The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(67)

The wealth represented was incalculable, and so incomprehensible, she just went from bin to bin, staring down at the largesse with marvel. She didn’t dare touch any of it, although she wondered how the stones would feel, sliding cool and smooth, through her hot hands.

And there were other things in the vault, too—although it was a while before she paid them any attention. In a series of marble and glass display cases and shelves, there was a strange assortment of non sequiturs, from revolvers that looked as if they were from the Revolutionary War period to fossils to—was that a meteorite? There was also a bowl that was encrusted with gems. A scepter—

Jane stopped in front of one of the last cases she came to and frowned. Whatever object had been there was gone now, although the glass wasn’t broken. But you could definitely tell there had been something in there because the outline of a large square had been singed into the red velvet underneath.

Like it had been radioactive.

Or claimed by an evil hand.



* * *



—

Down on Earth, on the shores of the Hudson, Assail slipped free of his bed and pulled a robe on in utter silence. Marisol was naked in his sheets, her body tucked in tight, her now-blond hair on his pillow. She would only be able to stay another hour or so before he had to wake her and send her down to the basement in order that her grandmother would find her in the morning where she should be. But he didn’t want her to leave. He preferred her right where she was.

As he stood over her and watched her breathe, he began to feel like something out of Mr. Stoker’s universe, the vampire hovering, soulless and hungry, above the fragile human life he intended to suck dry.

That was what she was going to think of him if she ever found out what he really was. Indeed, he despised lying to her—which was ironic considering he had quite comfortably uttered falsehoods to both fools and family his entire life—but he feared her reaction to the truth even more.

Troubled by much, he forced himself away and went down the stairs to the first floor, shutting the doors behind himself.

There was another reason for that, apart from wanting to keep things quiet.

As he faced off at his office, ripples of unease tingled through his torso, and it was a while before he entered and crossed the distance to his desk. Sitting down in his padded chair, he placed his hands on the blotter. If he were to turn on the PC—which he did not—he could access his accounts, check his portfolios, look at the rising level of his fortune, and perhaps feel a concomitant buoyancy.

Or perhaps not. His wealth didn’t seem as important to him as it had been.

Bracing himself, he swiveled the chair with his feet and opened the top drawer on the left. Inside was a dark brown glass vial about the size of a Life Savers roll.

He’d had smaller ones at first. Then larger ones had become needed. Toward the end, it nearly had been necessary to pack a suitcase.

Assail’s hand shook as he reached out and picked the vial up. It was empty of cocaine, nothing but a fine residue inside. Not a surprise. During that last week or so, he’d been hitting the coke so hard, he’d put a hole in his septum.

Rolling the circular container back and forth on his palm, he marveled at how an inanimate object with almost no intrinsic value could strip him down to his bones like a grenade going off at the end of his wrist.

He waited…waited…to see if the urge came upon him.

When it did not, he had a moment of euphoric freedom, a soaring sense of victory that he had bested his foe, vanquished the demon—and yes, his beautiful damsel was, in fact, upstairs in his quarters. But then a cautionary sense bettered that delusion. It was easy to resist the temptation when he was at peace and relaxed. The trick was going to be when he was not.

He put the vial back in the drawer and closed it up. He wasn’t sure why he was keeping the thing, and didn’t want to look too closely at that. Was it as a grim reminder of all that he had put himself through to keep things on track? Or as a placeholder for when he fell back into his addiction?

Assail could not bear the answer because he did not trust himself.

And it was upon that realization that he turned on his computer, the blue glow coming up on the monitor like illumination from a fire. His passwords came back to him with ease—which was a relief—and thanks to the bull market, he supposed he was pleased at where things were.

Whilst going insane, he had made money.

Sitting back, he tried to ascertain if he was tired. There was soreness in his muscles, which had grown unaccustomed to movement. He was vaguely hungry, but disinclined to the effort required for a remedy. He was also a little cold.

The silence in the house washed over him, and for some reason, all the quiet seemed oppressive, robbing him of the happy relief he had been feeling ever since he had had the restraints removed from his wrists and ankles.

Ever since he had come back to inhabit his body.

Was this all there was to life now? he wondered. Sitting passively in front of his computer, watching numbers change due to forces he had no participation in nor control over?

He did not want to return to the chaos and mania of his addiction or his illegal business. But with no other options for how to spend his time, he felt an existential version of color-blindness, the world lacking a certain vividness and depth. Of course, as a bonded male, he would live for his female, it was true. But there had to be more than him becoming another piece of furniture in this sleek room.