Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4)(44)

“Have you tried to see what’s coming?”

“You mean the future?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course I have.” V dropped the hand-rolled, crushed it with his shitkicker, then bent down and picked up the butt. As he slipped the deadie into his back pocket, he said, “But I’m still getting nothing. Shit…I need a drink.”

“Me, too. ZeroSum?”

“You sure you’re up for that?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“All right then, ZeroSum it is.”

They walked over to the Escalade and got in, Butch riding shotgun. After putting on his seat belt, his hand went to his stomach. His abdomen was hurting like a bitch now because he’d been mobile, but the pain didn’t matter. Matter of fact, nothing really seemed to.

They were just pulling out of Havers’s drive when V said, “By the way, you got a telephone call on the general line. Late last night. Guy named Mikey Rafferty.”

Butch frowned. Why would one of his brothers-in-law be calling, especially that one? Of all his sisters and brothers, Joyce disliked him the most—which was really saying something, considering how the others felt. Had his father finally had the heart attack that had been waiting in the wings all these years?

“What did he say?”

“Baptizing a kid. Wanted you to know so you could show if you were into it. It’s this Sunday.”

Butch looked out the window. Another baby. Well, Joyce’s first, but it was grandchild number…how many? Seven? No…eight.

As they drove along in silence, heading toward the city’s urban hub, the lights from oncoming cars flared and faded. Houses were passed. Then stores. Then turn-of-the-century office buildings. Butch thought of all the people living and breathing in Caldwell.

“You ever want kids, V?”

“Nope. Not interested.”

“I used to.”

“No more?”

“Not gonna happen for me, but it doesn’t matter. Plenty of O’Neals in this world now. Plenty.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were downtown and parked behind ZeroSum, but he found it hard to get out of the Escalade. The familiarity of it all—the car, his roommate, his watering hole—unsettled him. Because even though it was just the same, he had changed.

Frustrated, cagey, he reached forward and got a Red Sox hat out of the glove compartment. As he put it on, he opened the door, telling himself he was being melodramatic and this was all business as usual.

The moment he stepped foot out of the SUV, he froze.

“Butch? What is it, my man?”

Well, wasn’t that the million-dollar question. His body seemed to have turned into some kind of tuning fork. Energy was vibrating through him…drawing him…

He turned and started walking down Tenth Street, moving fast. He just had to find out what it was, this magnet, this homing signal.

“Butch? Where you going, cop?”

When V grabbed his arm, Butch snapped free and broke into a jog, feeling like he was on the end of a rope and something was pulling him.

He was dimly aware of V jogging next to him and talking as if he’d gotten on his cell phone. “Rhage? I got me a situation here. Tenth Street. No, it’s Butch.”

Butch began to run flat out, the cashmere coat flapping behind him. When Rhage’s towering body materialized in his path from out of nowhere, he made a shift to get around the male.

Rhage jumped right in his way. “Butch, where you going?”

When the brother grabbed at him, Butch shoved Rhage back so hard the guy slammed against a brick building. “Don’t touch me!”

Two hundred yards of hauling it later, he found what was calling him: Three lessers coming out of an alley.

Butch stopped. The slayers stopped. And there was a hideous moment of communion, one that brought tears to Butch’s eyes as he recognized in them what was inside of him.

“Are you a new recruit?” one of them asked.

“’Course he is,” another said. “And you missed checkin tonight, idiot.”

No…no…oh, God, no…

In a synchronized movement, the three slayers looked over his shoulder at what had to be V and Rhage coming around the corner. The lessers prepared to strike, falling into combat stance, bringing up their hands.

Butch took a step toward the trio. Then another.

“Butch…” The aching voice behind him was Vishous. “God…no.”





Chapter Thirteen




John shuffled his little body around and closed his eyes again. Wedged into the seat of a beat-up, ugly-ass, avocado green armchair, he smelled Tohr with every inhale he took: The decorator’s nightmare had been the Brother’s favorite possession and Wellsie’s “seatus non grata.” Exiled here to his office at the training center, Tohr had spent hours doing admin work in it while John studied.

John had used the thing as a bed since the killings.

Aggravated, he twisted himself around so his legs were draped over one arm and his head and shoulders were shoved back into the top half of the chair. He squeezed his eyes closed even harder and prayed for some rest. Trouble was, his blood was buzzing through his veins and his head was spinning with a whole lot of nothing specific, everything urgent bullshit.