Rage boiled through his body, frothing his blood until his vision started to get wavy. “Goddamn you.”

“What’s it going to be, Jim.”

Jim glanced down at his old boss’s ruined face. The skin across the bone structure had turned an alarming gray color, and his mouth had cranked open even though his breath was shallow.

Fucking A . . .

Fucking hell.

On a curse, Jim turned away, started walking . . . and was entirely unsurprised when Devina materialized in his path.

“Where are you going, Jim?”

Christ, he wished she’d stop saying his frickin’ name.

“I’m taking him to his car. And then you and I are leaving together.”

The smile she gave him was radiant and made him sick to his stomach. But a trade was a trade and at least Matthias would live to see the next dawn—yeah, sure, there was undoubtedly some kind of death waiting in the wings for him, whether it was a physical collapse or his dirty deeds coming back to haunt him. Jim, however, wasn’t going to make the call as to the “when” if he could avoid it. That was up to Nigel and his ilk—or whoever the hell was in charge of destinies.

Tonight, he was going to keep the man alive, and that was all he knew. Because even a sociopath deserved something better than falling prey to the likes of Devina.

And hopefully, Jim would make it through whatever she had planned for him with a little more information about what made her tick—and how to take her down.

Intel remained everything.

Back in Boston, Isaac put the hood of his windbreaker up to hide his face, and then frog-marched Grier’s dad through her front door. Once they were outside, he was very aware of how exposed he was—hood or no hood, his identity was pretty damn obvious. But it was a cost/benefit situation: he didn’t trust Childe and Grier wanted the guy gone.

So do the math.

As he hustled father dearest around to the driver’s side of the Mercedes, the cold air seemed to tighten the man up, the remnants of the hard-core confron with his daughter getting replaced with a determination Isaac had to respect.

“You know what he’s like,” Childe said as he took out his key fob. “You know what he’ll do to her.”

The image of Grier’s smart, kind eyes was inescapable. And yeah, he could just imagine the sort of shit Matthias would hurt her with. Kill her with.

Might even make the father watch again.

Might make Isaac play witness, too.

And didn’t that make him want to throw up.

“The solution is within you,” Childe said. “You know what the solution is.”

Yes, he did. And it was a bitch.

“I beg you . . . save my daughter—”

From out of the shadows, Jim Heron’s buddy with the piercings stepped forward. “Evenin’, gents.”