Steal the Day (Thieves #2)(35)

And that was all I was going to get. “Well, I’m glad I could be of service.”

He pulled me down and kissed me. “Thank you, my Zoey. I couldn’t have asked for more. Now, go and give Daniel hell like you want to.”

“I don’t have to go.” I didn’t want to leave him if he needed me, but Danny and I had a few things to iron out. I wanted to talk to him about the job, and I really wanted to kick his ass for letting me walk into that situation with Angelina and Justin unaware. He had to know there would be repercussions. If I was supposed to be queen to his king, I needed to start getting the debriefings.

Dev yawned and looked generally content. “If you stay, you’ll have to wait an entire day to yell at him. I don’t want to be the one who kept you waiting. Go, woman. I sleep better alone anyway. You snore.”

“I do not,” I protested, getting off the bed and finding my clothes.

“Do, too,” he insisted. “And Zoey, whatever this job is…”

“I know, I know, you want in.” Those would be the three words carved into his headstone one day. I was sure of it.

“That’s right. And you can be damn sure when you go to the Hell plane to rescue Sarah, that I want in on that, too.”

I stood staring at him. I’d been really careful to keep him entirely out of the loop on that one. I’d never mentioned it and been careful to never speak of it in the club.

Dev turned over with a satisfied smirk that had everything to do with one-upping me. “I know everything, Zoey. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And don’t kill the vampire. We’re going to need him.”





I shut the door to the limo and listened as it drove back off into the night. Of all the people my move had inconvenienced, I was certain Dev’s driver was the worst. The night was quiet, but the light was on in the living room. My heart clenched a little bit at the thought of Neil sitting up. I let myself in and, sure enough, there he was sitting on the couch. He was still in his slacks and polo, though they weren’t as crisp as they had been. He looked more nervous than sad.

When he glanced up at me, his eyes went wide, shock replacing that haunted look.

“Zoey.” He actually shrank back a bit. “You were supposed to stay with Dev.”

“I need to talk to Daniel.” At least he was speaking to me and not shutting me out with a flippant wave of his hand. “And I definitely need to talk to you. But before we get into that, I have to tell you something. I don’t want you to hear through the grapevine. I kind of shot your dad.”

Neil perked up at that. “Really? Is he dead?”

I shook my head. “No, but he probably wishes he was. I sort of shot him in a spot most guys don’t want to get shot in.”

Neil smiled wistfully. “Thereby fulfilling many a childhood fantasy. I wish I could have been there, Z.”

“Hey, it happened at Ether so it was more than likely caught on Dev’s security tapes. We can have a watching party.”

“Cool,” Neil agreed. “You didn’t happen to shoot my brother, too?” I responded in the negative. “Next time.”

At least he wasn’t distraught. I could move on to other painful conversations. “Now, where is Danny?”

Neil is possibly the worst liar on the planet. Most of the time he knew better than to lie and, when faced with a situation that required fabrication, merely kept his mouth shut and allowed those of us with skill to handle it. He was up shit creek when he was left to his own devices, as nothing that came out of his lying mouth sounded believable. He couldn’t just stick with a little lie. Once Neil started talking, everything snowballed. I watched as he tried really hard to come up with something, anything, that might make me believe.

“There was a Council thing, and he forgot that he was supposed to go,” he spat out finally.

The Council was in Paris. Danny had up and gone to Paris? I just stared at him knowing that the longer I kept him pinned with that look, the worse a hole he would dig. Neil never met a silence he liked. He just had to fill it with something.

“Marcus called and said he was late,” Neil continued, unable to stay silent while I stared. “And that there was a big vampire emergency and all the vampires had to go to this meeting because of the emergency. It was a very important meeting but Daniel finished what he was doing, ‘cause you know Daniel, he’s all ‘nobody tells me what to do’ and then he decided to go ahead and go anyway because…”

“It was a vampire emergency,” I finished, sarcasm dripping. I looked down at my still-lime green carpet. The boxes of flooring hadn’t been touched and his tools were right where he’d left them. “Neil, he didn’t even start the project. Where is he? Is he out finding more little wolves to feed to his vamps? Is he at least getting a finder’s fee?”

Neil’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, shit, you know about that. I told him you would find out. Zoey, you don’t understand.”

No, I didn’t and somebody had better start explaining it to me. I stalked through my house, searching for my secretive vampire husband. He was playing some sort of game, and I wanted to know what it was. His truck was still parked outside, so despite Neil’s sad efforts, I knew he was here. Neil followed behind me, begging me to wait.

“Daniel is going to explain everything, Z.”