Page 18 of Love & Heart Braking

Yep, Austin.

The man on his other side had patchy, gray hair. “I used to work for the Utatios, and then the Boquits. I know how they track their enemies and the general population. I’ll keep us off their radar.”

Handy. The Utatios had invented the Magi-Web, and the Boquits were in the communications industry. Could have used this guy’s help to keep the twelve away in the first place.

“I’ve worked against them for some time,” he continued. “Hacking the system to alter identities of those who’ve angered them or flagging the occasional NBC cover-up for law enforcement to look into. That’s me.”

The short woman next to him crossed her arms. Her skin was leathery. Potentially a ghoul, but her fingers were tapered, not short and stumpy. “I’m currently under the twelve’s control. They have my husband locked away and have had him for over two years now. They use him to make me do their dirty work. I have boxes and boxes of information against them, but I can’t use any of it while my husband is in danger.”

“Do you know where he is… Gigi?” I squinted to see her name tag.

She shook her head. “They never tell me. They let me see him on occasion, but it’s always at a different location and not on any of their estates.”

Fenton leaned forward. “Gigi assures me that she has information to incriminate seven of the twelve families. But the only way she’ll reveal any of it, is if her husband is freed.”

Seven of the families? Shoot, that was massive.

Soleil hummed. “So our first job is a rescue mission.”

“Our first job is to find out where Gigi’s husband is,” Bain corrected her. “Can you describe him?”

The short woman sighed and pinched the nose area of her blur charm, yanking it off. “Stupid fucking thing.” She rolled her eyes as Fenton started to complain. “Everyone’s going to know who I am when I describe my husband anyway.” She tilted her chin. “I’m Gug G. Gregaggog. I write for the Nepos Notice. For the last two years, I’ve written exclusively for the twelve.”

My jaw dropped. “I thought you were a dude!”

Soleil turned my way. “Same here.”

“Me too,” Austin murmured.

That startling revelation aside, Gug was a goblin. Her hooked nose gave it away. Not every day you saw a gen one.

“My husband is a daemon,” Gug said, ignoring us. “The oldest daemon in known existence.”

“One capable of visiting the underworld,” I whispered.

She set her black, beady eyes on me. “You’ve seen him?”

“When the twelve offered me the job, they mentioned him.” I frowned. “So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to demand to see the daemon before signing the deal with the twelve. We’ll go from there.”

No one spoke until Soleil laughed. “Love Girl is totally going to take your throne, Fenny. I give it a week.”

Bain regarded me. “That is a sound idea. Do you think they will accept meeting the daemon as a term?”

Considering that breaking the curse was a cornerstone of their offer… “Yeah. I do.”

Gug crossed the room, taking my hands in hers. She’d written at least two articles trashing Yearning Hearts. But now I knew the reason, I held no ill will against the goblin.

“If you see my love,” she said hoarsely, “please tell him Iggy poo’s hopping along.”

Uh… what?

She hurried on. “No one will know what that means except me and him. The message won’t put you in danger.”

“Iggy poo’s hopping along,” I repeated in a voice as expressionless as possible.

“Please.” Her bottom lip trembled. Her hands were leathery to the touch. This gal had to be ancient, centuries-old, maybe close to one thousand. Goblins were immortal, so she could be even older.

“You got it.”

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