Sin & Surrender (Demigod of San Francisco #6)(88)

“I would turn around and give you my full attention, Henry, but I don’t want to burn anything,” Jack said.

“Ditto.” Donovan raised a spoon coated in brown sauce.

Henry pressed on as though he hadn’t heard. “Through my…friend, I was able to get full access to the Summit surveillance. I’ve been downloading the info onto our cloud. We’ve got a lot of excellent information, sir.” Henry nodded at Kieran. “A lot of excellent information. Secret meetings were going on all over the place, as you’d expect. But some of the Demigods seemed to have an awareness of the cameras. They only spoke freely in places where the surveillance lacked audio. Less-established leaders, even those known for being more tech-savvy, didn’t show that same pattern. The pattern should help us glean a lot more information than what was said on tape.”

Kieran leaned against the wall and pulled Alexis against him. “I agree. You’re recording it on our servers, you said?”

“Yes,” Henry said, adjusting his computer under his arm. “We’re downloading it to our cloud in increments, picking times when the surveillance team isn’t watching things quite so closely. Their team is pretty good.”

“Did you find out what the story was with Aaron?” Dylan asked. “Did he get in any trouble for what went on with the…with Damion?”

Kieran slipped a hand into his pocket. “He lost a lot of status.”

“That’s it?” Daisy asked, not bothering to hide her disgust and outrage. “How many people did that guy get killed?”

“Losing status isn’t as mundane as it sounds,” Kieran said. “His lesser status means fewer allies. Less people to stick up for him. To help him. He’s vulnerable, and I suspect he has an enemy in Zander. Zander hasn’t come out publicly, but a few of the things he said… Trust me, Aaron’s loss of status today will be his ruin unless he can figure out a way to right this wrong. Given Alexis and I plan to cock-block his every attempt to climb out of the muck, well…”

“He’s done,” Lexi said. “He’s messed with me one too many times. His demise won’t be fast, either. We’re going to make sure he hangs himself nice and slow. Make him feel it until he’s so weak that his wife eventually kills him. Magnus will help, I know he will. He’ll do it to help himself as much as suck up to me, but he’ll do it.”

Dylan nodded, and Daisy’s outrage started to ease. She’d been saved and pulled out of the stink, but Dylan had only escaped his situation by dying. He had a vendetta against Demigods behaving badly that Daisy fully supported. If he was satisfied with the punishment, she was too.

“What’s the story with that?” Mordecai asked, picking at his nail. “How are you going to leave things with Magnus?”

Alexis sighed and leaned her head against Kieran’s chest. “He’s been shaped by the life of an immortal Demigod. I need to accept that. There is a lot of terribleness in him. A lot of things to dislike. He did let me live, though, even when he could’ve let me fumble my way to death. He’s been helpful at times. I won’t give up on him, though I will never actually trust him. Not completely. I guess that’s just how life has to be.”

“I have faith that eventually you’ll be allies,” Kieran said, squeezing her. “That’s a better relationship than Demigods have with most people. It’s about as much trust as they are willing to give.”

“I know,” she said softly.

“It’s all right, Lexi, I’ll be your daddy,” Jack said, flipping something.

“Death really killed your sense of humor, dude,” Donovan said. “That joke was not on point. She might kill you again for that one.”

“Nah, not when she sees that I am making her Christmas steak,” Jack replied.

Alexis stared at the back of his head for a moment, and her lips tweaked up into a smile. “How did you know?”

“I may have heard you calling your mom and then I might have listened in. You were loud as hell. The whole spirit world heard you, I think. That was probably Hades’s work.” He turned back, and his bright white smile lit up his face. “Who’s your daddy now?”

“No.” Donovan shoved Jack. “Still no, dude. Let it go.”

Alexis laughed. “It’s so wrong it might just be right.”

“It’s not right, Alexis.” Thane shook his head with a pained expression. “It is weird, but it is not right.”

“Speaking of other things that aren’t right…” Henry said.

“Good segue,” Boman said, laughing.

Henry grinned. “Zorn was right—a dark fae had business on the premises.”

Daisy couldn’t help the flash of heat that burned through her body at the memory of those vivid green eyes above that wicked grin. She hadn’t told a soul about it—she was too afraid to—and she’d put the fear of God into Mordecai so he wouldn’t either. Although she didn’t know what he was capable of, he’d made two bodies disappear. That meant he was incredibly powerful.

A sizzling chill made her shiver. She hadn’t even known it was possible to feel so hot and so cold at the same moment. It was like her body was being operated by someone else.

“Demigod Lydia was slain in her golf cart yesterday when everyone else was trying to subdue Damion or Thane.” Henry tapped his computer with his thumb. “I haven’t seen the footage yet, though I was invited to later if we’re still here…” Daisy imagined he’d been invited for more than just that. “Word is her throat was cut and the wound didn’t heal before she bled out. All of her people were left alive, but they were in a magically induced sleep. None of them saw anything. They don’t know who did it.”