He hadn’t noticed his secretary dropping the dossier in front of him, but he opened it now, “Next order of business…” The information poured into his brain and out his mouth.

The atmosphere in the conference room eased, and a few nervously relieved glances slid around the table. He took a mental note of each look. They would bend to his will. He would make sure of it.

His secretary looked at him over their heads and smiled. Soon, she mouthed.

A private basement in Vienna.

And there she was, so beautiful she took her breath away. Up until this moment, she’d been half afraid the sketch was a myth. So simple, yet so evocatively powerful that the reclining woman called out to her. Here was femininity in its glory and mastery. The powerful sensuality of those few simply dashed lines made by a master across canvas had called to her across all these years, and now it was finally hers.

She wanted to stroke the long, graceful sweep of her thigh to her hip, caress the gentle slope of her shoulder to her long, willowy arm.

Her assistant hovered nearby, his breathing an annoyance in her ear. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

No thanks to him. He had reported back failure after failure in his efforts to obtain this Degas. Finally, she had stepped in and used the money earned from the four animals she had married and buried to get what she desired.

“And she’s all yours.” The tone in her assistant’s voice had her turning and looking at him. Gone was the vaguely patronizing assumption of obsequiousness. He looked different as well, standing taller, his shoulders back, his stare as he held hers bold.

“Yes.” Perhaps she had underestimated the elitist little toad. “I stepped in after you failed.”

He inclined his head and smiled at her. “It was a pleasure to watch you work, madam.”

Had she imagined the flash of color across his irises? Work, such an interesting word and so open to interpretation. It had taken a few well-placed enquiries on her behalf by a firm whose name nobody dared ask to discover the leverage she needed. That leverage was currently safely ensconced in an apartment in Zurich and would be released once she was sure she had made her acquisition cleanly and with no repercussions. Even the most avid of art collectors had a weak spot, and in this case, it was the bastard’s children.

Of course, her assistant had been part of the distasteful business and the only loose end in a flawlessly executed plan. She despised the process of finding a new assistant. Why could people not remain loyal like they had in the days of her infamous ancestors?

“Shall we?” He motioned the artwork.

Earlier he had placed the necessary items to transport an object of such value out of this collection and into hers on the table behind her. She had been surprised by his forethought at the time. She did not let any of her thoughts show as she nodded.

She had not noticed before how attractive her assistant was. But she noticed now as his shirt defined the toned planes of his shoulders and back as he removed the artwork from the wall and laid it carefully in the traveling crate.

“She really is quite exquisite.” He stepped back and studied the sketch. “I can see why you wanted her so much. She is the very essence of feminine mystique.”

To hear her thoughts so neatly phrased surprised her for a moment, and she nodded. “Yes.”

“And as such belongs with like.” He flashed her a slightly mischievous smile as he began fastening the crate.

It had been years since a man had flirted with her, and she was slow to recognize the signs. His impudence both offended and intrigued her. “You risk much.”

He didn’t even pretend to misunderstand and chuckled. “I risk much for much.” Straightening, he looked right at her. “Together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.”

Somewhere in the US

Life was about defining moments. The trick was in recognizing those moments when they presented themselves. But he saw his, like a neon sign blinking across the sky. In the days following him totaling the imposter’s car in his parking space, he had held his breath, waiting for the call or the knock on the door that would announce he’d been caught. They hadn’t come, and days had stretched into weeks. People in the offices around him had whispered and wondered about what could have happened until a new juicy office tidbit had snatched their attention away. He had gotten away with his vengeance, and now his path had become clear to him.

His immediate superior was jawing at him again. “We need to manage this outcome.” The woman’s helmet hair never moved, even as disturbed as she was. “This has the potential to go viral, and we don’t want that.”

“Indeed,” he murmured. Another politician caught between the thighs of a woman he shouldn’t have been anywhere near. It was all so damn tedious, all so pitifully predictable.

“I’ve prepared a statement.” Helmet hair produced yet another folder from beneath her armpit and handed it to him. “Go through this with him, point out the possible pitfalls.”

He nodded and looked interested, as if he hadn’t done this a thousand times before.

“I’ve also prepared a list of questions and answers we can expect from the press.” Yet another dossier appeared from the armpit maw. He was halfway convinced there was the entrance to a parallel dimension beneath that YSL suit. “Make sure you go over them carefully with him. I don’t need to remind you what happened with the last incident’s press conference.”

Incident. Almost like a bus crashed into a streetlight. It hinted at something that was absolutely avoidable. Between their senator’s libido and his staggering Napoleon complex, disasters like the one they were currently navigating were a certainty.

He had been born a forgettable man for a reason. Until he’d received his call to action in the parking lot, he’d never understood. He’d been resentful of his endlessly gray nothing life. But now his blinders were off, and his path illuminated in front of him. He would bring them all down. Quietly, unobtrusively, working away beneath their noses, he would right their wrongs and expose their rot.

Helmet hair, he refused to use her given name in the privacy of his thoughts, straightened her suit jacket. “I’m sorry I can’t be here, but POTUS calls.”

Marcia–there he’d said it–grinned smugly at the perceived glory of her new position. She almost skipped out of the office, which given her age, seemed obscene.

He looked at the dossiers in his hands and crossed to the shredder. Turns out, after a lifetime of always doing the right thing, he had a taste for anarchy that he loved to indulge. The caption on his high school yearbook: Most Likely to own a Minivan by Thirty no longer stung. Little gray men moved the wheels of power, and nobody ever looked at them when the giant engine ground to a halt—merely a harmless cog, a nothing, an inconsequential part of a greater whole.

Chapter Fourteen

“Oh my.” Ava lounged on her throne and popped another chocolate whatever into her pouty mouth. “I don’t see you for years, and now, here you are again.” The grin she threw him made Wrath want to break shit.

After his confrontation with Ramiel, followed by a lecture from Gabriel, and then a quiet conversation with Dee, he was back in the avarice demesne. He didn’t tell Ramiel and Gabriel that he had always intended to come back and fetch Haziel. They were so fucking annoying bitching at him, that he’d decided against it. Dee, however, was a different matter. As the grandmother of his child, he owed her respect and consideration, and so he’d let her in on the truth. He had always intended to fetch Haziel.

Still, he didn’t feel like dancing a jig as Ava strummed her fiddle of resentment. He didn’t have the inclination, and Eddie for damn sure didn’t have the time. “Cut the crap, Ava. I’m here for Haziel.”

“Haziel?” Ava frowned and tapped a forefinger against her chin. “Remind me who that is.”

Wrath breathed deep and reached for his tiny store of patience. He needed to grab Haziel and leave. Lucifer wouldn’t wait for Ava to finish playing, and he couldn’t bear to think what was happening to Eddie right this minute. “You know exactly who she is.”

Rapace stepped closer to her throne. Aside from the creepy orange eyes, he was a good-looking bastard with bronze muscles barely concealed by the scraps of white fabric he wore. “I believe Haziel is a seraph, your grace,” he said to Ava as if Wrath wasn’t standing right there. “From Ramiel’s host. Pretty thing with big green eyes and lovely skin. Sweet as a peach.”

If that fucker had laid one finger on Haziel, Wrath would end him. “Where is she?”

Ava looked confused and blinked at her second. “Can you answer that?”

“Alas.” Rapace laid a hand on his overdeveloped chest muscles. Despite being a pretty fucker, Rapace could swing a sword like a master. Not as good as his Vexia, but certainly skillful enough for Wrath not to completely dismiss him. “I lost track of her earlier this morning. She mentioned something about being inconsolable.” He uttered a theatrical gasp. “You don’t think she might have…”

“Don’t even think that, Rapace.” Apparently, Ava was not immune to amateur theatricals as she clasped her hands in front of her chest and blinked at her second. When Wrath found his daughter, he’d make sure to mention they had two prime actors right in this demesne. Their talents would be put to much better use for the Paradise Players. The need to find Eddie lashed through him and reminded him he was wasting time dealing with Ava and her crap.

Ava fastened her gaze back on him. “What could be so bad as to drive an angel to such dire straits?”

Clasping his hands in front of him, Rapace lowered his head and gave it a sad shake. “Abandonment, rejection, desert⁠—”

“All right, Ava.” Wrath knew when he was outmaneuvered. Learning the right time to retreat was as much a part of winning the battle as knowing when to attack. “You’ve had your fun. I’m here to fetch Haziel and be on my way.”