“What happened?”Bria shrugged. “I waited until I was sure there was no one else around who could get hurt, then threw my coffee in the bastard’s face and took away his gun. While he was screaming from the pain and the second-degree burns, I cuffed his ass and hauled him down to the station. End of story.”Fin gave my sister a warm, admiring look. “Nice takedown, detective. Even if you should have found another way to do it. Don’t you know that you never, ever waste a cup of coffee like that?”

“Ravel said. “And I order people around really well. This morning, Tipstaff came over with a cup of tea and I told him no, I don’t want tea I want coffee. That was great. I really asserted my authority.”“Did he go and get you a coffee?”“No, he said he’d already made a pot of tea so I took the tea because, you know he’d already made it, but my authority was still firmly asserted.”Ghastly nodded. “He’ll think twice about making tea again.”“That he will, Ghastly my friend, that he will. What are we looking for, by the way?“Seriously? I gave you the file half an hour ago.”“Yes, you did.”“And did you read it?”“No, I did not.”

“I looked up to find a slim blond figure standing in the doorway to the kitchen. For a frozen second, I looked at him and he looked at me, and then I screamed and threw my coffee, which hit him square in the groin.”

“Wait!"What?" I lowered my cup hastily, wondering if maybe there was a stray hair, or worse, a newly boiled bug inside my cup.You got to smell it first. It's the proper way to cup coffee."Cup coffee?"Taste it."What? Are you the coffee police or something?”

“He needs to tell me what he knows before he gets anything else from the Grahams."She folded her arms across her chest and gave him her best "you will do what I say" look. He only shrugged and kept drinking his coffee.Eva frowned at her. "Hija, you must be nice to Ranger Armstrong. His is a good man."Oliviva snorted. "I'll believe that when he treats me like a person instead of a pain in the ass.""You are a pain in the ass."At first she could hardly believe he'd said it, but then when it sank in, a chuckle burst out of her mouth. She didn't want to be amused by his smart mouth, but she was. "So are you. Now tell me what you know.”

“As soon as the door closed behind my father, Alec turned to me, coffee mug halfway to his mouth. "You faced down a hellion to rescue three people from the Netherworld. Why the hell is he trying to protect you from me?"I could only shrug. "He's my dad. That's what he does.”