“Say it,” he growled.

  “Fine. I’ll never take them off again,” I said, my voice a mix of dejection yet frustration.

  Satisfied, Franklin leaned back, steepled his fingers, and looked at me.

  I was never good with direct attention. But Franklin Saunders’ attention wasn’t just direct – it was like the universe dropped away and there were just the two of us. As he stared at me, it appeared that nothing would distract him, and he would only turn away when he saw fit. It was also clear that he was assessing me, and from the grim look pressing across his lips, it was equally clear that I did not measure up to scratch.

  I let out a frustrated, bitter breath, even though I knew better. I willed myself to shut up. I begged myself not to open my mouth, but I couldn’t stop my lips. “Why is it so goddamn important that I keep these things on? You want me to track down your criminals, but how exactly can I do that if I can’t—”

  He put up another hand. There was a large stapler sitting on his desk, and I got the urge to staple his frigging hand to his chair so he could never jerk up that massive palm and silence me so rudely ever again.

  I, of course, just stood there, clutching my fists until it felt like I’d crush my fingers.

  I was struck by how different he was. When he’d come to rescue me last night, I’d seen the kindness in his eyes, felt the gentleness of his touch.

  Now it was like he was a different man. With his jaw set so hard and his cold blue eyes glittering so imperiously, he looked like a caricature of an arrogant asshole, albeit an extremely handsome, godly one.

  Had it just been an act? The kindness? Had it just been a trap to lure me in? Did he want to keep me confused, keep me pliable, keep me always guessing?

  Or was something else going on here…?

  He saw me frowning. He waited several seconds before leaning even further back in his seat. “What is it?”

  “Why are you so different?”

  “Different?” His tone had an edge, and his eyes glittered with the kind of dangerous look that would tell any normal person to shut the hell up.

  I was no longer a normal person. Last night, I’d almost frozen a man to death in the basement of a nightclub.

  So I plowed on. “Last night, when you saved me… you were different. Nicer.” I let my voice bottom out. “Or was that all an act?”

  I fancied that a man like Franklin Saunders knew exactly how to hide what he was thinking. He would have been schooled since birth to control his body language, his expression, and his tone. He would be the best actor this side of Broadway. So why did I suddenly see the tension climbing his jaw and stiffening his wide shoulders?

  That was nothing to mention the look in his eyes. It became so edgy it was clear I’d hit a nerve.

  I took a nervous step back but didn’t stop facing him. “How come you didn’t warn me about taking off my locks last night? How come you didn’t—”

  He rose, and my god was it an intimidating move. The way he slowly locked his hands on the corner of his desk, the way he shifted back, shoved his weight into the chair, and then pulled himself to his full height – it didn’t just still my breath; it riveted me to the spot.

  “Don’t change the subject,” he warned. “All that matters is your promise that you will never take your bangles off again.”

  I was pale with nerves, my hands and shoulders sweaty, yet my curiosity flared.

  Why did I get the impression that Vali was the one changing the subject?

  “Last night, you were—” I began.

  “You will stop speaking of last night,” he commanded in a voice that rumbled through the room and left me with absolutely no question that he meant what he was saying.

  I gulped, but I didn’t stop looking at him. I couldn’t help but pick up how rigid he’d become, how cold and guarded his gaze was.

  Though I wanted to keep pushing, I realized it was suicidal. I took another step back. “Fine. I won’t mention it again. But—”

  He brought up that same goddamn hand and spread those same goddamn fingers stiffly, silencing me. “There are no buts. And you will not rescind on your promise. You will never take those bangles off again. Unless I request it,” he added.

  My eyebrows crumpled. “You request it?”

  “Yes,” he growled. “You will only do so under my instruction and in my presence.” His voice rumbled on the word my.

  I frowned even harder. “Why?”

  “I will not explain myself to you. Now this conversation is over, you will go and request another assignment.”

  “Already?” My voice shot up like a kazoo. “I almost died last night.”

  “Almost. And yet now you are fine.” He gestured to me with a stiff hand.

  Wait, he was right – I was fine, wasn’t I? Before I’d marched in here to have this meeting with him, the fact I had no injuries had been a pertinent one. I’d forgotten it in the face of his arrogant brutality. Now I frowned. “What exactly happened to my injuries, anyway? I almost burnt my hand clean off.”

  “They were healed.”

  “How?”

  “You ask questions I have no time to answer. Now, go and request another assignment.”

  My nervousness at his anger began to wane. In its place, my own anger grew. Where the hell did this guy get off treating me so badly? Okay, so technically he was a revenge god out to keep humanity in check. But why exactly did he treat my every request for information like an insult?

  He stared at me with a hard-edged jaw, obviously willing me to go against his warning and ask more questions.

  I let my arms unhook from behind my back. I made no attempt to hide my tightly clenched fists. “I guess I’ll be leaving, then.” I turned hard on my foot and headed for the door.

  “One more thing.” He turned and leaned against his desk.

  I stopped.

  “Have you told anybody about what happened in that basement?”

  “About the fact I almost killed a man?” I choked on my words.

  “No, about the ice.” His tone became unreadable and guarded.

  I couldn’t help but turn over my shoulder to stare at him.

  He stared right back. “Have you told anybody about the ice?”

  I felt a shiver – tight, cold, strong. It powered through my chest and exploded through my heart. “No. I haven’t had a chance to—”

  “And you won’t. All details of this case are now locked. You will share them with no one.”

  There he went again, silencing me. It was almost as if he was scared of me.

  Though reason told me to turn around and head right through the door, I didn’t. “Why?”

  He didn’t react.

  He was obviously giving me one more chance to leave quietly.

  I didn’t take it. “Why shouldn’t I tell anybody? What exactly are you trying to hide?”

  “What I am trying to hide,” he said in an uncharacteristically calm tone, “is something you are not ready to hear. Trust me when I say this, Lilly White, this is for your own good. Now, request another assignment. Your sins remain, and you must continue to pay for them.” He turned from me, walked around, sat at his desk, and proceeded to ignore me.

  It took me several seconds to unfreeze my body and push through the door. As soon as I was out in the abandoned corridor, I closed the door and leaned against it. I locked a sweaty hand on my chest, my frown becoming so pronounced it felt as if my mouth would drop from my face. “What the hell was that?” I whispered. “I’m not ready to know the truth? What does that mean?” My voice shot up, becoming louder and more desperate.

  From within the office, I heard Franklin clear his throat.

  That arrogant move was enough to turn my fear into anger. A blast of it surged through my gut, and I got the distinct urge to kick the door. Do that, and Franklin would just add another so-called sin to my growing list of misdemeanors. I felt very much like an indentured slave. Except unlike the slaves of old, I would never break free of Vali.

  I cursed his very existence as I walked away. I also frowned. The mysteries were mounting, drawing me further into this new world with no chance of escape.

  10

  They have a saying – no rest for the wicked. I didn’t fancy I was wicked, but Vali did.

  I didn’t get a chance to return to my room and beat my pillow to let out my frustrations.

  Megan marched into view, a scowl marking her perfect red lips. “With me,” she demanded as she clicked her fingers and pointed to her side.

  I was like a dog expected to heel at its master’s side, ha?

  I controlled the mutinous expression that threatened to crumple my brow like screwed up paper. With a breath, I walked up to her.

  “It’s time to hand you over to Section One.”

  “Section One?”

  Her scowl hardened. “The lowest detectives.”

  Though I wanted to ignore her, I couldn’t. I controlled my interest as I asked, “Lowest detectives, what does that mean?”

  “Keep up. Vali has an extensive network of employees.”

  “You mean indentured slaves, right?” I don’t know why I was pushing my luck – one look at her stiff lips would tell anyone to cork their mouth and run away. But I was angry, trapped, cornered, and finally fighting back even if the only weapon I had was my words.

  “How dare you. Vali offers final chances. He pulls the damned back from Hell. So I do not mean indentured slaves,” she spoke in hisses, “I mean his employees.”

  “Fine, his employees.” I controlled my tone. “Why are they detectives?”

  “In order to work off your sins, you must bring in other sinners. As a lower detective, you complete basic groundwork, enabling the higher-classed teams to bring in targets.”

  “You mean, we’re like a vigilante police force?” I spluttered, realizing how frigging strange this was. I’d stumbled into a crazy nightmare, and now apparently I was going to become a detective tracking down crims for the god of revenge.

  “No, we are not vigilantes. But yes, we police the populace of Saint Helios City at the behest of Vali. He identifies sinners, and we bring them in.”

  I snorted. It was a dark, judgmental move. “Then what? He chucks them off the roof?”

  She turned on me, her nostrils flaring, her gaze blazing. “Rest assured that I will share your behavior with Vali. If you continue to obstruct, he will add more sins to your file. And if he does that—”

  I felt my cheeks stiffen. “I’ll be here for longer,” I managed through a thin crack in my equally thin lips.

  She nodded low, meeting my gaze with all the implied force of a sword to my throat.

  I sighed, releasing the tension that had crept up my shoulders. Looking at the floor, I asked, “So I join the lower detectives, then? I’ll be expected to track down criminals and bring them to justice?”

  “No. You will not mete out justice. Only Vali will do that. As I have already said, you will simply do the groundwork on cases, tracking targets down. Now come.”

  With no other choice, I followed.

  I listened to Megan’s heels clicking along the carpet as she led me down the corridor. A second later, we faced a door. A knot of nerves twisted hard in my gut as I stared at it. For all intents and purposes, it was nothing more than an ordinary door. It didn’t have chains strung across it, and there was no great big keep-out sign. If you believed my stomach, this would be the gateway down to Hell.

  Surreptitiously, I inched a hand underneath my shirt and clutched my stomach, willing my nerves to stay put.

  Megan reached around her neck and pulled out a lanyard. She grabbed a sophisticated-looking keycard and swiped it close to the door. I couldn’t see a keypad. That, apparently, didn’t matter. As soon as the keycard swiped over the bold red paint, something unclicked from within. The door opened inwards.

  Don’t ask me what I was expecting. In my current mood, I honestly thought this jolly painted door would lead down to the Devil himself. Instead? It led to an office – large, open plan, and chock full of people. Apart from a few glaring differences, it looked exactly like an ordinary open-plan office from a normal workplace. But there were glaring differences. In the corner were two people practicing magic, great glowing discs of light filtering out from their touches as they selected various magical weapons before continuing their lesson.

  I wasn’t ready for this. Okay, I’d seen a lot of magic in the past two days. This was worse. It normalized the incredible. There was no longer any hiding from the reality of this world when my officemates could call on the very power of fire itself.

  I clammed up as I stood there. And you guessed it, my breathing began to get shallower and shallower.

  Megan, if she noticed, didn’t appear to care. She led me forward with a flick of her manicured hand. “You’ll be stationed over here,” she pointed out as she gestured toward a desk far along the opposite end of the room. While most of the other desks were generous, and nearly all of them offered a relatively splendid view through the plate-glass windows beyond, this desk was shoved right into a corner and clearly was intended for the lowest member of the pecking order. Me.

  I barely reacted as Megan gestured me forward and patted the desk. “You’ll be given a caseload just like everyone else. And just like everyone else,” her voice dipped low, “you will be expected to finish it on time. Vali does not abide by slackers.”

  My stomach sank at that warning, yet my curiosity peaked. You’d think, considering all the trouble my curiosity had gotten me into today, I would have shoved it into a corner. I didn’t. A pronounced frown spread across my lips. “Why do you call him that?”

  Megan’s lips stiffened. “Call him what?”

  “Vali?” I forced myself to ask, even though my stomach was starting to sink.

  There were plenty of other people in the office, all of them doing their own thing. They all stopped and looked over at us.

  The hair along the back of my neck stood on end, but rather than wave my hands frantically in front of my face and pretend I’d asked the question by mistake, I stood my ground. “Isn’t his name Franklin Saunders?” I asked in a much more careful, wary voice.

  Rather than lash out and hit me for asking what looked like an unforgivable question, Megan’s shoulders deflated. “So you don’t know, then?”

  Carefully, I shook my head. “Don’t know what?”

  “They’re two different people,” she answered, her voice dropping low, but not in a warning. It was almost as if she was terrified Franklin Saunders himself would saunter over at that exact moment.

  I frowned so hard I thought I’d cut my cheeks in two. “Sorry, two different people? What does that mean? Does he have a twin or something?” I asked, eyes opening wide as I realized that must be the case.

  Megan simply shook her head. “No, he does not have a twin. They share the same body. But they are… different men,” she said quietly.

  There was something about the way she said different that sent cold fright shifting hard down my back. It shook through my legs, and I had to stifle the sensation with a cough. “Sorry? Different men? What does that mean?”

  Everyone in this large office had stopped working, and they were all staring at me. I was clearly making an ass out of myself, but I couldn’t stop. The more I questioned Megan, the more sense it made. When Franklin Saunders had picked me up last night and cared for my wounds – he’d honestly felt like a different man to the cold asshole who’d berated me a few minutes ago.

  Megan continued to look at me with a wary, pressured look. “A word of advice. I realize you’re new to this world, but if I were you, I’d be very careful what kind of questions I asked. Now, this is your desk,” she pointed out needlessly as she tapped it. As soon as her hand struck the wood, it upset a cloud of dust that, at first glance, simply hadn’t been there.

  I backed away, coughing and batting at the lethal cloud.

  Megan simply gave a demure cough and took a step back. “You’ve already had enough time to settle in. You’ll get your first case this afternoon. Considering your exploits last night,” she looked down her nose at me, “I suggest you do a good job on this. It’s not unheard of for someone to gather more sins while under Vali’s care. And if you do, and those sins are considered severe enough—” She didn’t finish her sentence.

  It didn’t take a genius to realize what she was trying to say here. Gather more sins under Vali’s so-called care, and I would wind up with a death sentence.

  I made no attempt whatsoever to hide my disgust as I stared at her. In my books, Vali was the worst criminal of all. Judge, jury, and executioner, he had no moral right to do any of this. If he ever came up in a court of law, he would pay for his sins tenfold. But the god would never submit to human justice. This was all a game to him.

  Megan caught sight of my less-than-kind expression. She leaned in, locking her gaze on mine, her lips so stiff her bright red lipstick couldn’t hide how white they’d just become. “I suggest you check your attitude at the door. Vali gave you another chance. For that, you should be infinitely grateful. Because if he hadn’t stepped in—” She didn’t finish her sentence again, and instead straightened up, carefully patting down her stunning blouse as she took a step away from the desk. “You’ll get your first case this afternoon. I’ll be watching you. And I report directly to Vali,” she warned. She turned, the sound of her heels clicking over the floor the only thing that could be heard until she reached the door, opened it, and walked out.

  The office had been bustling when I came in, but now it was as quiet as a graveyard. Everyone stared at me. They came from all walks of life. The guy right across from me had the face and build of a middle manager, somebody who’d spent the last 30 years of their life tirelessly pushing pens around. The woman behind him with her angular features and hard gaze looked like she’d been in the police force or the army.

  Though I felt like hiding my head in my hands to get away from everybody’s direct stares, I hunched down and sat quietly. Experimentally, I tried to wipe the dust off my desk. Big mistake. It erupted around me in a lethal cloud. I patted frantically at it, trying to disperse it before I gave myself a lung disorder.