Jim and Isaac both hopped on the Total Pass Train and ignored the rhetoricals. Which was easy to do considering how much needed figuring out.

The fact that Matthias’s number two had come in and killed himself with Isaac’s gun was only surface dressing. The core truth was that Devina was all over this situation. But to what end? If Isaac was the target, why the fuck hadn’t she just taken him now while Jim wasn’t around?

“Did she—he have a clear shot at you?” Jim asked. “At any point?”

“You mean to kill? Hell, yeah—I was up against the wall, palms planted, with my weapons on the floor. That’s about as clear as you get.”

“This makes no sense.” He looked down at the body. “No sense.”

“We have to get rid of the body,” Isaac said. “Before I go, we have to—”

“I’m not letting you turn yourself in.”

“Not your call.”

“God damn it—”

“My thoughts exactly.” Isaac frowned, his narrowed eyes roving around Jim’s puss. “And what the fuck happened to you last night?”

For a split second, Jim strongly considered banging his head against the wall, except that was redundant, given the shape he was in. How the hell was he going to get Isaac out of this mess?

It wasn’t like he could come clean and explain what was really doing: Well, see, I really did die, and Matthias is not the problem. I’m trying to keep you away from a demon who wants your soul. And I don’t have a clue what she’s playing at here.

Yeah, that would go over like a lead balloon.

Isaac didn’t wait for an answer to the question about Jim’s face. Clearly, the guy had been in a brawl with eight hundred bouncers or some shit, and that was not his business. What did have his name written all over it was this operative who’d somehow managed to magically fix his own arm before he killed himself.

Unless . . . twins?

Shit . . . yes. That had to be it. And what a tool for Matthias to fuck with people’s minds. No wonder he’d picked the SOB to be second in command.

As Jim cursed again and took up wearing a path in the hall’s runner, Isaac bent down and quickly unbuttoned the second in command’s sleeve. No trace of anything on that forearm in the form of a surgical repair, no evidence the skin or bone had ever been broken.

Twins. Had to be.

With a quick rip, he tore open the black shirt, buttons popping off and bouncing on the floor. The bulletproof vest that was revealed was a surprise. Yeah, they were standard-issue, but why would you bother with one if you were going to turn your skull into a piñata?

Unsure exactly what he was looking for, he stripped the Velcro straps off the vest—