“Duty,” Rogan said.
Sturm rolled his eyes. “You’re no fun. What do you think about all this, Ms. Baylor?”
“It’s nice. My pork chop was delicious. The wine is also excellent.”
Sturm bared his teeth in a sharp grin. “Your pork chop. That’s priceless. You’re delightful.”
“That’s right. Have you ever met Vincent Harcourt, Mr. Sturm?”
“Of course.”
I wrapped the strands of magic tighter around him. “Does he strike you as an erratic man? The kind who can ruin a carefully structured plan by failing to follow simple orders?”
Sturm laughed his lupine raspy laugh. “You haven’t even been certified as a Prime, Ms. Baylor, but you play the game so well. Doesn’t she, Rogan?”
Rogan didn’t answer. He took another small swallow of his wine.
“A man in our position has to play the game well, as Rogan will tell you, Ms. Baylor. Otherwise we risk losing everything. People who work for us. People we love. Before you know it, we find ourselves cowering in a tiny bunker while the tornados of fate roar overhead. But then sometimes the tradition of losing runs in the family. How is your nephew doing, Rogan?”
Rogan smiled. The window beside us cracked with a lovely musical crunch.
That smile meant murder. I reached out and put my hand on his wrist. “Please don’t.”
“Ah.” Sturm smiled again. “The civilizing influence of women. What would men do without it?”
I turned to him. “Some men are too thick to realize that when they push too far, other men may murder them without any thought of consequences. Such men would be wise to remember that consequences won’t matter to them, because they would be dead.”
Sturm glanced at the window. The hairline cracks framed extremely sharp glass shards. If the window shattered, the shards could slice him to ribbons, especially if they were precision-guided by a Prime telekinetic.
“I see I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
“No,” Rogan said. “Stay. Chat a bit more. Let’s catch up.”
“Sorry, but I do have to be going.” Sturm rose. “Think about what I said, Rogan. It’s not too late to walk on the right side.”
He walked away.
“What am I wearing, Rogan?” I asked.
His face looked pained. “A shiny rock.”
True. Fine. I pulled out my phone and typed “Tear of the Aegean” into the search window.
Tear of the Aegean, a diamond measuring 11.2 carats and rated as Fancy Intense Green Blue, was recently discovered in an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Argos. The Tear of the Aegean is only the third of all known diamonds to possess a blue-green hue, others being Ocean Paradise and Ocean Dream, making it one of the rarest diamonds in the world. (Blue-green color is common in artificially enhanced diamonds and achieved via various irradiation methods; however, it is exceedingly rare in nature.) The Tear of the Aegean was recently sold to a private collector for $16.8 million.
I choked on empty air.
“Do you want to stay for dessert?” he asked.
“No.”
Our waitress appeared, as if summoned.
“We’re ready to go,” Rogan told her. “Put the window on my bill.”
We walked out of Flanders’ and got into the car. Rogan drove through the night city.
“Why?” I asked finally.
“Because I love you.”
“Sixteen million dollars.”
He didn’t say anything.
Houston’s glowing lights slid past the window.
“I wanted to show you the other side of being a Prime,” he said. “The benefits of it.”
“You mean the benefits of a stuck-up asshole in an Armani suit threatening us or the part where some random woman throws herself at you?” Ouch. Okay, that wasn’t fair.
“The difference between her and Garen is practice. She’ll get better with experience.”
“Garen didn’t come on to me.”
“He will.”
I sighed.
“I wanted tonight to be just about us,” Rogan said. “Free of killing and gore. Just you and me. No Prime business.”
And instead there was a never-ending parade, at the end of which Alexander Sturm came to gloat. And I pointed it out. Oh, Connor.
“It can be peaceful,” he said. “We’re at war right now, but we won’t always be.”
He turned onto our street.
“Will you drop me off at my house?” I asked.
He brought the car to a smooth stop before the warehouse. I reached for the chain around my neck.
“No,” he said, steel in his voice.
“I can’t. It’s too expensive. I . . .”
“I bought it for you,” he said.
If I forced him to take it back, he would toss it out of the window and drive off. I could see it in his eyes.
“Okay. Don’t wait for me. I’ll be a little bit.”
His face shut down.
I stepped out of the car and punched the code into the warehouse door.
Mom and Grandma Frida were still in the kitchen, bickering about something in low voices. The moment I walked in, everything stopped.
I took off the chain and put the diamond on the table.
“Ooo, shiny.” Grandma Frida stared at it. “What is it?”
“It’s sixteen million dollars.”
I landed into a chair. My mother and grandmother stared at me, mute.
“Sixteen million dollars?” Mom finally found her voice.
“It’s a green-blue diamond. There are only three in the world. I tried to give it back to him and he refuses to take it. We’re just keeping it for a little while. Can we put it somewhere safe so I can give it back to him when he feels better?”
“Did he propose and you turned him down?” Grandma Frida demanded.
“No. He didn’t propose. It’s a Christmas present. It was a nice dinner.” It wasn’t Rogan’s fault that Sturm ruined the end of it.
My mother rubbed her temples. “Where would we even put it? We don’t have a safe.”
“I can put it into the spare ammo lockbox and you can keep it in your bedroom,” Grandma Frida said.
“Let’s do that. And please don’t tell my sisters.” The last thing I needed was them taking selfies with the Tear of the Aegean. I got up and went to the fridge. Let’s see, eggs, whipping cream, butter . . . We had chocolate chips somewhere here.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked.
“I’m making chocolate mousse.”
“Now?” Grandma Frida asked.
“Yes.”
Thirty minutes later, with the diamond safe under my bed, I grabbed my favorite sleeping T-shirt out of the laundry, stuffed it, my laptop, and a packet of makeup wipes into a canvas bag, grabbed the baking pan with six teacups filled with mousse and a small container of freshly whipped cream, and walked over to Rogan’s HQ.
Bug was still at his station. His face brightened when he saw me. “Hey you!”
“Hey. Any news?”
“No more calls. All quiet. What’s in the pan?”
“Chocolate mousse.”
“Why?”
“Because Rogan likes it. Good night.”
“Good night.”
I climbed up another flight of stairs and tried Rogan’s door. The door handle turned in my hands. I walked in. He sat at a desk, his face illuminated by the glow of the computer. He wore sweatpants and a white T-shirt. His feet were bare. This was Rogan in his off mode—relaxed, tired, and unbearably hot.
He turned and saw me. Surprise slapped his face. He didn’t think I was coming over. He thought I was mad at him. Foolish, foolish Rogan.
I walked to the small fridge in the corner, which, as I discovered last night, he used for drinks, and slid the pan in there. It was a tight fit, but I managed. I went to the closet in the right wall, shrugged off my shoes, peeled off my stockings, got out of my dress, and took off my bra. Finally. There was nothing quite as good as getting out of a bra at the end of the day. I pulled on my sleeping T-shirt, went to the sink, and washed the war paint off my face. It took a while. The cold floor felt so good under my toes after they had been squished into those terrible shoes for two hours.