Assail shrugged. “It is but menial work.”

“No effort is menial if it is done well.”

Assail eased back in the chair and regarded the haggard scrap of flesh on the hospital bed. Even barely out of captivity—for over thirty fucking years—and already the male was showing a character of note.

“I shall have to leave you the now,” Assail heard himself say. “But I shall return prior to dawn, and when they will release you, you will come home with me. And that is what shall be.”

Markcus lowered his head. “I am e’er in your debt.”

No, Assail thought to himself. I rather sense ’tis the other way around, my good male.

Rhage and Mary walked arm in arm up the mansion’s grand staircase. As they ascended, she smiled as she remembered them waltzing around that empty gym. And then she flushed as she recalled what they’d done as the dancing had slowed to a stop.

That equipment room had never seen so much action.

“When did she say I had to be there?” Rhage asked.

“You’ve got about thirty minutes to get ready. It’s the I’ve Bean Waitin’ coffee shop down on Hemingway Avenue. I think Rhym is going by car, but you certainly don’t have to.”

“I’m not ordering anything while I’m there. I don’t want to have coffee breath.”

“Rhage. Seriously.” She stopped him as they came up to the second floor. “You’re going to do fine.”

Taking his beautiful face in her hands, she smoothed his worried eyebrows and stroked the shadow of his beard. “Just treat it like any other conversation.”

“I’m being interviewed to be Bitty’s dad. How the hell is that supposed to be like any other conversation? And, God, will you tell me what to wear? Should it be a suit? I feel like it should be a suit.”

Taking his hand, she led him in the direction of their room. “How about just a regular pair of slacks and one of your black silk shirts. She’ll be so distracted by how gorgeous you are, she won’t remember her own name, much less whatever she was going to ask you.”

He was grumbling as they entered their suite, and his attitude didn’t get much better as she shooed him toward the bath.

“No,” she said as he tried to pull her along with him. “We’ll get seriously distracted. Let me go lay out your clothes.”

“You’re right. Plus every time I think about where I’m going I want to throw up.”

They went their separate ways in the middle of the room, he to a cleanly shaven jaw and freshly shampooed hair, she to the walk-in closet, where—

The scream that emanated from the loo was enough to give her a frickin’ heart attack. “Rhage! Rhage—what’s wrong!”

She blasted across the carpet and into the—only to slam against his backside.

“Are you fucking kidding me!” he barked.

“What, what are you . . .”

Mary started laughing, and she got on such a roll with it, she had to sit down on the edge of the Jacuzzi.

Someone, or someones, more like it, had Little Mermaided their bathroom: There were Little Mermaid towels hanging on all the hooks and rods, a Little Mermaid rug in front of the double sinks . . . Little Mermaid cups and toothbrushes and kids’ toothpaste on the counters . . . Little Mermaid shampoo and conditioner in the shower . . . action figures lined up on the lip around the tub and down the sill of the big window that looked out over the gardens.

But the pièce de résistance was undoubtedly the wall stuff. About a hundred and fifty different stickers, posters, clings, and cut-outs from coloring books had been stuck, glued, or pinned to every square inch of vertical surface.

Rhage wheeled around and went to march out—but he didn’t have to go far at all. A gathering of his Brothers filed into their suite, the males high-fiving one another and smacking Rhage on the ass.

“I’m going to get you back,” he growled. “Every single one of you—especially you, Lassiter, you fuck stick.”

“How?” the fallen angel countered. “By flooding my room? You already tried that with the pantry and Fritz got it fixed in a night.”

“No, I’m going to hide every cocksucking remote in this house.”

The angel froze. “Okay, those are fighting words.”

“Blam!” Rhage yelled as he hit his hips. “Wassup, bitch.”

Lassiter started looking to the Brothers for help. “That’s not funny. That shit is so not funny—”

“Hey, Hollywood, can I pay you to hide those?” someone said.

“We can still get access to them, though, right?” somebody else demanded.

“Fuck all y’all, for real,” Lassiter muttered. “I’m serious. One of these days, you are gonna respect me. . . .”

Mary just leaned into her arms and smiled at the bunch of crazies: In a way, this was exactly what Rhage needed, a little steam-blow-off on his way to the coffee shop. Heck, on that theory, they all deserved to release some tension.

It had been a heavy-duty couple of hours.

Fucking Little Mermaid, Rhage thought when he left their bedroom twenty-five minutes later.

Shutting the door, he retucked his already tucked-in shirt and pulled on the jacket Mary had picked out for him to hide his guns. As he walked down the hall, he fiddled with his hair, rolled his shoulders, tugged at his belt.

His palms were sweaty. How the hell was he going to shake the social worker’s hand if he was sweating this bad? She was going to have use a napkin to dry off.

Or a set of drapes.

Coming up to Wrath’s study, he saw that the doors were open and he paused, wondering if now would be a good time to tell his brother and his King what the hell they were up to. When he looked around the jamb, though, he got an eyeful of Wrath and V talking together, the King on the throne, the brother right next to him, crouching on the floor. Their heads were together, their voices low, the air so thick there might as well have been mhis around them.

What the fuck was going on, Rhage thought as he was tempted to go inside.

But then he checked his gold Rolex, the one that he’d given Mary, but which she’d insisted he wear for good luck. No time to ask, and on that note, no time to go into the whole Bitty thing, either.

Later, he decided.

Hitting the stairwell, he bottomed out on the mosaic floor and beelined for the exit.

“Good luck.”

Rhage pulled up short and looked to the right. Lassiter was in the billiards room, bluing up a cue.

“What are you talking about?” Rhage demanded.

As the angel just shrugged, Rhage shook his head. “You’re crazy—”

“When she asks about how the father died, don’t fudge it. She already knows it was you and your brothers who killed him. It’s in the file. She hates the violence, but she knows that the two of them wouldn’t have survived otherwise. She wants you to have the kid. You and Mary.”

As Rhage felt all the blood leave his head and end up in his shoes, he wished he had something to hold onto.

“How do . . . did Mary talk to you about this?” Even though he found that hard to believe. “Marissa?”

“And the beast. That makes her nervous. Don’t try to calm her down about it—you’ll dwell too much on the subject and it will rattle her. Mary will handle that. Mary will tell her all she needs to know on that issue.”

“How do you know all this?”

Lassiter put the square of chalk down and shifted those oddly colored eyes over. “I’m an angel, remember? And it’s going to work out. Just hang tight—you’re going to have to keep the faith. For both you and Mary. But it’s going to happen.”

“Really?” he found himself asking.

“No lie. I might fuck with your bathroom. But never, ever about this.”

Rhage’s feet moved of their own volition, crossing the way to the pool table—and the next thing he knew, he was bear-hugging the blond-and-black motherfucker.

“You got this,” Lassiter said as they clapped each other’s backs. “But just remember. You’ve got to keep the faith.”