Page 75 of Dance with the Devil

It’s three in the morning when something pulls me out of my slumber.

I scowl when I see the time. Three a.m.? Seriously? I don’t have to be up for three more hours to shower, stretch, and do my hair and makeup.

I’m on my back now, the weight of Orion pressed on my chest as he lays on top of me. As I toss my phone again, shifting my body enough to disturb the cat, he gets up, pressing down on my tits.

“Oh,” I mumble. “Get off, you butt.”

Orion stretches, his big, furry behind in my face. I shove his rump, and he turns, giving me a baleful look.

“You weigh, like, twenty pounds, Orion. You’re squishing my tit. Go.”

He pads down to the end of the bed, but right as I’m ready to move onto my side so I can get those three hours of sleep, I go still.

I hear voices.

My heart lodges in my throat. For a hot second, I’m back in the cell, only it’s dark instead of the constant bright lights thattortured us. Listening for footsteps, dreading that I would hear voices, hoping they would leave us alone…

Wait. Iknowthose voices.

Damien. Savannah.

Why are they arguing in the hall outside of my room when they both know damn well that Ineedtosleep?

I give them a couple of seconds to shut the fuck up, and when they don’t? I throw my comforter back, storm across my room until I’ve reached the door, and fling it open.

“Are you serious?” I demand. “This is the first role I’m looking to land inmonths, and you two decide to have a stupid lover’s quarrel outside ofmyroom? What’s wrong with yours?”

Damien thins his lips. At first, I think it’s because I yelled at him, but he should be used to that by now. But then I notice the way that Savannah is glaring at him, Damien jutting his chin just so as if in defiance, and I know… Iknowthat something’s wrong.

Savannah crosses her arms over her chest. “Tell her. Tell her now, Damien. Because, if you don’t, I will, and when Gen never forgives you for treating her like a kid aboutthis… I won’t blame her.”

My stomach drops. “Dame? What’s going on?”

Damien takes a deep breath. “There’s nothing you can do now. Let me say that plain: I wanted to wait until the morning when we might know more, but as you see, my wife obviously disagrees. And…” he sighs. “Savannah is right. If it was her, I’d want to know.”

If it was her, I’d want to know…

I reach out, digging my nails in his arm. The fact that he’s wearing a button-down shirt and a pair of suit pants, like he was ready to head out at three a.m. should’ve been my first clue that something was wrong. Savannah is wearing an oversized t-shirt that she either slept in or must’ve just pulled on, but Damien is only missing his shoes.

“Cross,” I whisper. “What happened to Cross?”

He takes another, deeper breath, then says the four words that have my knees going weak beneath me as I fall into my brother’s arms:

“There’s been a fire.”

Cross isn’t dead.Hecan’tbe.

So he’s not answering his phone. So Devil called Damien after the Springfield Fire Department got the blaze part way under control. As of three o’clock, when Damien got the call and debated with Savannah all the way up to my room whether or not he should tell me that Sinners & Saints is gone, there are still a few hot spots. The fire burned long enough, though, that if Cross was asleep in his bed when the fire broke out and he couldn’t escape, there’s no reason for anyone to check for survivors.

Which is fine. Because he’s not dead.

I know that man. The only time he sleeps, it’s when I’m with him. No way in hell did he miraculously beat his insomnia in time to die the same sort of death that’s haunted him since he was twelve. He had to have gotten out.

Does that explain why no one has heard from him? As the man who technically owns Sinners & Saints since it’s a Sinners Syndicate property, when the fire alarm went off, the company called Cross first, then Devil.

The mafia leader got in touch with Rolls McIntyre, Cross’s friend I haven’t met. I still haven’t. As the boss, Devil decided to come down to look at the fire himself. Rolls stayed back at the luxury apartment building where both he and Devil live with their families. He’s with his wife, plus Devil’s wife and kid, incase this is the next stage in a continued battle between the Springfield mafias and a Winter.

Damien didn’t even try to get me to go back to bed. There was a reason he got dressed before he came upstairs: because he knew damn well that I would insist on heading across Springfield the second I heard the news about the fire.

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