Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(70)

I am not expected to live. My stepson has killed me. This is my final confession on earth as an embodied spirit. May the Scribe Virgin carry me unto the Fade with her grace and all alacrity.





As Montrag’s father had later explained it, Rempoon had gotten it mostly right. Rehm had come on business and found not only an empty house, but the bloody body of his partner—and had done what any reasonable male would have: He’d rifled through the study himself. Operating under the assumption Rempoon was dead, he’d set about trying to find the papers on the business so that Rempoon’s fractional interest would stay out of his estate and Rehm would own the going concern outright.

Having succeeded in his quest, Rehm had been on his way to the door when Rempoon had shown a sign of life, a name leaving his cracked lips.

Rehm had been comfortable being an opportunist, but falling into the roll of accomplice to murder went too far. He’d called for the doctor, and in the time it took Havers to arrive, the mumblings of a dying male had spelled out a shocking tale, one worth even more than the company. Thinking quickly, Rehm had documented the story and the stunning confession about Rehvenge’s true nature and had Rempoon sign the pages—thus turning them into a legal document.

The male had then lapsed into unconsciousness and been dead when Havers had arrived.

Rehm had taken both the business papers and the affidavits with him when he’d left and been touted as a valiant hero for trying to rescue the dying male.

In the aftermath, the utility of the confession had been obvious, but the wisdom of putting such information in play was less clear. Tangling with a symphath was dangerous, as Rempoon’s spilled blood had attested. Ever the intellectual, Rehm had sat on the information and sat on it…until it was too late to do anything with it.

By law, you had to turn a symphath in, and Rehm had the kind of proof that met the threshold for reporting someone. However, in considering his options for so long, he found himself in the dicey position of arguably protecting Rehvenge’s identity. If he’d come forward twenty-four or forty-eight hours later? Fine. But one week? Two weeks? A month…?

Too late. Rather than squander the asset completely, Rehm had told Montrag about the affidavits, and the son had understood the father’s mistake. There had been nothing that could be done in the short run, and only one scenario where it was still worth anything—and that had come to pass over the summer. Rehm had been killed in the raids and the son had inherited everything, including the documents.

Montrag couldn’t be blamed for his father’s choice not to reveal what was known. All he had to do was state that he’d stumbled upon the papers in his father’s things, and in turning them and Rehv in, he was just doing what he was supposed to.

It would never come out that he’d known about them all along.

And nobody would ever believe that Rehv hadn’t been the one who’d decided to kill Wrath. He was, after all, a symphath, and nothing they said could be trusted. More to the point, his hand was either going to be on the trigger, or if he just ordered the murder of the king, he was the leahdyre of the council and in the position to profit from the death the most. Which was precisely why Montrag had had the male elevated into the role.

Rehvenge would do the deed with the king, and then Montrag would go to the council and prostrate himself before his colleagues. He would say that he didn’t find the papers until he had properly moved into the Connecticut house a month after both the raids and after Rehv had been made leahdyre. He would swear that as soon as he found them he reached out to the king and revealed the nature of the issue over the phone—but Wrath had forced his silence because of the compromising position it put the Brother Zsadist in: After all, the Brother was mated to Rehvenge’s sister, and that would make her related to a symphath.

Wrath, of course, could say nothing to the contrary after he was dead, and more to the point, the king was disliked already for the way he had ignored the glymera’s constructive criticism. The council was primed to embrace another fault of his, real or manufactured.

It was intricate maneuvering, but it was going to work, because with the king gone, the remnants of the council would be the first place the race would go looking for the murderer, and Rehv, a symphath, was the perfect scapegoat: Of course a symphath would do such a thing! And Montrag would help the motive assumption along by testifying that Rehv had come to see him before the murder and talked with bizarre conviction about change of an unprecedented variety. In addition, crime scenes were never completely clean. Undoubtedly, there would be things left behind that would tie Rehv to the death, whether because it was actually there or because everyone would be looking for exactly that kind of evidence.

When Rehv fingered Montrag? No one would believe him, primarily because he was a symphath, but also because, in the tradition of his father, Montrag had always cultivated a reputation for thoughtfulness and trustworthiness in his business dealings and social conduct. As far as his fellow members of the council knew, he was above reproach, incapable of deception, a male of worth from impeccable bloodlines. None of them had a clue that he and his father had double-crossed many a partner or associate or blood relation—because they had been careful to choose the ones they preyed upon so that appearances were maintained.

The result? Rehv would be brought up on charges of treason, arrested, and either put to death according to vampire law or deported to the symphath colony, where he would be killed for being a half-breed.