My Demon Husband novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: Sunrise

"Then tell me," I said. "Out loud. Here."

The broker looked at the stairs.

There were still six people sitting on them, waiting for tomorrow's number.

Opal was at the end of my table with her reading glasses on.

"In front of them?" he said.

"You rented me a house in front of nobody," I said. "You can tell the truth in front of somebody."

He wiped his mouth with a spotted hand.

"Mr. Greaves bought the paper from Andras," he said. "A blank hearth-bond. Andras filled in this building and said any human who bled on it would be bound to the demon here."

"Why me?"

He couldn't look at me.

"Mr. Greaves had me go through his evictions. He wanted someone with no family. No friends who'd call the police. Nobody who'd come looking."

Opal made a small sound.

"He picked your file off the pile," the broker said. "He said, 'Six foster homes. Nobody's going to miss this one.'"

The lobby was very quiet.

"And the pen?" I said.

"I split it with a razor that morning."

Malphas made a sound behind me that I felt in the floor.

"What was supposed to happen to me?"

The broker swallowed.

"If you died before sunrise on the sixteenth day, still bound, the hearth would break. The wards would come down. Andras could walk in and take this house."

"And if I lived?"

"Then he'd buy your half. Two million. He was sure you'd take it." He laughed, cracked and awful. "He said girls like you always take the money."

"Why are you telling me?"

He turned his lease over on the table.

"I rent from him too. He makes all of us. After Tuesday he blamed me for the courtroom. He filed on me Monday for six months."

"Forty-two years," I said.

He nodded. He was fifty, maybe, under all that white hair.

He looked eighty.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I did it to you. I know I did. I'm sorry."

I looked at the back of his lease, and the red line rose up for me.

"Dorrie," Malphas said behind me. "You've read one today."

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