Blood Vow (Black Dagger Legacy #2)(65)

V focused on Mary, as if he recognized that she was the one who was going to care most about the process. “The most reasonable and responsible thing for me to do is go down there myself and verify everything. I have addresses, contacts—including the family he’s worked for. I have all the details of his life up until now—”

“I’m coming with you,” Rhage said, and started to get to his feet.

Except now he was the one getting palmed. “No, you’re not.”

“The fuck I’m going to let someone else get to the bottom of this shit—”

“No,” Mary said. “You have a conflict of interest. So do I. This needs to be done by a disinterested third party.”

Rhage eased back down into the seat. The idea of sidelining an investigation like that made him want to pound his forehead into the table until the thing splintered and then powdered into sawdust—

“This is bullshit,” Wrath announced. “Let me talk to him. I’ll know whether he’s telling the truth.”

V shook his head. “With regard to the facts as the guy sees them, sure. But it’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is.” Rhage was aware of the beast surging under skin, the stress juicing him up. “If he’s a lying piece of shit—”

“The issue is his fitness,” Mary cut in. “Fitness to be a parent—”

Rhage released his shellan’s hand, curled up a double’s worth of fists, and slammed them into the table, splitting the heavy oak boards down the center. “We’re her parents! We’re her fucking parents!”

As he leaped up, Mary went with him, catching one of his arms and hanging all her weight off it. “Rhage, you need to relax—”

“I’m her father! You’re her mother—”

Mary lost her hold on him and then he was pulling a RHONJ and flipping the table, sending his brothers and the King jumping back as china and glassware went airborne and then shattered all over the place.

“This is fucking bullshit!”

Immediately, his brothers were on him, Z catching him from behind and cranking him into a neck hold, Butch coming from out of nowhere—when had he gotten to the house?—and grabbing him around the waist from the side, Mary trying to get in his face so he would focus on her.

The only thing that kept the beast still inside him was the fact that it had gotten out the night before. If that shit hadn’t gone down at the clinic, he would have trashed the whole back wing of Darius’s old mansion.

“He can’t take her away!” he screamed at no one and everybody. “We just got her! He can’t take her—he’s a fucking stranger—”

“Rhage,” Mary got directly in front of him, jumping up to catch his eye. “Rhage, we have to—”

Latching onto her wide, sad stare, he moaned, “She’s ours … she’s ours … this stranger can’t take her away—she’s ours.…”

He was babbling, he knew he was babbling, but it was like someone had uncorked the bottom of his brain and every boogeyman fear he’d had about Bitty’s future was funneling down and out his mouth.

Mary let him go for a time, but then she took the reins. “Rhage. The reality is that we knew we had to get through this six-month waiting period. And Bitty … she talked about an uncle. We need … as hard as this is, we have to see this through. It’s what’s fair … it’s what’s legal.”

“She’s my daughter. She’s your daughter.”

“In our hearts, yes. But legally—”

“Fuck the law!”

“It doesn’t work like that and it shouldn’t. Think about it—if we’d made it through to the final adoption, we wouldn’t want anyone showing up at some point in the future with rights. This is the reason why we give notice and wait to see if anybody responds.”

“I can’t believe you’re being so logical—”

“I’m breaking in half right with you, Rhage. Just because I’m trying to keep it together doesn’t mean I’m not bleeding on the inside.”

As he went limp, his brothers loosened their holds and he pulled Mary against him. Looking over her head, he watched V stab out his hand-rolled in the sink and immediately light another one.

After a long silence, Rhage said to Vishous, “You’ll be the one? To go down there and …”

“Yeah.” V sucked so hard on the end of that cig, he nearly consumed the entire thing on a oner. “And I’m the right fucker to do it. Not only did I conduct the interview, but out of all of us, I’m the one most likely to remain neutral.”

True, Rhage thought. V was the smartest among them. The most logical. The most unlikely to be affected by emotion.

Goddamn it, how the fuck were they in this situation.

In a brutal series of mental snapshots, he saw Bitty in the movie theater with him and Mary, her arms and legs in those casts. Then he remembered teaching her to drive around the courtyard and up and down the hill … and helping her make her bed in the early evenings … and their ice cream breaks and the bad dreams that he’d woken her up from … and Mary smiling at their little girl.…

“How long?” he asked as Butch and Z started to pick up chairs and debris. “It will take how long?”