“You’re a PD.”
“Yeah. I’m also the woman you’ve been sleeping with and the person who just healed her best friend. If you can’t reconcile all those parts of me, then fuck you.”
Drio scrubbed a hand over his face, half-curled over like he’d been punched.
I crossed my fingers that I was wrong about him. That when faced with the truth, he’d choose the reality of Leo over his prejudices.
He snapped straight up and jerked a finger at her. “You have two minutes to get out of my sight. After that, I see you? I’ll kill you. Clear?” he snarled.
Leo didn’t back down from the menace rolling off him. In fact, she looked a breath away from taking out her silver eyebrow ring and stabbing him with it. “Crystal.”
He flashed out.
She dragged in a breath, her hands trembling. “Guess you were right about him. I thought…” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now.”
I pulled her into a fierce hug. “I didn’t want to be right. Do you have somewhere to go?”
“Yeah. You good?”
“Only because of you. It’s out.” I stepped back, searching her face. Clear-headed once more, I didn’t regret my efforts to heal Ro, but my behavior over the past couple of days had been crazy messed up.
I practically strong-armed her out to her car. “Go. I almost lost Ro. I can’t lose you, too. Get out of here and go away for a few days. Hide.”
One more hug and a promise from her to call me if she needed me. I jogged down the drive, following her car, standing guard until she’d turned the corner at the end of the block. Leo had been forced into hiding and I couldn’t be there for her lest I risk the Brotherhood finding out about her.
I locked down any telltale emotion and went in search of the massive loose end.
Drio, still in his street clothes, was in the Vault laying into the bag with murder in his eyes. He pounded on it bare-fisted, his knuckles split and bleeding. “You let me be with that–”
The hits intensified.
“Not a ‘that.’ Leonie. Beautiful, wonderful Leo.”
“She’s a demon.”
I swallowed, inching closer, my hands up. “She can’t help who the sperm donor was. And you know how amazing she is. Why does it change things? Why are you acting like it’s personal?”
“Because it is!” he roared.
I tensed but he just stood there, head bowed, one hand pressed over his eyes. He slid down the wall onto the padded flooring.
I’d given up on this conversation continuing when he spoke.
“You know how I met Ro?” he said.
“You were paired up for a mission?”
“I was fifteen.” To Rohan’s thirteen. I blinked. He’d known him ten years? “My father is a civil engineer, specializing in water conservation. He was transferred to L.A. for a year, so I had to train at that chapter house.” Drio gave a faint smile. “I took one look at Rohan’s emo bullshit and thought ‘fuck, no’ but the only other initiate was this eight-year-old brat called,” his voice went flat and unimpressed, “River.”
“Like you’d hang out with some hippy kid.” I folded myself onto the floor.
“I picked Rohan as the lesser of two evils. Not that I was always sure I’d made the right choice, but there was one good thing about him.”
“What?” The faster I humored him, the faster I got an answer about what really mattered here.
Drio was silent a long time before he fished his phone out of his pocket with a shaking hand. He opened his photos, flicking through them, then slowly handed the cell to me, like he was parting with some great treasure.
I sat down beside him.
The photo in question depicted a girl of East Indian heritage with a pixie cut and nose ring. Her knowing grin was coupled with gold eyes that were startlingly familiar. “Is this Asha?”
Rohan’s beloved cousin.
Drio swallowed and nodded, taking the phone away from me and pressing it close to his chest.
“Were you? Did you…”
“It took me two years to convince her to be my girlfriend.” His smile was filled with such pain and love that it hurt to look at it.
It was my turn to drop my head in my hands, my heart breaking for him. “How long were you together?”
“Five years.”
From the moment I’d met Drio and Rohan, I’d been obsessed with knowing their history. Their big bomb of a secret. Now, I’d do anything not to know because I knew how this ended.
“I killed her.”
I flinched at the words fired like gunshots. “No. Demons killed her because Ro was too fucked up from fame and he wasn’t there for her.”
Drio laughed harshly. “Asha announced she was coming to live with me in Rome. I had other ideas. For me, the thrill of the hunt was the greatest rush in the world. After two years, I’d become one of the best hunters. One of the most addicted. It was a high that being tied in one place to a long-term girlfriend couldn’t compare to.” He rested his head against the concrete wall, turning the phone over and over in his hands. “I’d given her some bullshit excuse about the importance of the mission to keep her away.” Drio didn’t look at me as he spoke, each new detail striking a blow into my heart at what they’d all suffered. “Ro found out and we had a huge fight. He said if I wasn’t going to treat his cousin properly I didn’t get to have her, and he told her the truth.”
“He had no right.” Rohan had said he’d gotten cruel. That his opinion of himself had been arrogantly off-the-charts. Fame might have been the cause, but Asha was the tragic consequence. That didn’t mean it was anyone’s fault other than the demon’s.
I curled my fingers into my palms so I didn’t reach out for him. Drio wouldn’t want my sympathy. “Your flash stepping,” I said. “It’s because you run into danger.”
“It’s because the moment I became Rasha, I was running away from her.” His voice was thick with self-loathing.
“Did you still love her?” He glared at me for even having dared asked that. “Exactly. And you’d stayed with her those first two years of hunting. That’s not running, Drio. Trust me, I know what is.”
Hope flashed across his face, but he shook it off. “Asha flew to Rome to confront me but Mandelbaum said all the right things to keep me hopped up, fighting the good fight, and I told her to go home. I’d make time for her later.” His voice cracked in pain. He exhaled. “I guess the demon I was hunting spied us together. She got to Asha, then disappeared. Asha…” He pressed his lips together. “Asha is dead.”
Was this the first time he’d said that out loud? My heart cracked a hundred times more. I reached for his hand, but he jerked it out of reach.
“The one bright part of my life was gone, and it was my fault because I stupidly believed that something else mattered more. Because I betrayed her.”
“Stop,” I pleaded.
Drio flexed his fingers, wincing. “Leo betrayed me and you betrayed me.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that he’d lump me in on the blame, but yeah. “I didn’t mean to.”