Page 76 of Dance with the Devil

Five minutes after I pulled myself together, I was dressed, he had his shoes on, and we were on the way.

Time crawled. I must’ve dialed Cross’s phone at least a hundred time before we arrived at the end of the street. Two fire trucks blocked Damien from getting any closer, but before he even killed the engine, I was out of the car, running as close to the smoldering remains of the tattoo parlor as I could.

Damien left his door open, racing after me. Smart man. He knew what I was about to do, and if he hadn’t caught up to me, wrapping his arms around me to keep me from running inside, I would’ve done just that.

The fire’s out. Hours after it was set, it’s finally died—and I absolutely refuse to believe that Cross died first.

I fought Damien’s hold, of course. I needed to check for myself. If he was in there… I don’t know what I would do, but at least it would be better than not knowing.

Right?

Devil is standing with his back against his car, glaring at the ruined remains as if it owes him money. Damien keeps his voice low, saying something to the other leader, but over the roar of blood in my ears and devastation in my soul, I’m not listening to them. I’m just waiting for my brother to lose his concentration so that I can stomp on his instep, escape his hold, and get in that place.

And then the only sound I think could’ve made it through the noise filters its way through my consciousness and even ifDamien was a fucking anaconda, he woulnd’t have been able to hold me any longer.

“Butterfly.”

Cross.

I break free of Damien, spin on my heel, and there he is.

He’s a fucking mess. One of his tatted arms has a long, raw burn on it. His black shirt is singed in places. His hair is sticking up, his face is dotted in… blood? Shit. Is thatblood? He’s flexing his right hand as he stalks toward me, and all I notice is that his knuckles are split before realization slams into me and relief nearly knocks my on my ass.

I knew it. Iknewit.

He’s alive.

I throw myself at him, laughing and sobbing at the same time as I run my hands over his hair, his neck, his back. I kiss every inch of skin I can reach because, if I’m being real, I knew he wasn’t dead but could I really have been sure?

He’s murmuring my nickname over and over again, clutching me to him. He smells like smoke and oil, but he’s here, and he’s alive, and I almost want to throttle him for scaring the shit out of me.

Damien clears his throat. I nearly kick him to shut him up, but because he brought me here—and because he’s my brother and I do love him—I refrain from unleashing one of my arabesques straight to his nuts.

Instead, I pull back enough so that both Cross and I can see that Devil and Damien are right there.

Cross straightens up. Whether it’s because he’s facing my brother or his boss, I don’t know, but he throws an arm over my shoulder, tethering me to him, as he nods at the two men.

“So,” Devil rumbles, “you got out. I’d hoped so when the firefighters said the window was smashed and they didn’t do it. It didn’t look like it was from the fire.”

“No, boss,” Cross answers. “Someone jammed my window. I couldn’t go for the fire escape, so I threw my stool through the glass so I didn’t roast in there.”

Okay. I get that. But where the hell has he been since then? And why did he only just show upnow?

Before I can ask, Devil has another question for Cross.

“What do you think? Was it Winter?”

In the car, Damien said as much to me. That when he spoke to Devil, they came to the agreement that Winter had decided to get revenge on us for escaping him by targeting the easiest one of us to get to. And I’d been there with Cross… well, two birds with one stone.

I squeeze his side. “Winter tried to burn your place down with you in it?”

He shakes his head. “No. But Mickey Kelly sure as hell managed to pull it off.”

What?

I’m so stunned to hear that name that I just gape up at him.

Damien, however, looks at Cross and says: “Explain.”

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