Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(138)

Now Rehv was the one getting the hairy eyeball from the peanut gallery. “Oh, come on,” he said. “I’m not that bad. Well, okay, but only if someone f*cks with me. And I’m sorry, but the four who’ve died? Straight-up businessmen. No bullshit. They were good customers.”

“You talk to your suppliers?” Trez asked.

“Yup. Told them to hang tight and confirmed I was expecting to move the same amount of product. Those who we lost will quickly be replaced by others, because dealers are like weeds. They always grow back.”

There was some discussion about the market and pricing, and then Rehv said, “Before we run out of time, talk to me about the club. What’s going down?”

Right, great question, Xhex thought. And our survey says? Ding-ding-ding: John Matthew, most likely. On his knees in front of Gina.

“Xhex, are you growling?”

“No.” She forced herself to focus and gave a quick overview of the incidents thus far tonight. Trez reported on the Iron Mask, which he had been put in charge of, and then iAm talked finances and about Sal’s Restaurant, another of Rehv’s holdings. All in all, it was business as usual—considering they were breaking the kind of human laws that got you felony convictions if you were caught.

Still Xhex’s head was only partially in the game, and when it came time to leave, she was the first to hit the door, even though she usually lingered.

She walked out of the office at the perfect time.

If she’d wanted to get kneed in the balls.

At just that moment, Qhuinn appeared at the head of the hall of private baths, his lips swollen and red, his hair tousled, the scent of sex and orgasms and dirty deeds done with finesse preceding him.

She stopped, even though that was a dumb-ass idea.

Gina was next, and she looked like she needed a drink. As in Gatorade. The woman was boneless, not because she was in her deliberate trolling-for-sex mode, but because she’d been worked out properly, and the soft smile on her mouth was far too private and honest for Xhex’s liking.

John was the last out, his head held high, his stare clear, his shoulders back.

He had been magnificent. She was willing to bet…he had been magnificent.

His head turned and he met her eyes. Gone was the shy regard, the blush, the awkward fawning. He nodded once and looked away, composed…and ready for more sex, given the way he sized up another one of the prostitutes.

An uneasy, unfamiliar sorrow rippled through Xhex’s chest, screwing up the even beat of her heart. In her drive to save him from the chaos her last lover had gone through, she’d ruined something; in pushing him away, she’d stripped him of something precious.

His innocence was gone.

Xhex put her wristwatch up to her mouth. “I need some air.”

Trez’s response was straight-up approval. “Good idea.”

“I’ll be back right before you leave for the council meeting.”





When Lash returned from his father’s lair, he gave himself only about ten minutes to come fully back to life before he got in the Mercedes and drove over to the shitty ranch house where the drugs had been packaged. He was so groggy he thought it was a wonder he didn’t hit something, and he almost did. While rubbing at his eyes and trying to dial his phone, he didn’t brake fast enough at a stoplight, and it was only because the city of Caldwell’s salting trucks had been out earlier that his tires had anything worth grabbing hold of.

He put the phone down and concentrated on the behind-the-wheel shit. Probably better not to speak to Mr. D anyway, given that he was in father fog, as he called it.

Shit, the heater was making him even logier.

Lash put down the windows and cut off the hot breeze wafting into the sedan’s front seat, and by the time he pulled up to the piece-of-shit house, he was much more alert. Parking around the back, so that the Merc was shielded by the screened-in porch and the garage, he went in through the kitchen door.

“Where are you?” he called out. “What’s the update?”

Silence.

He put his head into the garage, and when he saw only the Lexus, he figured Mr. D, Grady, and the other two were probably on their way back from jumping that other dealer. Which meant he had time to grab something to eat. As he went to the fridge that was stocked for him, he called the little Texan’s phone. One ring. Two rings.

He was pulling out a deli-made turkey sandwich and checking the date when D’s voice mail kicked in.

Lash straightened and stared down at his phone. He never went to voice mail. Ever.

Of course, maybe the meeting had been delayed and they were right in the middle of it.

Lash ate and waited, expecting to hear back right away. When he didn’t, he went into the living room and fired up the laptop, accessing the GPS software that located every single Lessening Society phone on the map of Caldwell. He set the search for Mr. D’s and discovered…

The guy was traveling fast and moving easterly. And the two other lessers were with him.

So why wasn’t the guy answering his f*cking phone?

Suspicious, Lash called again and walked around the shithole as the ringing went on and on. There was nothing out of place in the house as far as he could see. Living room was the same and the two bedrooms and the master were tight, with all the window frames bolted in place and the shades down.

He was calling the Texan a third time when he took the hall to the street side of the house—