Page 13 of Burn for the Devil

“I did?” I asked, dumbly. Toni raised an eyebrow at me and walked away.

Shaking my head, I followed her with another one of the stacks. “Maybe I am.” I shrugged. “What did he ask for?” It was suddenly super important I know.

“Demonology books.” She began placing our new items on the shelf. “Kinda creepy.”

Spinning around I said, “Yeah, we don’t have anything like that. Maybe we should?” Nobody had ever asked for anything of the sort before then that I knew of, and it hadn’t been on my radar as anyone’s interest, although perhaps it should have. We had plenty of other items falling under the category of occult, even tarot cards. Something on demons wouldn’t be that different, I supposed.

My employee paused. “Well, we don’t even have anything on the Necronomicon, and that’s been getting some attention on social media lately so it might not be a bad idea to expand.”

I grabbed the last handful of books. “All right, we’ll do it. Can’t hurt.” The urge to make sure the stranger got what he wanted was unexpected and strong enough to startle me but I didn’t want to share my enthusiasm; I knew it was a bit strange. I would’ve given him anything he’d wanted, if I hadn’t been speechless and frozen in time.

Toni flipped her light brown hair over her shoulder and headed for the computer. “At least it's just customer payments that are affected and we can still order stuff.”

“Yeah,” I said absently. My mind still was on the man who’d been at the counter minutes ago. He’d almost seemed familiar, though I couldn’t say from where.

Toni sat in the cushioned chair and started a Google search for demonology books, asking my opinion on the options showing up on the wholesale website we used after she’d noted some popular titles. I instructed her to order whatever she thought looked good. With my having next to no knowledge of the subject, she could purchase whatever she wanted.

“Hang on, was there a specific title that man asked for?” Toni shook her head at my question.

“Well, a couple,” she corrected herself. “Should I order them?”

“Please do.”

My cell phone rang, and I pulled it from my pocket. An unknown number danced across the screen. Normally, I’d have ignored it, but it didn’t seem like a great idea to do so when we were waiting for contact from a computer technician.

After a brief conversation, I was stunned. My mother had given my number to the man I’d met the other night, Matthew. He’d asked to take me out and I said yes, despite the image of the green-eyed man lingering in my mind. I almost wanted to wait for the dark-haired man and turn down anyone else who expressed interest.

Since Timothy, there hadn’t been anyone, not one single date. My focus had been on firmly establishing my business here in Boston. I’d left no space for any new relationships, and it was time to change that; going on a date would be a step in the right direction.

A small, excited thrill ran through me at the thought. Everything would work out and it would do so in my favor. My parents were in the same town as me, I had Toni, and my shop was doing well. I was going to go out with a man, and I would have fun. Life in New England wouldn’t be as bad as I thought it would be.

10

Ramone

Alexander was pissing me off. Ilya was pissing me off. Everyone was pissing me off. How hard could it be to answer the phone?

Ilya pushed my office door open and made himself at home in his usual seat. “Can I help you?” he asked with a straight face, beating me to my standard question.

Fucker.

My hand was in my lap, and I flicked my fingers, picturing his cock. Slowly he raised his eyes to my face, red glowing around his pupils. He couldn’t do anything to me, or rather, he wouldn’t. The fact that he wanted to emanated from him in waves. I chuckled and closed my hand, releasing him. We were much too reliant on each other for either of us to cause any permanent damage to the other. That’s what happened when you formed a mega corporation,

“Other than my dick, what do you want?” He readjusted himself before resting an ankle on his knee.

I couldn’t remember what I’d wanted. I’d had the urge to call him when I left Samantha’s, after leaving her a gift. Certainly, Iwasn’t going to risk another relationship by letting him know she existed. He’d find out, eventually. If I could get my shit together, she’dsafelybe on my arm as soon as possible. I was playing with fire, and I knew it, but couldn’t seem to stop myself. There had to be a way to possess her without killing her, if I could just figure it out.

“When are we having this meeting?” I rubbed my forehead and picked up my phone. Alexander had called me back.

Ilya gave me a pointed look. “Shouldn’t you be deciding that?”

Yes, I should. I nodded. “Next week good for you?”

“This is hitting you harder than anyone else,” he remarked.

Under his gaze, I felt like a bug under a microscope. My heart began thudding in my chest while I worked to control my impulse to throw my laptop at his mouth. He had a way of angering me more than anyone else because he knew me better than anyone else did. “I drank more of that wine than the rest of you.”

“Mm. To answer your question, next week is fine. Make sure everyone comes. We don’t want to deal with the fallout otherwise.” Ilya stood up. “That means Alastair, Alexander, Stefan, Matthew.”