Demon Fire (Angel Fire #3) - Marie Johnston Page 0,81
in the same view.
She couldn’t use the windows. There weren’t many and the ones in the apartment had been sealed. She hadn’t known looking at the outside of the building that it even had windows. For her purposes, they’d been rendered useless. The stairs were out. She could sneak up them, but Andy would know. She couldn’t risk him thinking she was there for anything other than convalescence before the birth of the baby.
And she was over four months pregnant. Her belly was tightly rounded, but not enough to tell under a baggy New York-New York sweatshirt. She couldn’t take much more time. Soon, it’d be harder to get around and more dangerous to engage in anything physical. That left the dance floor and Andy’s permission to roam there when the party wasn’t hopping.
Voices sounded outside the door. She crept closer. Andy was talking to her guard. He rarely stopped by her place.
She jumped to the door and swung it open, like she was going to breeze out and stand post in front of the window. “Oh. Andy. What are you doing out of your hole?”
He was taller than her, but only by a handful of inches. Not like Boone or any of her teammates. He drew his shoulders back and stared down his nose at her. As if she’d be intimidated.
The bodyguards he kept had never been possessed. It had to be intentional. Did they even have tattoos? Andy probably wasn’t as concerned about demons as he was about warriors getting near him. They couldn’t risk hurting a human, thanks to Numen’s rigid guidelines.
How did he know, though?
“Sierra,” Andy said blandly. “Were you listening at the door?”
“Can you blame me for getting claustrophobic? It’s a nice place, but spending weeks on end in it sucks. I save my allotted window time for when something’s going on in the club.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up at her description. He liked his power over her. “Take a walk with me?”
She drew back. It couldn’t be this easy. “Seriously?”
“Come.” He shook his head at his bodyguards. It’d just be the two of them?
She shoved her feet into her slippers and rushed out. Andy might give the bodyguards instructions to search her place while he thought she wouldn’t know, but she didn’t care. He wouldn’t find anything, and she’d do another sweep for listening devices or cameras when she got back.
“Will I actually get to go outside? See some sun?” she asked as they waited for the elevator.
“Perhaps in time.”
Asshole. But at least he thought that was what she really wanted.
She didn’t. She just needed to visit the bathroom.
Breathing normally was difficult while he took his time selecting the ground floor. “What’s on the third floor?”
His eyes narrowed. “Dust and emptiness. Jameson was never good at carrying tasks to completion. He recruited disciples, then got distracted with gathering Daemon blades, trying to touch Numen metal, and finally getting into Numen himself. He spread himself too thin, lost focus. And he died.”
Boone’s advice rose in her mind. Learn to spot the tells and she’d know when Andy was lying. Andy didn’t lie, but he avoided topics and changed subjects when he was hiding something. The third floor was more than dust and emptiness. “Good thing you’re here.”
Her sarcastic tone actually made him smile until cold fury overtook his features. “He didn’t remember me. Jameson.”
Aw, Andy’s feelings were hurt. “How long was he with your mother?”
“Two years.”
Jameson had cheated on Chanel for that long? Hell, Jameson had probably cheated on Andy’s mother with someone else entirely.
The doors opened to the first floor. She sauntered out. Traces of cheap cologne and perfume lingered. There was more discarded jewelry strewn on the ground than stray napkins. On their way to the bar, she passed two styles of dangly earrings and a lost watch.
“People really forget their personal items here?” She toed the watch with her slipper. The display brightened, with a step count of zero. Someone was going to be pissed their steps all morning hadn’t been counted.
“They’re distracted.” Andy went around the bar and grabbed a bottle from under the counter, along with two glasses. He splashed amber liquid into one glass. “This is my special stash. Pappy Van Winkle fifteen-year bourbon. Twenty-five hundred a bottle. No one else is allowed to touch it.”
“Just water for me, please.”
His hand paused over the second glass. “The baby. Right.” He tilted his head toward a fridge. “Perrier is over there.”
Basically, serve yourself, then. Andy had a sensitive