I’d seen the show too. I joined the crowd in quiet rapture because my incubus was ephemeral. Spellbinding in silk and radiant in spotlight. But none of that compared to how he lit up for me, between my legs or under my body, a performance he gave only in private.

  Was it a performance, though? An act?

  “I haven’t kissed him,” I said.

  “D’accord, the poison, I know.” Colette waved me off. “Frankly, mon ami, I don’t think it would make much difference if he did enchant you. You couldn’t be more beguiled.”

  I glanced toward the bar where the togaed bartender was finessing a lime-rind garnish. Instrumental music droned, creating an atmosphere opposite that of the Dollhouse’s bass-thumping bedlam.

  “I’ve not seen you like this in decades,” Colette continued. “You’re even drinking on a weekday. It’s adorable.”

  “I think I’m having a midlife crisis,” I muttered, then shoved my bourbon to the far side of the table.

  Colette looked after the rejected glass before turning toward me with a raised brow. “You’re a demon, Beck. You don’t have a midlife.”

  I threw up my hands. “Then what the hell is this?”

  My exclamation garnered the attention of a few tourists waiting for check-in and the man who’d been here since last night, drinking through the money he hadn’t lost at the poker tables.

  Colette leaned forward and rested her chin on her hand. “He’s sweet, isn’t he?”

  Safe to assume she meant Zephyr and not the down-on-his-luck drunk.

  I exhaled. “He’s too sweet. Or too clever. I can’t tell.”

  Colette clucked her tongue. “I don’t believe that.”

  She was right.

  Why was she always right?

  Grumbling, I laid my head back on the top of the booth seat, consulting the murals overhead. “I’m not built for this,” I said. “I like stability. Predictability. Zephyr is…” I trailed off, studying the mythic heroes decorating the ceiling. After a long pause, I swallowed. “He makes me stupid.”

  When I straightened, Colette was smiling over the rim of her martini glass. “He makes you happy.”

  I couldn’t deny that, but my feelings didn’t change the facts.

  “It’s a mistake,” I said.

  “Or an opportunity,” she countered. “You’ve become… disillusioned. Adrift. Your days are⁠—”

  “My days?” My meaningful look targeted the hellhound first, then the drowsy lounge around us. The rattle of ice in the bartender’s shaker was the loudest sound in the room.

  “Our days,” Colette conceded, “are not what I would call fulfilling.”

  Whether in this lounge or the dead zone of my office, I couldn’t deny we’d become a little… pathetic. I was an aged being, a higher demon who once held status in Hell, and Colette was a warrior. A French revolutionary now possessed by the soul of a battle-ready hellhound. Yet here we were, day drinking, fresh out of our resident suites where we lorded over the city from on high. Pitiful.

  “Has the crossword lost its luster?” I asked.

  Colette scoffed. “Years ago. And so have you. But I think you may be able to get it back.”

  “From a stripper,” I muttered.

  Colette’s brow dipped in warning. “You have to stop calling him that.”

  “From a sex worker.”

  “Lucas.” She said my name the way a mother would, but her austerity gave way to affection as she continued. “He’s a man. A beautiful young man who chooses to spend his time with you. I’ve seen you watch him onstage. Did you know he watches you too? He looks for you in the crowd. And when he sees you, he smiles.”

  He smiled often in the spotlight. So joyful when he was in the air, carefree and full of the whimsy conveyed in his movements, the music, and the masterpieces he created night after night.

  But the shadows returned the moment his feet hit the ground. Darkness lurked in the furrows of his brow and the creases around his eyes. Unspoken worries, because while we were getting away with our liaisons, I was fairly certain Maslow was getting away with something much worse.

  I’d told Zephyr I would fix it. I’d made that promise, and then I did nothing. Maybe it made me selfish, but I liked our arrangement. I liked that Zephyr counted on me. I liked knowing he searched for me from the stage. I liked that I made him smile.

  And—this was the worst part—I liked the boundary between us. Zephyr was cleanly compartmentalized, tucked away in that neon-lit corner of my life. What we shared was a part-time indulgence. I stayed just long enough to enjoy him, to feel connected to someone for a while, then I left him behind without consequence. He stayed in his world, and I slipped back into mine. No overlap. No mess.

  Anything else would require commitment. More than that, it would require opening the part of myself I’d closed off long ago. I would have to expose the soft, scarred underbelly of my heart and risk rejection by a beautiful young man who had his pick of lovers, and he could ruin me.

  That was why I hadn’t approached Maslow and why I didn’t press Zephyr for answers about his fear or his hunger. Because getting those answers might’ve forced me to act, and acting meant endangering the fragile thing we had.

  So I didn’t.

  I let him stay afraid.

  I let him think I’d fix it, and I didn’t.

  “I don’t deserve him,” I said, slowly arriving at the revelation. “He wants nothing from me. Nothing that matters. He turned down my money. I haven’t offered him any deals… He’s content with my time. Touch. Intimacy.”

  Colette stared at me, incredulous. “Those things don’t matter?”

  “Anyone could give him that,” I replied. “Anyone with a dick and a decent amount of stamina could satisfy him.”

  Leaning back, Colette narrowed her eyes. “You really think it’s that simple? That he’s that simple?”

  I didn’t answer as she pressed on, her voice low and firm.

  “You keep trying to diminish this, to make it small so you can feel large. But you should know better than anyone—real affection is not that easy to give. Or to fake.”

  I stared across the table at my rejected bourbon, watching the light beam through it in a honey glow. Colette was always right because she was always honest. Honest the way Zephyr was. It was a trait I valued. Admired. And one I might do well to emulate.

  “I didn’t make a deal with him,” I confessed, more to myself than her. “Not like I usually do. No contract. No fine print. But I did make a promise.”

  Her brows lifted. “What promise?”

  “That first night we snuck out to the limo, Zephyr showed me something.” The words felt heavy in my mouth. “He said… not a lot but enough. Something’s going on in the Dollhouse, and I told him I’d look into it.”

  “But you haven’t.”

  The admission felt more damning when spoken aloud.

  “I’ve known Maz a long time, and I think…” I paused, recalling the conversation in the wraith’s office. The portfolio of blueprints. The scathing comments about the lesser demons who made his business profitable. “He said a few things too. About other souls in Hell. Demons who want to get out. If he’s exploiting Zephyr… If that’s how he curated his staff…”

  Colette’s expression was unreadable. Pondering perhaps, the information already at my disposal. The puzzle pieces fit together in a way I wished they didn’t, creating an ugly picture of the world behind the Dollhouse’s velvet curtain.

  “You know I’ve never seen any of the dancers on the Strip?” I asked as a sick feeling settled in my gut. “Not in a casino or restaurant or another club. Never once outside the Dollhouse. And every time I take Zephyr to the limo, he looks around like the world is new.”

  He claimed the dancers couldn’t leave the club, told me he couldn’t, but I hadn’t… what? Hadn’t believed him?

  No, I just hadn’t taken it seriously. I’d been too busy taking advantage.

  Colette’s brown eyes narrowed. “You’re going now? To take care of it?”

  I wasn’t sure I could. Even less sure I wanted to since the problem I aimed to solve was currently benefiting me. If I fixed it, I could become superfluous. Zephyr’s life would be better, but I might not be welcome in it.

  A speech hovered behind Colette’s pinched lips. Something about altruism, or the purity of love, or one of a thousand ideals demons weren’t supposed to believe in. And if I lingered here, wasting this already unsatisfying day, I was bound to hear every word of it.

  To save us both the headache, I planted my palms on the tabletop and slid toward the edge of the booth.

  “Yeah, I’m going,” I said.

  Because that was the promise. And as long as I ignored the possibility that Zephyr was on some kind of leash, I had no business pretending I wasn’t holding the other end.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  Beck

  The bouncers weren’t waiting for me this time, as my arrival was unexpected. After knocking on the Dollhouse’s locked door and receiving no response, I called Maslow and told him I was outside, ready to talk.

  Now I was in his office, sitting on the visitor’s side of his obnoxious desk while he stood near the windowed wall, watching the stage below.

  The dancers were there, practicing the routines they performed seven nights a week. I couldn’t imagine needing to rehearse as much as they seemed to, or how exhausting it must have been. Zephyr never complained, but he didn’t talk much about himself. The few times I’d probed about his life before coming to work at the Dollhouse, he’d redirected the conversation. I hadn’t realized until the drive over here that I hardly knew a thing about him.

  Maslow rolled a cigar between his sausage fingers, toying with it more than smoking it and dropping ash with every sweep of his hand.

  “I knew you’d be back,” he said while his gaze stayed fixed on Hemlock, who was midway through a pole routine that had him upside down with his head angled dangerously toward the stage floor. “You’re a savvy man, Beckett. Not one to let this kind of opportunity pass you by.”

  Of course he meant Fairmont Street. As far as he was concerned, that’s where we’d left things. So much had happened since then, I’d nearly forgotten his ill-fated proposal altogether.

  “I’m not here to talk about your future business, Maz,” I replied. “I wanted to ask about your current one.”

  The wraith rounded on me with a steady smile. “Something wrong with the service?”

  I shook my head. “The service is fine.”

  He pinched the cigar between his thumb and forefinger, then lifted it for a drag. When he spoke, a cloud of smoke chased his words. “Must be more than fine to keep you coming back. My doormen tell me you’ve been through almost every night for two weeks now.”

  It wasn’t a crime to attend his club, so why did I feel like a child with my hand caught in a cookie jar?

  Kicking one leg over the other, I tried to get comfortable in what was rapidly becoming an uncomfortable situation. “The aerial act is nice,” I said. “Less skin, more substance. Something you don’t often see in places like this.”

  Maslow chuckled, and his gut bounced. He’d gotten bigger since I’d last seen him. His suit coat didn’t even button over his distended belly.

  “You can call him by name, Beckett,” Maslow said. “My announcer does every time he takes the stage.”

  And my being coy about it was more damning than anything.

  “Zephyr,” I muttered grudgingly.

  “Cherry,” Maslow corrected. “He’s a crowd favorite. Sweet young thing.”

  He turned toward the window again, and I tracked his gaze to where Zephyr perched like a bird in his hoop. In a cropped sweatshirt and leg warmers, he looked cozy and comfortable. Soft. The same way his hair was soft against my skin, tickling when I nosed his neck in the moments I wished I could kiss him.

  “My VIPs can’t get enough,” Maslow said. “That mouth, those eyes, that tight little body… He was made to open doors. Or legs. Whatever gets the job done.”

  The wraith was clearly trying to get a rise out of me, and it was working. Somehow, this discussion had become about me, and I needed to turn it around.

  “Speaking of opening doors,” I began. “He showed me something the other night.”

  Again Maslow gave me his attention, peering past the plume of cigar smoke.

  “A room in the back hallway,” I said. “Poster bed, padded walls, restraints… Not what I expected from the guided tour.” His lips pursed, but I didn’t pause. “You branching out, Maz? Because it looked a hell of a lot more like a brothel than a nightclub.”

  The wraith’s eyes were small and beady in his plump face, but no less menacing as he narrowed them at me. “What kind of manager would I be if I didn’t provide for my employee’s needs? That incubus is a spider; all I did was build him a web. Don’t pout because you happen to be caught in it.”

  I curled my fingers around the armrests of the chair. “I’m not caught in anything,” I replied without fully believing it.

  “Says the fly.” Maslow chortled. “But by all means, let’s untangle this. In the presence of all parties involved.” Grabbing the knob, he yanked the door open and leaned out to shout at the dancers below.

  “Cherry! Get your ass up here!”

  The door slammed hard enough to rattle the wall, and my lip curled.

  “Do you always talk to them like that?”

  Maslow waved his hand, then went to his desk chair and dropped into it. “I try not to talk to them at all. Just a bunch of common whores.”

  I’d called Zephyr as much in my mind. Maybe a few times out loud, but it sounded so much worse coming from Maslow. It didn’t take me long to figure out the difference: he meant it.

  “They make you a lot of money,” I reminded him, not bothering to keep the edge of irritation out of my voice.

  Maslow took a final puff of his cigar, then stubbed it out in the crystal ashtray on the desktop. “If this were all about money, I’d have a lot more, and a fair bit of yours.”

  “I don’t follow,” I said.

  The office door opened, and Zephyr peeked in, purple eyes wide. He spotted me, and joy pulled at his features before confusion took its place.

  “Come in,” Maslow commanded him, then pointed at the tufted leather chair next to mine. “Sit.” He said the word in the same blunt, unaffected voice one would use on a dog. And, like a dog, Zephyr obeyed, dropping into his designated seat with his lips pinned shut and his gaze on the floor. Shadows ringed his eyes and stained the skin beneath his cheekbones.

  He looked hungry.

  How could he always be hungry?

  “How long have you been taking advantage of me, Beckett?”

  Maslow’s inquiry jarred me. Zephyr too, by the way his head snapped up. Now he didn’t just look starved, he looked guilty too. Worst poker face in Vegas. He’d give us both away.

  “I beg your pardon?” I said.

  “Don’t play dumb,” the wraith snipped. “I’ve seen the tapes. Talked to my bouncers. You think I wouldn’t notice you two sneaking in and out of the emergency exit like goddamn ghosts?”

  I didn’t dare look at Zephyr while keeping my expression carefully schooled.

  “Must have been riveting footage,” I replied. “Is that the kind of thing you were hoping to capture on your not-so-hidden cameras?”

  “You mean a higher demon chasing tail like a horny teenager?” Maslow’s thick lips peeled back with his sneer. “It’s more shameful than salacious. Not to mention cheap. My ponies are pay-to-ride, and you’ve damn near worn the shoes off this one.” He motioned to Zephyr, who shrank in his seat. “So, unless you want this to get messy, I expect payment for services rendered.”

  Given Colette’s comment about Maslow being a pimp with a cane, I was glad she wasn’t here to see this. But I wasn’t worried for my kneecaps, more angry at the wraith for turning his reckoning into mine. I’d gotten no answers and fixed nothing, and now I was on the ropes with Zephyr observing the whole ordeal.

  I glanced at him. His red hair was pinned back with bobby pins, so there was nothing to hide the flush on his face, and his hands were knotted in his lap.

  Setting my jaw, I squared myself with Maslow. “How much? I’ll cut you a check.” I reached into my jacket for my money clip and had barely gotten it out when the wraith shook his head.

  “Put that away,” he said. “I want other things from you, Beckett. Surely you recall?”

  The question hung in the air, and I floundered for only a moment before everything became clear.

  “Fairmont.” The word felt like a curse.

  “Bingo!” Maslow crowed. “You close that deal for me, and I’ll consider us even. Might even throw in a few passes for future use. You seem to have developed a bit of a habit.” He indicated Zephyr again, who I wished like hell had never been brought into this. Not when I was beside him rather than in front. I got the impression he’d endured enough of Maslow’s abuse without also suffering for my sins.

  Still…

  “I’m not touching Fairmont,” I said. “But I’ll pay. How much?”

  “Depends.” Maslow pitched back, bridging his fingers, making a show of it. Then he smirked. “How many times have you fucked him?”

  My grip tightened on the clip in my hand. “You charging by the orgasm?”

  Maslow looked at Zephyr and repeated the question with gravel in his tone. “How many?”

  Zephyr gaped. When he glanced at me, something in my chest twinged. “I-I don’t know,” he stammered.

  Maslow slanted forward in his chair, palms on the desktop, brow low and dark over his eyes. “Lie to me again, and it’s your ass,” he hissed. “You’re lucky Mister Beckett is amenable, or I’d throw you back in the pit and drag out another slut who won’t try to swindle me.”

  “What the hell, Maz?”

  The twinge was nothing compared to the rush of rage that drove me to my feet. My glamour, the polished shell shielding my infernal form from the world, wavered. Just a flicker, but I felt it, and from the look on Zephyr’s face, he saw it.