The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(5)

Still, Ehric and Evale had seemed to stick by their cousin, coming to see Assail regularly, receiving her updates, calling her back immediately. That had to mean something. Right?

Besides, in her heart, she knew that Assail had suffered enough. He had walked in here to detox from his drug addiction, and months later, after a roller coaster of self-harm, hallucinations, screaming paranoia, and violent outbursts, he had been reduced to nothing more than a pulse and some respiration.

“I’m very sorry.” She looked back and forth between the mirror images of face and body. “I wish I had better news.”

“I want to see him,” Ehric said.

“Of course.”

She reached for the door and hesitated. “He’s still restrained. And I had to—well, you remember that we needed to shave his head. It was for his own well-being.”

As she opened things wide for them, she searched their expressions, praying she saw something that eased her own conscience, that assured her this very serious decision was in the right hands…that their hearts were somehow involved.

The twins stared straight ahead, only their eyes moving around, their heads staying static. They did not blink. Twitch. Breathe.

Doc Jane glanced at her patient and felt a crushing sorrow. Even though her mind told her she had done everything she could, her heart regarded this outcome as a failure she was responsible for. “I am so very sorry.”

After a long moment, Ehric said in a flat tone, “We will do what is necessary.”





THREE


WEST POINT, NEW YORK

From behind the wheel of the rental car, Vitoria Benloise was impatient. So long, all this travel. So long to come to this northern state in America. Such an inefficiency to transfer her physicality from where she had been to where she needed to be.

At least the transition was over.

Up ahead, her destination appeared as an island rising up from the vast midst of the sea, the great house sitting upon its rise, a showy declaration of wealth that due to its age was “venerable” as opposed to “ostentatious.”

Her brother Ricardo would have had his manse no other way. Having come from little, he had sought validation through a persistent illusion of false aristocracy and old money. No new house for him. No flashy cars. No Eurotrash ostentation.

Which she believed was what the Americans called it.

Even in his legitimate business, the one that had been but a shell for his true revenue streams, he’d had to have an art gallery. Not a construction business, no, no. Not garbage removal or cement mixing. It had to be the art.

Contemporary sculpture and painting, from what she understood, and she could guess why the exception to his preference for the aged. It was so much easier to launder money with the sale of modern offerings, as their value was more subjective than that of Old Masters and Impressionists, which had more provable prices.

The drive into Ricardo’s property was a left-hand turn off this road by the big river, and she traveled up the gradual, plowed lane, taking note of the snow-covered lawn, the short stone wall holding back the tree line, the looming grand house. The mansion was larger than it appeared from down below, and as she closed in and parked by its front entry’s walkway, she felt the modernist sculptures around the manse sit in judgment and disapproval of her.

It was her brother in her head. Her family, in her conscience. Her traditions, in her soul.

This was quite unseemly of her, after all. This whole thing. An unmarried woman out in the world, seeking vengeance.

Yes, it was true, the Benloise family had never been well off. Not until Ricardo had come along, at any rate. But that did not mean that there were not rules. Standards. Expectations. All of which were for the women, of course. The men were allowed to be who they were, do what they wished, carry on as they would.

Not so for a sister, a daughter.

But at least their parents were dead, and she did not care what anyone else in her family thought. More to the point, this was her chance.

She had waited all of her life for this. Thirty-five miserable years of fighting for her right to get an education, to not take a husband, to be what she wanted to be, not what others decreed for her.

She turned off the engine and got out. Cold, so very cold. She was going to hate being here, the loss of her native Colombia’s warmth and humidity a thing to mourn.

Looking around, she noted that the snow had been shoveled up to the grand and glossy door, and also around to the back, all the way to the detached garage-like structure. One might be tempted to see such as a sign her brother remained alive, but she knew better.

She had not heard from him in nearly a year—and clearly, this property was held in a trust whereby its upkeep was managed as if its owner were still alive.

Money, however, was running short, and that was why she had come. For the first few months after Ricardo and Eduardo had not been in touch, she had wondered, worried, gotten concerned about her brothers. But as more and more time passed, and disgruntled suppliers had come to her with their inquiries about the business, she started to develop a plan.

If Ricardo could run a drug trade back and forth across the ocean, why could not she? And then the reality of expenses had come home to roost. Her brother had expected her to look after his various real estate holdings in South America, given that she had failed at her true calling of becoming a wife and a mother—and all that upkeep was costly. The accounts were dwindling.