Chapter 16 · Job Seven: Pay in Blood

"You're late." Sable Rook stood at the altar with both hands behind her back, and her smile was the kind that made you check your exits.

I kept Iris behind me. "Traffic was bad."

"Funny." Sable tilted her head. Half her face was bone, the other half perfect skin. The bone side didn't move when she talked, but the eye socket glowed pale blue. "I've been counting minutes for three years. You think you get to joke?"

Iris's fingers dug into my shoulder. "Cade, don't."

"Seven jobs," I said. "We did them. Every one."

"You did six." Sable stepped forward, and the ground under her feet turned black. Ash spread in a perfect circle, radiating out like infection. "The seventh isn't a job. It's a payment."

"We brought the ledger," Iris said. Her voice was steady, but I felt her pulse hammering against my back. "That was the deal."

"The ledger was collateral." Sable's human eye locked on me. "The payment is blood. His or yours, Iris. You pick."

I moved before Iris could answer, putting myself between them. "She doesn't owe you blood."

"She owes me a life." Sable's smile widened.