Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4)(107)

He looked down, pissed off.

Oh, wrong hand.

“I want you to relax for me, my man,” V said, slowly moving his palm in a circle, right over Butch’s heart. “Just take some deep breaths. The calmer you are, the better it will be for you.”

Funny choice of words. Exactly what Butch had said to Marissa when he’d—

Not wanting to get flustered, he dropped that thought and tried to loosen his shoulders. Got nowhere.

“Let’s just breathe together for a minute, cop. That’s it. In and out. Breathe with me. Yeah, good. We got all the time in the world.”

Butch closed his eyes and concentrated on the soothing sensation rubbing over his chest. The warmth. The rotating movement.

“There you go, cop. That’s nice. Feels good, true? Just chilling…”

The circling got slower and slower. And Butch’s breathing got deeper and easier. His heart began to pause before beats, the intervals between pumps growing longer and longer. And all the time with V’s voice…the lazy words seducing him, getting in his brain, trancing him out.

“Okay, Butch. Look at me. Show me those peepers of yours.”

Butch lifted heavy lids and swayed as he stared up into V’s face.

Then he tensed. The pupil of V’s right eye was expanding until there was nothing but blackness. No white part. No iris. What the f—

“Nah, it’s all good, Butch. You don’t worry about what you’re seeing. You just look inside of me. Come on, now. Look into me, Butch. Feel my hand on your chest. Good…now I want you to fall into me. Let yourself go. Fall…in…to…me…”

Butch fixated on the blackness and went back to focusing on the palm moving over his heart. From the corner of his eye, he saw the glowing hand come up, but he was too far gone to care. He was stumbling in the most marvelous, mild way, in the midst of a gentle trip through thin air, falling into Vishous…

Plunging into a void…

Of darkness…



Mr. X woke up and put his hand to his chest, feeling around for his wounds. He was satisfied with how fast they were healing, but he was far from his normal strength.

Lifting his head with care, he glanced at what had once been a cozy den for a nuclear family. Now that the Lessening Society was occupying the house, however, the room was just four walls, faded carpet, and wilted drapery.

Van walked in from the cheerful, empty kitchen and stopped dead. “You’re awake. Jesus, I thought I was going to have to dig a hole in the backyard.”

Mr. X coughed a little. “Bring me my laptop.”

When Van brought the thing in, Mr. X heaved himself up so he was leaning against the wall. From the Windows XP startup menu, he went into My Documents and opened a Word file titled “Operational Notes.” He scrolled down to the header marked “July” and panned through entries made nine months ago. There was one for each day, back from when he’d been Fore-lesser the first time. Back when he’d given a shit.

As he searched, he was aware of Van hovering.

“We have a new purpose, you and I,” Mr. X said absently.

“Oh, yeah?”

“That human we saw tonight. We’re going to find him.” X paused at the notes from the seventeenth of the month, but they didn’t give him what he was after. “We’re going to find that human, and we’re going to take him out. Find him…take him out.”

The guy had to die so that Mr. X’s misread of the situation became fact and the Omega never knew his Trojan human hadn’t been killed by the Brothers.

The actual assassination of the man would have to be carried out by another lesser, however. After this evening’s showdown, Mr. X was taking himself out of the risk pool. He could not take a chance on another serious injury.

July…July…maybe he had the wrong month, but he could have sworn it was around then that a cop looking like that human had shown up at the Caldwell Martial Arts Academy, the Society’s former HQ—ah…yes. Good record keeping was so helpful. And so was the fact that he’d demanded to see the guy’s shield.

Mr. X spoke up. “His name is Brian O’Neal. CPD badge number eight five two. Address used to be over in the Cornwell Apartments, but I’m sure he’s moved. Born Boston Hospital for Women, Boston, MA, to a Mr. Edward and a Mrs. Odell O’Neal.” Mr. X glanced at Van and smiled a little. “What do you bet his parents are still in Boston?”





Chapter Thirty-four




Rain was falling onto Butch’s face. Was he outside? Had to be.

Man…he must have passed out on some kind of bender or something. Because he was flat on his back and his head was nothing but ’slaw and the idea of opening his eyes was too much like work.

He should probably just lie here and wait a while. Yeah…he should just sleep for a little bit…

Except, holy hell, this rain was annoying. The shit tickled as it hit his cheeks and slid down into his neck. He lifted an arm to cover his face.

“He’s coming around.”

Whose deep voice was that? V’s…yeah, and V was…his roommate? Or something. Yeah…roommate. He liked V a lot.

“Butch?” Now, a woman. A very scared woman. “Butch, can you hear me?”

Oh, he really knew her. She was…the love of his life…Marissa.