Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(61)

Whatsoever.

Walking up to iAm, she said, “We ready?”

The Moor nodded. “Rally’s got the product ready. Buyers should be here in twenty minutes.”

“Good.”

Two six-figure deals for coke were being executed tonight, and with Rehv down for the count and Trez up north with him, she and iAm were in charge of the transactions. Although the money was going to change hands in the office, the product was going to be loaded into the cars in the back alley, because four kilos of pure South American dust wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted dancing through the club. Shit, the fact that the buyers were coming in with cash in briefcases was enough of a problem.

Xhex was just at the office door when she caught sight of Marie-Terese easing up to a guy in a suit. The man was looking at her with awe and wonder, as if she were the female equivalent of a sports car someone had just given him the keys to.

Light glinted off the wedding band he wore as he reached for his wallet.

Marie-Terese shook her head and put her graceful hand out to stop him, then pulled the rapt guy to his feet and led the way to the private bathrooms in the back, where the cash would change hands.

Xhex turned around and found herself in front of the Brotherhood’s table.

As she looked at where John Matthew usually sat, she thought about Marie-Terese’s most current john. Xhex was willing to bet that SOB, who was about to shell out five hundred dollars to get sucked or f*cked or maybe a thousand for both, didn’t look at his wife with that kind of excitement and lust. It was the fantasy. He knew nothing about Marie-Terese, had no clue that two years ago her son had been abducted by her ex-husband and she was working off the cost of getting the kid back. To him, she was a gorgeous piece of meat, something to be played with and left behind. Neat. Clean.

All the johns were like that.

And so was Xhex’s John. She was a fantasy to him. Nothing more. An erotic lie he called to mind to jerk off to—which actually wasn’t something she blamed him for, because she was doing the same thing with him. And the irony was that he was one of the better lovers she’d ever had, although that was because she could do whatever she wanted to him for however long she needed to get sated, and there were never any complaints, reservations, or demands.

Neat. Clean. iAm’s voice came over her earpiece. “Buyers just walked in.”

“Perfect. Let’s do this.”

She would get through both of the deals, and then she had a private job of her own to do. Now, that was something to look forward to. By the end of the night, she was going to get exactly the kind of release she needed.





Across town, in a quiet cul-de-sac in a safe neighborhood, Ehlena was parked in front of a modest colonial, going nowhere fast.

The key wouldn’t go into the ambulance’s ignition.

Having gotten what should have been the hardest part of the trip over with, having delivered Stephan safely into the arms of his blooded relations, it was a surprise that getting the goddamn key in the frickin’ ignition was more difficult.

“Come on….” Ehlena focused on steadying her hand. And ended up watching really closely as the slip of metal skipped around the hole it belonged in.

She sat back in the seat with a curse, knowing that she was adding to the misery in the house, that the ambulance parked right outside was just another loud, screaming declaration of the tragedy.

As if the family’s beloved son’s body weren’t enough of one.

She turned her head and stared at the colonial’s windows. Shadows moved around on the other side of gauze curtains.

After she’d backed into the driveway, Alix had gone inside and she’d waited in the cold night. A moment later, the garage door had trundled up, and Alix had come forward with an older male who looked a lot like Stephan. She had bowed and shaken his hand, then opened the ambulance’s rear bay. The male had had to clamp a hand over his mouth as she and Alix wheeled the gurney out.

“My son…” he had moaned.

She would never forget the sound of that voice. Hollow. Hopeless. Heartbroken.

Stephan’s father and Alix had carried him home, and just as at the morgue, moments later there had been a wail. This time, though, it had been a female’s higher-pitched mourning call. Stephan’s mother.

Alix had returned as Ehlena had pushed the gurney into the ambulance’s belly, and he had been blinking fast, like if he was facing a stiff headwind. After paying her respects and saying good-bye to him, she’d gotten behind the wheel and…not been able to start the damn vehicle.

On the other side of the gauze curtains, she saw two shapes cleave together. And then it was three. And then more came.

For no evident reason, she thought of the windows in the house she rented for her and her father, all of them covered with aluminum foil, sealing out the world.

Who would stand over her wrapped body when her life ended? Her father knew who she was most of the time, but he wasn’t connected to her more than rarely. The staff at the clinic were very kind, but that was work, not personal. Lusie was paid to come when she did.

Who would take care of her father?

She’d always assumed he would go first, but then, no doubt Stephan’s family had thought along the same lines.

Ehlena looked away from the mourners and stared out the ambulance’s front windshield.

Life was too short, no matter how long you lived. When it was their turn, she didn’t think anybody was ready to leave their friends and their family and the things that made them happy, be they five hundred years old, like her father, or fifty years, like Stephan.