Page 27 of Eternal Surrender

With a click, I had it open and peered in. “Accountant privilege.”

“Fuck,” he hissed beneath his breath.

I glanced back. “I’m a contingency plan if anything happens to you. Do not be offended.”

“You don’t seem to realize who I am.” His temper rose.

“I know you’re reasonable.”

“If you so much as⁠—”

“In the early 1600s, both you and Orpheus set up orphanages around the city.” I pulled out one of the dusty old ledgers. “You still keep the records of every child saved.” I lifted out the external drive. “Thank god for technology, right?”

Marcus’s eyes were wide with fury, and he was quickly beside me. “How the hell do you know about those?”

I held up the flash drive containing the list of current members of the Stone Masters, which we’d gathered over the years. Marcus snatched it from me and threw it back in, then slammed the safe shut and twisted the combination lock and said, “Obviously you don’t know everything.”

I lifted the painting, and he grabbed it from me and hung it back up.

“What are you planning to do with the policewoman?” I asked.

“What has that got to do with you?”

“Orpheus wants to know.”

“If I let you in there, you’ll tell me where he is.” Marcus hands were balled into fists.

“It’s a deal.”

Marcus lingered, gauging whether he’d get his way.

I followed him out, ever ready for Marcus to change his mind and take out his frustration of losing all communication with Orpheus on me.

Once inside the dungeon, I lingered near the door, leaning against the back wall. The scent of sandalwood incense lingered. . .

Ingrid was hanging from two metal cuffs, her back pressed against the brick and her arms outstretched on either side of her. Her black-rimmed spectacles hung on the bridge of her nose like a school teacher and she wore a white shirt, short skirt and leather boots. Her startling black mascara and bright red lipstick reflected a well-polished Goth, an interesting if not daring effort to mingle in.

God she was beautiful.

She had a tiny puncture mark on her right arm where she’d been administered intravenous fluids in the Emergency Room after Alex had dropped her off there. A discarded leather jacket was lying on the floor to her left, and next to that lay a set of handcuffs. I wondered what they’d done to her already.

But she was still mortal. For now, anyway.

By her worn out expression, she’d wasted no time getting straight back to pulling her usual stunt of exploring the underworld in the worst possible way—alone. I wondered what she was doing back in London.

Paradom had answers for me and whatever was going on in here was eating away at time I didn’t have. Yet as my eyes met with Ingrid’s, something passed between us, and once again I felt drawn by an intangible force that was impossible to resist.

I refused to name it love, as if the word itself might carry sound, as if Orpheus could feel it the moment I let it breathe. I feared my heart would betray me, speaking in a language older than silence. But he knew. Of course, he knew. There was no veil thick enough to hide what I felt for her, this luminous fragile mortal.

Soon enough, we would know each other’s histories, our secret yearnings, our most sacred thoughts, because if Snowstrom’s threat was real—soon they’d be no turning back from this—whatever this was.

“Now where were we?” Marcus glanced my way. “Before I was rudely interrupted.”

I checked out the other characters in the room, the platinum blonde dominatrix wearing a tight bask emphasizing her tiny waist, and she stood next to a brunette, a vampire turned in her forties. And then there was the shifty-looking masked master who was threatening Ingrid with the worn end of a leather whip.

“Where’s Orpheus?” Ingrid tried.

Marcus ran his fingertips over her left shoulder and along her arm, lingering for a moment on her wrist and then moving over to the shackle to test it was secure.