that would hurt the least and was rewarded with a nod. He crossed his arms to hide the relieved rise and fall of his chest. “Older?”
“Depends how you look at it.”
“She’s human, then?”
“Not exactly.” He eked open one eye, pinning Adam with it. “She’s something else, like you.”
“Like me?”
“Well, I don’t know what you are yet, but you’re not completely human.” He opened the other eye and levered up on his elbows. “There’s magic in you, same as with her.”
Which meant she was a target, same as him. Icarus’s protective streak made even more sense now. “If she needs protection, she can come here.”
“I wish she would, but she does things on her own terms.” He clenched his fists. “No one else’s.” Forced his hands open again. He was more of a wreck about her than he was letting on.
“You care about her?”
“I promised to protect her.” He lifted all the way up, crossing his legs on the bed and dropping his hands in his lap, his gaze downcast, his voice as small as Adam had ever heard it.
“She’s all I have left.” Commiserating, Adam pushed off the window and sat on the bed next to him, hand on his knee.
Icarus covered it with his and squeezed.
“I’m sorry they burned down your house. It was a lovely home. ”
Home. It had been. A place of so many firsts, of so many hopes and dreams, of so much love. He looked out the window, looked back in time, then shut his eyes and the door on his memories. It was fitting in a way that it was gone now. It was one less thing tying him here.
Icarus removed his hand. “You know, at first, I thought Adam was the real you, and this was the Devil, but they’re the same, aren’t they?”
Adam returned his gaze to him and nodded. It wasn’t exactly how he saw it, but close enough. Adam was both the face the Devil needed and the Devil’s keeper.
“I thought so.” Disappointment flashed across Icarus’s face, but fast on its heels was determination. “All right, what does Adam, aka the Devil, need Icarus to do?”
“Stop picking fights with Robin.”
Icarus laughed out loud. “Have you met your friend?”
Adam chuckled. “Fair, but he’s set in his ways at this point. He’s an asshole, but a loyal one.”
“What does he do exactly?”
“He’s an assassin.”
Icarus startled to full attention. “How’s that work with a cop and ex-cop as friends?”
Adam shrugged. “Worked even less with a twin sister and brother-in-law who were feds.”
Icarus covered his gaping mouth with a hand. “Deborah was his sister?” Adam nodded, and Icarus squeezed his knee again. “Deborah and David were the feds on Vincent’s trail?”
“He’s responsible for their deaths.” They’d had a perfect night at Club Sutro, a perfect anniversary celebration, and the next day, his spouses were dead by Vincent’s hand. “They were building a case against him. Were close to shutting him down on a federal level. They had juice beyond YB.”
“Vincent couldn’t have that.”
Adam nodded. “The federal case died with them, and the more YB was cut off by the ongoing war, the more Vincent’s power grew.
He thinks he’s invincible. Might be trying to make himself magically so, depending on what he’s planning for later this month.
Either way, Robin and I can’t let him get away with it. ”
Icarus narrowed his eyes, and his forehead creased, creating the putting-it-together expression Adam caught on his face from time to time. “So you, Robin, and Cormac have been carrying on Deb and David’s work? Building a case and disrupting his organization?”
“And rescuing those who need it,” Adam said. “Destroying his stores of magic, cutting off his source of funds, interfering with his business.”
“So those warehouse fires and gunfights I hear rumblings about?”
Adam pointed at himself. “Not all the time, but some of the bigger ones. Disruption to the point of destruction.”
“Because that’s what he’s done to you.” Icarus unfolded his legs, stood, and began to pace the room, hands on his hips below his sweater. “Are you stealing from him too? Is that what pays for the whiskey and meals at Benton’s?”
“No. Inheritance, my pension, and the Devil pay for those things.”
Icarus paused in his circuit, hip and brow cocked.
“The Devil solves problems for people,” Adam clarified.
“Problems that typically involve Vincent Cirillo?”
Adam shrugged.
He rolled his eyes and resumed his pacing. “And the casework?”
“Makes Mac feel better. We’ve been building it for an opportunity like the one you brought us. We can use it to get Vincent where we need him.”
“In jail.”
“Like I said, makes him an easier target.”
“For the assassin. Makes sense.” He stopped in front of Adam, head tilted. “But you had him right in front of you earlier today.”
“I tried to make a move without my team.” Sometimes, the man Adam used to be whispered in the Devil’s ear, and the thing inside him would slip its leash. Would do something impulsive, like the man Adam used to be.
“You were protecting me.”
“You made me feel invincible. And human again.” He reached out and lightly grasped one of Icarus’s hands. “I don’t know how to turn it off, Icarus.” None of it—the lover, the cop, the gatekeeper, the fire. “It’s who I am.”
“Who you are . . .” Icarus threaded their fingers together and stepped closer. “Why did Vincent tell me your name was Adam Devlin if he knows who you were before?” He glanced over his shoulder toward the door. “Why do they all call you Adam?”
“Why do you call yourself Icarus? Why do you only refer to your sister as she?”
He pressed his lips shut.
“That’s what I thought.” Adam released his hand and pushed to his feet. “We all have our secrets, our reasons for keeping them and for inhabiting the skin and personas we’re in.”
“Okay, so back to my original question . . .” He laid a hand on Adam’s forearm. Still warm, still kind, still more than Adam deserved. “What does Adam need Icarus to do?” He wrinkled his nose. “Besides play nice with the stinky, grumpy dog.”
Adam took his hand in his again, not immune to the warmth and comfort, but stopping himself short of everything the old him wanted to drown in. “Get us the details on your police contact. Let us check them out. If we don’t spot any immediate red flags, you can proceed.”
“I’ve already done the excavation on him. It’s solid.”
“Atlas managed to fool you.”
“Atlas is a warlock with skills. This is an overworked cop, married with three kids, who jerks off to me fucking myself on a dildo.” He spread his arms far apart, taking Adam’s arm with him. “Big difference.”
Adam chuckled. “Okay, then, set it up.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Shore up defenses, work with my team, and consider different angles.” He rested his other hand on the strip of skin exposed between the edge of Icarus’s sweater and jeans. “Get you a change of clothes.”
“That would be appreciated. Little hot up here in knits, even for me. I’m surprised you’re not sweating.”
He’d learned to live with the heat, here and inside him, long ago. He twined his arm around Icarus, hand settling at his lower back. “We have a contact checking on your place. If it’s still standing, I’ll have them grab your go bag and computer. I assume you need that for work?”
Icarus nodded. “I’ll get you the safe code for the laptop. Would also be nice to get my crochet stuff and my robe.” He snuggled closer. “For when it gets cold here at night.”
“We’ll get you the crochet stuff.” Adam dipped his hand below Icarus’s waistband, palming his ass and imagining how good Icarus would look in that robe and nothing else. “The robe was already on my list.”
Still, it wasn’t the time to entertain those fantasies.
He had a long list of to-do items, and Icarus wasn’t on it.
But when he tried to pull away, Icarus slung one arm over his shoulder and grasped his shirt with his other hand, holding him close.
“Whenever you need to take a break from Adam and the Devil”—he leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth—“I’m here. ”