Page 28 of Gravehouse

His voice deepens. “Which means he’s hiding bigger secrets.”

My brow arches. “Bigger than what Punk could dig up?”

Silence again. His silence is bugging me. Not that he’s a man of a lot of words, because he’s not.

Unless…

Of course. He’s careful with everything he doesn’t understand, and right now, he doesn’t understand Asher, so he’s being extra paranoid. More than usual, and that’s saying a lot since the man has literally never shared where he lives. He could be in Asgard for all we know. It’s never brought up because one, the people who could are afraid to, and two, his trips to see us weren’t exactly frequent.

“Yes,” he mutters, and is that annoyance in his tone? I’d find it funny if I wasn’t still pissed.

“Well, I don’t think he does. He’s nothing but another example of what money can buy if you have enough of it. A whole life.”

Emeric makes a low sound, halfway between skepticism and agreement. “Tell me about him.”

This conversation is not going how I wanted it to.

“Not sure what else you’d want to know. Spoiled rich boy. His grandfather is Wickham Jameson, you know, the asshole who is always working in and out of shady hotel deals and basically owns every prime real estate in the Northeast.”

I blink when my eyes sting. “You know, I would much rather you be the scary monster everyone claims you to be, instead of the man I know you are deep down. It would make being annoyed at you harder.”

“I’m still that monster, Ivanya. It is only you who doesn’t see it.”

He leans forward, the leather of his chair rustling. “When I told you the boy was making you weak, I didn’t think he’d comeback from the dead. We need to find out as much as we can. So in the meantime, no Plays. Can you access your back up drives without him knowing?”

I snicker. “Pretty sure I can access hisbrotherwithout him knowing.”

Silence.

Rolling my eyes, I tap the screen of my laptop before dragging the mouse to my system drive. I open powershell and type in the code as files flood my screen.

“I have to admit…” Emeric says, voice closer to the receiver again. “You do look awfully pretty in white.”

I’m wearing a loose button-up, open to my bellybutton and lounge shorts. Hardly impressive.

I glare at the screen. “I’m in pajamas.”

“I see that.”

Years with Emeric, and I still can’t get used to his casual banter. It’s partially why I’ve always struggled to see him as the monster he is. Apparently, he never shared that same bond with the other family members.

“Tap on the one captioned A.D. Parker.”

I straighten, looking right through the webcam. “Why.”

“When did you start answering back?” He drawls, lazy and unimpressed.

My eyes narrow. “Are you drinking? You know how Nonna said you weren’t supposed to?—”

“No, Ivanya, I’m not drinking.” The sudden flip in his tone sits me up straighter. “Tap on the name or I’ll do it for you.”

I sigh, dragging the mouse to the folder. A file loads onto the usual format when they assign a job. Name, age, address, blood type, all the boring things that make a human a person.

“What am I looking for?” I scroll down the page, past the details about his life, because I already know everything there is to know about the monster that stole mine.

“The reason you’re not getting any more jobs.”

The line goes dead.