Blood Vow (Black Dagger Legacy #2)(100)

He pushed the banana cream plate away with half the slice still on it. He didn’t know why he’d ordered the damn thing. He wasn’t a big fan of bananas, and even with the crunch of the graham cracker crust, there was a uniformity of texture between the custard and the cream that kind of made him gag.

It was the reason he couldn’t do key lime. Or chocolate mousse …

God, he was really hurting, wasn’t he. If he was debating desserts in his head.

“You didn’t like that?” Mary remarked.

“Not really. But I thought I’d try something new.”

Yeah, ’cuz this was a night to expand your horizons. Or maybe try out the theory that there was a keep-your-daughter god who required you to override your gag reflex as tribute.

“I’ve been here to eat so many times,” he said as he pulled the apple in for a landing. “For years and years. And I never thought it was going to be part of our story, you know?”

Because sure as hell, he was going to remember exactly where they were sitting now and what he was eating and how Mary looked until he was dead.

“I know exactly how you feel,” she murmured.

As he set to work on his number two, he looked around at the other people, the two over there by the window, the three spaced out evenly on stools at the counter.

Who the fuck knew what was going on in their lives, good or bad. After all, there was a tendency to assume that the anonymity of strangers translated into calm, clear slates for their lives, but that was just bullshit. Everyone had drama. You just didn’t know what it was if you didn’t know them.

“What do they say about life?” he muttered. “Nobody gets out of this alive?”

Bing!

They both jumped, him dropping his fork on his plate, her splashing coffee out of her mug.

He leaned into his phone, entered his code, which was Mary’s birthday, and waited for the cell to cough up the text. “Wrath says it’s a go. We can proceed.”

They both straightened and sat there for a moment.

Then, without words, he took two twenties out of his wallet, she mopped up what she’d spilled, and then they were making their way to the exit.

I don’t know how to do this, he thought as they stepped outside.

I don’t know how to look that little girl in the eye and tell her to go meet her uncle.

I don’t know how to ever let her go.

In the GTO, he turned to Mary. “I love you. I don’t know what else to say.”

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up, and take a shuddering breath … and become crazy-relieved that this was all a bad dream.”

Rhage paused to give reality a chance to hop on that train.

When nothing changed, no alarm went off, no elbow from Mary nudged him awake … he cursed, started the engine, and headed out.

To have an impossible, lose-lose conversation with his daughter.





THIRTY-EIGHT


“So where are you going?” Peyton asked from his reclining pose on his bed.

As Elise felt a flush hit her face, she hoped he was too drunk to notice.

“I just want to clear my head.” She took her phone out of her pocket. “So you’ll answer this if my father calls?”

“Are you seeing Axe?”

“Not right now.” It was the closest she could get to any truth. “I’m not going into the university tonight. I really need to get my head straight and that is not going to happen if I go back home.”

“So I’ll ask again. Where are you off to?”

“I’m really not sure. But I’ll be safe, promise.”

Peyton raised a forefinger. “Don’t you think if you don’t know where you’re going that it’s especially important to have your phone?”

“Not if it has a GPS tracking program in it that your father had installed. Not if you don’t want to get peppered with questions the instant you get home. Not when you simply want to take a deep breath and not get in trouble for it.”

Peyton sat up off his pillows and then got to his feet. As he walked over to a table that ran along the back of the sofa, he weaved like there was a stiff breeze blowing around him.

“Take mine, then. The code is oh-four-one-one. It’s only so you have something on you—and I’m not naive. I won’t push you, but you’re obvi not going home at dawn. Just be safe, okay? I don’t want to find another body—and this time feel even worse because I enabled you.”

“I’m going to be fine.”

“That’s my lie—I mean line.” He came over and held out his iPhone. “And whereas you looked at me with pity as I said those words, I’m staring at you with something else. It’s called warning.”

“I’ll be careful. I swear to you.”

“Don’t make me regret this,” he muttered as he opened a window for her.

“I won’t.”

Elise gave him her own code and put his phone in the pocket of her coat. Then, with a quick hug and a final wave, she ghosted out of his suite, leaving him to his human football games and his bird vodka … and the shadows that haunted him.

Talk about not going far. She rematerialized out in the gardens of his estate, just so she could do what she had said and breathe a little. Snow was swirling around, not really getting organized into a proper fall, and the wind was bitter. As she looked over her shoulder at the Tudor mansion, she could see Peyton moving around in his bathroom, his blond hair catching the lights, his bare torso so powerful, she thought for a moment that he didn’t look like an aristocrat anymore. He looked like a soldier.