Prisoner of Night (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #16.5)(43)

It was rather like the bill of false goods the Dhavos had sold his congregation.

“You want Chalen’s beloved,” Duran said. “Here it is.”

She pivoted around, lowering her light so she didn’t nail him in the eye. Duran was over by the bed, standing next to a shadow box that had been installed into the wall.

As Ahmare approached, she focused on what he was illuminating. Something was set back behind the glass . . . something that glowed.

“A pearl?” she breathed. Then she remembered the conqueror’s decrepit body on his throne. “Of course. Chalen’s crown had an empty mounting in front—and that is what went in it.”

“The Dhavos wasn’t just a spiritual leader, he was a good businessman, a wholesaler of drugs, and Chalen was the middleman for the heroin and cocaine, getting the product to the street after my father brought the stuff in from out of the country. I used to hear them, when I was up in the ducts, talking about the deals on the phone. The shipments. The deliveries. You needed up-front cash to play with the big overseas contacts and the Dhavos had that liquidity courtesy of his congregation turning their worldly goods over to him. He and Chalen had a profitable partnership until there was some kind of double cross. In retaliation, my father infiltrated Chalen’s stronghold and took the one thing that male loved most. The pearl. How my father did it, I have no idea.”

Duran made a fist and punched the glass, shattering the fragile barrier. Reaching in, he took the pearl and passed it over like the priceless oyster creation didn’t mean anything.

And to him, she supposed, it didn’t.

To her, as the cool contours of the baroque settled into the crease of her palm, she felt like she was holding her brother’s life in her hand.

Not going to lose this, she thought as she tucked it into her tight sports bra.

“I think,” Duran said as he inspected one of the other “windows” with his flashlight, “that my father assumed that he would kill two birds with one stone when he dropped me at Chalen’s door—”

All at once, a line of light, like something you’d see at the bottom of a door, flared in the far corner. As if there were another room outside . . . and someone had just thrown a switch.

“You stay here,” Duran ordered as they both wheeled in that direction and he clicked off his flashlight.

As the bedroom plunged into darkness, Ahmare didn’t argue with him, although not because she had any intention of following his rules. Instead, she got her gun out again and prepared to run after him.

“Turn off your light,” he whispered without looking back. “So they don’t see you when I open the door. And step to the side so you stay in the shadows.”

Good advice, she thought as she clicked her beam off. Best to stay hidden for as long as she could before they rushed into the other room.

To get out of the most likely path of illumination, she shuffled back a number of feet, going up against a wall. Then she held her breath as Duran got ready to open things and jump on whoever was—

Just as Duran pulled the door wide and lunged out of the bedroom, a soft sound from behind her got her attention.

She didn’t have time to react. The hood that came down over her head smelled like old wool, and before she could scream, a brutally heavy hand clamped over mouth, her gun was taken, and a thick arm locked around her waist.

With brutal efficiency, she was carried off.





25




AS DURAN SWUNG THE door open, he kept his body out of the way in case—

The instant he caught the scent in the air, he came alive, instincts roaring to life, possibilities filling him out from the inside. It was the same kind of rush he’d gotten from Ahmare’s gift of vein, power and purpose returning.

His father was still alive.

His father was still in the compound.

As Duran’s eyes adjusted to bright light, he wanted to put his gun away so his attack could be more personal. But he kept the forty up in case the male was armed—although he was not worried about anyone else because there were no other scents in the air. The Dhavos was alone.

“Father,” he said in a low growl. “Will you not welcome your son?”

Duran looked around, and instantly, nothing else mattered.

The luxurious antechamber to the Dhavos’s bedroom had been emptied of its fancy gilded and padded accessories. There was only one piece of furniture in it.

His mahmen’s cot. And on the cot . . . was a skeleton, the skull on a satin pillow, a set of clean sheets pulled up to the collarbones, a blanket folded with care over the legs. Beside the remains, on the floor, was a twisted bundle of blankets. A half-eaten tear of bread. Water bottles that bore the name “Poland Spring.” A book.

Several books.

Duran stumbled across the otherwise empty space and fell to his knees at the cot. His mahmen’s hair . . . her long dark hair . . . had been preserved, a braid of it lying off to the side, tied with satin ribbon.

“Mahmen,” he whispered. “I’m here. I’m going to get you out . . .”

The pits of the eye sockets stared sightlessly to the ceiling, and the jaw had been wired into place by an amateur with what looked like . . . dental floss. Dental floss had been wound around the jaw joint to keep the teeth together.

“I’m sorry, Mahmen.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t fast enough. I didn’t get everything set fast enough. I’m so sorry.”