Jim ground his molars. Man, this was just like being in with Matthias’s bunch of sharks. Even the people you worked with, who supposedly were on the same side as you, were capable of serving you up like dinner to the enemy.

“Tell me something, Eddie,” he bit out.

“What.”

“That binding scale you were talking about. Is sex one of the ways Devina binds herself to people.” When there was only silence, he said, “Is it. Is it.”

“Yes,” the guy replied finally.

“Fuck you, Adrian,” Jim said loud and hard. “Fuck you for real.”

Adrian wrenched the wheel to the right, slammed on the brakes, and threw the truck into park. As the horns of other cars screamed and people cursed, the son of a bitch got out and marched around the hood wearing the expression of a guy who had a crowbar in his hand.

He yanked open Jim’s door. “Get out and let’s do this.”

Jim’s hair trigger went off, fueled by that dead innocent girl, the fear on Marie-Terese’s face, the aggression that Adrian was throwing off…and the fact that he’d had a demon straddle his hips and ride him until they both came.

It was so on.

“Can you two steakheads not do this in public?” Eddie barked.

No chance of that. Jim’s fists were up and ready to fly before the soles of his boots hit the shoulder of the road, and Adrian was likewise posed for punches.

“I said I was sorry,” Adrian spat. “You think I like this job of mine? You think I was ready to come back and break in a fucking greenhorn?”

Jim didn’t bother talking. He just hauled back and punched the bastard right in the jaw, knuckles snapping out and making contact in the blink of an eye. The impact was so hard, the fallen angel’s skull kicked back and sent his great-looking hair into a full Farrah Fawcett, with locks blowing in the wind.

“That was payback for up in Devina’s bathroom, motherfucker,” Jim said. “Now I’ll work off the other shit.”

Adrian spat blood. “I knocked you out to save your ass, son.”

“Fuck. Off. Gramps.”

Last word anyone got in for a while.

Adrian bull-rushed, catching Jim around the middle and pile-driving him back against the side of the truck. As the impact stung him from ear to heel, Jim just shrugged off the pain in spite of the body-wide dent he was sure he’d left in the quarter panel. Without skipping a beat, he grabbed onto Adrian’s hair and head-butted the guy’s nose, and as the thing went geyser all over both of them, Ad’s response was just as fast—he returned the insult by kneeing Jim in the groin so hard, he clutched his balls and gagged.