His…new fiancée likes nice things, especially cars, and we’re running out of space between his properties to put them all.” Leith sighed. “I always hated you and him, but she’s a spoiled fae Lady. I don’t know what he sees in her.”
“Everything that isn’t me, probably,” I answered, chuckling. “And you know it.”
Raphael stiffened behind me, a confusing reaction.
“This guy used to be a boyfriend?”
I turned slowly and tilted my head back. I wasn’t short, five ten, but Raphael was a giant.
“Is that a problem?” I asked in disbelief.
“Just a little weird that you would run to an ex-boyfriend’s place with everything going on.”
“Well, he was never my boyfriend,” I said carefully. “We worked together, didn’t like each other, and had great sex. There’s a difference.”
“Madam Sahni doesn’t have relationships the way most people do,” Leith said as he put the kettle on the stove. “She’s an acquired taste, and it takes a strong personality to put up with her. Lord Cassius can only tolerate her so much, which is why this is not his permanent residence.”
“Wow,” I whispered, looking back at the butler. “Let’s just…not ever say any of that ever again, please.”
Leith had the balls to chuckle.
“I’m beginning to come to the same conclusion,” Raphael muttered behind me. He made the smart decision of stepping away from me as I whirled back on him. He continued moving away to sit on a stool at the breakfast counter. I dropped my fangs and hissed at him.
“Here you go,” Leith said suddenly. A phone appeared on the counter. Grabbing it, I called Cassius. I didn’t have time for the verbal foreplay. I just needed Cassius to pick up the damn phone and get his ass to Phoenix. Then I could reengage in battle with the cunning ass butler and the idiot not-human.
“Leith—”
“Not Leith,” I snapped. “You fucking prick, you should have called me back fucking hours ago. What the hell?”
“Oh, dear gods, you’re at my house,” he muttered. “What happened?”
“Sinclair and his lackeys showed up at my fucking house, that’s what fucking happened. They’re playing fucking hardball. Sinclair is now on the kill list.”
“Kaliya—”
“He tried to fucking kill me, Cassius. He said, and I fucking quote, ‘I think this is the last time I’m going to deal with you,’ then had one of his fucking goons try to shoot me in the fucking head. I have a witness.”
“Okay, okay, calm down, please,” he said gently. I knew the tone. It was the tone he used when we fought. It only pissed me off more.
“Why didn’t you call me back?” I demanded.
“I was kind of busy, explaining to our bosses why I needed to open a case against one of the biggest supernatural companies in the world. You do realize that Mygi is considered one of the more respectable supernatural businesses—”
“They put a bounty out on a human! How respectable can they fucking be?”
“He’s not human, though,” Cassius reminded me. “They called in the CEO of Mygi about it. He’s not human, wasn’t human when they initially captured him after he killed a bunch of humans, and he wasn’t human when he escaped. They consider him a danger to the public, and the Tribunal is inclined to agree. It’s not looking good for him or you, Kaliya.”
I was speechless for a moment, looking up at Raphael, my heart pounding. What Cassius was saying…was the perfect fucking spin Mygi had needed. They had known they could get caught. They had a backup plan.
“He’s…he’s not…” I tried to form something. “Cassius…”
“There was a small vote,” he said quietly. “And your case barely won.”
“Who was the swing?” I asked.
“Hasan,” he said with a sigh. “The werecat is back for good, it seems, and it looks like we’re going to see him a lot. It’s thrown the entire Tribunal out of whack. They had gotten used to life without him.”
“He was gone for a hundred years,” I said, licking my lips. “Did the Mygi CEO have an explanation why they marked Raphael as human on the bounty?”
“They noticed the same thing you did. He presents as human in smell until he’s…not human anymore and has his abilities, then he goes back to human. They figured it would be the easiest way for people to track him down since they don’t know what he is either.”
“They experimented on him for five years, and they don’t know?” I didn’t believe that for a damn second.
“We couldn’t put him under oath, so there’s a chance he was lying.