House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

Bryce said, “I’m sure someone’s already said that Maximus and I parted on unfriendly terms. We met to finish up a deal for the gallery, and when it was done, he thought he was entitled to some … personal time with me.”

Hunt understood her perfectly. It lined up with everything he’d heard regarding Tertian and his father. It also offered a good amount of motive.

Bryce went on, “I don’t know where he went after the Raven. If he was killed on the outskirts of the Meat Market, I’d assume he was heading there to purchase what he wanted to take from me.” Cold, sharp words.

Isaiah’s expression grew stony. “Was his behavior last night different from how he acted during previous meetings?”

“We only interacted over emails and the phone, but I’d say no. Last night was our first face-to-face, and he acted exactly as his past behavior would indicate.”

Hunt asked, “Why not meet here? Why the Raven?”

“He got off on the thrill of acting like our deal was secretive. He claimed he didn’t trust that my boss wasn’t recording the meeting, but he really just wanted people to notice him—to see him doing deals. I had to slide him the paperwork in a bill folio, and he swapped it with one of his own, that sort of thing.” She met Hunt’s stare. “How did he die?”

The question was blunt, and she didn’t smile or blink. A girl used to being answered, obeyed, heeded. Her parents weren’t wealthy—or so her file said—yet her apartment fifteen blocks away suggested outrageous wealth. Either from this job or some shady shit that had escaped even the legion’s watchful eyes.

Isaiah sighed. “Those details are classified.”

She shook her head. “I can’t help you. Tertian and I did the deal, he got handsy, and he left.”

Every bit of the camera footage and eyewitness reports from the Raven confirmed that. But that wasn’t why they were here. What they’d been sent over to do.

Isaiah said, “And when did Prince Ruhn Danaan show up?”

“If you know everything, why bother asking me?” She didn’t wait for them to answer before she said, “You know, you two never told me your names.”

Hunt couldn’t read her expression, her relaxed body language. They hadn’t initiated contact since that night in the legion’s holding center—and neither of them had introduced themselves then. Had she even registered their faces in that drug-induced haze?

Isaiah adjusted his pristine white wings. “I’m Isaiah Tiberian, Commander of the 33rd Imperial Legion. This is Hunt Athalar, my—”

Isaiah tripped up, as if realizing that it had been a damn long time since they’d had to introduce themselves with any sort of rank attached. So Hunt did Isaiah a favor and finished with, “His Second.”

If Isaiah was surprised to hear it, that calm, pretty-boy face didn’t let on. Isaiah was, technically, his superior in the triarii and in the 33rd as a whole, even if the shit Hunt did for Micah made him directly answerable to the Governor.

Isaiah had never pulled rank, though. As if he remembered those days before the Fall, and who’d been in charge then.

As if it fucking mattered now.

No, all that mattered about that shit was that Isaiah had killed at least three dozen Imperial Legionaries that day on Mount Hermon. And Hunt now bore the burden of paying back each one of those lives to the Republic. To fulfill Micah’s bargain.

Bryce’s eyes flicked to their brows—the tattoos there. Hunt braced for the sneering remark, for any of the bullshit comments people still liked to make about the Fallen Legion and their failed rebellion. But she only said, “So, what—you two investigate crimes on the side? I thought that was Auxiliary territory. Don’t you have better things to do in the 33rd than play buddy cop?”

Isaiah, apparently not amused that there was one person in this city who didn’t fall at his feet, said a tad stiffly, “Do you have people who can verify your whereabouts after you left the White Raven?”

Bryce held Isaiah’s gaze. Then flicked her eyes to Hunt. And he still couldn’t read her mask of boredom as she pushed off the desk and took a few deliberate steps toward them before crossing her arms.

“Just my doorman … and Ruhn Danaan, but you already knew that.”

How anyone could walk in heels that high was beyond him. How anyone could breathe in a dress that tight was also a mystery. It was long enough that it covered the area on her thigh where the scar from that night two years ago would be—that is, if she hadn’t paid some medwitch to erase it. For someone who clearly took pains to dress nicely, he had little doubt she’d gotten it removed immediately.

Party girls didn’t like scars messing with how they looked in a swimsuit.

Isaiah’s white wings shifted. “Would you call Ruhn Danaan a friend?”

Bryce shrugged. “He’s a distant cousin.”

But apparently invested enough to have charged into the interrogation room two years ago. And shown up at the VIP bar last night. If he was that protective of Quinlan, that might be one Hel of a motive, too. Even if Ruhn and his father would make the interrogation a nightmare.

Bryce smiled sharply, as if she remembered that fact, too. “Have fun talking to him.”

Hunt clenched his jaw, but she strode for the front door, hips swishing like she knew precisely how spectacular her ass was.