His expression was blank as he opened the door and let her through. A ruckus behind her made her turn, and she saw the men who'd been sent to escort her getting a dressing down from the bouncer at the front.
Stepping into the room, she felt a drop in temperature and wrapped her arms around herself as the door swung shut behind her. The lighting was dim. A single low-wattage bulb in a floor lamp cast a small circle of light around a man sitting on a straight-backed chair in the center of the room. Before him was a stand-up mirror. He was lean and hard, and even though he was sitting down, she could see that he wasn't overly tall.
"Big Ralph?" she asked.
"My reputation precedes me." His mouth shaped an ugly smile. Then he leaned forward and she saw him start in surprise as she stepped into the circle of light and he got a look at her face. She wondered at that.
"You've been hunting me for a long time."
"And you've been fucking hard to catch," he snarled. "From what I hear, you stayed ahead of three of my predecessors." He stared at her for a long moment, the seconds scratching by like nails on a chalkboard. "Funny, you don't look like you're a hundred years old."
So he knew what she was.
She suspected he knew things about her that she didn't know about herself. A spark of fury pushed aside a bit of her fear.
She noticed then that his knuckles were split and scabbed, like he'd recently been in a fight, and his face was weathered. He was mortal. He could die.
And she couldn't.
This was what she'd been afraid of? This man who could bleed and hurt and die?
"What do you want with me?"
He held up his hands, palms forward. "Look," he said. "Parents and kids fight. I got a son, myself. Sometimes, I give him a shot to the head because it's the only way he'll learn. He gets pissed. He takes off. Then he gets over it and comes back. It's time you got over it."
She felt like she was falling down the rabbit hole, head first. Or maybe she'd already landed on her head and this whole thing was a hallucination.
An incredulous laugh escaped her. "What are you talking about? You and your…predecessors have been hunting me for a century and you want to talk to me about your son?"
He blinked, looking nonplussed.
"He doesn't want to talk to you about his son," Kai's voice came from behind her. She spun, a surge of emotion buffeting her, a convoluted mix of love and gratitude and relief. He'd come for her just as he'd promised. And she hadn't doubted that he would.
"I told you to stay put," he said, his voice soft, his gaze intent as it slid over her features like a caress.
She was so glad to see him, it almost hurt.
"You're not the boss of me," she said, and offered a small smile. He returned it, his dark eyes glittering in the dim light. "Did you collect what you were after?" she asked.
"I did. Safe and sound."
"You're outside your turf," Big Ralph rose from the chair, his stance aggressive.
"Not your call," Kai said, and his gaze flicked to the mirror. "I have a feeling this is one time we can talk things out like gentlemen."
There was an undercurrent here she didn't understand, and it made her wary.
"What's going on?" Amber asked.
"See for yourself," Big Ralph said, and spun the mirror to face her.
For a second, she thought she was looking at a reflection of herself. Then she realized it was a young man in the mirror. And he looked like a tall, muscled version of…her. The eyes were the same. The nose. The mouth. His chin was stronger, more masculine. His cheekbones more chiseled. He could be her brother. Or her—
"He's your father," Kai said softly. "It's a doorway to the Underworld. He's a demon. He can't come Topworld unless he's summoned and slips into a human's skin."
For a long moment, there was only a roaring in her ears and a feeling of stunned disorientation. She didn't understand what he was saying. And then she did.
Her father. A demon. The demon of lust. Who ran prostitutes and drugs and who knew what else.
Panting, she spun to face Kai, then spun back to the mirror.
The image stared back at her, and he smiled.
She felt like her whole world was turning on its axis, while at the same time suddenly everything made sense.
"How long have you known?" she asked Kai.
"With certainty? Only now, when I walked in this room. But I suspected when you held the darksoul on its tether. There are only two beings that can hold spun energy like that. Soul reapers. And demons. Soul reapers are all male. Which left—"
"A demon's daughter," she whispered. Sin's daughter.
Kai caught her hand and brought her fingers to his lips. "Amber," he said, waiting until she met his gaze before he continued. "It doesn't change who you are. It doesn't change anything at all."
But it did. It changed everything. She didn't need to run. Her mother had been wrong.