Page 70 of Living Legend

“Why can’t you just ask her yourself?” I could feel my heartbeat pick up pace at the thought of having to bring this to Dani’s attention.

Markus answered. “You’ve spent more time with her; she seems to trust you. This request coming from your mouth instead of ours might go over better.”

“I doubt that,” I said honestly.

“You act as if she hasn’t done something like this before. She tortures people where she’s from, doesn’t she? What is the difference? It’s absurd to be picky about such a crude skill.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yet, you want her to do something so crude at your own request. It’s a little hypocritical.” I tightened my lips together. It was pure back talk and completely out of character.

I felt a hand land on my shoulder and then a wave of soothing calm wash over me. I looked over my shoulder to find Jonah hovering over me, looking at his other executives.

“Gentlemen, this is a lot to hear at once, so I’m sure Nicholas didn’t mean for that to come out so…assertively.” He removed his hand, but the calming wave remained. “He takes after his father in that way.”

My father? I would say Maurice Cassial was the last person to be condescending. The man cringes at every word that comes out of Reese's mouth.

“Nicholas, all we want is for her to get any information she can from this demon and then she can do what she wants with it,” Markus said.

“Do what she wants?” I asked, confused.

“You know, whatever she does when she’s done with them. Once she’s done, it won’t do much talking, so we might as well make room.”

I shot up from my chair and backed away. “Let me get this straight: you want her to torture answers out of it and kill it? You said you would send it back once you got answers.”

“We can’t let it go back to Purgatory now, can we? Not with what has happened,” Ariel answered, smugness in his voice.

I opened my mouth to protest, but he was right. I looked to Jonah, but he refused to look back at me. We couldn’t risk creating an opening for more demons if we tried to send it back. I knew none of this would matter to Dani, no matter how logical anything sounded tome.

“Exactly,” Ariel said with a satisfied grin when he saw I had nothing to say.

“She won’t see it that way and we all know it,” I said, crossing my arms.

“You will have to make her see it and try to make up for it later,” Jonah said. “We need this, Nicholas. Do what’s right.”

“How are you so sure this is right?” I could hear my father’s words echo in my head. I could feel myself wanting to be blinded by what they said. I didn’t want to be led by the simple idea that I was lower than them so whatever they said had to be the only possible option. Although right now, I didn’t see another path to take.

“Because right now, it’s all we have,” Jonah confessed, exhaustion in his voice.

“You have the charm, Nicholas. Use it,” Markus added, winking. I narrowed my eyes at him but looked back at Jonah. There was something on the tip of my tongue that I wanted to say but couldn’t.I had the one thing that would make this torture even possible, the one thing that could turn this meeting between two demons into an unfair playing ground.

I had her dagger.

Markus would have a field day learning that I’d lied. Yet, if she went down there without it and came back empty handed, they would know something was wrong. I knew she could retrieve the information they sought, but would she want to finish the job?

Dani wasn’t an easy read, but I’d learned enough about her to know that she needed motivation. Markus and Ariel had other business to attend to but gave me pointed looks as they left the room. Jonah stood near the fireplace, not facing me.

“You honestly think this is a good idea?” I asked, stepping up behind him, far enough away so I wasn’t crowding him.

“As I’ve said before, it’s the only plan we have. I wasn’t planning for another demon to appear, and I certainly wasn’t planning on it being dead already.” He sounded tired. “We’re hoping it tells us who Lilith is working with.”

“So, you know it's Lilith?”

“That’s obvious. We all knew she would try to infiltrate Heaven’s Gate. I just don’t know who she would trust with this plan.”

I mulled it over in my head. “You want this figured out just as much as the rest of us, don’t you?”

Jonah turned around to face me, dumbfounded. “Of course, I do. I don’t want to have to keep things from our people. I don’t want messenger angels disappearing—.”

“Disappearing?” My breath caught in my throat.

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