The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12)(30)

Nothing. Just a Bentley Flying Spur on one side and a Rolls-Royce Ghost on the other.

Cursing, Assail strode toward the building. Undoubtedly, some kind of silent alarm was going off, but he was not overly worried about it. The first round of cavalry had already arrived. There was going to be a lull before a second squad came.

The construction had two stories, and given its thermal-pane windows and historically inaccurate proportions, one could only assume it had been built in the current century. And stepping into the bay on the left, he was not surprised that everything was spotless, the concrete floor painted pale gray, the walls smooth as Sheetrock and white as paper. There were no lawn care apparatuses therein, no mowers, or weeders, or rakes. Undoubtedly there was a service for that kind of thing, and one wouldn’t want that sort of dirty, smelly equipment around one’s automotive babies.

As he moved quickly out of the direct lighting, the treads of his boots called his footfalls out sharply, the sounds echoing around. There didn’t appear to be a lower level. And upstairs, there was nothing but a small office that was used to store off-season tires, tonneau covers, and other automobile accoutrements.

Heading back to ground level, Assail walked out of the place at a fast clip. Approaching the bodyguard, he could feel his fangs descend, his own hands shake, his mind hum in a way that made him think of cars roaring down the Autobahn. “Where is she?”

“Where … is … who …?”

“Give me your knife, Ehric.” As his cousin unsheathed a seven-inch blade, Assail holstered his gun. “Thank you.”

Accepting the loaner, Assail put the point right to the man’s throat, getting in so close he could smell the fear-sweat blooming out of those pores and feel the heat of the breath that pumped from that open mouth.

Clearly, he was asking the wrong question. “Where else does Benloise order captives to be taken?” Before the man could speak, he cut in, “I would urge you to be of care in your reply. If you are untruthful? I will know it. Lies have a stench all their own.”

The man’s eyes bounced around as if he were making an assessment of his survival chances. “I don’t know I don’t know I don’t—”

Assail dug the knife in until it broke the skin surface and red blood welled onto the blade. “That’s not the right answer, my friend. Now tell me, where else does he take people?”

“I don’t know! I swear! I swear!”

This went on for quite some time, and tragically, there was no scent of obstruction.

“Goddamn it,” Assail muttered.

With a quick slash, he silenced the nonsense—and the fifth useless human dropped to the ground.

Pivoting around, he glared in the direction of the house. Against its backdrop of roofing angles and chimneys, past the skeletal trees on its far side … a gentle glow had appeared in the eastern sky.

A harbinger of doom.

“We must needs go,” Ehric said in a low voice. “Upon the nightfall, we will resume finding your female.”

Assail didn’t bother correcting his cousin’s choice of words. He was too distracted by the fact that the shaking that had started in his hands had moved upward, a weed spreading throughout his flesh until even his thigh muscles were twitching.

It took him a moment to label the cause, and when he did, the largest part of him rejected the definition.

But the fact of the matter was … for the first time in his adult life, he was afraid.

“Where the hell is this place? Fucking Canada?”

Behind the wheel of the Crown Vic, Two Tone was ready to eat a bullet as the bitching continued. This five-hour drive through the middle of the night had been bad enough, but the waste of skin beside him in the passenger seat?

If he wanted to do the world a favor, he’d point the gun in that direction, not his own.

There would be such satisfaction in putting out the f*cker’s pilot light, but in the organization, the role of supervisor only got you so far—and the right to coffin a chatty bastard was just over that line.

“I mean, where the f*ck are we?”

Two Tone bit down on his molars. “We’re almost there.”

Like the SOB was a five-year-old on the way to Grandma’s house? Jesus Christ.

As he drove deeper into the absolute frickin’ boonies, the sedan’s headlights captured the immediate distance ahead, pulling the rows of pine trees and the two lanes that curved in and around the base of a mountain out of the night. Dawn was coming, however, a faint peachy light appearing over to the east.

Great f*cking news. Sooner, not later, they were going to finally be off the road, and then they could deal with the merchandise, and get some goddamn rest.

Squinting, he leaned forward over the wheel. He had a feeling they were coming up to the turnoff …

Two hundred yards later, an unmarked dirt road appeared to the right.

No reason to hit the directional signal—or slow down. He nailed the brakes and wrenched the wheel, their cargo thumping in the trunk.

If she’d fallen asleep, she was awake now.

The ascent was steep and the going got much slower: December meant a crap load of snow had already fallen on the ground this far north.

He’d only been to this property once before—and it had been for the same purpose. The boss man was not someone you wanted to piss off, and if you did, it got you snatched and brought up here where no one would ever find you.