Steal the Sun (Thieves #4)(85)

“It’s not the same thing,” Danny insisted, his voice even as he walked up to Dev. He was being careful. He reached out to his partner to put his hand on his shoulders. “Just listen to me…”

Dev brought his hands up, shoving Daniel’s away from him. Daniel took a shocked step back. “No, it’s not the same because this is something I need. This isn’t about you so it doesn’t f*cking matter, does it, Daniel? I can pour myself into your fight. I can f*cking bankroll the entire enterprise. I can provide for all of us, but the minute I need you it’s not the same.”

Daniel’s relaxed stance turned hard, his eyes tightening. “I have money, too.”

“You have chump change, Daniel,” Dev replied. “You have whatever crumbs Marini sends your way in exchange for slaughtering whoever he wants you to. You’ll be the Council’s executioner, but you won’t spare a minute for my son. Well, if I need to pony up some cash, I can do that. How much will it take to get the Nex Apparatus to spare me a moment of his time?”

“Fuck you,” Daniel spat. Dev always knew just where to stick the knife in. It was a talent of his.

“Come on, Dan,” Dev continued recklessly. “Give me a figure. How much to kill someone? You need a million? I’ll get the cash. I am asking you to fight in a war, though. I’m sure that’s a premium service. How about twenty million? Would that satisfy you?”

I closed my eyes, squeezing them tight. I didn’t want to listen to them tear each other apart.

I heard a thump and didn’t have to open my eyes to know Dev was on the floor. I did it anyway because I knew for a fact that he would never stay there. Sure enough, Dev was up and pushing against Daniel.

“How long were you going to use me?” Dev snarled as he punched Daniel in the gut. It didn’t matter. Daniel didn’t even grunt. “Were you going to wait until after you took over the Council to get rid of me? Would the baby have been an inconvenient reminder of the fact that you needed me once? That you wanted me once? The great Daniel Donovan can’t put up with the fact that he’s just a man, can he?”

All of the fight went out of Daniel and he just took what Dev was giving him. Dev punched and kicked and didn’t fight fair and Daniel just silently took it. It incensed Dev even more that Daniel wouldn’t fight back.

Daniel had been pushed to the wall by the time Dev pulled back. “I’m not even worth fighting, am I?”

“I don’t want to fight you, Dev,” Daniel said quietly, his blue eyes serious as he regarded his friend. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re hurting enough already. And you’re wrong about why I don’t want to fight. It has nothing to do with that. Can we talk about this? Just come to bed with us. We need to rest and figure out what to do together, you and me and Z. We’ll work it out. Please. We’ll hold our wife and we’ll discuss what to do as a family.”

For a moment, Dev looked like he would give in. He stared at me and there was a slight softening.

“Devinshea, we need you,” a quiet voice asked from the doorway. Declan stood there, his face serious, and I knew he’d watched the fight. “Padric is ready to begin the meeting and Mother wants you there.”

Daniel reached out and put his hand on Dev’s arm. His voice was pleading. “Please, Dev. Stay with us. We’re your family. You belong with us.”

Dev turned, and their intimacy was lost. “I am coming,” he said to his brother. He turned to me but made no move to get closer than the end of the bed where we’d made love that first morning here. “I am sure Daniel will take care of you in my absence. I will join you at home when I am finished, if I am still wanted, of course.”

He seemed to want me to say something but I didn’t. If he wanted to leave then I wasn’t going to stop him.

He finally walked to his brother and as they left, I saw Declan put his arm around Dev’s shoulder. “I will fight at your side,” he promised quietly.

The door closed behind them and Daniel and I were alone.

Daniel looked weary as he sat on the bed and took off his boots. He pushed his jeans off his hips and pulled his shirt over his head. He climbed into bed next to me and pulled me into his arms.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered. “If you want to go home, I’ll take you but I’ve got to come back. I have to make sure he doesn’t kill himself.”

“All right.” It didn’t matter to me. I just wanted to go back to sleep. I didn’t have to think about it when I was asleep. Despite the fact that I hadn’t been out of bed in days, I was so tired. A deep weariness had settled into my bones.

“Zoey,” Daniel started tentatively. He turned me on my back and looked deeply into my eyes. “Did we make a mistake?”

I didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. He would have worked out the prophecy and known that it had spoken of Summer. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I think she’s probably safer where she is than she would have been with us. We weren’t even together then, Danny.”

“Maybe we would have been if we’d kept her,” he said, voicing all those useless questions.

“We weren’t ready for a baby, Danny.” If we’d gotten together for Summer, I wouldn’t have gone back to Dev. I would have put him out of my mind. It was likely Daniel would never have daywalked and we would have been forced to remain our whole lives under Marini’s thumb with no way out. Our daughter would have been just another tool in Marini’s bag.