The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(11)

She frowned. Behind the glass doors, the interior of the penthouse was all wrong. Instead of black floors and all kinds of her mate’s kinky stuff, there was a calming interior of grays, the furniture modern and thoughtfully scaled and placed.

Ruhn, Saxton’s mate, walked in from a hallway, proceeding to a kitchen that was all black granite and brushed-steel appliances.

In her upset and distraction, she had gone to the opposite side of the building.

Before Ruhn saw her and she had to explain what the hell she was doing on his terrace, she disappeared.

This time, she knew immediately she was in the right place. Too bad it was clear she’d wrong-timed it.

One of the sliding glass doors to V’s penthouse was wide open in spite of the cold, and black candles flickered all around the bald space’s interior, illuminating not only his sexual equipment, but the male himself: Vishous was sitting on his sex rack, his lower legs hanging free, his head down as he stared at his phone. He was in his leathers, which was a stupid relief, but his powerful upper torso was bare and she wondered who had taken his customary muscle shirt off.

So he’d gotten her text.

Or another from someone he was more interested in hearing from.

Abruptly, Jane was aware of her palms becoming sweaty and her heart pounding and her stomach churning.

This is not us, she thought. We don’t do things like this to each other.

V’s head lifted and turned toward her, his brows frowning.

For an instant, all she could do was absorb the sight of him. He was not one to ever be defeated. Between his intelligence, his physical brawn, and his incredible reflexes, he was an attacker, an aggressor, a beat-the-system, win-the-game, vanquish-the-foes source of superiority in the world. Not tonight. His broad shoulders were tilted into his chest, and exhaustion was like a stain in the air around him.

His diamond eyes were dull with guilt as they focused on her.

Jane started backing up even before he shifted off the rack and came forward.

“No,” she said into the wind. “No…”





SIX


The knock on Sola’s bedroom door was soft, but she came awake like a heavy fist was trying to splinter the thin wood. “Vovó!”

A shaft of illumination pierced the darkness, making her think of a lightsaber. “There is people here, Sola. Come, get up and get dressed.”

Sola reached for the gun on her bedside table as she looked at the digital clock. Three a.m.? “Where? Who—do not open—”

“I am cooking now. Come.”

Cooking? “Vovó, who is—”

The door closed firmly, and Sola was up-and-out less than a second later, the fact that she had finally crashed fully dressed a stroke of luck. Out in the cramped hall, she flipped the safety off of her nine and kept the weapon behind her back as she padded down the cheap carpeting.

The smell of sautéing onions was so out of context that she decided this was a dream. Yup, she was going to round this corner here and walk into her grandmother’s kitchen and see a non sequitur at their table for two. Lady Gaga or Leonardo DiCaprio or, hell, Leonardo da Vinci—

Sola stopped dead. Across the linoleum, sitting on the pair of cane chairs, were two men she’d been convinced she would never see again.

Her first thought, as identical sets of eyes swung in her direction, was that the chairs were not going to hold all that weight for long—but Assail’s cousins solved that problem by rising to their feet. As they bowed low in her direction, it was bizarre—but also what she was used to them doing whenever she walked into a room.

Dream, she told herself. This was a figment of her imagination.

“You,” her grandmother ordered to the one on the right. “You go and get chair for my Sola. Go.”

The six-five stretch of muscle and banked aggression trotted off into the living room like a retriever sent for a tennis ball, returning with an armchair instead of something lighter. Then again, if you’d asked him to pick up a quart of milk, he’d probably bring the whole Publix back to you.

“?’Scuse me,” he said as he came up behind her.

As Sola moved out of his way, she wondered how her grandmother could so calmly be dicing red and yellow peppers.

“I need to wake up,” Sola muttered. “Right now.”

“Sola, the coffee.” Her grandmother nodded to the machine. “You start.”

She gave things a minute to wakey-wakey, and when the scene wasn’t replaced by her rolling over and cracking an eyelid, she decided she had to go with it for the time being.

“What are you doing here?” she asked the twins as they resettled in those structurally unreliable chairs.

It was nearly impossible to tell them apart, but the distinction was made as the one on the left spoke up.

“We have come for you.”

That would be Ehric. Evale, the armchair-retriever, would never have volunteered to speak. He was as frugal as Scrooge with his words.

“Assail,” she whispered.

“Coffee,” her grandmother demanded.

She fell in line with the order, Sola’s hands shook as she reengaged her gun’s safety, tucked it away at the small of her back, and went to get the Maxwell House. After she had made quick work with the Krups, she took a seat on the armchair.

“Tell me,” she said. “Where is he.”