They stayed in Berlin a day longer as they tried to locate where the chains had gone. Ultimately, it was Gressil who insisted they go home. Nothing more could be done in Berlin. They weren’t going to find those chains.
Rack let Gressil drive while he sat back, eyes closed, and thought about the woman. In his wildest dreams he never would have thought a woman would be behind this. Surely Semyazza would have done his own dirty work? Would he have put something like this in someone else’s hands? How did she know what items to buy? Heaven help them, was this really Semi behind this?
He must have drifted off because the next thing he knew Gressil pushed on his shoulder. “Come on, Rack.”
He looked around. They were in their garage, under the building they had purchased and restored. After Semi had come after them the first time, the building had undergone some renovations, but they were moved back in.
Rack got out and stretched. “Sorry, Gres.”
Gressil shook his head as he headed to the elevators. “No problems, man.” He smiled over his shoulder and disappeared into the elevator.
Rack paused, a frown creasing his face. There was something about that woman that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something almost…familiar.
He shrugged the feeling off and picked up his overnight bag. The time to think about it wasn’t now. Now was the time to go see his Dell.
He ignored the elevator and took the stairs. Prior to their renovations, the bottom floor of the building housed a bar named History. The bar had been firebombed, torn apart, and invaded by a host of undead since its heyday. Since Sam had found Paige, bringing her into their lives, all four fallen angels had decided that the bar was no longer a good idea.
Rack passed the door to the kitchen in their new venture, a restaurant named History Two. They’d hired a well known French chef and left him to create his own restaurant, which already had a Michelin star.
He took the stairs two at a time to the second floor. While most of the building had suffered smoke damage, the second floor had taken the biggest hit. Used as a common room for all the fallen angels, Rack frowned when he saw it was empty. Most days, the floor was hopping with music or a movie playing.
He moved on to the third floor, but no one was in the computer area. The fourth floor was Orrie’s, fifth was Gressil’s, sixth was his, and Sam and Paige were on the top floor. He headed there next.
The steel door was unlocked and Rack grinned. He also heard the unmistakable sound of a princess movie in the background. Dell was here.
He pushed inside and dropped his bag on the floor. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he called out, “Is anyone happy I’m home?”
“Daddy!”
Rack couldn’t help but smile as he heard the high pitched voice of his daughter. Then he heard the thud as she jumped off whatever piece of furniture she’d been hovering on. Her bare feet slapped across the hard wood floor, then across tile as she raced to him.
He met her halfway, down on his knees, his arms spread wide. She launched herself at him and he caught her mid-air. This little sprite was the reason for his existence. He hugged her close, his nose burrowing into her strawberry-scented hair.
She pulled back and grinned at him. All around her top lip was a juice mustache, her blonde hair was in a falling out braid, and her shirt didn’t match her pants. But she was the most beautiful creature he’d seen all day.
“Daddy,” she said again with a satisfied smile.
“Were you good for Paige and Sam?”
Behind Dell came the slow moving form of Paige, holding her lower back. “I’m getting old, Rack. I can’t keep up with the munchkin.”
Dell giggled and leaned back to look at Paige. “Auntie Paige!”
Paige grinned at her and stood up straight. “Dell was the best little girl in the whole wide world. I think she deserves some ice cream.”
Dell looked back at Rack and crowed her delight. “Can I?”
“After dinner, princess.” He arched a brow at Paige. “Unless Auntie Paige wants to give it to you, then give you a bath?”
Paige held up her hands. “No, no, after dinner sounds good.”
Rack stood, hoisting Dell with him. “Sam around?”
Paige hooked a finger over her shoulder. “In the bedroom. He didn’t want to watch a princess movie.”
“Why not?” He teased. “Come on, Dell. Let’s tell Sam I’m home then we’ll go home.”
“Okay, Daddy.” She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed into him.
Rack leaned his head briefly on hers and strode past Paige and the expansive living room she shared with Samael the Seraph. The whole upper floor was huge, which no doubt helped since Sam was almost seven feet tall. He rapped on the bedroom door and twisted the knob.
Sam, dressed in his trademark black, was pacing on the other side of the door. He nodded to Rack, then returned to his phone call. Though they made their home in Triberg, inside the seven story historical building, they spoke mostly English in deference to Paige and Dell. Dell could speak German and a little French, which Rack had discovered after they’d found her, and she also understood the Angelic language. For now. Sam was on the phone, but he wasn’t speaking any of those languages. Rack thought perhaps it was Russian.
Sitting on the huge king sized bed was Sam’s dog. Once a Hound of Hell, the dog was now as domesticated as a Yorkie. Sam was his master, but he protected Paige as well. Dell loved the dog and he simply tolerated her.
“Talk to you later,” Sam said in English. He snapped his phone shut and tossed it on his desk. “You’re back.”
Rack and Sam had a complicated relationship. Especially now that Dell was here. Only an angel, Rack had been given the second in command status of their group. Most seconds were higher in rank, but Rack had gone back during their Exodus from Hell to save Sam. For that, Sam rewarded him with the second status and trusted him with his life.
But then Rack had saved Dell. Sam never found fault with Rack for that, but he knew that Sam questioned his loyalty to their group and their cause.
Rack couldn’t fault him for that, either.
So he’d turned over his second in command duties over to Gressil, who hadn’t wanted them. But the move strained his and Sam’s friendship and gave Sam the answer about who Rack would save if it came right down to it.
It wouldn’t be Sam. And it wouldn’t be himself.
“What did you find?” Sam asked in English.
“Chains,” Rack said simply.
He saw Sam’s hands fist in anger. The Hound turned to Sam and whimpered and Sam immediately relaxed. “Where are they?”
“We were outbid.”
Sam blinked. “Outbid?”
“Yep.”
Sam spun away, muttering under his breath. Rack knew he was trying to hide the cuss words he wanted to shout. He hefted Dell higher and the little girl put her finger in her mouth. When Sam turned back, he was slightly calmer.
“Where are they?”
“We lost the car. But it was a woman.”
“A woman?”
“Yep.”
“A woman,” Sam muttered. Finally he nodded. “All right. Thanks for going. We’ll talk about it later.” He chin nodded to Dell. “That one needs to get spanked.”
Rack moved her away as Sam advanced and Dell giggled. “Why?”
“Bugging my dog.” Sam stopped in front of them, but reached out and tickled Dell’s tummy. “Get out of here, Rack. Go spend some time with this little brat.”
“Not a brat!” Dell laughed with her thumb in her mouth.
“Big brat!” Sam teased back. He bussed her on the cheek, then met Rack’s eye. “We’ve got to talk about things, yeah?”
A sinking feeling began in Rack’s stomach. “We do?”
Sam grinned at Dell, but Rack knew it was forced. “We do,” he agreed.
Rack nodded and waved at Paige on the way out. He grabbed his bag and headed down to his apartment. Something, besides a woman buying Sam’s chains, was wrong.
And this something had to do with Dell.
****
After dinner, ice cream, and then a bath, Rack carried his princess into her room. Once a spare room, the furniture had always been the same. Always ready for the little girl Rack had lost so long ago.
Now home to the little girl Rack had saved.
He swung Dell high in his arms until she giggled. With a whoosh, he dropped her down onto the daybed, his arms under her to cushion the blow. She grinned at him, then let loose with a huge yawn.
He smiled at her. “You tired, Dell?”
With just the two of them in their apartment, he reverted to the Angelic language. He’d saved this little girl using words alone. Yet it had been her smile that had saved him.
She shook her head. “No, Daddy.”
He chuckled as she smothered another yawn. “Seems like it.”
She smiled, but her eyes drooped. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me too, munchkin.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. He tucked the covers around her as she settled in. “I’m going to run and talk to Uncle Sam, okay? Hound will be here with you.” After her tired nod, Rack kissed her forehead and stood up. At the door, he shut the light off, Hound the Dog passing by him to sit next to Dell’s bed. He glanced back at his baby, smiled to himself and turned away.
“Daddy?”
The small voice cut straight through Rack’s heart. Sometimes Dell sounded so much like the baby he’d lost…. He leaned back into the room. “Yeah, Princess?”
“Did you buy me a present?”
He grinned at the tiny form on the bed. Hound sighed and lowered his head between his legs, resting his heavy jowls on the floor.
“Maybe I did.”
“Okay. Just checking.”
He grinned again and pointed at the dog. Hound rolled his eyes at Rack, but didn’t move. Dell was safe with the dog, safer than she’d ever be anywhere else.
Rack moved through his apartment, hoping to get this interview with Sam over with quickly. He wanted nothing more than to take a shower and drop into his own bed. But he definitely couldn’t wait until morning to have this conversation.
Since the fire, Rack only used the stairs. He clanged down the metal, his steel-toed boots making a racket. The door to the computer floor was open, the silhouette of Sam hunkered down in front of a bank of monitors.
Rack entered without a sound, but the big figure still half turned.
“She sleeping?” Sam asked.
“Out like a light.”
Sam chuckled. “Ran me and Paige ragged while you were gone. Haven’t gotten fucked or sucked in days and now Paige is out cold.”
Rack laughed. “Poor Sam.”
“Hey, if I’m not happy, none of you are happy.”
Rack approached his friend. “Ain’t that the truth.”
Sam turned his head. A cigarette dangled from his lips. “Got some news for you.”
Rack settled into a chair next to Sam. “Gres tell you about the chains?”
Sam squinted through his cigarette smoke. “I’m not talking about the chains.”
Rack’s stomach dropped. “Thought you’d be disappointed about that.”
“I am. But I’m not talking about that.”
Shit. “You sent us with a mission—”
“I’m not talking about that.”
“Yeah?”
Sam eyed him, then took the cigarette from his mouth. “Yeah.”
Rack risked a glance away, to the monitor Sam was looking at. “So what is it?”
Heavy silence dragged over them. The door Rack had entered shut just by Sam glancing at it. Rack tried not to jump at the sound, but shit, Sam could take you off guard. When Paige first came around, Rack thought she’d be able to take the edge off Sam’s intensity. Nope. The big fucker was just as intense as he’d ever been.
“You made me a promise.”
Rack snorted, his palms going damp. “I say a lot of shit.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
And he did. In that awful, horrible second, Rack knew what Sam was saying. “Sam, no….”
“You haven’t been monitoring any news reports,” Sam continued. He crushed his cigarette out. “So I have been.”
Rack’s heart thundered in his ears. “Sam—”
“First a report in Paris, then three smaller cities around Paris. Four reports in the south of France—”
“Sam—”
“Now six in Germany. All the same.”
Rack closed his eyes. His heart slammed painfully in his chest. The first time he’d seen Dell, she’d been hanging onto her mother’s dead, hanged body. He had saved that little girl and she’d become his. If he closed his eyes, he could picture the little copper-haired angel still clinging to her mother. He hadn’t stolen the child. Her mother was dead, she might have been, too, if he hadn’t come along and cut her out of the harness she’d been in.
“Sam, I can’t do this.”
“You promised me you would.”
The copper hair had grown out, leaving his angel with crisp, blonde hair. Her blue eyes still looked at him with love. Still looked at him as her daddy. She might not remember being on that trail in the Black Forest. She may not remember when her mother put her head in a noose and jumped. But what she did remember was Rack as her daddy.
He looked at Sam, the black obsidian eyes. “You can’t do this.”
“I’m holding you to a promise.”
“She’s mine.”
“She was never yours.”
Rack lowered his head. “What do the reports say? How do you know it’s her?”
Sam sent a sheaf of papers spinning down the desk toward him. “Read for yourself.”
Rack couldn’t bring himself to look at the paper. None of it. He looked away and braced his elbows on his knees. He couldn’t lose another daughter. He just couldn’t. He’d die.
Suddenly, he felt the palm of Sam’s big hand on his neck, the forehead of his friend leaned against his. “Rack. I’m not punishing you. I know you’re hurt. Hell, after she died and you came back from Hamburg, I thought I’d lose you too. But you’ve got to do the right thing.”
Rack felt the tears on his face, but he couldn’t even raise his hands to wipe them off. They dripped down off his nose and onto the floor.
“You can’t know for sure,” he tried again.
Sam sighed. “The first report was filed three months after we found Dell. Filed in Paris, but mother and child were last known to be in Germany. Mother redheaded, same for the daughter. Baby was around a year and half at the time of disappearance….”
Rack held up a hand. “Stop.”
“Mother was known to be depressed. Boyfriend had just dumped her and the kid. She went off the rails, left France, but sent email updates to her family. Those all stopped two days before we came upon Dell.”
“Sam, please.”
“Rack, you can’t keep her.”
Silence raged through the room. God, Rack was dying. Again. Again. Just when he thought he’d make it through everything, Sam had to go and do the right thing.
“Fuck you,” Rack whispered.
“Last place she emailed from was Triberg, Rack.”
“I said fuck you.”
Sam lifted his head and then the hand was removed from Rack’s neck. “Read the reports. No one’s saying you’ve got to take her home tomorrow. Take the time you need. But she can’t stay. I’m not going to be arrested for kidnapping, Rack.”
Sam left him there, tears still dripping on the floor. Rack let them fall.
He wouldn’t survive this. Not this time.