I decided my errands could wait. Knowing that we were so close to making a serious attempt at capturing the Book had filled me with urgency to see Mom and Dad before the big meeting. Before the ritual. Before anything else in my life could go wrong. Personal identity crisis aside, they were my parents and always would be. If I’d lived before as someone or something else, that life had paled in comparison to this one.

I blasted into Chester’s, sailed coolly through the bars, which were depressingly packed so early in the day, and headed for the stairs. I had no desire to talk to any of the cryptic denizens of the club.

At the foot of the stairs, Lor and a massively muscled man with long white hair, pale skin, and burning eyes moved together, blocking my way.

I was debating what I might have in my deep glassy lake to use—Barrons had slurped down my crimson runes like truffles—when Ryodan called down, “Let her up.”

I tipped my head back. The urbane owner of the largest den of sex, drugs, and exotic thrills in the city stood behind the chrome balustrade, big hands closed on the chrome railing, thick wrists cuffed by silver, features darkened by a convenient shadow. He looked like a scarred Gucci model. Whatever kind of life these men had lived before they’d become whatever they were, it had been violent and hard. Like them.

“Why?” Lor demanded.

“I said so.”

“Not time for the meeting yet.”

“She wants to see her parents. She’s going to insist.”

“So?”

“She thinks she has something to prove. She’s feeling pushy.”

“Gee, this is nice. I don’t even have to talk,” I purred. I was feeling pushy. Ryodan brought out the worst in me. Like Rowena, he’d prejudged me.

“You ooze emotion today. Emotional humans are unpredictable, and you’re more unpredictable than most to begin with. Besides,” Ryodan sounded amused, “Jack’s building up immunity to Barrons’ Voice. He’s been demanding to see you. Said he’ll take the queen hostage if we don’t bring you to him. I don’t worry about the queen’s safety. Rainey likes her, and Jack likes anything Rainey likes. But I have concerns he might debate us to death.”

I smiled faintly. If anyone could win, it was my daddy. I pushed past Lor, clipping him with my shoulder. His arm shot out like a bar across my neck and stopped me.

“Look at me, woman,” Lor growled.

I turned my head and met his gaze coolly.

“If he tells you anything about us, we’ll kill you. Do you understand that? One word, you die. So if you’re walking around feeling cocky and protected because Barrons likes to fuck you, think again. The more he likes to do you, the more likely it is that one of us will kill you.”

I looked up at Ryodan.

The owner of Chester’s nodded.

“Nobody killed Fiona.”

“She was a doormat.”

I pushed the arm away from my neck. “Get out of my way.”

“I would suggest you cure him of his little problem if you want to survive,” Lor said.

“Oh, I’ll survive.”

“The farther away from him you get, the safer you are.”

“Do you want me to find the Book or not?”

Ryodan answered. “We don’t give a fuck if the Book is out there. Or that the walls are down. Times change, we go on.”

“Then why are you helping with the ritual? V’lane said Barrons asked you and Lor to handle the other stones.”

“For Barrons. But if he breathes one word about himself, you’re dead.”

“I thought he was the boss of you guys.”

“He is. He made the rules we live by. We’ll still take you from him.”

Take you from him. Sometimes I was so dense. “And he knows that.”

“We’ve had to do it before,” Lor said. “Kasteo hasn’t said a word to us since. I say get over it already. It’s been a thousand fucking years. What’s a woman worth?”

I inhaled slow and deep as the full ramifications of what they’d just told me sunk in. This was why Barrons never answered any of my questions and never would. He knew what they would do to me if he told me—whatever they’d done to Kasteo’s woman a thousand years ago. “You don’t need to worry about it. He hasn’t told me anything.”

“Yet,” Lor said.

“But more importantly,” I said, looking up at Ryodan, “I won’t ask. I don’t need to know.” I realized it was true. I was no longer obsessed with having a name and an explanation for Jericho Barrons. He was what he was. No name, no reasons, would alter anything about him. Or how I felt.

“So every woman has said at some point. Are you familiar with the tale of Bluebeard?”

Sure. He’d asked only one thing of his wives: that they never look in the forbidden room upstairs—where he kept the bodies of all the wives before them, whom he’d killed for looking in the forbidden room upstairs. “Bluebeard’s wives didn’t have a life.” I studied him. They were all so controlled, so hard and ruthless. “How many have you taken from one another? So many that you hate the sight of one another? Has the merry band of brothers become a walking, talking, immortal Cold War?”

His face hardened. “Strip if you’re coming up.”

I gave him a look. “I have on skintight clothes.”

“Non-negotiable. All of it. Nothing but skin.”