The Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8

by J. R. Ward

  She ducked back inside and put her coat on. “Lusie…would you be able to continue coming here? It looks like I’ll be able to keep paying you.”

  “Of course. I’d do anything for your father.” Lusie flushed. “I mean, both of you. Does this mean that you’ve found another job?”

  “Money has loosened up a little bit more than I expected. And I hate his being here alone.”

  “Well, I’ll take good care of him.”

  Ehlena smiled and wanted to hug the woman. “You always do. As for tonight, I’m not sure how long I’ll be—”

  “Take your time. He and I will be fine.”

  On impulse, Ehlena gave the female a quick embrace. “Thank you. Thank…you.”

  Grabbing her purse, she hit the door before she made a fool out of herself, and as she emerged into the cold, the driver came around to help her into the Bentley. Dressed in his black leather trench coat, he looked more like a hit man than a chauffeur, but when he smiled at her again, his dark eyes flashed an extraordinarily brilliant green.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get you there just fine.”

  She believed him. “Where are we going?”

  “Downtown. He’s waiting for you.”

  Ehlena felt awkward as the door was opened for her, even though she knew it was courtly manners among equals on his part and not anything to do with serving her. She was just out of practice at being attended to by a male of worth.

  Jesus, the Bentley smelled good.

  While Trez went around and got in behind the wheel, she stroked the fine leather of the seat and couldn’t remember feeling anything so luxurious.

  And as the car eased out of the alley and down onto the street, she barely felt the potholes that usually left her hanging on to the door handle in taxis. Smooth ride. Expensive ride.

  Where were they going?

  As a gentle, warm breeze suffused the backseat, that voice message from Rehv played over and over again in her head. Doubt flickered in her mind, like the brake lights of the cars in front of them, going off and on, slowing her everything’s-okay roll.

  It got worse. Downtown was not a place she knew very well, and she tensed up as they passed the part where the luxury high-rises were. Where she had met Rehv at the Commodore.

  Maybe he was taking her out dancing.

  Yeah, because you did that without telling the female to wear a dress.

  The farther they went down Trade Street, the more she stroked the seat beside her, although not for the feel of it. Things got seedier and seedier, the lineup of all-right restaurants and the offices of the Caldwell Courier Journal giving way to tattoo parlors and bars that looked as if they’d have grizzled drunks on stools and dirty bowls of peanuts at their counters. Then it was the clubs, the loud, flashy kind she never, ever went to because she didn’t like the noise, the lights, or the people in them.

  As the black-on-black sign for ZeroSum came into view, she knew they were going to stop in front of it, and her heart dropped into her lower gut.

  Strangely, she had the same reaction she’d had to seeing Stephan in the morgue: This can’t be right. This can’t be happening. This is not how things are supposed to be.

  The Bentley didn’t pull up in front of the club, though, and for a moment hope flared.

  But of course. They went into the alley on the far side, stopping at a private entrance.

  “He owns this club,” she said in a dead voice. “Doesn’t he.”

  Trez didn’t touch the question, but he didn’t have to. As he came around and opened the door for her, she sat frozen stiff in the back of the Bentley, staring at the brick building. Absently, she noted that there was grime dripping down its flank from the roof, and crud splashed up on it from the ground. Tarnished. Dirty.

  She thought of standing at the foot of the Commodore and staring upward at all the sparkling-clean glass and chrome. That was the facade he had chosen to show her.

  This one with the filth was what he had been forced to show her.

  “He’s waiting for you,” Trez said gently.

  The side door of the club opened wide, another Moorish male appearing. Behind him, everything was dim, but she heard the thumping bass.

  Did she really need to see this, she wondered.

  Well, she needed to tell Rehv off, that was for sure, assuming this train wreck was going in the direction it appeared to be. And then it dawned on her: If all this was true, she had a bigger problem. She’d had sex…with a symphath.

  She’d let a symphath feed from her.

  Ehlena shook her head. “I don’t need this. Take me h—”

  A female appeared, one who was built tough and hard as a male, and not just on the outside. Her eyes were icy cold and utterly calculating.

  She came over and leaned into the car. “Nothing is going to hurt you inside here. I swear it.”

  Whatever—the hurt was already happening, Ehlena thought. She was getting chest pains like you would with a heart attack.

  “He’s waiting,” the female said.

  What got Ehlena out of the car was her backbone, and not just because it straightened her from a sitting position. The thing was, she didn’t run. In all her life, she hadn’t run from the hard stuff, and she was not starting now.

  She walked in through the door and knew for sure that she was somewhere she wouldn’t ever choose to be. Everything was dark, and the music banged into her ears like fists, and the smell of too much hot skin made her want to plug her nose.

  The female led the way, and the Moors flanked Ehlena, their huge bodies carving a path through a human jungle she had no wish to be a part of. Waitresses dressed in tight black uniforms carried around endless variations on alcohol, and half-nude women rubbed up against men in suits, and every person Ehlena passed had eyes that were looking somewhere else, as if whatever they’d ordered or whoever was in front of them couldn’t satisfy them.

  She was led over to a reinforced black door, and after Trez spoke into his wristwatch, the thing opened and he stood to the side—as if he expected her to walk right in, like it was just someone’s living room.

  Yeah…not.

  Staring into the darkness beyond, she saw nothing but a black ceiling and black walls and a shiny black floor.

  But then Rehvenge stepped into her line of sight. He was exactly as she knew him to be, a big male dressed in a sable duster who had mohawked hair and amethyst eyes and a red cane.

  He was, however, a total stranger.

  Rehvenge stared at the female he loved and saw on her pale, strained face exactly what he had sought to put there.

  Revulsion.

  “Will you come in?” he said, needing to finish the job.

  Ehlena glanced over at Xhex. “You’re security, right?” Xhex frowned, but nodded. “Then you’re coming in with me. I don’t want to be alone with him.”

  As her words hit, Rehv might as well have been sliced through the throat, but he showed no reaction as Xhex came forward and Ehlena followed.

  The door shut and the music was buffered away and the silence was as loud as a scream.

  Ehlena looked at his desk, on which he’d deliberately left twenty-five thousand dollars in cash and a brick of cocaine that was wrapped in cellophane.

  “You told me you were a businessman,” she said. “Guess it was my fault for assuming it was legitimate.”

  All he could do was stare at her—his voice had left him, his shallow breath nothing that could sustain words. The only thing he could do, as she stood stiff and angry before him, was memorize her, from the way her strawberry blond hair was pulled back to her toffee-colored eyes to her simple black coat to the way she kept her hands in her pockets, as if she didn’t want to touch a thing.

  He didn’t want this to be how he remembered her, but as it was the last time he would see her, he couldn’t help but focus on every detail.

  Ehlena’s eyes flipped from the drugs and the cash back to his face. “So it’s true? Everything your ex-girlfriend s
aid.”

  “She is my half sister. And yes. Everything.”

  The female he loved took a step back from him, fear bringing her hand out of her pocket and up to her throat. He knew exactly what she was thinking of: him feeding from her vein, them being naked and alone in his penthouse. She was recasting the recollection, coming to terms with the fact that it hadn’t been a vampire at her neck.

  It had been a symphath.

  “Why did you bring me down here?” she said. “You could have just told me over the phone—no, never mind. I’m going home now. Don’t ever contact me again.”

  He bowed slightly and choked out, “As you wish.”

  She turned away and went to stand in front of the door. “Will someone please let me the fuck out of here.”

  After Xhex reached over and opened the way to freedom, Ehlena all but bolted away from him.

  As the door shut, Rehv locked it with his mind and stood there, where she had left him.

  Ruined. He was utterly ruined. And not because he was turning himself and his body over to a sadistic sociopath who was going to enjoy every minute of torturing him.

  When his vision clouded with red, he knew it wasn’t his bad side coming out. Not a chance. He’d pumped enough dopamine in his veins over the last twelve hours to choke a horse, because otherwise he didn’t trust himself to let Ehlena go. He’d needed to cage his bad side one last time…so he could do the right thing for the right reason.

  So, no, this red wasn’t going to be followed by flat vision and sensation returning all over his body.

  Rehvenge took one of the handkerchiefs his mother had ironed out of the inside of his suit jacket and pressed the folded square beneath his eyes. The bloodred tears leaching out of him were for so much more than just Ehlena and himself. Bella had lost her mother no more than forty-eight hours ago.

  And she was going to lose her brother by the end of the night.

  He took a single, great breath, one so deep that his ribs strained. Then he tucked the handkerchief away and got on with putting his life into its grave.

  One thing was certain: The princess was going to pay. Not for the shit she’d done to him and was going to do to him. Fuck that.

  No, she had dared to approach his female. For that, he would cripple her, even if it killed him.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  That feel good? Shutting him down like that?”

  Ehlena stopped at the club’s side exit and looked over her shoulder at the female security guard. “As it is absolutely none of your business, I’m not answering the question.”

  “FYI, that male has put himself in a rat-hole situation for me, his mother, and his sister. And you think you’re too good for him? Nice. Where the hell do you come from that’s so perfect?”

  Ehlena faced off with the female even though it wasn’t a fair fight by a long shot, given how the security guard was built. “I never lied to him—how about that for perfect. Actually that’s not perfect, it’s normal.”

  “He does what he must to survive. That is very normal, not only for your kind but for symphaths, too. Just because you’ve had it easy—”

  Ehlena got up in the female’s face. “You don’t know me.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Right back at you.” The bitch in that sentence was silent.

  “Yeah, okay, whoa.” Trez stepped in and separated them. “Let’s just cool out on the catfight, ’kay? Lemme take you home. You”—he pointed to the other female—“go see if he’s all right.”

  The security guard glared at Ehlena. “You watch yourself.”

  “Why? Because you’re going to show up at my back door? Whatever—compared to that thing last night, you’re a Barbie doll.”

  Both Trez and the female went still.

  “What showed up at your door?” the security guard asked.

  Ehlena stared up at Trez. “May I go home now?”

  “What was it?” he asked.

  “A Kabuki doll with a bad attitude.”

  As one, they said, “You need to move.”

  “Great suggestion. Thanks.” Ehlena pushed past both of them and went to the door. When she tried the handle, of course, it was locked, so all she could do was wait to be let out again. Yeah, well, screw that. Biting down on her lower lip, she grabbed for the handle and wrenched at it, prepared to claw her way free.

  Fortunately, Trez came over and sprang her like a bird from a cage, and out she flew from the club, into the cold air, away from the heat and the noise and the crowded desperation that choked her.

  Or maybe the suffocation was a broken heart.

  What did it matter.

  She waited by another door, this one to the Bentley, wishing that she didn’t need the car to get home, knowing it was going to be a long while before she was even halfway settled enough to breathe right, much less dematerialize.

  On the trip back, she could remember none of the streets they passed or the lights they stopped at or the other cars around them. She just sat in the backseat of the Bentley, all but inanimate, her face turned to the window, her eyes seeing nothing as she was spirited away.

  Symphath. Sleeping with his half sister. Pimp. Drug dealer. Killer, no doubt…

  As they went farther and farther away from downtown, she had more difficulty breathing instead of less. The stinger was that she couldn’t lose the image of Rehvenge kneeling before her, her cheap Keds in his hand, his amethyst eyes so soft and kind, his voice so lovely it was better than the music of a violin. Don’t you get it, Ehlena? No matter what you wear…to me, you will always have diamonds on the soles of your shoes.

  That was going to be one of two ghosts of him. She would remember him down on that knee before her, and contrast it with the sight of him in that club just now, his truth revealed.

  She had wanted to believe in the fairy tale. And she had. But like poor, young Stephan, the fantasy was dead, and the decay of it was horrific, a beaten, cold body that she would wrap in rationalizations and recastings that carried the scent not of herbs, but tears.

  Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the butter-soft seat.

  Eventually, the car slowed and stopped and she reached for the door handle. Trez got there first and opened her way.

  “Can I say something?” he murmured.

  “Sure.” Because she wouldn’t hear whatever it was. The fog around her was too thick, her world as her father sought to make his: restricted to only what was closest to her…and that was pain.

  “He didn’t do this without reason.”

  Ehlena looked up at the male. He was so earnest, so sincere. “Of course he didn’t. He wanted me to believe in his lies, and his cover was blown. There was nothing to hide behind anymore.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Would he have told me any of it if he hadn’t been caught?” Silence. “So there you have it.”

  “There’s more to this than you know.”

  “You think? Maybe there’s just less of him than you need to believe there is. How about that.”

  She turned away and went through a door she could open and relock herself. Falling back against the jamb, she looked around at everything that was so dingy and familiar and wanted to break down.

  She didn’t know how to get past this. She really didn’t.

  After the Bentley took off, Xhex headed straight for Rehv’s office. When she knocked once and wasn’t answered, she punched in the code and opened the door.

  Rehv was behind his desk, typing on a laptop. Next to him was his new cell phone, a plastic Baggie with some fat, chalky pills in it, and a bag of M&M’s.

  “Did you know the princess had been to see her?” Xhex demanded. When he didn’t answer, she cursed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Rehv just kept typing, the soft sound of the keys like quiet chatter in a library. “Because it wasn’t relevant.”

  “The hell it wasn’t. I almost beat the female down for—”

  Vicious purple eyes fli
pped up over the screen. “You don’t ever touch Ehlena.”

  “Whatever, Rehv, she just dumped your ass hard. You think that was fun to watch?”

  He pointed his finger at her. “Not your biz. And you never, ever touch her. We clear?”

  As his eyes flashed in warning, like someone had shoved a Maglite up his ass and hit the switch, she thought, Well, okay…evidently she was staring over the lip of a cliff, and if she went any farther she was going to skydive without a parachute. “My point is, it might have been nice to know beforehand that you wanted her to dump you.”

  Rehv just went back to typing.

  “So that was the call last night,” she prompted. “That’s when you found out your girlfriend had been paid a visit by the bitch.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You should have told me.”

  Before she got an answer, there was a squawk in her earpiece and then the voice of one of her bouncers: “Detective de la Cruz is here to see you.”

  Xhex lifted her wrist and spoke into the transistor. “Take him to my office. I’ll be right there. And get the girls out of the VIP area.”

  “The CPD?” Rehv muttered while he typed.

  “Yup.”

  “I’m glad you nailed Grady. I can’t stand the wife-beater types.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked stiffly, feeling shut out. She wanted to help, to ease, to take care of Rehv, but she wanted to do that shit on her mollycoddling terms: Fuck running him a bubble bath and getting him some hot chocolate; she wanted to murder the princess.

  Rehv looked up again. “Like I said last night, I’m going to ask you to take care of someone.”

  Xhex had to hide her buzz kill. If he was going to ask her to assassinate the princess, there would be no reason for him to drag his GF here, make a show of revealing what he’d lied to her about, and letting the female bin him off like he was week-old meat.

  Shit, it had to be the GF. He was going to ask her to make sure nothing happened to Ehlena. And knowing Rehv, he was probably going to try to support the female finacially, too—going by the chick’s simple clothes and lack of jewelry and no-nonsense vibe, she didn’t appear to come from cash.