Page 80 of Married to the Devil

I blink, remembering that his father is Frank. I don’t know anything about what his home life was like with what we know about Lorenzo.

I don’t continue for a moment, watching Andrew’s anxiety rise and his need to fidget almost overtake him. With a determined breath, the worst of my feelings surrounding the situation drain. I will be the leader Lorenzo should have been.

“Thank you for apologizing,” I say. Andrew’s shoulders drop in relief.

I can’t deny the results of that night.

The prank may have stung, but it’s also the reason I summoned Ben into this whole mess…and I’m not sorry for that.

26

REMY

“You understandthat Silas is going to have my head for this, right?” I ask as I clean the cut on Fiona’s forehead. The bruising under her skin is already starting to lighten with her healing abilities. Luckily, she’d only received a glancing blow.

Fiona glares. “I’m pretty sure you’re the boss of him. He’ll live.”

I huff. “Shows what you know.”

“He’s not going to care,” she mutters.

Now I laugh. It’s a short one full of disbelief. The situation that we are in is not a lighthearted one even if it was successful.

“Just do me a favor and keep out of his sight until that cut heals,” I say, and Fiona sticks out her tongue.

“The Council is going to hang you out to dry for meddling in a territory that’s not yours,” the lion shifter currently under the heel of one of my people spits. He’s probably a Leonid, if distantly related to Stella. The Council does hate when territory leaders overreach. It can threaten war between territories, and that would be very inconvenient for them.

But why they thought I wouldn’t chase down and retrieve my own people in a different territory is beyond me.

The other man involved is fae. He’s iridescent with pointed ears, but he’s not as talkative. Neither of them has given up any information. We know that two is too small to be the entirety of the operation, but they were easy enough to overpower once Fiona distracted them.

After narrowing down the location to within a ten-mile radius, the tracking witches were able to use the children’s clothing to bring us to this rundown apartment building only a few blocks away from the fae gate in Lobo’s city.

“Now why do you think I’ll bring an issue as inconsequential as this to the Council?” I ask, amused when both of the men’s faces whiten. Probably because they know well enough that it’s easy to make people disappear when you don’t involve pesky things like governing bodies.

“But we aren’t in your jurisdiction,” the shifter whispers like that matters.

Fiona snorts. “What the dog doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

I glance over at the two children my guards are inspecting for injuries. The girl can’t be older than thirteen and the boy looks to be six. Celeste and Timothy Sova were being kept in the equivalent of a magic blocking kennel. The girl takes after her sirin mothers with white-blonde hair and fair enough skin that the bruise on her cheek is vibrant.

I’ve already sent a message to Ben asking if he’ll teleport them back to the territory, not wanting them to have to be forced in small quarters for the hours it will take to return home. The boy giggles at something one of the guards says, but it does nothing to dispel the shadows in the girl’s eyes.

I would prefer what occurred today to hurt Lobo.

He’s either guilty of colluding with my enemies or negligence.

I tsk, keeping the anger from my voice. “We have a set of cozy cells for you. No need to involve anyone else in this.”

The door swings open, and an air settles over the space, my people still. Only one person in this territory would have the authority to ask the tracking witches to stand down and allow them to pass. A couple of wolf shifters enter, their yellow eyes flashing before they part, and the man of the hour enters.

His stance isn’t aggressive, and I narrow my eyes.

“Stoneheart.” Lobo nods in acknowledgment. “I received complaints about the noise.”

“Noise tends to happen when retrieving children taken from my territory.” I keep my tone cool.

Lobo glances at the scene before him. The perpetrators with hands bound behind their backs and the children my people are standing in front of, before shrugging. “Get them out of my territory. I have no wish to be party to their actions.”

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