It wasn't that Deus was a difficult client. Not in the traditional sense. He was actually one of the better principals Lucas had tailed around. He didn't argue - at least, not about how best to stay alive. He didn't try and sneak off, or evade his protection like it was all a big game. He was very invested in not dying, and the longer Lucas was at his side the more he could understand why.

Deus was fighting tooth and nail to regain control of his dad's company. He would meet with his lawyer every two or three days, and while Lucas didn't grasp the jargon, he could see how hard they were both working to find some way of putting Deus back in the pilot's seat there. Deus was angry-passionate about it, too. This wasn't some corporate chess match playing out for credibility down at the golf club, Deus wanted this, and he was willing to go to battle over it with every ounce of determination that drove a good soldier.

What made it slightly frustrating was that Deus was like a dog with a bone in other areas, too. He kept trying to grill Lucas on whether something was wrong, what Lucas' beef was, why he was so surly, or whether they had a problem. A week into things Lucas had straight up told him that he owed Deus protection, not his life history, but that didn't stop the guy.

He knew how much it cost just to have one bodyguard on hand for half a day, every day. But Lucas couldn't begin to imagine how much it cost to have a lawyer like Alan Duchenne to hand, available for meetings three times a week, in offices so high that they actually caught sunlight downtown. Rising high enough to be out of the shadow of any other skyscrapers was worth serious money in this town, and Lucas couldn't help himself.

He couldn't help wonder how many years of Tamsin's meds all these meetings could pay for.

Lottie had caved and signed the letter to allow Tamsin to go on her school trip to the zoo. They'd find fifty bucks from somewhere. If nothing else, the adults could live off ramen for a week or two if they had to. It wasn't going to get Lucas all the nutrients he needed for his workouts, but it was only a short-term problem. They'd make it work, because that's how you got by in life if you weren't Jayden Fucking Deus.

There was the extra bonus with Deus that nobody had actually tried to kill him yet. Two weeks since the death threat and all was quiet. No follow-up letters, no attempts on his life. Lucas figured it might take another week or two for Deus to settle down and decide he didn't need protection after all, and then Lucas could move on to a client he hadn't had sex with.

One whose company didn't prey on the sick for profit.

Deus emerged from his suite - the guy didn't have a bedroom in his apartment, he had a fucking suite - and pulled a light jacket on as he strode toward Lucas.

Today's schedule was all set, and Deus was good at sticking to it. They were due for another meeting with Duchenne, the car would be outside in ten minutes, and everything was proceeding smoothly.

Deus stopped inches from him and gave him a grin. "Okay. Is today the day you talk to me?"

Lucas blinked slowly. "No."

"C'mon. We've got ten minutes. You aren't going to want to spend them waiting out on the street, are you?"

"No." Of course not. It was difficult to protect a principal in the middle of a city as crowded as New York, and Deus knew it, so Lucas didn't rise to the bait.

"You're an amazing fuck, you know." Deus tilted his hips to one side as he moved his center of balance, and adjusted his glasses as he peered up into Lucas' eyes. "I realize you might not know that, though I dunno how."

Lucas's faint background level of irritation grew just a little.

"And I figure it would be super unprofessional to have sex with a client, but maybe once you aren't here we could get together again some time. You don't have to answer that. I'm just putting it out there. I wouldn't say no to having you inside me again." His voice grew breathy, and his eyelids fluttered for a second.

Fuck, he was a filthy little shit.

Lucas kept his face stony and said nothing.

"Several times. There are a whole bunch of places in this city we can fuck, you know. Like-" Deus thumbed toward the windows. "Great view there. I've often wondered what it'd be like to get pounded up against that glass. People might even see." His cheeks flushed, but he grinned. "Anyway. If you wanna. Just say the word."

Lucas did everything he could to think of anything but hearing Deus' lusty little moans again. He'd rather be back in training, sitting in the fucking Pacific Ocean for hours on end before a twenty-mile run than risk getting hard where Deus could see it.

He checked his watch as idly as he could. Seven minutes. Jesus, he wasn't gonna make it.

"We might have to get to the bottom of your problem with me before we go that far, though." And just like that, all the seduction was gone from Deus' posture, his voice. He stood up straight and jabbed a finger against Lucas' chest, though Lucas barely felt it through the vest under his shirt. "C'mon. Spill the beans, Mr. Neal. What's the whole evil eye routine for? What'd I ever do to you?"

This wasn't going to stop. Lucas could either put up and shut up, or he could call Ranjit and ask to be tagged out.

Or he could just be honest.

It was a tempting proposition. It wasn't always the best policy, especially when clients could drop a bad word to all their rich friends and make sure an agent never got hired again, but he wasn't sure Deus was that kind of guy. Not the way he fought for what he felt was his birthright.

Lucas pursed his lips.

This could be a huge mistake, but Deus wasn't backing off, and Lucas was damned if he was gonna call Ranjit and explain exactly why he wanted a different assignment.

"Okay." Lucas rolled his neck until he got a couple of satisfying cricks out of it, then he raised his chin and glared down at Deus. "You know what? Fine. Here's my problem, Mr. Deus. You're spending a fortune just to get your hands on even more of a fortune when you already have one. You're the majority shareholder in that company, before we even count the ways in which you are already richer than millions of people in New York can ever dream of being. Not through any of your own work, but through your father's effort. Now, I'm not going to disrespect that. We all want better for our kids. If I had kids and a fortune you bet my ass I'd leave it all to them."

Deus didn't back away. Didn't give him an inch. He just met Lucas' gaze without so much as a flinch, and waited. "Uh huh."

"But while you're pissing money away like it's no big deal, people are dying." Lucas sucked in a deep breath to keep his head steady and prevent himself from shouting. He was trained as a goddamn SEAL and he would behave like one. "Kids are dying, Deus. Children. People can't afford meds these days. Do you even know that? Do you know what it's like to choose between food and heat, between clothes and shoes, or between all of that and the drugs you need to stay alive so you can make all those decisions again tomorrow? People are working three jobs to afford drugs for the kids they can't afford to be at home to raise. Their children are growing up in front of the television wondering when Mom's ever coming home, but by the time she gets there the kid's already asleep. This is the kind of world Deus Pharmaceuticals has made. This is the world that normal, everyday people live in!"

Deus waited for him to finish, then shrugged. "I know."

"You have no idea what poverty is like," Lucas scoffed.

Deus checked his own phone, then tucked it away. "I know, Neal. I know exactly what it's like. I have seen it with my own damn eyes. Bad enough when my dad built this company up and decided to specialize in pediatric medicine, but I choose to believe that when he did that, he did it because he wanted to help. But then you wanna know what happened while you were fucking me last year? While you had me up against a door in a goddamn restroom in Oregon of all places? My dad died. He died, and when my mom called to tell me what had happened, I didn't answer, because I was blissed out from the roughest, hardest fuck I'd had in my entire life and I just wanted five minutes of peace and quiet to enjoy it in. That's all I wanted."

Lucas rocked his jaw slightly. "If this is some idea of a rich kid's headfuck game you're playing here-"

"No," Deus cut in. "You know about Dad's death. Jo-Ann filled out all the new client forms, she says they were massively comprehensive. You know everything about me that can be written down. What you don't know is the relationship I had with my father. The way we'd fight, all the time, because this wasn't what I wanted out of life. I didn't want to be his scion, I didn't want to step into his shoes and run a company I never in my life even worked at. So I went away. The moment I could get out, I did. I went to study in Oregon. There were kids on my courses who couldn't afford to eat, and every cent they earned in their spare time paid for their coursebooks. They were digging themselves deeper and deeper into debt because an education was their way out of that life. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make friends once they find out how much money you have? First they make jokes. They ask for five bucks here or there. Then it's ten bucks. Then a hundred. And then they straight up tell you that you should pay for their bachelor's because you can afford it and they can't, and when you don't pony up two hundred thousand dollars they walk away. I know, poor me, right? You don't care about that. You're doing it yourself. Making assumptions about me, wondering whether I could make all your problems go away."

Lucas curled his lip, but he didn't get so much as a chance to speak.

"But that didn't keep me from seeing the truth," Deus snapped. "Didn't keep me from seeing the way people were forced to live. And I was all set to come back here one day and make a difference. I was gonna talk to dad about how we could make things work. Research is expensive. Nine out of ten drugs that make it to trial don't pass. The process takes years and millions of dollars, but if we want to find just one new drug that can save a child's life then it has to be done. But while I was grieving the loss of my father, while I was burying him, while I was trying to figure out what the fuck I was supposed to do with my life now I'd never see him again, they held a secret ballot and voted me off the board. They did that to me when I was at my lowest, when I was too distraught to fight them. And then what did they do?"

"I-"

The rage which rolled off Deus was almost palpable. "They raised prices," he seethed. "Those greedy, soulless, self-serving motherfuckers raised our prices by a thousand percent! They put a stop to all the generics we were producing. Do you know Deus Pharmaceuticals was the number one provider of cheap generic pediatric medicines to developing countries? Yeah. Not any more! Now they just want to line their own fucking pockets, and I am going to nail their balls to the goddamn table if I have to, because now they're in charge, children are dying, Neal. Every damn day. Every day I don't have control over my father's company more children die!"

Lucas caught his breath and held it. Deus was inches away from him, his bright eyes wild with passion and righteous fury, and everything about him that Lucas thought he knew crumbled.

He felt light-headed, as though his whole understanding of the world had turned on its axis. Either Deus was lying to him, or Lucas was wrong, and Lucas wasn't too proud to adjust his thinking when new information came along. Static thinking led to death in the field, he was used to having to pivot.

He wasn't used to grappling with the idea that someone as rich as Deus might give a damn.

Deus's cheeks were flushed. His lips pink. He checked his phone again and then brushed past Lucas on his way to the door.

"That was more than ten minutes," he croaked. "I've got a meeting to go to."

His head still spinning, Lucas fell into step at Deus' heel, and tried to get a handle on this shit before they reached the ground floor.